Florence's Attic

Disappearing Nine Patch Doll Quilt

Yes, I know, another doll quilt - but in my defense they make great gifts and are relatively quick to make up!  I know lots of quilters out there who make a block to try something out and then never use it.  Doll quilts are a great way of trying new techniques with a finished article at the end of it. 

I originally blogged about the disappearing nine patch here and linked to the on-line tutorial.  This quilt and pillow set was made from three 9 patches cut up.  I used 9 of these squares for the quilt, and sewed the other three together for a matching pillow.  I used my trusty walking foot to do the quilting, which is in random lines across the quilt to reflect the shapes made by the piecing.  The set is packed in a little case and am about to wrap it up ready for the party today.  I don't give handmade gifts very often as I get worried the recipients won't like it, so I have my fingers crossed!  I think one reason I am hesitant harks back to the olden days when handmade gifts were cheaper - they certainly aren't now with cotton £9 per metre, and as for the time they take...  Also, I always worry that i am wasting my time if the recipient doesn't like it.  I am writing a piece for the Zine about giving quilts as gifts as people either love them or hate them (I have heard a lot of quilters complain that their teenage children don't like the quilts they have lovingly made them).  Anyway, here it is, fingers crossed the birthday girl and her mum and dad they like.  You can find lots of disappearing nine patch quilts on Flickr in the Doll Quilt Challenge, I placed my squares together randomly, but if you look at the group you can see all the patterns you can make by putting them together differently.

a close up

and the back

the little pillow

Wishing you a lovely peaceful Sunday x

Magazines

Busy busy at the mo - a work deadline, a collegey type deadline and the summer holidays.  I also made another doll quilt and pillow last night for a birthday girl.  This photo was taken from the top of the bus on my way home from work about 3 o'clock yesterday afternoon.  Being the grumpy moo I am I actually like this weather as it means Brighton is not too crowded.  I have always loved Brighton off season when the beach is empty and the sea a dark greeny blue, however it does feel a bit odd that it is the end of July.  In the background you can just make out the West Pier.

I have had a lot of magazine treats recently.  I get given some, read some at other people houses, or persuade people to buy them (mum I shall be borrowing the copy of Knit 1 very soon!).

First up, Country Living magazine had quite a few pages dedicated to their rural business awards.  Here are selection of them, with links to their websites.

Jan Constantine - check out the green pop art collection, absolutely gorgeous colours

Hume Sweet Hume - a shop in Orkney specialising in fashion and home accessories using knit, felt, stitch and more.  Lovely muted colours.

Kind Hearts Clothing - love the girls clothes

Jolie Home - the website of a cute shop in Hertfordshire.  Not a lot to buy on the website, but there are great photos of the shop.

Made in Hastings - Lots of different gorgeous bits.  I saw some of their wares at an open house in Brighton last summer and we bought Bizzie a lovely sunhat (which she then lost the following week in Rottingdean High Street - typical!).

Eve and Red magazines both have articles about disposable High Street clothing/Eco clothing.  It makes shocking reading the amount of units Primark and other retailers can shift of their stock each season.  I feel that in Britain we are concerned about getting the best quality food and drink, but do not have the same attitude with other material things and do not put much thought into how products can be retailed at such ridiculous prices.  The last shop on the list above, Made in Hastings, has it's niche that all the products are made locally.  I have for a long time felt that my local council are happy to have the Fair Trade logo on their publicity, but are not concerned about other, more local issues.  I am certainly not knocking Fair Trade, just take a look in my food cupboard, but I feel that the commitment of councils needs to go further to encourage local crafts persons.  For the large population of Brighton and Hove there are few farmers markets, but perhaps crafts should be incorporated into these more.  Interestingly there was a French market in Hove a couple of weeks ago and there was a stall selling quilts - I wonder if they would sell at a British street market and if people would pay the full amount for them...?

I was very excited to find my local WHSmiths stocking Embroidery magazine.  I have only ever managed to get this at Leeds Craft Centre - rather a long way from here!  I really like this magazine and find it well worth the £4.90 price.  This issue has an inspiring piece about using letters and words in your work, with lots of examples in machine and hand stitching.  It will have to wait though, as I am trying to persuade Mister J to go charity shop shopping with me as he wants to go to a party dressed as Luke or Hans from Star Wars!

Bye Bye doll quilt and hello tissue holders

The doll quilt is now on its way.  Whenever I make something I always feel a bit sad when something- it is as if I have nurtured it and now have to let it go and make its own way in the world.  it is going to a good home though, and is going to be signed for so I can follow its progress.

Last nights project went very well.  I made two tissue holders for Mister J's teacher and teaching assistant.  The teachers get so many presents I wanted to make something a bit different that they may hold onto.  I read up on this tutorial and then went downstairs to the sewing machine and winged it (does anyone else find that their computer is miles away from where they do their sewing).  I am so happy with them, so happy in fact that everyone is going to have these in their stockings this year.  I used fabric from the Moda Apple Pie range from  Quilt Room in Dorking (it does not appear to be on their website anymore, and last time I went there was not that much stock in the shop).  I adore this range of fabric as it is so summery, it's just a shame the weather isn't!

Bizzie is learning to protest at everything at the moment - she says "no" with such sweetness but sterness.  With the awful weather I am in for a long summer methinks!

Happy Monday x

Better late than never I hope!

I have finally finished my doll quilt and it is ready to send out tomorrow.  After my quilt going awol for nearly two months in the first swap, this one is going to be upgraded so it is tracked!  I hope I will be forgiven for being a bit late.

One of the things I love about quilting is all the little decisions you have to make.  First the pattern, then the fabrics, then whether or not to have a border, what backing you want, the quilting pattern, the quilting thread, the binding - the list goes on.  The only thing is, it gets very frustrating when you have a deadline to work to as sometimes it feels you have endless decisions to make.  Thank you for the helpful comments on the last post.  I stayed with this idea and went with the patterned fabric and it looked good, but needed more detail in the background and foreground of the scene.  I decided to do some tie quilting in the foreground to look like grass which I am happy with, but had problems with the background.  I tried birds which didn't look right, then clouds which also didn't look right.  After watching me muttering words the children are forbidden from saying, my husband suggested a sun.  I put that in and then added a few rays and it looked just right. (I don't know about you, but my poor husband quite often gets projects shoved under his nose for an opinion - along the same lines of "does my bum look big in this").

The backing is cotton poplin.  It has an intresting weight to it and I have bought a big piece so I can use it again.  It is heavier than cotton and slides around quite well when I am free machine quilting.  The only downside I have found is that it isn't very forgiving of unpicking - the pin holes take a bit of rubbing to hide.  I was going to do a chunky binding, but then thought a quarter inch looked better, so it is wider on the back.  Rather than chop down the excess I embroidered the label details onto it.  I love the way this looks and will do this again.  Choosing pink for the binding was a controversial decision as my co-worker on this project (he's suddenly an expert!) didn't like it.  I do though, and feel it frames it just right.

I really hope my partner likes it.  I feel like I should have done a traditional pattern, but this just felt a bit more exciting.  I am going to put a "credit note" in the parcel saying I am more than happy to exchange for the quilt for another one if she doesn't like it.  The pictures aren't really showing the colours very well, so I may try and take another few before going to post office in the morning. 

I received this quilt yesterday morning.  We absolutely love it, thank you Kristy.  The link shows far better photos than I can take today, but I did take ones of the lovely ribbon and tissue paper it was wrapped in.

The weather is still dominating the news here, but yesterday and today have been really sunny - perfect for dog walking and visiting my parents allotment to say hello and come away with loads of fresh produce!  More rain is forecast this week, just in time for the holidays, but as long as it isn't like the downpour we had on Friday I won't mind too much! 

Tonight's project - tissue holders for Mister J's teachers as a thank you gift - pictures tomorrow (hopefully).

x

Doll Quilt Swap 2 WIP

I have taken a quick photo of my wip tonight, so please excuse the rubbish light conditions.  I am having a bit of a crisis in confidence about it.  I thought I'd do an applique picture using bondaweb and free machine quilting, but I'm not sure it is working.  The subject is a washing line, and I'm not sure about that, about the fact that the quilt is landscape, not portrait, or the patterned fabric in the background.  Below you can see a piece of blue material I dragged out and auditioned over the print to see if it looks better (the clothes aren't stuck on yet, they will be placed a bit better when they are).  Send outs are next week so I only have the weekend to get it finished.  Do I continue with this, or do something a bit more traditional?  I don't know, but I better decide soon!

Doll Quilt Swap 2

I had some very good post today.  My quilt from the doll quilt swap 2 came.  It is so sweet and has all my favourite things - polka dots, cute prints and gorgeous colours.  It came from the very talented Paula, and we love it - thank you.  Unfortunately, I feel the photos don't do the colours justice, and it still needs a bit of smoothing out after its long journey across the Atlantic, but here they are:

The front.

A detail of the fabrics.  As well as the spots there was a great tone on tone child's print with the alphabet, sums and drawings, and there was a thirties style fabric with cute little trains around the nine patch blocks.  The same fabric was used for the binding which gives a great framed finish to the quilt

the back

It went really well with Bizzies dolls pram, although I do wish dolly could have smiled a bit more for the photo!

I had a quick look at the referrers to my blog this morning, and noticed some people coming from here and saw our quilt from the first swap is on its way.  I can't wait, swaps are great! 

The Quarter Inch - A Zine for Quilters

The Zine finally has a name "The Quarter Inch" and it's own blog here.  There are more details on the blog, but if any of you would like to submit anything that would be great (and a mention on your blog would be even better!).  It will be published in October and firstly on sale direct from me, or via Etsy, and I am hoping to get some quilt shops on board too. 

In other news we went to a kite festival this weekend.  We enjoyed the brief spell of sunny weather with lots of other people.  Behind where I took the photo were kite stalls, food stands and an arena with kite displays, I would never have believed that people would be able to handle kites to music and was completely in awe of it.  As for us, we were the family bickering about the best way to get a tiny kite to fly!

Shirring and Peg Dolls

Everyone seems to be blogging about the weather at the moment, and I can't help joining in.  It is awful, not just rainy, but windy too.  I feel sorry for those people who have had events cancelled, particularly weddings.  we haven't got any to go to till later on in the summer, but it makes it very hard to decide on an outfit!

Things have been settling a bit here this week after the chaos we have had recently whilst I was working on my college deadline and the summer fair.  I've been food shopping, home cooking (need to make up for all the pizzas and jacket potato's I served up), dog walking and tidying.  The last one on the list has been a bit of a challenge with a toddler about the house and as soon as I do something, it is immediately undone.  Take for example this dress:

This has been on my to do list for ages.  I really enjoyed making it and can recommend trying it out.  Just a rectangle of fabric, sewn together and shirred across the top.  The cotton Charlie and Lola style print fabric was a bargain, £2.50 for half a metre from the fabric shop in Worthing, so if the sun ever shines then Bizzie has a new frock.  I put it over jeans and a t-shirt on Monday morning, went upstairs to get something and by the time I came back down it was covered in my favourite mac lipstick.  Whilst I admire her creativity, it was very annoying...

She did have a chance to harness this creativity at toddler group this week where I did the craft table.  I took along some dolly pegs and fabric scraps and it was great.  The mums and dads particularly seemed to enjoy it - someone even made an Elvis!  I think we will be doing more of these at home this summer, Batman and Princesses from pegs are the ones most frequently asked for round here.  i did take a photo of a couple of them, but excuse the quality, if i could share with you the volume of the noise at the group you would understand!

Applique box - last time I promise!

My box was a hit at the show, with lots of lovely comments which was great.  It is only the second time I have had a piece of work in an exhibition (the first was at my local adult education college), so it is a relief to get good feedback.  I am always very discreet if I don't like something at a quilt show, but I know there are people out there who are rather vocal with their opinions, which can be awful if they don't know what the maker looks like and she/he is standing there listening.  I also try to quantify if I don't like something by adding that the workmanship is good, but it is not my colours, or not my "cup of tea".  Most quilt shows are by amateurs (like me!) and I feel that everyone should support one another rather than being negative, anyway I digress...

Here is a picture of the last scene, this wasn't together when I last posted it.  Bizzie keeps calling them "Mummy and Daddy", which is rather sweet as my legs are nowhere near that skinny. 

and here's one of my boards

Now, I'm in a spin about next years course because the fees have gone up, quite considerably.  My tutor was great about it and has said she really wants me to continue on the course and is going to look into any grants or bursary's I could get, but I am not holding out a lot of hope.  I also have an entry to the Festival of Quilts, but I really wouldn't hold my breath about that either!  Do any of you who sell work actually cover your time and costs?  I didn't know if it was worth a try making some bits for Christmas craft fairs, or even trying out etsy. 

In other news, I finally have a bit of time to give the the zine, and am toying the the name "The Quarter Inch" - any feedback on this, good or bad, would be much appreciated.  Once this is decided I'll give it its own blog and get starting on content.  Finally, my doll quilt would be starting to take shape, if I could decide whether to do a yo yo quilt (which I really want to do as feel it would be so cute, but I'm not sure if my recipient would like) or to go down an applique road - decisions decisions!

Happy Monday - we're off to music group, where I cannot sing in tune and Bizzie prefers to dance!