Easter Hols

I love my holidays away in the flat up North in Saltburn. No sewing machine so I sew by hand.

Iv'e been working on my EPP quilt as usual. I think I've finished all the stars! I love working with my delicious view.

Here is a peek at my stars.

The plan is all black and white with splashes of terracotta from my toile de jolie curtain fabric. This was suggested by Rosie and I love it. So I think I will inter-space each block with a solid black block. Because its going to be so big I think I may try quilting on the go and piece them together with the toile in between though I did fancy a triple bar sashing. We shall see. I'm not bringing it home this time because I have so much on the go. Maybe the 6 weeks holiday should be my plan.

Hiawatha

Did I do the binding? Nope! I didn't fancy a trip out to the sewing shop this morning so I thought I'd play with my foundation paper pieced star.

I saw it on a you tube video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwMy8dE8Rog

and fell in love with the apparent simplicity.

It is easy! Though I did have to take it apart when I put 2 strips in the wrong place!.

I thought I'd go with simple colouring for my first attempt, but having attempted it I'm confident I could add more colours.

I bought a stash of kona fat quarters to do some playing, I fancy trying out lots of new things - like above.

So now I had a lovely star. Do I just quilt it as a simple mini. (if you said yes then I'm afraid you need to get to know me a little better XD ) I've been pondering while I quilted the Hunter's star what to do with it. It reminded me of American Indian designs so I decided to add some arrows.

Similar colouring but I added some oranges to warm it up and some greys to stop it looking too paintboxy. The tip is the new flamingo colour http://www.plushaddict.co.uk/cotton-fabric/kona-cotton-solids/kona-pink-flamingo.html

and that is the colour that links all the elements.

I took 1 inch strips of the colours and cut them in half. I arranged the two sets of strips in different orders and each strip was 1cm above/ below the next one so that the finished edge was sloping. This meant I didn't waste much. I made sure the slopes were in different directions so that they would form an arrow tail. Measuring up I cut two 2 1/2 inch strips. I starched them ( I need to practice this step) and you can see I used white to lengthen them to the same length as the arrow stem. (this is just the width of my fat quarter) Finally the arrow tip is like a flying geese but I made the white bit longer. Then I used the rest of the white strip to join the two together.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_stvQx9cjEw

Flying geese! I loved this video! so simple and very well explained. So I decided that this was what I needed next.

I started with 3 flamingo pink squares ( I didn't have a plan I just wanted to try them out ) and I made 12. Playing with them on the ironing board I came up with a pattern I liked so I sewed them together. 

Three lovely items. Is that enough? Hmmm well I didn't think there was enough colour about so I wanted a little more purple.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZGDYATbDRQ

I loved this block and I thought I'd try this in purple to end the flying geese line. I made them slightly larger at 5 inches. (there will be a lot of white strips to join all these together!

So where am I up to?

I'm using white paper behind to see what it will look like on my floor.

Can you see the little cut offs in the top right? This is what I'm thinking about right now. Does my quilt need a corner border th link some orange over there? Hmm Should I try tiny half square triangles? What about lozenge rectangles like beads to make a corner? Too much and better without?

I'm going to have coffee and trawl pinterest to see if I can find some inspiration!

Oh! do my shoulders ache or what!

I've been wrestling yesterday and today!

With a quilt!!

I loved the Hunter's star pattern from Missouri Star tutorial on the Hunter's Star quilt, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7KtiLK_xJk and bought some Moda Nomad fabric and Kona bone for the background which I thought would be great in my sitting room.

I followed all the directions, even the squaring up which took ages! and I sewed them all together - beautiful!

So now for the backing and batting. This may be the beginning of my problems. I went for 5oz. Now I love the loft of 5oz and when hand quilting it really doesn't make a difference but I was planning on FMQ and I hadn't really thought about the logistics.

I have  Janome and it doesn't have a lot of room in there. But I battled with my quilt to get it in - I could sew about an inch at a time in the centre!.

It took me 2 whole days! but now the quilting is done - and its binding next.

Anyway - thats for tomorrow! I deserve an evening off :)

Easter hols - at last I finished that hexi cushion!

So I have been watching tv and hand sewing 1 inch hexis to make one of two long cushions to match my HST cushions. At last I had time to go zip shopping and time to make it up. I'm loving it and the contrast with the others!

So now I only have one lonely orange cushion left to be covered!

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it but I'm sure it should be different from the hexi one.

I tried foundation paper piecing this weekend and I'm loving it! except for all the paper!!!

Maybe I could make a feathered star (this is what I made. I shall try to post some pics later) but I'm not sure that goes with the tessellated shapes. I like to have something to do on my lap while watching tv so I think I want to English paper piece again but a simple band of rectangle stripes might be a good contrast. I think a trawl through Pinterest may help me decide!

I could go mad and add a wall hanging to match...

Watch this space!