Vintage Sheet String Quilt finished (at last!)

28/07/2014 Mary 9 Comments

At the beginning of July I set out my goal for the month, to get this quilt top finished:

Made from vintage sheets strips I must admit the thought of getting on with this was dragging me down. It took me until the middle of the month to pick it up and deal with it. I knew I had less than two weeks until the school summer holidays (and the end of the month) so needed to get on with it. It was really a bit too hot for basting but I cleaned the kitchen floor and got on with it.

My last child free Friday was cut short by preschool sports event and early pick up from school for the school fair. But in that short window I quilted the whole thing in the ditch and diagonally through the blue mid stripes and even started stitching on the binding.

I used my favourite stripy multi coloured vintage sheet binding (now available in my etsy shop along with a number of other stripes) and spent a couple of evenings and a sunny afternoon in the garden hand stitching it to the back.

So it is finished. Now that I look at photo’s of it I’m loving it! It has so many different fabrics in it, many of which have memories (recent ones about it’s discovery) attached to them, all are vintage sheets, most from the UK but a few from the US which I’ve found over here. I know that there are prints in there that will trigger different memories for some of you too.

I backed the quilt with a vintage sheet I found recently and wasn’t convinced that it was suitable for cutting up into charms but I couldn’t leave it behind. It’s a St Michaels one that I’d not seen before with trees on it.

This quilt is destined to live with us, great for taking out into the garden or to the beach. Due to the fact that the fabrics have already been well used and washed countless times I think it will wear well and withstand the washing that might be required after being taken to the beach/park/garden, had salt water, ice-cream and dinner wiped on it!

Quilt Stats:

Pattern: Paper pieced 10″ string blocks
Fabric: a wide variety of vintage sheets (50/50 polyester/cotton) from my stash
Binding – stripy vintage sheet (cotton)
Backing – Vintage sheet
Wadding – Super-Soft 70/30 Eco-Blend by Sew Simple
Quilting – in the ditch and across the middle of blocks on my Janome Horizon
Size – Approx 60″ x 70″

Linking up with:

Goodbye blouse, hello shirt

25/07/201425/07/2014 Mary 8 Comments

A month or so ago a friend, Kate who is sorting out her house ready to move handed me a bag on the school run containing a couple of lovely items.

One was a gorgeous vintage blouse, made in Switzerland for Harrods, very worn on the collar so only really fit for cutting up and repurposing. The fabric is lush and I spent a bit of time thinking about what to do with it:

You may remember that I’ve made a pile of shirts using Carolyn Friedlanders pattern, I was thinking about the shirts that I’m waiting to receive back from the swap (hint: round 3 may be happening soon if you want to join in) when inspiration struck; why not turn this blouse into a shirt:

So I pulled out a copy of the pattern and got cutting and stitching. I decided to make a journal cover, something useful and practical:

I think it is my most lovely shirt yet! It came together perfectly but maybe that is because I’ve made approximately 30 of them! For the background I used Crosshatch in white from Carolyns’ Architexture range. I thought about quilting the piece but decided to keep it simple and just stitched around the block and just inside the block with Aurifil 2530 which was the perfect match to the pink in the shirt.

There’s just a simple flap around to the inside of the cover:

Before making this gift I’d already stitched up a little something for Kate. I love the label on the shirt and couldn’t resist a bit of fussy cutting:

And with the addition of some webbing and key fob hardware made this for her new house keys:

Keyfobs, I’ve decided are a great way to showcase special bits of fabric, I’m already thinking about other pieces of clothing that children have grown out of or worn out (or in some cases both!) that might be good to use, preserving some memories.

Kate and her family are moving away but won’t be forgotten; I now need to cook up a plan for the other fabric she’s left me (oh and I didn’t use the whole blouse so you’ll probably be seeing more of this fabric!).

#notgoingtofqr

20/07/2014 Mary 10 Comments

Yes I’ve been feeling a little bit sad that I’m not in London this weekend at Fat Quarterly Retreat, I’m enjoying seeing the photo’s appearing on Instagram though they make me miss it even more!

But we’ve been busy here with a preschool sports event, school fair and preschool graduation and fair. I’ve managed to squeeze in some sewing time and got my vintage sheet string quilt quilted:

I also squeezed in time on Friday to get the binding stitched on one side, the evenings are being spent hand stitching it on to the back:

I’ve also had inspiration for what to do with this:

A vintage blouse from Harrods made in Switzerland, gifted to me by a friend who is moving house, I’m keeping the inspiration under wraps for now but I’m pretty pleased with it.

And if that was enough I decided on the layout for a baby quilt yesterday morning:

Yes, this is the black and white version in case you were wondering!

We’ve nothing planned for today, the children still have a whole week left at school so I feel like we need to reserve our energy for that, I’m hoping therefore that I can make some progress on one or all three of the projects above!

Linking up with:

Goal for July

07/07/201407/07/2014 Mary 5 Comments

I’m cutting it fine this month entering my goal for A Lovely Year of Finishes. I’ve had lots to do, but most have been small projects for teacher and birthday gifts which have been quick to start and finish so no good as a goal.

The one project that I feel like I have hanging over me is this one:

I finished the quilt top as my goal for May. I left it in a pile and picked it up again a couple of weeks ago and basted it. I started quilting it but wasn’t happy with how it was looking so have just finished unpicking it!

Now it needs basting again and quilting (again). It’s bothering me so I’m going to try to get it done, I’m pretty sure I’ll feel a lot better when it is ticked off my list.

Linking up with:

ALYoF – May complete

28/05/2014 Mary 8 Comments

At the beginning of the month I set out a goal to make a vintage sheet quilt top. At that point I really wasn’t sure what I was going to do but after looking through my stash of vintage sheets it became obvious. I had a stack of strings:

And a huge bag full of more offcuts:

Oh and there was a whole drawer full too! So I decided that the most efficient and economical thing to do would be to make a string quilt.

So within a week I had blocks that looked like this:

Another week on and there were more (all blocks are paper pieced):

At which point I had to decide how big to make the top and how many more blocks I needed. I decided on a layout of 7 x 6 blocks (total 42).

An attempt to take a photo of the finished top in the garden, it was a bit blustery and there is a large stack of bricks preventing a smooth drop:

I’m not sure what the pirate was up to, maybe he was in awe of the beauty he saw! But anyway the top is finished which was my aim so I’m rather delighted. It was great to sew together, I randomly pulled strips, there was no planning of any of the blocks and minimal planning to the layout.

I’ve put some packs of strips for sale in my etsy shop so you can make your own, the listing suggests a minimum of 21 different prints in each pack but I think there must be 40 in this quilt top (I used approximately 1 1/2 packs to make this top).

So another goal complete and there appears to be no less fabric in my stack of vintage sheet offcuts! Now there is the small matter of basting, quilting and binding!

Linking up with:

Sew Mama Sew Giveaway Winner

18/05/2014 Mary 3 Comments

I hope you’ve had a fun week entering some great giveaways. It was fascinating to read your memories and thoughts on vintage sheets, sorry I’ve not got around to replying to you all I’ve been a little busy this week!

Before announcing the winner I thought I would share with you some of the sewing I’ve done this week, I’ve added to my vintage sheet blocks and they now look like this:

Now I need to make a decision as to how big I want the finished top and how many more blocks to make!

On to the winner, RNG picked:

Now I’ve had a problem with numbering the comments, so you can either take my word for it that number 33 is Janne or you can count for yourself!

So congratulations Janne, I’ll email you in a minute, I hope you enjoy sewing with your ‘new’ fabrics. If you’re disappointed that you didn’t win and still ‘need’ some strings head on over to my etsy shop now!

Vintage Sheet Strings – Sew Mama Sew Giveaway Day (now closed)

12/05/201425/05/2014 Mary 219 Comments

Giveaway now closed, winner announced here

Welcome to new and regular readers of my blog. Here I write about my sewing projects and fabric acquisitions, feel free to stay and browse.

Just over 2 years ago I opened my etsy shop selling vintage sheet fabrics from my rather large stash. I’ve sent fabric all over the world and I am continuously amazed and delighted at people’s enthusiasm/obsession for vintage sheets. I’ve used them in quilts, cushions, bags and bunting:

My goal for May for the #ALYoF is to make a vintage sheet quilt top and after a bit of indecision I opted for a string quilt. So it seemed like a great idea to enable one of you to join me in my current stitchy plan.

These are the blocks I’ve made so far:

You might be able to guess that there has been no planning, just string after string pulled from the pile, I think it’s looking pretty good so far. I’ve use Ashley’s tutorial and I’m using a 10.5″ paper rather than 7″.

So today I am giving away a pack of vintage sheet strips for you to make your own quilt blocks. The pack contains 450g (approx 16oz) of vintage sheets strips. Strips range in size from 1″ – 3″ wide and 5″ – 18″ long. In a sample pack there were 170 strips, however packs are made up by weight so the number of strips may differ. Each pack contains at least 20 different prints.

To enter:
Please leave a comment below telling me about your vintage sheet memories or why you’d love to win.

For additional entries:
Visit my etsy shop and add it to your favourites – leave an additional comment to say you’ve done that.
Tweet about the giveaway using the tweet button at the bottom of this post, then leave a comment with the tweet link.

That’s 3 possible entries.

Rules:
Giveaway open internationally.
Giveaway closes at 5pm PST on Friday 16 May.
Duplicate entries will be deleted.
Winner will be picked by True Random Number Generator and notified by email and by update to this post.
Please ensure that your email is linked to your profile or left in your comment so that you can be contacted if you win.

AND for all of you there is a discount code for 15% off everything in my etsy shop this week, use code SMS14 at checkout.

Thanks for visiting, now click on over to Sew Mama Sew and enter some more giveaways.

A goal for May – #ALYoF

03/05/2014 Mary 3 Comments

There’s been a bit of secret sewing going on this week but that’s finished so now I need to come up with a plan for the rest of the month. Now that the wedding quilt is finished I’m feeling a bit lost so need to focus and think about what’s next.

I could really do with promoting my etsy shop a bit more so with that in mind I’m setting myself a goal to stitch up a quilt top using fabrics from the shop. I have a few ideas in mind, I have a few blocks I’ve made in the past as testers that could become quilts:

A string block that I made as a test for my month in the Siblings Together bee. I made another with a solid through the middle and prefer that. I have a very large bag full of strings that would work well for this.

Back in March on our sewing retreat I made a few retro flower petals, actually that’s not true, I made the parts of some petals!

I also want to make another plus quilt! So whilst I’m undecided on which pattern I am setting myself the goal to have made a quilt top using vintage sheets by the end of May. I’m also cooking up a plan for Sew Mama Sew giveaway day which is just a over a week away.

Linking up with:

February check-in – Fabriholics Anonymous

24/02/2014 Mary 10 Comments

Time for a review of February’s fabric acquisitions…

A whole lot of vintage sheets:

Fortunately these are allowed as without them my Etsy shop would close and I would have no money to spend on ~~fabric~~ holidays.

Some from the charity shop and some from the car boot:

All quite lovely and being chopped up for sale:

I had a little bit of a mishap and bought this:

It was from the car boot and it wasn’t until I got home that I realised it is not actually a vintage sheet but a gorgeous 33″ (selvedge to selvedge) x 120″ piece of brushed cotton/flannel. It will be brilliant for pyjama bottoms or quilt back and for 50p (US$0.83) you can understand why it was an easy mistake to make!

I have also acquired some quilting fabrics by the way of swaps. These were from Pennydog, I sent her Kaffe Fassett woven stripes in return:

And this bundle was from Lily’s Quilts in return for some emergency Kona White.

So another great month if you don’t count the mishap! I’ve not been craving fabric, but I have ordered 2 metres of Botanics Widescreen for a quilt back, that too was allowed to make the quilt for my brothers wedding gift. I’m pretty sure I’ve spent hardly any time browsing fabric shops online and have just deleted any fabric emails, newletters before reading about special offers etc, it’s given me more time to sew, more about that another day!

Linking up with:

UK and Ireland Vintage Sheet FQ Swap Round 2

04/01/201404/01/2014 tobit 2 Comments

It’s official; I’ve finally got my act together to organise another vintage sheet fat quarter swap. I’ve updated the flickr group, you can find all the details here.

I’d be grateful if you’d tell your friends/blog readers, IG friends, generally spread the word, the more participants we have the more lovely vintage sheets you’ll be able to get your hands on.

If you want to pop a lovely swap button on your blog;

The following code will insert a 200×200 px button:

<div align="center">
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/groups/2063494@N25/"> 
<img style="border: none;" alt="FQ SWAP" src="http://goo.gl/OK7nwU" /> 
</a></div>

I look forward to seeing what sheets you want to share.