handmade by Mary Emmens

Birthday girl

Published on 08/11/2013 by Mary in birthdays, gifts, Paper piecing, Patchwork, projects and Scraps. 18 Comments

Nine years ago today this gorgeous girl was born;

I wanted to give her something handmade for her birthday, but funnily enough she has quite a lot of handmade things and I was struggling to come up with a plan. So I decided to paper piece an Orca and let her decide what she would like it made in to. The pattern is from Joanna’s etsy shop and can be found here (along with other fantastic patterns).

I didn’t start sewing until Wednesday night, Joanna very helpfully codes all her pieces with the colour of the piece e.g. background, white or black, I normally write on every piece but didn’t need to this time. It was quite nice to use just 3 different fabrics in this block after using so many in the And Sew On blocks! The Orca is Universe in Night from the Curious Nature line by Parson Gray and Metro Living Circles in snow and the background is Quilt Blocks Marine Blue Hexagon Dots by Ellen Luckett Baker.

I laid the blocks out and discovered that I’d used a piece of background fabric where there should have been a black piece, so I unpicked that and replaced with the correct piece.

I got all but 3 of the 15 ‘blocks’ made, yesterday afternoon I got on with the last 3 and added them to the jigsaw. I started stitching the blocks together and had all the top ones done when I spotted another error:

You should be able to spot it too. This time it was a pattern error and Joanna has now corrected it (if she wasn’t so helpful in coding the patterns it would have been my fault!). So after a bit of cussing I unpicked a few seams and replace the offending fabrics with the right one. Pretty soon I had this lovely creature:

Untitled

I wrapped it up and presented it to Bethan this morning – she was delighted (good girl) and decided that she would love me to make into a cushion cover, at that point I told her that we could make it together. I’ll share a photo when that’s done!

Linking up with:

Goal for November

Published on 05/11/2013 by Mary in A Lovely Year of Finishes, Patchwork, projects, Quilts, Upcycled and Vintage. 11 Comments

Choosing a project for this month has been tough, there are a couple of things that I have to get done anyway so I felt I wanted to choose something else that would feel like a big achievement.

So what have we here?

Yes a pile of vintage sheet scrappy trips blocks, approx 40 of them, started back in April, I wanted to make a quilt using every one of the fabrics in my vintage sheet stash! I have left some out as they didn’t quite work; too low volume (hey maybe that’s next a LV vintage sheet quilt), but I have included some odd ones, they really stand out but I guess this is a quilt for me so I don’t mind!

I don’t really want to make more blocks so I’ll lay these out and hope that I can come up with a layout I’m happy with, then I will get stitching!

So my goal for the month is to have this pieced in to a quilt top, anything more will be a bonus, I can just imagine that it might take a long time to choose a backing for this!

Shhhhh (it’s a low volume charm swap)

Published on 02/11/2013 by Mary in fabric. 2 Comments

We’ve just had a birthday party for our almost 9 yr old, she only had 3 friends over for a decoupage party:

It was still pretty loud, so I’m definitely in the mood for some low volume, which is no bad thing because Rachael over at The Floral Suitcase has decided to organise a low volume charm swap.

I’m in, I’ve picked my fabrics, head on over to Rachael’s blog post on it here to sign up and check out the flickr group here.

Hope you have a nice quiet afternoon.

October Makes

Published on 01/11/2013 by Mary in And Sew On BOM, Paper piecing, Patchwork and Quilts. 7 Comments

Wow I really can’t believe that today is the first of November, thankfully October whizzed by, it wasn’t a nice month for me, I’m hoping that November will be much better!

So what did I do?

It doesn’t feel like an awful lot but I pieced together my And Sew On BOM’s into a wall hanging:

I made more Broken Herringbone blocks and finished the quilt:

And put together a bit of a special back for it, more about that here:

This week despite having family visiting from overseas and the children on half term holiday from school I managed to cut a pile of triangles and piece together a quilt top!

This morning we’re baking ready for Bethan’s birthday party tomorrow but I’m also hoping to get the quilt top basted ready to quilt!

Linking up with:

#MSBHQAL and A Lovely Year of Finishes October

Published on 29/10/2013 by Mary in A Lovely Year of Finishes, Patchwork and Quilts. 26 Comments

At the beginning of the month I set my goal to complete my #MSBHQAL top.

I was so nearly there; all the blocks were made, I sashed them and then hung the quilt top on the wall and after a day or two I decided that it needed to be bigger;

So I pulled fabric, cut and then did some production line sewing, 8 blocks on the go and got them completed within 24 hours! I did work hard on my placement of this additional set of blocks and am fairly happy with the final layout.

Due to other stuff going on in life I was pretty motivated to get this quilt finished. What to back it with? I pulled some yardage but wasn’t overly convinced by any of them, then in conversation with Tobit, I decided what would be really cool would be a giant broken herringbone on the back, therefore making it reversible. I turned this over in my mind wondering if it was truly a stupid idea and then got down to working on the maths. That almost drove me to breaking point but the wonders of Touchdraw saved me.

The strips were much longer than those in a 12.5″ block and it was much harder to work with as it was so big. I ended up using strips that were 10″ wide, on reflection 9″ probably would have worked better but when it comes down to guess work I think I did ok!

Once I had basted it I realised I needed a quilting plan, with little headspace for creativity I decided to go ‘simple’ and just outline quilt around each strip of colour! In theory simple, but in reality it took a while, I got it done over 3 days.

I love how the quilting looks great on the back too:

The binding is scrappy, I used up leftovers from all the blocks, it saves major time on decision making and uses up scraps – win, win I think:

I love the whole quilt photo shoot ‘event’, it usually involves going to the park at the end of our road and pegging the quilt up on the fencing of the basketball or tennis courts (depending on how busy the courts are and the direction of sunlight). It is often the first time I get to see the quilt properly. So much time is spent up close working on it, and it’s really great to step back and see the whole thing:

Quilt stats:
Pattern – Blocks designed by Anne at Playcrafts, tutorial here
Fabrics – from my stash and scraps boxes, some from swap with the QAL host Molli Sparkles and purples kindly donated by Trudi and Emily
Binding – scrappy leftovers from blocks
Backing – giant broken herringbone
Quilting – By me on my Janome Horizon, outline around each block
Size – Approx 52″ x 64″

Thanks very much to Molli Sparkles for hosting a great QAL and keeping me motivated throughout.

Linking up with:

Bloggers Quilts Festival – October 2013

Published on 27/10/2013 by Mary in And Sew On BOM, Paper piecing, Patchwork, Quilts and Scraps. 18 Comments

I’m guessing that if you ‘live’ in the world of quilts and fabric the fact can’t have passed you by that Quilt Market is happening right now and therefore it’s time for Bloggers Quilt Festival.

It took me a little while to decide what to enter, I like to show you all something new rather than enter one you’ve seen before, so I’ve decided to reveal my And Sew On BOM wall hanging:

I started this on the 31st December last year (Australia are ahead of the UK so it was already January there!), I kept to schedule and made a block each month. If you want to read my post on each block just select the And Sew On BOM category on the right hand side.

If you do read the other posts you might notice that I had an issue with this block:

The top left piece of fabric is whiter than the other background pieces, I pulled them from my scrap box thinking they were the same, it really irritated me so before I stitched all the blocks together I took out that piece and replaced it with the same fabric as the other whites – it made me feel much better!

I backed the quilt with a vintage sheet from my collection and added a couple of corners to aid hanging (currently there is a piece of dowel rod in there and it hangs on a picture hook in my sewing space).

I guess I should add a label too!

Quilt stats:
Pattern – Blocks designed by Kristy of Quiet Play
Fabrics – from my stash and scraps boxes
Binding – Tape measure
Backing – Vintage sheet
Quilting – outline around each block
Size – Approx 33″ x 33″
Category – Wall Hanging

Thanks for visiting, I hope you’re enjoying the gorgeous delights of the festival.

Another Sidekick Tote (a vomit proof bag)

Published on 21/10/2013 by Mary in accessories, Bags and projects. 11 Comments

Earlier this year I made myself a Sidekick Tote, I’ve used it a lot and love it:

During the summer holidays I made a trip to the local fabric shop and spotted some gorgeous webbing that was being unpacked from a delivery, I decided that I needed it for the strap for my next bag!

Yes, I did have a plan for a new bag already in my mind but the webbing was the deciding factor for actually making it:

Ever the practical person I don’t like to use my first Sidekick Tote if it’s raining, I don’t want to get it soaked and risk the contents getting soggy too, so I pulled out my stash of Summersville Alphabetti laminate to use.

The pattern suggests the use of interfacing but I didn’t in this one as the laminate is quite stiff. I’ve no idea how the fabric houses go about deciding on the strength of the laminate they apply to their fabrics but the Moda one is considerably stiffer that the Michael Miller (used for the pocket) and also matt rather than a gloss finish.

I must make a note on the paper pattern about the pocket closure; I missed it the first time and almost this time too. It may be because of where it is on the page or because I use the 2nd pocket option but it’s quite annoying to have to fiddle around to fit the velcro it in.

It’s a wonderful bag, again I made the small size which is plenty big enough for my needs. It holds up well in the wet weather and little did I know that during our camping trip it would also be put to the test of projectile vomiting from a poorly child (my child rather than anyone else’s – does that make it better or worse?). A wipe with antibacterial wipes and it was as good as new, sadly the same could not be said about poorly Leah!

I have a packet of Sharpies which I am very tempted to use to do some colouring on the bag but so far I’ve resisted, maybe I’ll make a third just for colouring purposes!

It’s not quite Tuesday here but it is some places in the world so I’m linking up with:

Sunday Stash

Published on 20/10/2013 by Mary in fabric and Sunday Stash. 6 Comments

I had a lovely fabric delivery on Friday which was a very cheerful delight in what had been an awful few weeks (more about that one day if I feel so inclined). So the latest addition to my stash is a lovely pile of flannels for me (6 metres of it):

I’m thinking pyjama bottoms for me ready for winter, especially following the success of drafting my own pattern and making a pair back in the summer. Laminate for something or other; bags, wash bags, lunch bags:

I’ll try to get round to sharing with you a bag I made a few months ago with another Moda laminate, this is of a similar quality quite thick and matt – I like. Oh and not sure if you can tell from the photograph but the laminate on this actually goes right off the edge of the fabric which is a vast improvement on other laminates I’ve had that finish an inch or so from the edge – made me feel a bit short changed. The Simple Life Dots in pink and aqua for my low volume stash; half metre of each;

And a FQ of Running Stitch just because there was room in the package! All these were from Fililis an online fabric store in Ireland which is sadly closing down and selling off all it’s fabric. It has some lovely fabrics in stock so worth checking out, cottons are from £1.50 (approx euro conversion) per FQ.

Linking up with:

Why don’t you?

Goal for October – ALYoF

Published on 04/10/2013 by Mary in A Lovely Year of Finishes, Patchwork and Quilts. 9 Comments

Just a quick post on the eve of my little boys birthday weekend to make a commitment to do something with these this month:

Broken Herringbone blocks as part of the #MSBHQAL. I’m hoping that I will manage at least a completed quilt top.

I’d love to go for a finished quilt but with all that October might hold I’m being gentle on myself!

Linking up with:

Made in September

Published on 01/10/2013 by Mary in Patchwork, Siblings Together and Vintage. 10 Comments

Another month flew by and I’ve struggled to find photo’s in my flickr stream to evidence much sewing:

In fact this might look more impressive than it is, the 2 cushion fronts were made more than a year ago but were completed in September. But there was a bee block, the last And Sew On BOM, a trial vintage sheet string block and some pattern testing.

I also joined in the Broken Herringbone QAL , I love these blocks and had to have a go at making them:

I’ve now got 11 so plan to make one more and turn it in to a quilt top.

Linking up as usual with Lynne and looking forward to seeing what others have been making.