Christmas is close!

This is my 50th blog post since I began just over a year ago.  I decided to start blogging during the summer of 2015 but it took a while to get going. Whilst it can be a fair bit of work each week, I've had some lovely feedback from friends and strangers. 

With Christmas close, I thought I'd share a decoration I've made with a few friends  recently.   So, delve into your Christmas stash and pull out two contrasting Christmas fabrics.  Use a saucer or something similar and cut out two circles of fabric. Place right sides together. 

Next, stitch around the outside with a narrow seam, remembering to secure the start and end. Leave a gap to bring the fabric right side out. 

With the fabric right side out, press and manipulate the gap with your fingers/iron to make sure it's  flat and 'round looking'. Top stitch around the piece close to the edge. There is no need to hand stitch this to close up the gap. Trim off all loose threads.

Using a needle and thread pull together the north, south, east and west points like this

Then, place the fabric onto a flat surface and press it flat.....

Once flat, bring over the outside part of the 'petal' so that it lies flat, a bit like turning over a collar.  Press it flat with your hand. To finish, add a loop to hang it on your tree and either stitch a pretty button the centre (this neatly covers your stitching) or, like me, get out a glue gun and add a 'card topper'. I bought mine from Hobby Craft. 

So here are some of the results:

The above decorations were  made by a group of ladies who meet

 each week at Cherry Hinton library and the ones below made by Lottie (aged 12)  and Joanna, her mum. 

As I await my guests, all the food is bought and presents are wrapped. I hope all is well with you. 

Happy Christmas 

Seeing stars

My end of term lesson at Coleridge School ended with a reminder of how to make half square triangles (HSTs)-the basis of so many patchwork designs. 

We made quite a pile using two methods concentrating on using a special paper template to stitch on called 'Triangles on  a roll' from Quilt direct in Devon. You lay up two large pieces of fabric, one light another dark. You then stitch on all the dotted lines, cut and press. Lots of HSTs in quick time. 

We also made some HSTs by the usual method of placing two pieces of fabric together, marking a line down the centre and stitching down each side of the line. I found the triangles on a roll method was by far the more accurate with virtually no trimming needed. 

So, planning ahead, I have been making samples ready for the new term. The first week back will be 'stars'. Thinking about a finished block 8" square I made this small block which uses flying geese units made with the 'goose' bit being white instead of the 'usual' darker fabric.  Could look stunning in bright colours or white stars on a bright background. 

Then I thought "what can we do with all those HSTs we made the other week?"

This next star block is much bigger than I usually make. It's 16" using Shibori fabric from Backstitch at  Burwash manor.  I love this fabric! It is much brighter in real life and you can see I took a bit of care to 'fussy cut' the centre block to show off the lovely tie dyed circle.  There will be more! 

Then another star came to mind...

This is  the 'triangle in a square' unit.  I had the template lying gathering  dust so decided to use it.  The unit is quite easy to make and you always make it slightly oversized and trim down. I think this is called the 'Friendship Star'.   

This one is before I stitched it together. 

Here, I've put it all together with a light star on a dark background. I'm not convinced I really like this block which finishes at 12" square. I feel sure alternating  light and dark stars would look very good indeed. 

I got quite enthusiastic about making stars and did a bit of research.  I found this one from the Missouri Star Quilt Company  (MSQC) on U Tube. It 's called the 'disappearing hour glass' block.   The website suggests using two 10" squares but I decided to go a bit bigger and put together  two fabrics, one white, one dark grey, 14" square. 

Step one: place both fabrics RS together and stitch a 1/4" seam around the four edges. Then cut across all four corners. 

Step two: press all seams to the dark side and arrange in a 'hour glass' formation.

Step three: stitch the four units together taking care to match the seams. I then pressed all these seams open and very flat.

Step four: measure the block. Mine came out at 18" square and you then cut the block up into thirds. The maths proved easy with 6" sections.  Don't let it move around too much.

Step five: the centre unit is turned once to the right.

Step six: turn all corner units two turns to the right.

Step seven: the 'middle' units are all flipped over

 Step eight: assemble all nine units, again pressing all seams open and flat.  

This is known as a 'counter change' design. It's a big block with many possibilities. 

Phew...any more variations? I found one more to try. Again inspired by the MSQC I found this block called 'Sweet Stars'.  

Step one: cut 1 light patch 4" square, two 2.5 " light squares, one dark strip 2.5 " by 6" and another dark strip  2.5 " by 4".

Step two:  take the shorter dark strip  and place the small light square on the top, draw a line from top left to bottom right. Stitch and flip over, press and  trim the seam.

Step three: repeat wth the longer but this time  mark from top right to bottom left. Stitch, flip, press and trim the seam. 

This photos shows the wrong sides once the trimming is done.

Step four: lay out the pieces like this and stitch the short strip to the four inch light patch. 

Step five: stitch on the longer strip and it's done. 

Repeat to make four units and stitch together. 

I'm off now to buy more of that Shibori fabric...the creative bug has really kicked in. 

New adult patchwork class make fabulous progress....

It all started about a month ago whilst sitting at home and checking my email. Coleridge School were looking for a tutor for an adult class every Monday afternoon. The tutor employed to teach this class had dropped out. 

It had been a long held ambition to teach grown ups. Don't get me wrong, I loved teaching children but adults would be a welcome change. I was interested in this class for three reasons: it was on a Monday afternoon, it was 2 minutes walk from my house and it was a beginner's class. Three ticks. 

What followed was a frantic session of form filling of various bits of paperwork. So with 5 days notice I arrived at the school to meet seven delightful ladies full of expectations. The Janome machines were a challenge as I'm a Bernina fan and there were no 1/4" seam presser feet to be seen. Oh, and no bobbins.  

Never mind, I'm used to thinking on my feet and I got the ladies to make a piece of crazy patchwork. 

And the end result by one lady.  However, this quilt evolved using only fabric from my scrap bag. Here's the result..what an eye for colour!!

We also tried a four patch and half square and quarter square triangles. 

Not bad for a pile of scraps!  Looks easy but in practice it is all too easy to forget to completely cover up the previous row and lose all sense of direction. On another day we quilted the pieces and turned them into zipped pencil cases.

Without the proper patchwork feet I decided to take a bit of a risk and teach the class how to do foundation piecing.  Quite mad really as it's not the easiest of techniques to put over but at least you can sew on a line.

I made two samples.....destined to be 'mug rugs'!

This one, above, in an unfinished state and this next one below

where I added quilting and a binding.  Did I mention I was being observed this lesson? A tad nerve racking.........

So, some of the results although not totally finished......

As the weeks progressed we tackled making flying geese. Everone made a set of eight geese and found different ways of putting them all together. 

Last week we made  the 'disappearing nine patch' as shown below.  This is a great block because you get a 'wow' factor for not that much effort.  Accuracy in cutting and piecing is coming along nicely...

Finally, I can't resist adding this last photo. My four year old grandson was in Cambridge last weekend.  I had ready some wooden templates of trees and stars bought at a craft fair. We had a fun afternoon with a glue gun and my button collection. It's great to be a granny....