Monday, 14 December 2015

Poinsettia Table Runner

My quilt teacher recently moved into a new studio.  At the grand opening she had a display of student's work where I fell in love with a poinsettia table runner, and immediately signed up to learn how to make it.

The pattern is available from bear paw productions as a kit. I didn't use a kit, but chose my own fabrics.  Luckily my far too big box of spare fabrics contained plenty of glittery and gold fabrics, and I only needed to buy two fat quarters.  The gold leading is clover fusible bias binding, and you need two rolls, so this is not a cheap project to make.  Since I'd never tried this technique before I made two extra poinsettia blocks to practice, which needed another roll of gold- oof!

I don't know what method is recommended in the original pattern from Bear Paw.  The method I used was not difficult, but very time consuming.  The whole thing from start to finish took me about 25 hours. Although I love it, I will certainly think twice before making another!

First you trace the whole pattern onto a backing sheet. Then cut strips from your fabrics, which you back with bondaweb, then cut the strips into squares, and trim.  Iron the squares onto the backing sheet.  I love how you can take some lightly meh fabrics, cut them up, mix them up, and ooh!

The poinsettias are made like ordinary applique, by tracing onto bondaweb, then fixing into place. After everything is bonded into place, you apply the gold leading.   I was lucky to be able to borrow a mini-iron during my classes, which I'm sure made it much easier to apply the leading around the tricky curves.

Next, you need to sew down both edges of the leading. This process totally transforms the texture of the leading, somehow making it less shiny and more sparkly!


My most hated job is hiding and tying all those ends!
After the poinsettias are finished, sew the poinsettia blocks to the ends of the table runner, and apply the leading grid before sewing.  Even though these are easy straight lines, there are a lot of them, and I went quite slowly as I was trying very hard to be precise.


Finally you need to back and bind the runner.  Frustratingly I didn't have enough of the fabric I liked for backing and binding in one, so I had to do them separately, but finally the runner is finished!




I really, really like this.  It is just so bling and Christmassy!


Thursday, 19 November 2015

Progress... or lack of...

It's been a long time since I last wrote on this blog.  Partly that has been due to frustration with the technology.  I have been trying to use an ipad and a smartphone, neither of which have been ideal. I now have a new laptop, and I'm hoping that it will be much easier to type, and add photos.  Since I haven't yet taken or transferred any photos of my crafting, here are some totally unrelated pictures from my holiday last year.

Seems to have uploaded OK, and it also is much easier to type around the photo on the laptop.  Good news.

On a slightly less positive note it was March when I last checked in on my projects.  This is the current situation:

Projects in progress
Lacy Scarf
Cross stitch train
Pink elephant
Minnie mouse bag.
Secret santa quilt
Party dress
Crochet doily project
Big Heart, little Heart Tank tops.
Rainbow ripple blanket
Puff flower blanket
Green and white quilt
Poinsettia quilt
Neice and Nephew Advent calendars.
 
Projects finished
Anna Dress
 
This does not look god for my new year's resolution.  It seems I am definitely a serial starter. However, some of these projects are nearly finished, and I'm confident to have at least two more items off the list before the end of the year.

Tuesday, 1 September 2015

Doily challenge progress

Well it's four months since I started the doily challenge, and I have completed 23 doilies. This averages out at about one and a half per week. I haven't blogged all the doilies so far but I will. The main thing preventing me is my terrible lack of blocking. As you can see from the picture below, blocking is not something I am good at, even though it is badly needed. I do feel that if a doily is going to have a post all to itself it needs to be photographed in its best light.
At this rate, I should achieve my goal of 100 doilies in around a year. My doily making is going quite a bit faster now that I have decided to make each doily twice, immediately after each other.  This means that any problems I encountered on the first doily will be fresh in my mind for the second one, so I am less likely to get stuck on the same bit again.

Later I will need to make some design decisions so that the variety of sizes and patterns works for my project, but for now i'm going to try any and every pattern that takes my fancy.

Friday, 28 August 2015

Hearts desire doily

Doily name Hearts desire doily
Pattern source www.redheart.com
Thread Anchor size 8 pearl cotton. 
Hook 1.25mm. 
Finished doily diameter 11cm
Finished doily weight 6g
Comments  Instructions were easy to follow. This doily took me about 2 1/2 hours.


28-50 soft lace motif doily

Doily name 28-50 soft lace motif doily
Pattern source http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/28-50-soft-lace-motif-doily
Thread Anchor size 8 pearl cotton. 
Hook 1.25mm. 
Finished doily diameter 15 x 20cm
Finished doily weight 6g
Comments  I really enjoyed making this doily. Each little flower is so easy, I was soon able to make them without looking at the pattern. Each flower. Only takes me about 15 minutes to make, so it's a bit addictive to see how many more I can squeeze out of little bits of spare time. The main downside of this doily is the number of loose ands which need to be hidden.

Monday, 27 July 2015

Doily project - Rosette doily

Doily name Rosette doily
Pattern source http://www.crochetpatty.com/patterns/thread/rosette_doily.html
Thread Anchor size 8 pearl cotton. 
Hook 1.25mm. 
Finished doily diameter 17cm
Finished doily weight 7g
Comments  I found these instructions a tiny bit confusing as they seem to start each row with the last stitch of the previous row. However this was only a tiny thing, and overall this was a nice straightforward doily to make. 

The other doily in the photo is the tiny cluster doily. It is only 6cm across, and is made of clusters of five treble crochets.

Sunday, 26 July 2015

Evening stars

The reverse side of C & R's quilt features evening stars in three sizes- 6", 12" and 18". Using this as inspiration I drew the layout on graph paper and numbered the stars so I knew how many of each size to make. After all the stars had been made I took over the living room to design the quilt. I don't have a wall big enough to lay out this design. I try to get a balance across the quilt of the colour values. As well as staring at it a lot, I took photos on my ipad, which helps to get more perspective. Converting the photos to black and white helps to identify areas that stand out.

After I had decided the final layout, I labelled every star on the floor, and on the graph paper. See the little white tabs? This meant I could sort the stars into piles, and had a key to follow, releasing the living room to normal use while I sewed them together.