Almost done...

In between all other projects this one is still going. The rag quilt for my little girl. This week I finally put together all the squares & rows. Looking great, don't you think?
Normally you stitch and cut around the outer border like you did with the edges of the squares but I decided I prefer a proper border/binding. So went online and ordered some more fabric from the same range. It was quite hard because the range is sold out almost everywhere or just little bits left. Luckely I did find a shop that still had enough left.
I am in LOVE with this fabric. It really brightens the day. Then I started doing some maths to work out how wide the stripes should be to make the desired border (Yes, I know I should have done that before I ordered but thank goodness I ordered enough!!). I cut all the strips and am busy sewing them around the quilt. (Photo's of this will follow!) All that's left when I finished the border is cutting/clipping all the seams in the quilt. This makes the seams soft and fluffy. This is a picture of the seams before clipping.
And this is how it looks after a few hundred cuts. Very cuddly!!

I'm very glad I bought the special rag quilt scissors from Fiskars which make clipping the seams soooooo much easier. Hope you like it!

It's done!

Finally I finished my first quilt! Wohoo. I'm so happy how it turned out.
I loved making every bit from chosing the fabrics, sewing the squares together, the sashing (light purple around the 4x9 squares), the border (dark purple) and the binding (green edge).

I enjoyed the free motion quilting very much and am so happy I just did it. It just makes the quilt.

This is the backside. You can see how the squares pop-up, because of the machine quilting in straight lines around the edges of the squares.

I would love to start on a next quilt but I really have to focus on filling quite a few removal boxes now first because we are moving houses (and countries) in 5 weeks time.

Hope you like my quilt.

Found it !!

After waiting and thinking about what to do with the border, I finally found some more courage and decided just to try the free motion quilting. I thought since it's my first quilt ever, it's ok to have some irregularities. So half an hour before preparing dinner I put my sewing machine on the dinning table and took off.
See the silly gloves? They give a very good grip to move the fabric around.
I am soooooo happy I did take the step to try the free motion quilting!!! I think I did a pretty good job for a first and am very hapy with the outcome. The fabric is just perfect for it too.

When it did get to preparing dinner time my mum stepped in, so I could continu quilting. Thanks mum! After dinner I finished the quilting and trimmed the edges. Bit scary though ;-).

I had already prepared my binding a few days ago, so was able to just keep going. With the help of the tutorials mentioned on the Above All Fabric website adhering the binding wasn't a big problem to tackle either.

I still have to match up the beginning and the end of the binding as you can see in the photo and then handstitch the binding tothe back. I hope the kids will have a good afternoon nap today because I can't wait to finish it :-D.

This is how it looks from the front (still pins in the back to keep the binding in it's place!).

Hope you like it as much as I do!

Quick project on the side.

Today I went to the second hand shop to try to find some glitter-fabric piece of clothing which I could turn into a circus-outfit for my daughter who's invited for a circus-themed birthdayparty this weekend. A friend gave me this advice since our craft shop is quite expensive. Well, I found a really great short black dress with gold glitter, perfect size for the circus-dance lady she wants to be, bargain prize $1, woohoo! I also found this little red shirt with airplanes and I remembered my son still has a (boring) red top waiting for some applique.
Luckely on the back of the shirt there were 2 complete airplanes, because all the ones on the front are missing the tail of front, which I didn't notice untill I was home, lesson learned here! (I think I can unpick the pocket and use the one underneath later). I used iron-on Vliesofix on the wrong side of the fabric and cut out the 2 airplanes. (for some weird reason this photo keeps turning on it's side ?!?!).

I ironed them on the front of the red top so they won't shift while I sew them on. (you can still see the change of colour from the heat of the iron, it changes back after cooling down!).

I used a blanket stitch on my sewing machine to sew them on.

And a happy, chappy little bloke!

And yes, my little girl was over the moon with her circus dress!

Still going.....

After quite some basting and some time finding my courage I took the step to the actual quilting.
I decided to do machine quilting. I haven't got the patience for hand quilting and free motion looks great but...... very difficult. It was a challenge to handle this size and thickness under my machine.
But I am very pleased with hte result so far.
As told to do so, I started with the squares from the middle and worked my way to the edges. Then I did the sashing.

At this point I'm deliberating about how to do the borders for more then a week..... Not good :-(.

I tried some free motion with my new ordered darning foot but this really needs some more practice. Well I really want to get going so will have to make a decision soon!

See you later!

Quilt in progress.

After a few more days this week sewing, pinning, ironing seams, cutting more strips etc. I'm quite a bit further on the way to finish my first quilt. The top was all done. Went to the craft shop (twice) to get fabric for the binding (the lime-green), the backing (the brown) en the batting (the white (soft bits that goes in betweet the top and back)).
After my first visit to the craft shop, I came home with the wrong size batting. I had asked for 46' and meant square but didn't say. So when I put everything together it happened to be 46' long but at the maximum 42' wide..... That's wasn't enough.

So went back the next day and explained the mistake and came home with much thicker, but the right width batting. I could continue my project.

Then the basting was the next step to take. This means you pin the top, batting and back together with curved safety pins. You pin on lots of places to keep them lined up well, so you can turn it all over without the layers sliding apart.

Now I need to get some courage to actually start quilting. I LOVE the free motion quilting but think that's to much risk of faillure since I haven't done it before and it requires quite some practicing to get it right. So I'll start with straigt line quilting, tonight :-D.

Have a good Easter Weekend!!

Above All Fabric - Spring Quilt Along

A few weeks ago my friend Jo made me aware of the Spring Quilt Along that was going to run at http://www.aboveallfabric.com/ . This was the change to make a proper quilt with the help of a proffesional! Jo & I made our first quilt blocks a few months ago when Quilts-for-Queensland was on. The idea was to make 12inch quilt blocks, send them to a lady who would collect them and with the help of very experienced quilters make them into quilts. Those quilts are being hand out to people who lost their belongings in the Queensland floodings. What's nicer to get, when you've lost lots or even everything, than something specially handmade for you. So after a few blocks each, we were bitten by the quilt-bug. :-) You can see the Quilt Along on here: www.aboveallfabric.com/blog/?page_id=4542

This is 1 of her examples to get you going! Everybody can quilt along, you can upload photo's of your quilt on Flickr but don't need to if you don't want to (but then you won;t be able to win 1 of her $30 vouchers!).

First I just wanted to use my stash but allthough I've quite a bit, not enough different & still matching ones. So I had to go to the local craftshop and buy some more fabrics :-D. This is what I came up with.

The pattern says to cut 36 5 inch squares and lay them in 4 blocks of 9.

Then you sew them together row by row, block by block.

The next step is to sew the sashing in between. That's the fabric that goes between and around the blocks.

The border is what's following then. And all of this is, step by step, on the Above All Fabric Blog.

For some reason this last photo went on it's side, but you can see it all came together quite nice.

Wednesday she's going to explain to put on the batting (the soft bits in between the fabric on the front and back), the backing and quilting. Can't wait! Do have to have another visit to the craftshop for fabric for back & binding (the final edge to smooth the sides). How unfortunate ;-)!