September Calendar

And here we go again with my square for September in the British Quilters List Challenge for 2009.

This is a small interpretation of Log Cabin. The logs are cut at 3/4" and end up at ...oups ! 3/8" instead of 1/4". at the end my block measured 13 1/2" so had grown 1". But then when it is on the wall by itself nobody will notice.

I made my 16 log cabin squares and played with possible designs. Here are a few photos.

I chose the last design, partly because I had never done it.

And here it is pieced together.

And I wondered how to quilt it.

I opted for some kind of leaves, accentuating the diagonal lines. There are 3 in 2 corners of each little square.

They look almost like butterflies, or hearts.

Owl pencilcases

In August I was lucky to attend the Festival of Quilts in Birmimgham. I bought this fabric and have made 3 pencil cases with it.

One has gone for DD1, the second to Kandy from BQL and I'm keeping the third one for myself.

I spent Tuesday at Kandy's house and we had lots of fun. She has displayed a lot of her work around the house, and showed me where she sews. I had a little taster on EQ6 (the program to plan your quilts, but it does lots of others things as well..). And very quickly it was time for me to go pick up the girls from school.

We'll have to do it again Kandy. It was great.

House key ring

Here is a little project I started during the holidays.

I made it all by hand because I didn't have a machine there, and finished it when I came home because Iwanted to use a key fob; this way I can change the keys, or not take the little house with the keys if I have a very small bag.

It comes from this magazine, written by Veronique Requena, which went out of print because it sold so well, and has been made into a book. I am afraid it is only available in french at the moment, also I only looked on Amazon UK for an english version.

She is also the owner of the shop in Bourgogne, France, "Born to Quilt".

The pattern is pretty simple, measure your keys and the space they need, and you could adapt it to suit your needs.

DD4 new dress

You would think that having daughters I would get to sew them some clothes. But no, they are not interested any more. Not at 15, 13, 11...and then yes maybe, but really to please me, at 8. Finally.

I let DD4 choose her fabrics, and she picked one by the Japanese Lecien. She's got good taste or what. And if I bought it, I've got to use it.

I picked a raspberry pink for the fabric under. This dress is almost 2 dresses. The pattern is the same except one is longer than the other. Oh and I had to recalculate because they didn't go up to her size.

Then I zigzaged some leaves design on the front dress, and cut the holes to see the fabric of the second dress.

There is no button, zip, or other opening way to help put the dress on. And so it was good that I could try it all the way on my daughter, because when she put her arms up, it changed the width of her shoulders, and I had to make some adjustments.

The book I used is in french, " Les vetements de petite fille" by Cecile Vincent, and I loved the photos, the ideas, the colours. But I found that the explanations were a bit light, especially if you had never done anything like this. I used my own method in some parts. And there was no mention of the seam allowances, and where they should be.

It's a book to give you ideas, show you the way Cecile Vincent has done it, but you need to know how to make clothes to really be able to use it.

August Calendar

How annoying when the computer doesn't work perfectly. I had some difficulties getting the internet these last few days, and my machine is getting slower. Time to buy a new one I suppose.

I have been sewing since my last post, but had no time to post about it. But my girls will all be back at school on Tuesday, and things should get better.

I planned (in my head) a long post about our August quiltlet for the BQL challenge. So here I go.

The idea was to use 36 half square triangles, made with 2 or more colours to make a 12 " square. When I visit the British Quilters List website I can see all the variations in design and choice of colours, and it is quite amazing.

I took some photos while working to show you my technique. Just if you are interested.

I used 4 fat 8 with slight variations in colour, 2 yellows and 2 reds. I put a yellow and a red right sides together and drew squares on the back of one. They were 3" squares with one diagonal drawn down a few of them. You really need to look at the photo.

I sewed 1/4" along both sides of each diagonal. So you start at the top of your squares, put the side of your 1/4" foot along the line on the right, follow it all the way, turn and come back on the other side of the diagonal. There is no sewing on the other lines, you use them for cutting your squares, horizontally and vertically. Then cut the squares on the diagonal : you get 2 half square triangles sewn in the middle.

You have to square them up, in my case to 2 1/2".

I then played with the design of my block, trying to find something I had not seen before. I don't know if my result has a name already, but I'm quite pleased with it.

When my design was decided, I sewed the squares following Eleanor Burn's method. I took the squares 2 by 2 in a column, and sewed them together chain piecing all the way. I then added the 3rd column, and the 4th till the last squares were all attached. I realised at that point that some had moved. See on the right of the photo below. I changed that of course.

I try to alternate the way the seam allowances go, to reduce the volume that gathers at the meeting points. That was difficult to achieve in this case, but it makes the quilting easier.

I did some free motion quilting in the yellow, which got DD3 interested. She wants to try this.

There is also a photo of the back.

Instead of binding it I used a thick thread and a zigzag stitch all the way around. Cut the fabric left and sew again. I don't think the result is as finished as binding is, so will probably go back to my usual method next time.

I'll try to post more regularly now, I've got things to show you...