The Hoot has a home!

I received word that the little Hoot has reached his new home (see previous post) and I am happy to see that he coordinates with his new surroundings perfectly!

I gave a hoot!

When someone does something super wonderful for you, do you give a hoot? (To "give a hoot" is an idiom which means "to care about") Well, I do, and in this particular case, to say "thank you", I decided that I would give a Hoot!

It started with some eyes. I cut out two large blue circles & two smaller black circles from felt; and sewed them together with yellow embroidery floss using a blanket stitch.

And a Hoot's not a Hoot if it doesn't have footsies & flappers, so I cut those out of yellow felt & I blanket stitched around the edges with blue embroidery floss.

After I had attached the eyes, beak, flappers & footsies to the Hoot's body, I then machine sewed all the bits together leaving a small opening to stuff it.

This is my stuffing of choice - "Hobby Fill" from Spotlight. 

Please excuse the X-rated shot, but a Hoot's gotta get stuffed, and this was where his stuffing hole was...

And when my Hoot was stuffed I then sewed close his stuffing hole (the Hoot was gently anaesthetized first).

So there we have it, my finished Hoot:

 

Why don't you show someone special that you give a hoot by giving them a Hoot too!

This little Hoot is on his way to his new home. And no, I'm not going to spoil the surprise by telling you where he's going. Not yet anyway...

 

Would you like to make your own Hoot? 

Click here for Spotlight's "You're a Hoot Owl Cushion" Pattern.

Pattern Testing

I recently answered a call for help from the lovely Juliet at The Tartan Kiwi who needed some pattern testers to help test some of her new patterns.  Well you know how much I enjoy paper piecing so of course I put my hand up.

 

Juliet had recently released her "Big Bear" pattern and had designed some "Bear Paws" to accompany it as a border component.  The design features two paws, an angled one and a straight one. 

 

 

 

I went through my fabric stash and dug out a lion print and a cat print that I had been hoarding.  My idea was to maybe one day make a rather schmancy cushion for my gorgeous cat Gemma.  I found some coordinating solids and set to work making a test block.

 

 

Here is my finished Angled Paw Block. 

 

Here is my finished Straight Paw Block.

I found the pattern very easy to make.  As it is only 6.5" it uses many smaller pieces & I was able to make good use of most of my offcuts so I had very little fabric waste.
 

Now to decide which fabric I will pair them up with...

Very Cherry Swap

Back in July a friend alerted me that there was a swap starting up on Instagram called the #VeryCherrySwap  Naturally I was in.  I sent off my enquiry, filled in the questionnaire, and waited anxiously to see if I would be accepted.  After a few nervous days of waiting I received my acceptance notice and not long afterwards I was introduced to my Cherry Swap Partner - the lovely Kath. 

 

As it turned out Kath and I were already following each other on Instagram but we really didn't know all that much about each other.  Thus began a good friendship as we started stalking & researching each other and planned and plotted our cherry projects with assistance from the Secret Squirrel. Many sneaky peek photos were shared on Instagram as we taunted & teased each other along the way revealing hardly anything but the odd snippet of fabric or of squirrels eating cherries.  Many laughs were shared, many stitches have been sewn, and the secret squirrel has been well fattened by eating way too many cherries. 

 

I knew that Kath loves blue. I knew NOT to use any purple or batiks.  I knew that among her favourite designers is Bonnie & Camille (the others I either didn't have any of their fabrics or I didn't know of them).  And I knew that the types of items that she would be happy to receive are: "mini quilt, mug rug, cushion cover, sewing pouch or bag, pincushion, needle book". 

 

Over the next 2-months I browsed gift shops, supermarkets and of course eBay, searching for cherry related items to go in her parcel.  Now that our shipping deadline has passed and I know that Kath has safely received her parcel, I can finally show you items that I made for her.  I will do a separate post showing what I received from Kath.

 

Mini Quilt

 

I experimented with a few designs for a mini quilt.  I was quite fond of a free pattern by Podunk Pretties that I found online which used many HSTs to form the cherries; however the blocks measured 12.5" each and I wanted to use 5 cherry blocks.  When I reduced the size of the blocks they looked too warped.  I then tried to paper piece cherries but they looked too wrong for perfectionist me.  Eventually I decided to hand stitch the cherry panels with embroidery thread.  I used some "April Showers" and "Miss Kate" fabric by Bonnie & Camille for the spacer blocks.  Although I felt much happier with this approach the mini didn't quite have enough oomph (it's important that my quilts have the oomph factor!) so I decided to applique the centre cherry block. From memory the mini quilt measured about 18" square.

 

Sewing on the quilt label

 

Sewing Pouch or Bag

 

I'm still pretty inexperienced to sewing with zips, but I was determined to make something "zippy" for Kath which fitted this brief.  I contemplated making a "Sew Together Bag" for her but thought it might be a bit advanced for me with all of those zips, so instead I made a small & a large Open Wide Zippered Pouch (pattern by Noodlehead). 

 

The smaller bag is made & lined with "Avant Garden by MoMo by Moda" and the larger bag is lined with "Rose & Hubble English Collection by David Textiles Inc.".

 

 

Mug Rug

I still had an embroidered cherry panel left over from the mini quilt so I decided to turn it into a mug rug. 

 

Lately I have been sewing hexis at night (for another project), so I set about designing something combining these elements. 

Close up of the quilting.

 

I was determined to  use more blue so I pulled out my "Miss Kate" by Bonnie & Camille and found some yummy coordinates amongst my scrap container.  Both the red solid and the blue solid (used for the binding) are from "Miss Kate".

 

The good thing about making 1" hexis is that you only need scraps measuring 2.5" square.  Yes I keep almost all of my scraps, you never know what you can do with them!

 

I finished it off by hand quilting in blue thread (I  used white thread on the cherry panel), sewing about 1/4" inside and outside of all of the seams.  I used more of the "Rose and Hubble" cherry fabric on the back.

 

 

 

Extra Cherry Goodness

 

Here are photos of some of the extra cherry goodies which I included in Kath's parcel:

 

Air Freshener, Lip Gloss & Crafty Cherries

 

a limited edition Dark Chocolate Ganache Cherry Ripe, a Cherry Bounty, a Cherry Ripe & a tin of Cambridge & Thames Cherry Drops

Not cherry related but some variegated blue sock wool from the Bendigo Woollen Mills as Kath likes to knit

The Cherry Fabrics

 

Here is a close up of the two cherry fabrics that I used.

 

On the left is "Rose & Hubble English Collection by David Textiles Inc." & on the right is "Avant Garden by MoMo by Moda"

 

 

The Results: Kath received her parcel today.  Here is her feedback:

 

Tutorial - String Circles Block

Kerry's String Circles block

The following tutorial has been written to assist my fellow Quilty Sisters in making their String Circles bee blocks.  This is an alternate option & is easier than what is in the book & you won't need to buy any fancy equipment.  All you need is 3 photocopies of the template page and a 90/14 sewing machine needle.

I have purposely NOT included measurements or the templates for this block as it is subject to copyright.  If you would like the pattern for this block, please purchase the book: "Modern Bee - 13 Quilts To Make With Friends" by Lindsay Conner.  It is an excellent book and the profits will go to those who are due them.

 

Yes it looks scary, but I urge to you to give it a try and I think you will amaze yourself!  Prior to making this block I had never sewn a circle before.  I do paper piece but not the method shown in this book.  I am self taught with one of Carol Doak's books & tutorials.  It seems to make more sense in my brain than other methods I have seen.  If you are more comfortable using a different method of paper piecing by all means go for it.  There are no quilt police!

 

These photos were originally posted on Instagram with the hash tag #KerrysCirclesOfDoom - I have reposted them here to make life easier.

 

 

Setting Up: I have photocopied the template from the book and sticky taped it together using magic tape to form a circle.  Use a size 90/14 needle in your sewing machine & set your stitch length to 1.5 - this will make it easy to remove the paper at the end without ripping apart your stitches.  Normally I would use an open toe foot for paper piecing however this is so simple that your regular 1/4" foot should work fine.  By the way I have the photocopy paper around the wrong way in this photo - you want to join the strips to THE BACK of the paper and not the front. See next photo...

Block Assembly: Forget the glue stick the book talks about.  Instead lightly finger press the white strip down the centre & align the fold mark with the centre of the white circle.  Pin it in place.  Place coloured strip FACE DOWN & join as per instructions in book.  IMPORTANT: The printed side of the paper is face down with the fabric strips being sewn on to the back of the paper.  Also make sure that your strips of fabric are long enough & wide enough to cover over the outer circle on the template once they are sewn together, otherwise you will need to redo this with wider/longer strips.

This is the easy bit - lay fabrics face down upon the previous piece, aligning the right hand sides.  Sew them together on top of the paper using 1/4" seam.  Fold over each piece after it is sewn and press the seam straight & flat before joining the next piece.  {Worse case scenario, if you cannot manage this, just sew your strips together & use the circle as a pattern to cut them out.  Personally I found the paper helped to stabilise the circle as I sewed it but I have since sewn another circle without the paper & found it ok}.  It doesn't really matter which method you use as long as your seams are straight & the end result looks fab!

Cut out the pieced bit along the outer circle of the template.

I don't have one of those fancy cutting circle thingies that is shown in the book & I wasn't going to rush out to buy one so I just folded the white backing fabric into quarters; folded the template in half & pinned it to the fabric making sure that my folds & edges were properly aligned.

Cut out white circle from the background fabric along the smaller circle line. This photo depicts the three pieces that you should now have.  You will not be using the inner white circle. 

Joining the two sections: Now you are ready to pin the white background to the coloured circle.  You will need LOTS of pins.  The easiest way to explain how to pin is by imagining the coloured circle is a clock face.  Place pins opposite each other as follows: pin 12 o'clock then 6 o'clock; pin 3 o'clock then 9 o'clock; pin 1 o'clock then 7 o'clock; pin 4 o'clock then 10 o'clock; pin 2 o'clock then 8 o'clock; pin 5 o'clock then 11 o'clock; and then fill in any gaps with more pins. 

Very very carefully sew 1/4" around the 2 layers of fabric, removing the pins as you go & smoothing out the fabric.  Make sure the two layers of fabric are even as you sew. As the paper is still attached to the bright circle, you are still using a 90/14 needle & a 1.5 stitch length.  Anything different could make removing the paper difficult and you could rip out your stitches when you remove the paper

Here's a tip - I often use my unpicker to hold the fabric flat in front of the needle as I sew. It's better than sewing over your finger & you can get in nice & close.  Using one hand to hold the fabric at the back will give you more control.  And sew SLOWLY!!  Snail pace.  It is not a race and will help you smooth out the fabric as you sew.  You may have doubts & think that you will have excess fabric left over but you won't.  It is just an optical illusion.  As long as you have cut the two pieces on the correct template and pin well & smooth out your fabric it will match up beautifully!!!  Oh & don't forget to breathe! ;0)

 

This is how it SHOULD look after you have sewed the inner circle to the background fabric.  Now you can remove the paper.  Gently tug it and rip it off.  As long as you used a small stitch length of 1.5 & a size 90/14 needle the paper should be easy to remove by hand.  If any paper is caught in the stitches just use tweezers to remove it.  You might wonder why I keep harping on about this stitch length & needle size.  The wider needle will punch a larger hole through the paper making it easier to tear.  The smaller stitches will create a stronger stitch that won't rip away when the paper is removed and it will also help to perforate the paper making it easier to remove.

This is how the top layer should look before it is ironed. Iron from the back and gently flatten out the join before flipping it over and ironing the front. 

And there we have one completed "citrus" circle of doom.  Mine has a few wrinkles around the join but Julie says that using starch will hide this. The brand she recommends is "Best Press" but it is not the cheapest on the market and is usually sold in quilt shops.  But she says that any starch will do.

 

Kerry also sent a link to a tutorial that she found on Pinterest and hoped that it would offer extra help for the circles:

http://machenundtun.blogspot.com.au/2011/04/tutorial-how-to-sew-circle.html?m=1

 

 

Tutorial - Baseball Curves Block

The following tutorial has been written to assist my fellow Quilty Sisters in making their Baseball Curves bee blocks. 

I have purposely NOT included measurements or the templates for this block as it is subject to copyright.  If you would like the pattern for this block, please purchase the book: "Modern Bee - 13 Quilts To Make With Friends" by Lindsay Conner.  It is an excellent book and the profits will go to those who are due them.

 

Yes it looks scary, but no it really isn't THAT bad!! I actually found this to be a rather quick & easy block to make (despite stopping every few minutes to document the process).  And yes, this was my first attempt.  If you have ever made toys, clothes or sewn curves, I don't think you should have any real dramas with this block. 

IMPORTANT!  DO NOT cut out your (A) piece (the one that looks like a bow tie) with the grain line!!!  IGNORE the arrow symbol in the book and ignore the grain line.  If the inner dressmaker in you follows the symbol you will end up having issues when up join the pieces together.  Also when you cut your low volume pieces, add about 1/2" to 1" extra length to each side.

 

 Cut out your templates.  Template A is only shown as half so fold your fabric in half and make sure the fold is down at the correct end of the fabric.  Pin the template to fabric.  (TIP) where the template says "Half of pattern" I folded this edge of the template and tucked the fold under the folded over fabric to stop it from moving and then pinned it in place. 

 Carefully cut ON the cutting line (which is the darker line of the template.  The dashed line represents the 1/4" sewing line). I used a ruler & rotary cutter on the straight sides & just the rotary cutter on the curves but if you are more confident to use scissors go for it.  If in doubt then trim a millimetre outside the cutting line. 

 

 

 

This is how your centre piece (A) should look once it is cut out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

OK, since I am so blonde I didn't realise that B comes after A, I chose to cut out the (C) pieces next ;0)

 

You will need 2 pieces so again I folded over the fabric and cut both pieces at once. I pinned the template to the fabric & used my ruler and rotary cutter to cut the straight edges and carefully cut the curves on the solid line using either rotary cutter or scissors.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We now have 2 (C) pieces cut out. YAY

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now cut out 2 pieces from template (B).  Again I folded over the fabric, pinned the template and cut both pieces at the same time.  Congratulations, you are now an expert pinner & cutter outer of templates WOOHOO ;0)

 

 

 

And here they are. 

Easy peasy.

 

The 5 cut out pieces should look like this >>>>

 

 

 

 

 

Now the fun begins. It's time to sew the pieces together! 

 

Start with (A) and a (B). 
Fold (A) in half and finger press the centre line. 
Do the same with (B). 

With (A) on top, match up the folded lines and pin together.  Make sure the edges are properly aligned.  Follow the curve and pin the two pieces together flattening & gently stretching the fabrics as you go.  As we have cut a curve into the fabric the fabric will be a bit stretchy.  Do not pull it too tight, just be gentle and use LOTS of pins. This is how it should look once it is pinned. (TIP) I spaced my pins out every 1/4" to 1/2".

Now for the scary part (queue music...) it's time to sew.  Use your 1/4" foot, sew slowly, & don't forget to breathe.  Make sure edges are properly aligned as you slowly stitch around the curve.  Use your finger to carefully guide the fabric through the machine along the curve making sure to flatten out any wrinkles or bumps and remove pins as you come to them.  You might need to gently manoeuvre (or gently stretch) the fabric as you go. The book recommends to position one hand near the presser foot & one between the fabric layers being sewn together for extra control.

How did you go?  Breathing again?  On page 94 the book shows how they have clipped the curves to help the fabric sit flat.  My mum was a dress maker before she retired & I was given her pinking sheers so I have used these on ALL OF MY CURVES.  Clip or snip close to the stitching line but be careful not to snip through your stitches otherwise you will need to re sew it.

When making something like this I prefer to press as I go.  That way I can identify any issues and tackle them head on.  For curves I prefer to gently press along the sewing line and then do as Darth Vader suggests and "Press towards the Dark Side!"

This is how it should look.  It should sit completely flat.  If it doesn't, check that you have followed all instructions properly so far. 

(TIP) If I have a stubborn seem that refuses to lie flat I often spray it with some water from a spray bottle and then press it with a hot dry iron until it yields.

We now want to sew a (C) to our (AB).  Finger press a centre line in your (C) and your (AB) piece.  Match up the folded centre lines and pin together.  Continue to pin the two pieces together just like you did before.

This is how it should look when pinned. >>>

Sew the (C) and the (AB) together just like you previously sewed the (A) and the (B) together.  Clip/snip along your curve and press towards the dark side with a hot dry iron (using a water spray if needed).

I have shown a back and a front view of how it should look once pressed.  It should lie completely flat once pressed.

 
Once you are happy with your joined (ABC) it is time to join the second (B). 
Finger press the centres.
Match up centre points & pin together.
Sew.
Clip/Snip. 
Press. 
Breathe. 
Rejoice.




Next find your centre points of your (ABBC) and the second (C).
Finger press the centres.
Match up centre points & pin together.
Sew.
Clip/Snip.
Press.
Breathe.
Wahoo out loud because you're nearly done!

Check for flatness as you go.  If you find that your block starts to stick up a bit, iron it from the centre of the block pressing slowly out to each side and manoeuvre the fabric gently with your hands as you go.  Remember the fabric will have some stretch to it so be gentle and if it refuses to yield, spray that rebel with water and press it flat.  Show it who's the boss!  YOU ARE!

 

Guess what.  You're finished! 

It should now look something like this:

 

 

Now that wasn't so hard after all was it?

 

Don't forget that Jo has asked us NOT TO TRIM our blocks as she wants to do that herself to make sure that all the curves line up.

A special thanks to Kelly and Julie for your feedback and experimentation.  Sharing the problems that you experienced with this block has helped us to work out ways to help others when they go to make their blocks.  Much Liberty fabric was sacrificed in the name of research trying to sort out the grain line issues.