Moving!

I have made a move! Onwards and upwards. You can now find me at FuKiTu. The name came out of a joke I had with a friend about calling a clothing label Fluffy Kitten Tummies. It's not quite a clothing label, but I am planning on updating more (that perennial blog joke) and possibly moving my sewing to a shared studio. Anyhoo, go, look, admire, bookmark if the fancy takes you.

Finished Post and Rail Baby Quilt.

I finished up the post and rail quilt I mentioned in my previous post last night. Have a stack of photos:

A better view of the backing fabric

Pinning the layers together in preparation for quilting (in my itsy bitsy lounge):

This is the first time I've had to piece batting for a quilt (the shop near my work had a tiny bit of woollen/cotton blend batting left when I went in). It's the first time I've used woollen batting before, and the lanolin smell reminded me of my mother's neglected spinning wheel from when I was a kid and of the sheep our neighbour used to herd across our driveway.

I'm really happy with how the finished product came out:

All prettied up with a bow:

As for my other projects on the go, I think I'm going to use the spare batting I have kicking around to fiiiinally get more of the cathederal window quilt underway. It's probably about half done now, so I think another couple of weekend's work will knock it out.

I also sort of threw in the towel with trying to hand quilt the entire rainbow quilt. I've had it sitting on my boyfriend's bed for the last month, and I've done bits and pieces of quilting whenever I went over but after seeing how quickly the baby quilt came together with machine quilting I decided to finish it off on machine this afternoon. It's a bit less than ideal trying to snuggle into a quilt covered in safety pins, and the colours (surprisingly) work well with the lime/purple colour scheme of his walls.

As you can see, my sewing table is very small and the quilt is very big. It's been quite pleasant having it draped across me while I work though, as Wellington has decided to sleet on everything.

Naturally when it came time to attach the binding George was committed to being a jerk helping

Finished photos due soon, when the quilt is actually finished (and when it's on a bed since my lounge is too tiny for a proper photo.) Of course, if the quilt lives at Bernie's house I'll need to make another one for my bed - I happened across some really richly coloured bedspreads from Urban Outfitters the other day, so now I'm thinking maybe a sea of greens or reds and oranges for my next full size quilt.

New WIP

I got my latest parcel from Hawthorne Threads yesterday and was SO excited. I'm making a baby quilt (the one I mentioned in my last post) and I'm so glad the fabric arrived quickly. I got started cutting last night, and thought I'd show off the fabrics I've picked out before posting progress pics.

I'm making a basic post and rail design, nice and bright and in quite neutral colours (yellow, green and orange/red palattes). The design is inspired by this quilt from Red Pepper Quilts. Photos are from my phone, so some are a little funky colour wise, but:

Greens, including Tula Pink's turtle bay and Amy Butler Delhi Blossoms in Lime.



I can't get over how cute the elephant/turtle combo is:



Yellows (or yellow-ish):



And orange/reds, including some of Anna Maria Horner's Field Study and a cute piece from Jennifer Paganelli which was on sale:



Plus this Bohemian Soul for the white accent stripes:



and this for the backing:



I'm looking forward to getting started on and finishing a smaller piece while I'm still chipping away at hand quilting my giant rainbow quilt.

That Quilt I Talked About Last Year

So last November I started making this quilt top. It took slightly longer than I thought and I then folded it up and it lived on the end of my couch for about four months. I fiiiiinally had enough coin to buy the batting and backing fabric (it's a mammoth - 2.4m wide and almost 3m long, so batting wasn't cheap.) I went luxe-ish, nice cotton batting which I'm liking so far (similar to this: Warm Company Batting ), and has made for a really smooth quilt which rolls and folds well. Complicating things further was the fact that the quilt top is bigger than the open space in the biggest room in my house:

George helped a lot, of course.

So, once I had a quilt top I had to find a space large enough to lay it flat and baste together the layers of the quilt, prior to the actual quilting. My lovely boyfriend has a studio about 20 minutes walk from my house so one Sunday night we went there to spread out the quilt He took photos!

I also took a perspective shot, approximately 300 safety pins in:

I opted for the safety pin method of basting, essentially because I am quite lazy and because I'm hand tying the quilt so I don't need to worry about negotiating them with a machine. Speaking of, I think I have some latent masochistic tendancies because hand tying a quilt this size suddenly seems like not such a fabulous idea, 1/30th of the way in. BUT this this is cute as hell and I have it draped over me while I'm working so it isn't all bad.

In new project news, a friend is having a baby quite soon so I just went a little nuts on Hawthorne Fabrics again. I'm excited about working on a baby quilt, just because I'm keen to have something that comes together quickly. I'm also on the look out for a nice fabric to bind the giant rainbow quilt with, suggestions in the comments welcome.

Adding another WIP to the pile.

Oops. It has been another Very Long Time since I updated. I am about to embark on a new quilt top project, but this one will be very simple. I got a collection of Amy Butler prints from Hawthorne Threads for my birthday back in October and told myself I wouldn't cut in to them until after my exams (in November.) Well my exams are done now, and tonight is super simple quilt top night, as decreed by me, chief sewer in the house. I'm hoping to whip this (WIP this? Hahaha, I'm here all week, try the veal!) all together tonight and maybe even start the quilting tomorrow. My last WIP is on standby (the cathedral window quilt) because I ran out of batting. It's around halfway done, though and maybe I can finish it up in time to be a Christmas present. It deserves some new photos, at any rate. The inspiration for tonight's quilt is this beauty. I love rainbows and big patterns and getting things done quickly because I am impatient. Ideal. See you in a few hours, blog.

No Words, Just Pictures.

Always Come Crawling Back (WIP Edition Remix.)

I'm back, with a few photos and a few good intentions. I'm working on a new quilt (aren't you surprised) and it's a long way from finished (the shock continues!!) I'm using black poplin as the frame for a basic cathedral window quilt - the finished squares are 17cmx17cm.

As you can see I'm still not a fan of little fussy patterns or pastel colours. I'm mixing designers like a mofo on this one too, so if it's going to trouble you to see some Amy Butler next to some hand dyed charm squares I picked up from a local seller then move along. Last night was pretty productive, really, hampered only by my little friend trying to help me feed the fabric through the machine.

Photos! To make up for this morning's text only post. I was as good as my word(s) though and finished off the corset. Here's an aerial view.

Plus some close ups of the crystals. They're Swarovski hot fix in 'crystal volcano' and they change from red to purple to green to gold. Looooovely. Even if my sister has accused me of 'going all pageant mum' with my recent fondness for sparkle. (To be honest, I'm beginning to doubt her commitment to sparkle motion...)

Soundtrack while I was applying the crystals was a bit more pop than my usual. The last week I've been playing Patrick Stump's solo releases high rotate. I've particularly fond of Spotlight (Oh Nostalgia). Go listen to that and imagine me dancing to it at bus stops all week and awkwardly stopping when someone else walks along the street. I decided that you can't bedazzle things while listening to Anthrax, so my entire afternoon has been songs I can shake my ass too.

Back to the corset though, here's a view of the hand bound eyelets I mentioned. I considered going over with a second layer of thread to hide the brass totally, but decided I sort of like it being visible.

And the contrast lining:

Hopefully I can put up a picture of my sister wearing it when I give it to her in a fortnight's time.

I also got a bit more done on the quilt-in-progress I'm working on. I ran out of thread, otherwise I'd have gotten a bit more sewn up tonight.

I'm kind of loving how quickly the herringbone pattern comes together. I reckon I can probably knock out the whole thing in a few hours of solid sewing. (Except it won't be happening tomorrow because, as I discovered a few weeks back, buying thread in Wellington on a Sunday? Not A Thing.

Catch Up

Naughty Megan, no updates for a couple of weeks! I have been working on things, but in bits and pieces and nothing worth posting. Last night I was a whirl of productivity though so I should have something to show you all soon.

The last week I've been hand sewing grommets onto the corset I'm making which to be honest hasn't been that exciting. I've mostly been sitting cross legged on my bed watching a terrible TV program while I sew blanket stitch ad nauseum. I would have used regular grommets but half of my hand setting die has gone wandering, argh.

Plus all my rhinestones arrived yesterday so I think I might spend some of today bedazzling everything I can get my hands on. Awww yeeeeah. More later lovies.

ETA: I am super super excited for the book Gertie is writing, particularly because it'll have this gorgeous wiggle dress pattern in it. Can't wait!

In which I talk about food and am indecisive.

Today was generally good, with a side of oh-no-the-supermarket-closed-early-because-it's-a-holiday followed by a delicious student cuisine dinner of sub-$1 noodles which I suspect I have hauled from flat to flat for the last three years. They were marinating in so much MSG I don't think it matters - they also came with a packet of sauce featuring such fabulous flavour sensations as VINEGAR and SALT. Not really the topic of this blog, but my deep disappointment that I couldn't buy the ingredients for the mini-feast I had been planning for the last two hours of work needed venting somewhere.

I also got some sewing done tonight: I attached the binding to the top of the corset and played around with what I'll do next. My sister mentioned she wants ruffles, and I was sort of envisioning ruffles over the bust, but I'm not sure how to do it and make it look good. I think maybe because the dupioni won't hold a crease it isn't looking as clean as I'd like. Here's a comparison picture, anyway:

I'm also sort of considering lace:

But I've also got my little sparkle loving self invested in the idea of putting rhinestones on it and I feel like lace + rhinestones will be too much. Oh dear. Don't worry, I'm really just wittering to myself here. I'll probably pin the lace on soon to get a real idea of how it'll look.

Anyway. There's not a lot more I can do without the boning and busk (or embroidery cotton for the eyelets - I think I'm going to hand sew them, because I hate fun and enjoy sewing blanket stitches for 10 hours.) Instead I used some of the fabric I cut for bone casings and didn't use to test a slightly different method of sewing herringbone blocks. I think I like this better:

Seeing it like that really makes me want to get a single fabric and sewing a sort of not-really-wholecloth quilt. Basically piece and sew an entire herringbone quilt of one fabric. Maybe this only sounds good in my head. I'm pretty stuck on it though, possibly a really chunky pattern? Maybe one of my next projects.

I also started piecing a block with the actual fabrics, but there are a couple of fat quarters still to arrive in the mail and I want to hold off adding much more so the various cottons are evenly spread. I like how it's looking though:

Minor Updates

Just a quick update on where my various projects are at. The corset is progressing well - I cut the lining yesterday:

And then sewed together the outer and inner pieces. I started off making external boning channels and swiftly reaslised that was quite a lot of work, and wasn't going to look very tidy given I prefer using 1/2" bones. So I moved to twill tape internal channels and sewed them all today.

(For reference - this has the lining folded out from the back - the curve in the top right of the image is the centre front of one half of the corset.)

Then I attached the lining to the outer, and turned and sewed the hem so that there's room for a 1/4" bone just before the grommets.

Speaking of, I lost half the die for my hand held grommet setter :( Boo. Not sure if the dies sold online are compatible, bother. I'm thinking of hand sewing the eyelets though, to make it tidier, but again, not sure if dooming myself to several hours of hand sewing is such a good idea. Hmm. Something to ponder.

The next step from here is attaching the binding to the top and bottom and inserting the bones and busk. The only fly in the ointment is that I still have to *order* bones and busk when my next pay cheque comes in, so that might be a couple of weeks off.

In the mean time I've been busily cutting strips from the quilting fabric, so once I've done all I can on the corset without further supplies I'll start work on that to keep me busy.