Mugrug Fun!

I love mugrugs!

They are really just mini quilts, an excuse to get down and creative on a small scale.  But they make great wee gifts too.

I recently made this one for my friend Sarah, whose birthday I missed!

Sarah recently encouraged me to try out some new/modern hexie designs that have been floating around the Hex-a-long flickr group.  I was delighted with how this one turned out (check out a great tutorial for this hexagon here).

If you are wondering 'why the monkey face?' it's not because Sarah has a particular fettish for them (at least I don't think so!), but this is her profile icon for her fab blog and flickr page.  

If you've never visited Sarah's blog - check it out!  Sarah has an amazing ability to make even sewing disasters sound funny!  She's a very talented quilter, writer, Brit Bee member & friend.

You may remember I signed up to the Small Goodies Swap being hosted by Fluffy Sheep.  This involves making a mugrug & small goodie for 2 people.

We've all now been assigned our partners - I'm really pleased with who I've got but I'm sworn to secrecy.  All will be revealed at the end of September.

Suffice to say, I have already started on one of the mugrugs ....

....and have some ideas on what small goodies to make too.

All will be revealed in time!

Enjoy your bank holiday Monday, Brits.

A Hexie Dilemma!

I love EPP (English Paper Piecing) because it's sociable!  You can sit with the family in the evenings, watching TV, sewing away.

This is what I did this week on holiday - growing my hexie collection (as inspired by Lily's Quilts Hex-a-Long). 

I've done my usual thing of not planning out a design in advance, and just going with the flow.

Well the flow has stopped!  I'm not liking the floral shapes the hexies are making, nor my 'filler' hexies.

While I choose vintagey fabrics, I didn't especially want a traditional design.

I don't even know what I'm going to turn these into - a cushion, a quilt?

What to do?

1. Unpick the hexies and resew them into a more modern shape e.g. pyramids, giant hexie?

2. Stick with what I have, add a few more & make a cot size quilt?

3. Abandon all hexies made so far, and start again, making a few more intricate hexies (as seen on flickr) which could then adorn a cushion front?

Vote now!!!!

Beginners' Makes

Well my Beginners worked liked trojans yesterday and got their log cabin cushions finished.

This was day 3 of 4, and it all came together for them - they loved it.  Some of them haven't sewn before, or in a long time, and certainly haven't made a cushion before, so the smiles were just a picture.

How creative they were, recycling lots of textiles.

With some time remaining, they quickly got stuck into cutting and starting their handbags.  

They'll get these finished on their final day with me next month, and I'm sure I'll have more smiley pictures to show you.

A big 'thank you' to my right hand woman, Sarah, for her amazing support and assistance during the day.  You make life a lot sweeter!

And today?

The sun is shining brilliantly in an amazing blue sky, and I've had almost a whole day sitting outside enjoying my garden and sewing hexies.

My shins have turned a lovely shade of spit-roast pink (think they might be sore tonight!) but that's okay - in 2 days time they'll be back to apple-white!

Before I go, I must recommend a book I've just finished - The Thirteenth Tale, by Diane Setterfield.  

This is one of the best books I've read in a long time, AND it has a satisfactory ending (how rare is that?).  I got this one from the library.  If you like a bit of mystery with an historical edge thrown in, then you'll enjoy reading this one, and it's brilliantly written.

Have you read anything good recently, with a really good ending?

Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

Steaming Ahead!

Today was (almost) bliss!

The sun was shining, and all 3 children were out of the house at the same time, for at least 2 hours!

I am fairly well caught up with work projects (starting my Beginner's group on a new project tomorrow) so thought I would treat myself to some of the many 'fun' projects I have on the go!

Firstly, I started quilting Crazy Daughter Quilt ..............

Going for diagonal lines through each block.  Not sure what I'll do in sashing yet.

......... but then ran out of chalk and thread!  

Despite eating into my precious free time to take a wasted trip to my LQS (they didn't have the thread colours I needed!), I was undetered, ordered some thread online, and hastily returned to my sewing room to start on something else.

The something else was my very neglected Kaleidoscope quilt.

I chain pieced like a demon and just to make sure the half blocks will align in the middle, I completed a block to reassure myself.

There's a heck of a lot of sewing stages to this wee gem, which is playing havoc with my indecisive creative mind, meaning I'm constantly changing designs the more I see this evolve.  

(More on that later when I finally decide on what this thing is going to look like.)

Finally, I went bin hoaking!

Just into my recycling bin to find some glossy/magazine type paper to use for my hexie papers.  I was taught to use slightly thicker/better quality paper as templates, and they are much easier to sew around.

So, cut, cut, cut, cut and I made lots of papers to stash in my vintage tin.  

When I was cutting a folded over leaflet, I had a bit of a eureka moment!

(This doesn't happen to my slow brain v.often so please humour me!)  

Let me demonstrate with this piece of A4 paper folded in half lengthways:

The fold is at the bottom, look closely at those little triangles in between the hexies.

After cutting out the hexie shapes, I noticed some other shapes appearing in between the hexies, and it turns out, when you open them out, they make great kite shaped papers. 

These can then be sewn up in fabric, to make a lovely addition to the hexies.

The design possibilities are endless!

I'm sure lots of you have already discovered this & have probably been making them since before you were weaned!  But I thought it was pretty cool.  

I don't have sophisticated design software to cleverly magic up shapes and designs, so I tend to arrive at these things 'old time'!  I would like to incorporate them someway into a hexie designed project, but it might be a bit of a stretch for my inept mathematical mind!  

Maybe I'll have another eureka moment this time next year!

Have a great weekend!

Not the Yellow Brick Road!

Picnic Rug complete!

I made the binding extra wide using all the fabrics that are in the quilt front.

All we need now is some nice warm sunshine & a picnic basket full of goodies!

I'm thinking of making a stylish wee carry bag for my rug to use up the leftovers.  Watch this space!

I've linked this post to Lynne's blog of Lily's Quilts. She's got a new monthly feature where you link photos of your favourite/happy project of the past month.  Go check out what projects have been making other bloggers smile!

Picnic Rug Progress

Last week I started working on turning blue & orange rectangles into a 'bricked' effect picnic rug.

Here's what I've done so far:

I've been in a bit of a dither over the quilting of this, 'cos I didn't feel the 'outline seam' quilting was enough, and the plain orange 'path' through the middle needed broken up a bit. 

A single line of quilting through the plain orange didn't satisfy either, and I'd done too much to then start free motioning all over it!  What to do?

After much deliberating, I used some of the fabric leftovers to make hexagons & laid them on the quilt in various ways to see what worked.

I'm liking it better now.  This pile of mess will be the binding:

Almost there!  Check back in a day or two to see the finished quilt!