Supermonkeeee…….

I finished this little chap a couple of weeks ago, but have only just got around to taking his photo – now that the sun has come out, I thought I’d better get on with it! Once I’d finished the bunny for Charlie, I knew I had to make Jamie another monkey friend – and I think I like him even better than the bunny!

It’s funny making all these little crocheted pieces which look nothing like an animal when they are all separate – monkey’s muzzle, for example, looked a bit like a cream beret for bunny to start with 🙂 – but when you sew them all together, it’s amazing how it all just suddenly works. I like his smiley face too – all soft toys should have smiley faces!

  

Supermonkey has an embroidered ‘S’ on his tummy, to match his super-cool pants and just confirm his ‘super’ status! His cape is a piece of blue felt that I had lurking from a stack I bought from the lovely Paper-and-String felt/buttons/bits and pieces shop – I got the brads I used for monkey’s eyes from this shop too – don’t you just love it when you decide to make something and find you have all the things you need already? Very satisfying.

 

Here he is enjoying the sunshine

And getting ready to play on the slide

Cape on – ready to go. Is it a bird, is it a plane? No its supermonkeeee……………….

Project ‘New Baby’ …

.. phase 1 is complete – yay! Finished the tumbling blocks quilt this week for a forthcoming arrival and I’m really happy with it. This is the quilt that uses some of Kate Spain’s Central Park fabric (how much do I love that range!) and also the pattern that Kate designed  (link here).

The fabrics were a real joy to work with (so soft and they held their shape beautifully!) and the pattern goes together really easily – 2 strips of fabric 6 1/2 ins high are joined, then cut using a 60 degree ruler (I have a 60/90 ruler that I bought from the quilt shop, when my last effort at ‘tumbling blocks’ went a bit astray and this was it’s first outing). Each pair of triangles is then joined to make a diamond, with alternating hexagons – so easy even I can do it!     

I quilted it with a swirly meander, using the darning foot on the sewing machine  – I think my free motion quilting is definitely improving! I wouldn’t say I feel relaxed exactly while I’m quilting, but I am remembering to breathe, which I guess is a bonus 🙂 – I just need to remember to move my hands otherwise I end up with my nose pressed to the quilt and my hands extended either side of the quilt!!!!

There was a minor crisis last Saturday night when my darning foot broke (cue lots of swearing and stamping of feet!) – there was a funny ‘clunk’ and then the resistance while I was moving the quilt under the needle seemed to disappear. I didn’t worry too much to start with as the stitching on the top was fine and it felt easier moving the quilt – but when I  looked back at the work I’d done, the top thread was looped up underneath – and bright orange thread on a white background does tend to show up a little!! Aaaaaaaaarrrrrgh! I discovered that the metal bar at the top of the darning foot (the one that sits on top of the needle clamp) had broken off (don’t ask me why – didn’t think I’d been that rough with it!!) – anyway, it had thrown all the tension out. So, lots of unpicking later ……..

Luckily, I remembered reading something about darning feet on Leah Day’s blog on free motion quilting  – Leah is amazing and posts some wonderful tutorials on her free motion designs. She also has lots of useful tips and I’d already followed her advice to break open my darning foot by cutting a section out of it, so that I could see the needle more easily. She also recommends bending that top metal bar of the darning foot up  and out of the way, anyway, and adding an elastic band underneath the bar (yes, really) to get the foot to sit higher above the quilt  – again, so that you can more easily see what you’re doing.

So – once I’d stopped panicking, that’s what I did – and the foot works just as well, if not better, than before! Thanks Leah 🙂

I did a swirly meander everywhere apart from on the giraffe, which I outlined with a double border – and then, to try and differentiate it from the rest of the quilt, I added some ‘patches’ to mimic the patterns on a real giraffe. I really liked the effect, but they’ve disappeared a bit, now that the quilt has been washed and gone all crinkly! I think you can just about see the outline of the giraffe still.

 

The quilt got a little baby brother (or sister!) in the form of a little fleecy blanket with matching giraffe

I used the giraffe template the same size as the quilt, and used the same fabric to tie everything together – the blanket has the same binding as the quilt too – ‘scrappy’ style, using all of the fabrics that were in the quilt. I love the act of  ‘quilting’ and seeing the 3 layers of fabric/batting join together and become something different – something more than the individual layers, but I still enjoy binding the most, I think. I’m always amazed at how it transforms a project before your eyes into something ‘complete’. Oh, and I do love sitting sewing peacefully with a quilt over my knees – I have to admit I usually fall asleep at this point, though, so it can be a long process!!

 The last part of this little bundle is ‘Gemma Giraffe’ – a cheeky little amigurumi in bright orange and aqua, to match (I use the word loosely!) the quilt and blanket

I was going to say I’ve got quite ‘hooked’ on amigurumi (ho ho ho) but maybe that pun is a step too far, even for me! I spotted a pattern for a giraffe in the little book that I bought, though and I thought I just had to make one to go with the other bits – these little crochet animals are really sweet and very easy to put together. Gemma’s ‘mane’ took quite a long time (do giraffes really have that much hair???) but she was good fun to make – I love how increasing and decreasing gets those little ‘foot’ (or should I say ‘hoof’?) shapes at the end of the legs – so, so sweet, even if crocheting rounds of 4 stitches is a bit of a challenge!

 

She’s a bit bright in that ‘jaffa’ orange but hey, babies like bright colours – don’t they ???

So, the baby bundle is now complete and has gone off to a staging post (grandma’s house) until the baby arrives  🙂

Time to move on now to baby’s big sister – something in yummy pinks and blues from the beautiful Delilah range of fabric by Tanya Whelan. I see more quilts, a cushion and possibly some bunting coming here soon!

Now with added giraffe

The tumbling blocks quilt is coming along well – yesterday I added a border and today a giraffe – I really like how the border has brightened the quilt up, I was suprised how much difference it made! And the giraffe 🙂 – very cute! I had to take the original paper template to Staples to get them to enlarge it by 300% for me – I tried scanning it on the computer and enlarging it, but it didn’t seem  to make much difference, so not sure what happened there – anyway, the nice people at Staples had a HUGE photocopier and got it to the right size for me. I thought it looked a bit big, but when I put it on the quilt, it looked fine

In the pattern, the giraffe is off to one side but because I used some of the fabric that’s already in the quilt, I had to move it over a bit so that it could be seen. Still loving that bobbinfill thread I put in the machine this week – no snags, no pulls, just seems to glide through the machine. Have to admit I do worry about doing machine applique sometimes, as the tension is often a bit off so I either have bobbin thread showing up on the top, or top thread on the bottom. I did have to adjust the bobbin tension when I put the new thread in, as it’s such a fine thread (60wt polyester) but apart from that I haven’t had to tweak anything and I’m so chuffed with it – dare I say it, I enjoyed appliqueing this giraffe to the quilt top (now there’s a sentence I don’t use every day!)

 

Ok, got to go and piece the back now – can’t wait to start quilting this! Fingers crossed 🙂

 

Where does ….

… the time go? It’s been a whole month (nearly) since my last post – I have been busy though, honest! Ok, so I may have read the odd book or 3 (I know, what was I thinking? So many quilts to make) but I still managed to do this

a test piece on shadow quilting that I started at a workshop and finished at home (do I like it? Not sure yet – interesting having a go though)

 this tumbling blocks quilt (with a twist – ok, a hexagon)

this rocket ship pram blanket (you can find the pattern for the applique here)

and this little amigurumi bunny

I’ve just bought a book an Amigurumi – not something I knew much about until recently. I think I first saw the word on Anna Maria Horner’s blog (love that new fabric she’d just launched, LouLouThi – scrummy!!) but I kind of skimmed it, made a mental note to ‘google’ it cos it sounded interesting and then never did. Then I was looking at a book catalogue in the shop a couple of weeks ago, saw one on Amigurumi Robots and fell in love !

This is Laura Bunny, as christened by Charlie who now has – ooh, maybe 7? bunnies? Did I mention she likes – no, loves – bunnies? Anyway, she was very easy to make and I was pleased at how she turned out for a first effort. I’m now busy making a ‘super-monkey’ (he even has a cape!) for Jamie who likes – ok, loves – monkeys. So far so good – may have to make myself the penguin next – although the zebra is very cute, oh and the frog … oh well, they’re a bit more portable than quilts to carry round and work with 🙂

Speaking of quilts, the Central Park tumbling blocks quilt got off to a good start this week – on Monday I had a pile of these

and by yesterday (Thursday) they had turned into the quilt top above – I wasn’t completely sure how to order the fabrics as I used different ones to the pattern (which you can find here)  but I think it looks ok – the blocks should have a bit of a 3d effect, so I hope I ticked that box 🙂 – just need to add the border, an applique giraffe (ooh, should be fun!) and then I can get on with some swirly quilting.

I bought some lovely orange variegated King Tut thread for the top, which I’m really looking forward to using  (sad case that I am – night out on the town, maybe? No, cup of tea and some shiny thread for me, please!) – the same time I ordered that, I got some ‘Superior Thread’ bobbinfill – think it’s called the bottom line, or something like that and, wow, is it gorgeous!! Finally decided to read up on threads (I had a look at some stuff on the Barnyarns website which was really helpful) and this looked like it could be good one to try. I’ve got loads of spools of thread that I’ve bought and tried over the years, without really understanding what I’ve got, so I’ve had a good sort out, by type and weight – cotton, polyester, metallic etc. Hopefully if I think a bit more about which needle and thread I’m using, it will make a difference when I get around to quilting this next quilt – Sugar Pop was a bit of a trial in the end, and although I the quilting is ok(-ish), I struggled getting it through the machine and I think  that shows – well, to me anyway.

I even cleaned and oiled the machine this week and it hasn’t been clunking quite so much – I must have cheered it up a bit, with a makeover and some lovely new thread to use. Lynette (aka The Stitch Witch) who ran the shadow quilting workshop I went to insists that all sewing machines should have names – mine hasn’t – yet! I was trying to think of something beginning with a T (well, it’s a Toyota) and I just thought of Topsy – from the Topsy and Tim books I read as a kid? (God, am I really that old??) – well, Topsy she is, I think – we’re on a sewing adventure together here,  me and old Topsy – she may not have all the bells and whistles of those expensive machines, but I reckon we’re doing ok (just need to remember to clean and oil her, change the needle, check the thread and we’ll be fine….. ho hum …. so off we go….)