Luckenbooth Cushion

I have been playing with my new toy, the EQ7 software and it is definitely challenging my poor brain! Still they say that it is good to keep your brain active with puzzles so I console myself with that thought when I am baffled.

One of the things that I wanted to do with the software was create my own patterns for fusible bias applique. I love Celtic Knotwork patterns and would like to recreate them in fabric.

I decided to start off with something easier though :)

Luckenbooth Cushion

The Cushion applique is based upon the Luckenbooth symbol with two entwined hearts beneath a crown. The Luckenbooth symbol is an ancient Scottish love token, which was often given to brides on their wedding day. There is a legend that Mary, Queen of Scots gave a Luckenbooth charm to Lord Darnley when they married, but as that marriage ended rather violently we will dismiss that as a bad rumour :)

The applique Crown was fused to the background fabric and then blanket stitched, the heart applique was made with bias strips which were also fused and blanket stitched to the background fabric. You can see both of these more clearly below.

I made my favourite button closure for the back as the perfect buttons were just sitting in my button tin waiting to be used!

They are Japanese shell buttons from Woolmouse , which I bought when we visited the Market Hall in Richmond, North Yorkshire last year. I knew they would be perfect one day!

Whilst the fusible applique was straightforward, the corded trim was a bit of a nightmare! I found the trim in my stash, it must be several years old, but I couldn't have found a better match if I tried. Although I have attached piping on a cushion and bags before, I have never attempted to attach cord and such large cord at that. I discovered that my usual method of attaching with a zipper foot just didn't get close enough to the cord, so when the cushion was turned out the cord tape was still visible. It took another attempt with the piping foot, which was balanced precariously on top of the cord (!), to finally be able to stitch a line close enough that the cord tape didn't show. 

Updated to add that the pattern for this cushion is now available as a free download in my Craftsy Pattern Store

 
If you have tried something new too this month, don't forget to link up to

The link up closes at 24.00 GMT today January 31st, so you still have time to link up no matter where you are in the world!

There is still time too to link up to the first monthly link party for

One lucky linker will win a copy of Quiet Play and Blossom Heart Quilts Ornamental and Sew Seasonal Bundle, that's 25 patterns up for grabs. So, if you have made a Christmas gift to tuck away for December or finished a Home Decoration project that didn't get finished in time for Christmas 2013, head on over to Mud, Pies and Pins to link up before the link party closes at 24.00 GMT January 31st too.

This is my first finish for the 2014 FAL and we are still in the first month, so I hope that bodes well for the rest of the Quarter!

It is also another project for the brilliant me,me,me Bee dreamt up by Moira at Kettleboiler to encourage us all to remember to make something for ourselves now and again.

Linking up to Crazy Mom Quilts

Starting with a finish!

Happy New Year! I wish you all a Happy and Healthy 2014.

In between all the cooking and clearing up I managed to sneak in a little bit of sewing to finish one of the projects on my Q4 FAL.

I had planned to make a cushion as a housewarming present for my son and his fiancee in October, but sadly never got around to making it in time for our first visit to their new home. So, instead I thought that it would make an ideal Christmas present.

The wine bottle fabric was a gift from Swedish Scrapper and the plain wool fabric was in a scrap bag that I bought on my last visit to Oxfordshire, both of them have been sitting patiently waiting on me to finally use them.

And here, at last, is the cushion! I roughly followed a pattern in Pillow Pop, but added the appliqued wine bottles and quilted the patterned fabric with a Free-Motion swirl instead of the straight line quilting in the book.

I am delighted with this and, thankfully, so were my son and his fiancee :)

I am even more delighted that this is my first finish on my list for the Q4 FAL!

The Q4 link up closes on January 8th, so I am hoping to sneak at least one more finish in before the deadline.

As it is a Thursday it wouldn't be right to have a post without a touch of randomness. I came across these wicker reindeer on a visit to a local stately home today. 

Aren't they lovely? Oh to have a garden big enough to put them in!

Comfortable Cafe Cushion

The Cafe de Paris cushion is finished!

It went together fairly quickly in the end, especially as I decided to do some simple straight line quilting rather than any fancy, complicated FMQ type stuff :)

Cafe Cushion quilting

I used my Hera marker to draw out the lines before quilting, and it was definitely easier to see the marks when I was sewing in the daylight!

The plan originally was to space the lines evenly around the centre diamond but a slight muck-up (sorry design decision!) early on meant that the spacing was irregular at each side. Fortunately, I actually liked how that turned out so went with it and mixed up the measurements on all of the sides!

The cushion back is an Envelope back with binding as in the pattern, but I am not sure about having an envelope back on such a large cushion. The cushion cover is 20.5" x 20.5" as in the pattern, and I think if I was making such a large cushion again I would go with a zipped or button closure.

I didn't have a big enough cushion insert when I finished this and had to go out and buy one. The cushion inner is 50cm x 50cm to give that stuffed look that I like.

The cushion pattern is from this book

There are several more projects in the book that I would like to make, but I will be checking the instructions carefully as there were a couple of errors in the measurement instructions for this cushion. The instructions lead you to cut the pieces for the back to be 20.5" wide but the cushion front is trimmed to 21" x 21" and the measurements for the solid strips for the top and bottom of the cushion front are 17.25" long when they should be 17.5". Neither of these were a particular problem for my cushion, but might be an issue if you were fussy cutting the squares for the top left and bottom right corners and then had to shave 0.75" off to make the pieces fit.

Apart from those minor blips the cover went together really well.

Not only is this a finished project so I can link up to Crazy Mom Quilts




but it is also my first finish for Q3 in

and my first project to link up for the Craft Book link up at



                    
and finally because this project is actually for me

So many birds with one project :)

If I had actually been to Paris on holiday I could even have made it my contribution to the

Sadly I haven't, but if you have and haven't decided what to do for the competition, to be in with a chance of winning some of that gorgeous fabric that's been posted about recently, then this might just spark off an idea or two.

Friendship Stars and Free Motion Quilting

My faithful sewing machine does not know what has hit it these last few days, not content with making buttonholes and trying out machine embroidery on the Dresden Sunflower cushion, I have been trying out another new (for me) function of the machine.

The Time for Tea quilt was backed and basted but I have been putting off doing anything about the quilting as I know what I would like to do - teacups in the border - but don't know how to achieve it. Never having attempted any quilting other than straight line and echo quilting, it is a big leap to contemplate fancy motifs, even if this is only a lap-size quilt. I did, however, have the 4 spare Friendship Star blocks as a result of my shockingly bad maths, so now had the opportunity to play with them.

Bordered with another dotty fabric from the Sunny Happy Skies line, then backed and basted the quilt square was ready to be practised upon. Beforehand though, I checked out Leah Day's video tutorials on Free Motion Quilting, to help with the machine set up, as the machine manual was sadly lacking in this respect! Armed with this knowledge, I set to.

What fun! How tense! Oh dear! Not so bad! All ran through my head in the space of a few seconds, whilst also trying to remind myself to breath and relax my shoulders. I have new found respect for the FMQ experts abounding in blogland, their hand-eye co-ordination is amazing :)

It wasn't perfect by any means, but when I got the hang of moving the quilt sandwich evenly my FMQ stitches even began to look quite respectable in places! In other places, not such a good result, but it was good fun. I think it will be a while before I am rattling off dancing teacups, but at least I can add another new technique to my mental list of things tried.

I didn't get too carried away though the Friendship Stars were echo quilted first, before I tried out the meandering loops on the dotty borders!

Having seen the photo of the cushion I am now regretting using two such similar prints for the bottom-right star, as I don't think the star stands out as much as it could do, but as these were spare blocks anyway I shall just chalk it up to experience.

Fortunately, the Friendship Stars in the quilt itself are better balanced.

Last weekend we visited a Coin and Collectors Fair here in Riga. The stalls were mainly geared to Coin, Stamp and Postcard collectors but there were a few other interesting items to be found.

 These medal ribbons were a glorious jumble of colour in the midst of all the military paraphernalia

And these Christmas Decorations seemed very out of place on a baking hot day! Not that there has been that many of these this summer in Riga.

Have a great weekend.

Linking up to TGIFF

Cushions, scraps and zig-zags

Taking part in the Littlest Thistle's Foundation Paper Piecing for the Terrified (FPPFTT)has been great fun and a steep learning curve, but has also meant that I now have several paper-pieced orphan blocks. So, in a bid to find at least one of them a home I had backed and quilted the Circle of Geese block that we made in Week 4 with the intent that it would become a cushion to go with the quilt made for my son and daughter-in-law. So with no time like the present I set to this morning to add the back and finish at least one project this week!

Initially I had intended to bind the cushion with some of the leftover binding from the Sew Happy Sampler Quilt that all of the fabrics in the cushion came from, but I decided that it was "over-egging the pudding" and left it as is. I am going to use another of the FPPFTT orphan blocks that was also made from leftover fabric from the Sew Happy QAL for another cushion for my son and daughter-in-law, so might use the leftover binding on that instead.

Talking of cushions I discovered when I was working on the sunflower quilt in the previous post that I had had a Dresden plate sunflower left over from piecing the quilt top. As I have yet to make the yellow cushion for my set of rainbow cushions, there are no prizes for guessing where this sunflower will end up :)

I have even more cushion plans in the coming weeks as I have now received the wonderful Indigo fabrics that I ordered recently from the African Fabric shop The fabrics were even lovelier than I had expected.

Originally I was planning to cut and piece the fabrics but having seen them I am now not so sure that I want to cut them up. I have (somewhere!) a pattern and instructions for a machined Trapunto cushion and I am now thinking that that might be better, as you will get the benefit of the full design. Having never attempted Trapunto before, I might be biting off more than I can chew though! As ever, all advice gratefully received!

 This week I have also made a start on the first of the Zakka-style SAL projects, having missed the start I  am loath to fall too far behind. The first project is a tote bag with a zig-zag pattern made from quarter-square triangles on the front of the bag. One of the things that attracted me to Rashida Coleman-Hale's Zakka style books is her liberal use of linen as, unlike quilting cotton, linen is in plentiful supply in this part of the world. QST's are bad enough but QST's in linen that is a whole, different story! I have starched the linen squares and triangles to within an inch of their lives in an attempt to control them, but I am not sure that I am winning just yet.

It took me all afternoon yesterday to get this much done. Ripping out seams on small linen triangles is definitely no joke! The plan is to give the finished bag to my mum for her knitting when we are home next, but at this rate it will be Christmas before it is finished.

Hope you are all having a productive week.

Circle of Geese and Shades of Green

Determined not to fall too far behind in the two paper-piecing Sewalongs, FPPFTT and NY Beauty, that I have joined, I have been cutting, snipping and sewing up a storm to get this week's FPPFTT block completed. The Circle of Geese block lends itself very well to becoming a cushion, so I decided to use up the last of my scraps from the Sew Happy QAL to make a matching cushion for my son. I thought that I ought to tackle this block first before attempting either of the two NY Beauty blocks, where the capacity for disaster seems even greater!


Mind you, this block was not without its' fair share of mishaps. Accidentally folding a piece under the wrong way and sewing it to the seam was bad enough, but quickly remedied but slicing through the last sewn piece when cutting off the extra seam allowance was really pushing it! Lesson learnt the hard way, concentrate all the time and more haste less speed will need to be my watchword from now on I think, otherwise those NY Beauty blocks are going to drive me mad.

With tomorrow being St Patrick's Day and an England v Ireland rugby game imminent, Irish feelings are running high in our household. Irish stew will, no doubt, be on the menu tomorrow and I have a recipe for a fruity soda bread that I am looking forward to trying out. In addition, the day gives me my first opportunity to use my Shades of Green handbag.

I really went for the Shades of Green theme with this bag. So the exterior is a fine green tweed, the interior is a brighter green cotton and as you can see I have used green satin ribbon to line the handles. There is more green cotton for my yo-yo trim and as if that was not enough green I added a shamrock button! If St Patrick's Day is not the perfect day to use this bag, then I don't know when is :) The bag pattern is from the City bag collection in Nancy Zieman's Trace'n Create bag templates. I have used them a couple of times and found them very straightforward to use. The patterns call for a number of Nancy Zieman products, which I cannot get here, but they are easily substitutable (is that a word??) with local available hardware, so it didn't cause any problems.

Last night we went to the National Opera house to watch a performance of the Ballet Don Quixote, the tickets were a birthday present for my husband from our son. Whilst sitting in the theatre waiting for the performance to begin, I caught myself thinking that I should have brought my camera to take pictures of the interior to post on my blog! Am I becoming obsessed do you think??

If you are ever in this part of the world, I would definitely recommend a visit to a ballet or opera performance. It is not something we did very often back in the UK partly because of the cost (especially if the whole family were going) but also because of the time and effort required in getting to the theatre. In Riga, the Opera House is within walking distance and ticket prices are very reasonable so whole families go, in fact you can see all sections of the society here at a performance from grannies with their granddaughters to students, visiting dignitaries and all groups in between. The dress code is similarly broad, so at the same performance you will see couples in evening dress, little girls dressed up (in flamenco dresses last night!) and students in jeans and jumpers. The theatre looks like I imagine it must have done decades ago, especially the cafe for the interval, where rows of cups and saucers sit on long, lovely wooden counters and delicious cakes are displayed in beautiful glass cabinets. You can definitely imagine ladies at the turn of the century in their finery sipping their tea in these surroundings.


Hope you all have a great weekend, Happy St Patrick's Day in advance!

A new passion?

Never having tried paper-piecing before I was very surprised to find that I loved tackling the first block in The Littlest Thistle's FPPFTT. I loved it so much that I didn't stop at one block, but got a bit carried away and made 4!

Joined together and bordered with a linen strip, the 4 blocks became the orange in my rainbow cushions. Four cushions down and three to go and two results in one!

I really loved this fabric, Terrain by Kate Spain, so livened up the back of the cushion with some self-covered buttons too.

The next block in the FPPFTT is due out today. Katy gave us a preview on her blog at the weekend, so I am really looking forward to getting to grips with triangles this time. In fact, I have enjoyed the paper piecing so much that I have signed up for the New York beauty QAL too! I am nothing if not enthusiastic :) Check out the giveaway at Freshly Pieced to celebrate the beginning of the QAL here

Talking of Quilt a Longs, the Sew Happy QAL is steadily coming towards the end. This week's block was number 10 of 12, the time seems to have flown by on this, which I really didn't expect when I signed up. This week's block was all HST's, and came together really quickly. The next block is a paper-pieced block, so I am glad that I will already have had some practice before attempting it. I am beginning to worry about running out of fabric for the last couple of blocks, so can't afford to make any mistakes now!

The finished quilt will be a (late) First Wedding Anniversary present for my son and daughter-in-law. It was their Anniversary yesterday, which they celebrated with a weekend in Florence. As we had snow again on Sunday I know who was in the right place. The quilt will be a few weeks late but I am sure they will forgive me!

Hearts and Accolades!

With Valentine's Day just around the corner this seemed like the perfect time to get cracking with a red cushion for my set of rainbow cushions. I had the perfect fabric - a red/natural heart check linen blend that I have been saving/hoarding for several years and the perfect pattern a patchwork cushion with applique heart again saved for several years! I have tried explaining to my husband the difference between hoarding, which he thinks I do, and saving, which I think I do, as eventually fabric will be 'liberated' and used. My Valentine's cushion being a case in point!

It all seemed so simple when I started this a couple of days ago, applique a red felt heart onto a square of natural linen, trim with ric-rac and then attach to four mitred strips of the heart check linen and back. Once I started, however, I discovered that the magazine instructions weren't much more detailed than that and the photograph of the finished cushion wasn't detailed either so no help there. I have discovered that I need a few visuals, preferably photos, to supplement text instructions or else I flounder, which is probably why making a bag from Amy Butler's Style Stitches book is still on my to-do list - no photos of the WIP!

Once I had worked out whether the ric-rac went on top or below the heart and how to sew it down, I met my biggest challenge - mitring the corners of a fabric with a check without messing up the check! I am sure there is a foolproof way of doing this, so any advice would be much appreciated or else I will have to consign all my checks and tartans to the back of the cupboard. For a Scot too that would be a disaster!

Despite all of the above I did eventually manage to finish the cushion although now with an envelope back not the nice button back I had planned, or else it wouldn't be ready till next Valentine's. I am pleased that it is finished and I now have 3 of my 7 rainbow cushions completed. I have ordered some orange fabric from Sew Fresh Fabrics, so will, hopefully, get cracking on an orange cushion soon.

 
In the middle of my trials with mitred corners I was delighted to receive an email from Katy at The Littlest Thistle who had tagged me for a Liebster blog award. It definitely made my day. The award is given to blogs with less than 200 followers and as a recipient of the award I should thank the award blogger in a post, list the names of five blogs I follow who fall within that category who I feel deserve to be noticed, advise the five bloggers by leaving a comment on their blogs and copy and paste the blog award on my blog. So here goes, I have nominated the following bloggers who each in their own way have supported and encouraged me as I have ventured into the whole new world of blogging.

• Taryn at From pixels to patchwork
• Lyn at What a Hoot!
• Sam at Cup of tea and a slice of cake aka UKMUMINUSA 
• Erin at Missy Mac Creations
• Kristy at Quiet Play

Thanks ladies!



P.S. Have you seen the fabulous giveaway at Lily's Quilts? A colourbox of Oakshott Cottons no less, that is 100 F8ths, and those fabrics are really gorgeous. Have a look here to see what I mean.

Progress and Pillows

The temperature here has plummeted in the last 24 hours, which is a great incentive to stay indoors and sew! It is also the beginning of a new month so time to reflect on the deadlines and goals set for January, and I am pleased to find that things are progressing nicely.

The Shades of Green patchwork cushion/pillow that was to be the first in my set of Rainbow Cushions has not only been completed but has been joined by the Fleur Blue cushion I started at the weekend. Shades of Green is also the second of my 12 WIP's  in 2012 to be finished, so I have a really early start on the next one as this is finished on the first of the month! If you are looking for more inspiration for cushions and pillows check out Pam's link party here

Sewing supplies are here in Riga, but not always easy to find especially specific items, so imagine my delight yesterday at finding a supply of quilt basting spray in a small, tucked-away, sewing machine shop. Needless to say I snapped it up along with blue machine embroidery thread and used them both to finish off the blue cushion. Basting spray has been on my "wish list" for a long time as it is something I cannot have sent nor can I bring it back on the plane, as we usually only travel with hand luggage to avoid the long wait at the airports for baggage, so this was indeed a find.

I have a question for those of you who use the spray, is there a limit to how big a quilt you can use this with? I suspect that there is given that it is described as temporary. I have a king-size quilt pieced and waiting to be basted and quilted, and it has been waiting over a year for that to happen, could I use the spray on that to hold it together whilst I use my brand-new microstitch gun, or does that defeat the object of the micro-stitch? Another question too, whilst I am thinking of this will using the microstitch on a wooden floor, mark the floor? All advice gratefully received!

Whilst rummaging around my fabrics looking for blues for the cushion I came across an embroidery that I had completely forgotten about, probably because I didn't have an idea what to do with it once I had finished it. Now, however, I think I might turn it into a lap quilt for my mother, who has just undergone a hip replacement and is also a great tea-drinker!

I have some fabrics with teacups, teapots and cakes and thought I might try using a couple of the blocks from the Sew Happy QAL around the embroidery, as I have really enjoyed making them so far. I have also seen in a French Quilting magazine a teacup block but it is paper-pieced and we haven't got to that yet in QAL!

Starting this might have to wait until next week though as the next block in In Color Order's HST BOM is due this week and I have printed out but not started the 7th block in the Sew Happy QAL. More than halfway in the QAL, what a surprise:)