Two Owls Design

Spinning

When several plates are spinning at once my blog is always the first one that grinds to a halt. Actually no, that's not true, it's the housework that stops first - we have been living in crumples in the shadow of an enormous ironing pile for a couple of months now. Either way though deadlines have eased up a little and the time has come to get (and try to keep) my blog spinning again.

Lots of sewing has been taking place and a couple of weeks ago I finished my third and largest ever quilt. We bought a new bed back in the New Year and naturally it needed a new quilt to go on it.

All of the cutting was done for the quilt top using my Big Shot (by far the quickest and easiest part!) and I blogged all about it's progress weekly over on my Sizzix blog page.

The quilt measures approximately 2m x 2m and there was no choice but to quilt it on our dining table as that's the biggest table we have. It turned out that arrangement wasn't ideal for family meal times or good sewing as mealtimes were cramped using one third of the table and when quilting one of the corners I discovered some encrusted Weetabix on it.

I was so pleased (and relieved) to finish it and finally lay it on the bed. I'm not good at having several work-in -progress projects running alongside each other and much prefer to tackle one at a time and keep going until they're done. That's why my blog often goes neglected as I wait for a chunk of unpressurised time to come free to write a post or two and that doesn't happen often enough to be practical. There lies the crux of the problem, I'm no good at multi-tasking.

 

Rambling About Targets

A couple of weeks ago I stumbled upon a list of goals drawn up to aim at in 2014. The list was made early in the year not as a set of New Years resolutions but just work-related targets to aim at throughout the year in an effort to increase my freelance work. Out of 6, one had been fully achieved and a second very nearly - it was a bit disheartening to realise it was less than a 33% success rate (especially as two of them were pretty simple and straightforward).

  

Reflecting on 2014 though it became clear that whilst many self-imposed targets hadn't been hit, the year was a pretty good one overall. The one goal I had achieved was possibly the best one of the 6 and other opportunities arose which couldn't have been anticipated at the beginning of the year. It's very easy to get bogged down focussing on the negatives especially when you work by and for yourself (a partner or relative telling you something is great never really cuts it).

Creatively I have a fairly predictable confidence-level-cycle where every so often a confidence crisis hits and suddenly I'm not good enough, my work's not good enough, everybody else knows I'm not good enough and everyone else is so much better than me. I expect it now and so, knowing from experience it will pass, I just ride it out until I can go back to enjoying what I do again. Accepting the confidence-crashes and realising that appreciating and admiring other people's skill without feeling inferior is an art in itself has been quite liberating!

Blogging for Sizzix was one of the unanticipated opportunities that arose and one that I really enjoy. It's been tough at times to ensure a post with photographs is ready each week (taking good photographs has often been the toughest aspect during the dark, dreary winter months) but it's resulted in a lot of making and experimenting with ideas, which is always the best bit. My third ever quilt made using half-square triangles all cut using my Big Shot is almost complete - which is good as the quilt (my second ever quilt) that used to live on our bed seems to have found it's way onto Aidan's top bunk.

Another unexpected occurrence was having my bunny pattern featured in the first issue of Simply Sewing.

It's a beautifully styled magazine full of lovely projects - the Easter ideas and Lauren Guthrie's dress pattern are my highlights.

Planning and targets are all well and good but nice surprises are better.

 

 

Cushions

Is it too late to say Happy New Year? Hmm, probably a bit.

Christmas seems like an age away now, probably due in part for me to the fact that I've been doing the accounts. One week spent going through accounts feels more like three - it works in a similar way to dog years.

Before Christmas I was working on two cushions. The first was this snowball cushion (design from Love Patchwork and Quilting, Issue 2) made for my niece to give as a gift.

I love this design and it's the second time I've used it to make a cushion (first time is here). Might manage a quilt next time.

The second was this one (which also features on my Sizzix blog page) which was started before Christmas and the binding finally finished in the first couple of days of the New Year.

All of the half square triangles were cut using my Sizzix Big Shot and so the cutting and piecing took no time. When it came to quilting it, I'd seen and loved lots of quilts quilted with a spiral starting in the centre and working outwards and wanted to try something similar. A star-spiral seemed appropriate for a Christmassy cushion and an eight-point star meant that the seams helped as a guide during quilting. It took ages - four times longer than anticipated to quilt but I love the results (even though it mean a couple of days of backache). I've never tried quilting so densely before but will definitely do more.

Teachers' Presents

My grip on the Christmas reigns has been tenuous throughout December (as always) but then with just over a week to go to the big day the boys all fell ill with a nasty sickness bug and plans went into freefall. But it's ok, it's officially Christmas Day now and all is calm again (well for 6 hours or so at least).

So now to try and catch up with all of the Christmas related sewing. I've never made gifts for teachers before mainly because giving handmade presents makes me nervous - the angst about whether it will be appreciated and feeling open to criticism (I'm a bit prone to overthinking and worrying at the best of times). To minimise the anxiety, I opted for something small but to personalise each one to add more time and thought.

Here they are, some little Christmas-tree-decoration-size quilted stockings (as posted about on my Sizzix blog too in a bit more detail), to contain some cosmetics and chocolate bits and bobs. Two EPP hexagon versions made using my Sizzix Big Shot and a squares version as there just wasn't enough time to hand-piece the front of all 3.

Rowan didn't make it into pre-school at all in the last week but I dropped by with the gifts on the last day.

Wishing you a very Happy and Healthy Christmas x

December

The last two weeks have been spent in a Christmas induced panic but it's ok, things are now starting to fall into place. I've had some mulled wine, the Christmas tree is now up and there's a food plan coming together. The tree is bare because the 16 year old fairy lights have finally given up and the make-your-own-star craft kit I bought for the boys produces a star that wouldn't look out of place on a 20ft tree but bit by bit the must-do stuff is being ticked off the list and the would-like-to-do stuff is within reach.

I've been rubbish about posting about my Sizzix projects lately but this holly wreath is up on my blog page currently and the next post about teacher presents will be up in a matter of hours too.

I hope you're managing to keep ahead this Christmas.

Circle Line

This week has mainly consisted of making these strings of circles with Aidan, as posted about here over on the Sizzix blog.

Great fun, quick to make and the perfect way to ignore all of the other things that need to be done before Christmas...

Christmas-ish

I'm suffering with a touch of seasonal confusion at the moment as a result of working on a distinctly spring-themed commission whilst also eating mince pies and sorting out a few Christmas stockings. In my old job we would work on all of the Christmas designs in June/July and that never really seemed odd but somehow thinking of daffodils rather than holly right now does feel a little weird.

Bringing things definitely back into the Christmas zone, the Sizzix Christmas blog hop up to Day 5 over on Trudi's blog, check out all of the gift ideas so far:

Day 1 Mine

Day 2 Katy's

Day 3 Jessie's

Day 4 Angela's

and Mercedes will round up the week with Day 6 tomorrow as she blogs about her gift idea.

And there's still time to enter the giveaway if you haven't already!

Sizzix Christmas Blog Hop: Day 1

Today is the first day of the Sizzix Christmas Blog Hop which is running for the next six days around the theme of Christmas gift ideas. I am (somewhat nervously) kicking it all off and it will hop on to these hugely talented quilty bloggers over the course of the week for them to share their festive ideas too:

Monday 17th November: Day 1 here

Tuesday 18th November: Katy Jones http://imagingermonkey.blogspot.co.uk/

Wednesday 19th November: Jessie Fincham http://messyjessecrafts.blogspot.co.uk/

Thursday 20th November: Angela Southey http://www.sizzix.co.uk/blogs?id=4f79aefffb60b56634000456

Friday 21st November: Trudi Wood http://trudi-quiltingprolifically.blogspot.co.uk/

Saturday 22nd November: Mercedes Jimenez Campuzano http://mercedesinspain.blogspot.co.uk/

 

PLUS there's also a Blog Hop Giveaway to accompany all of the festive inspiration, just click here for your chance to win a fantastic Sizzix Big Shot and 3 Bigz hexagon dies to go with it!

 

So my Big Shot and Bigz Clamshell, 4 1/2in Unfinished die have been put to good use over the past week cutting clamshells for a hot water bottle cover and the plan is to make a few more to give as gifts this year.

I like to sew a few Christmas presents every year and my starting point when coming up with an idea is usually either; 'what would I like to receive as a gift' or 'I really want to try this technique/project, will it make a good present''. This time it was a bit of both as I've been wanting to sew some clamshells for ages and a hot water bottle and cover always makes a welcome gift as my feet are permanently icy cold (officially so, my GP has actually prescribed "thick socks" in the past).

The clamshell curves are used on the back to decorate and disguise the open edge.

I've written up a tutorial here detailing how to make one - it's just a funny-shaped cushion cover really. My next one will be in red Scandi prints I think or maybe I'll try it with some kids prints.

Happy festive hopping (I resisted the urge to put ho-ho-hopping) and good luck with the giveaway!

 

New Machine

For the last few years pretty much everything I've made has been made on my bottom-of-the-range, boggiest bog-standard sewing machine. All quilting was done using a generic walking foot (because there wasn't a dedicated walking foot made to fit that model) that would gradually work forward during sewing pushing the thread in front of the needle until the needle would catch and pierce it causing it to break. It became so hair-tearingly frustrating that after my Scrappy Trips quilt I decided that proper quilts were off the agenda and only small, cushion-sized projects would be practical until I got a new machine. And last week I did!

I opted for a Pfaff Ambition Essential in the end as I'm not interested in stacks of fancy stitches and after my previous walking foot experiences I wanted to try the IDF system which is an integrated dual feed feature meaning no walking foot is required. So far I love it and the soft whirring noise it makes during sewing compared to the pebbles-caught-in-a-lawn-mower of my old machine is a revelation.

The first, try-out project was a little drawstring bag to hold Uno cards (game/jigsaw boxes don't last 5 minutes in our house).

Next was assembling the Let It Snow cushion by Fiona Leontis from Issue 14 of Love Patchwork and Quilting, which I blogged about over on the Sizzix site here as all of the hexies were cut using my Big Shot.

Currently I'm testing out how well it quilts and so far there hasn't been any teeth-grinding, tears or wanting to hurl it at a wall. It's a revelation.

 

Half Term

I spent the half term holiday last week away with my parents and the boys in Conwy. Mike joined us on the Thursday night after work which was also our 15th wedding anniversary and as a surprise my mum made us a cake and put the decoration (which she also made) from the top tier of our wedding cake on top. The candles were never lit on our wedding day so it was a good time to finally light them.

I took some hexagons away with me to sew that I cut using my Big Shot and posted about on the Sizzix blog here.

It's my first proper attempt at English paper piecing, I'd always been a bit too intimidated to try it in the past (it's for serious quilters) but found it pretty straightforward and really relaxing and enjoyable to do. So much so I now have a vague plan to start a long term EPP quilt project to dip in and out of whenever I'm having a lazy night in front of the tv and want to do some productive (and therefore guilt-free) lounging.