featured – My Making Life

Flower Garden Ramble

Feb 16, 2019 missleela83

To echo the words of Claude Monet “I must have flowers, always, and always.” Having fresh flowers in our home brings me so much joy. They instantly lift a room with their sweet scent and colourful petals. They nod happily at me every morning, greeting me with their showy smiles.

Monet was an avid garden enthusiast and his garden and home in Giverny is on my bucket list of places to visit. I too love gardening, although I am still trying to find my way and un-earth my own garden. I love watching gardening shows, especially anything by Monty Don who just happens to be my gardening idol. This year I would like to visit more gardens. I want to take leisurely strolls through the plants and flowers, marvelling at the wonders of nature.

Garden Path at Giverny – Claude Monet. I can picture myself strolling down this path, taking in the sweet scents and colour parade.

Madame Monet and Child – Claude Monet. Yes, I can think of nothing more pleasant than sitting amongst the flowers and doing some stitching!

Just as I love and must always have real flowers, I also cannot be without the English Paper Piecing kind of flower, the always iconic, hexagon flower. When I received a bundle of Liberty fabrics from Westwood Acres for their Monthly Liberty Club last year, the package was full of so many pretty florals I knew instantly that I had to create something with hexagon flowers.

I wanted to create a miniature quilt inspired by strolling through a flower garden. I used nine of the liberty floral prints to make the flower petals and three different solid liberty fabrics for the flower centres. I played around a lot with the placement of the flowers before finally settling on the final design.

I decided I wanted to connect the flowers a bit differently. I wanted the flowers to stand out as individual blooms and not to have their petals touching each other. I used diamonds and hexagons in soft green cotton fabric to separate the flowers. These green shapes both represent the leaves of the flowers, but also the crisscrossing pathway through them.

I decided to hand quilt, using coloured embroidery floss that picked out a colour from the flower fabrics. I hand quilted around each flower petal, as well as the cross seams of the hexagon diamond motifs between each flower. Lastly, I had quilted around the entire outer edge of the pieced quilt section.

I used a soft buttery yellow fabric for the border and binding to represent the sunshine that twinkles through the leaves and trees down to the garden below.

I really love my finished hexie flower garden. It feels happy and calm, and whilst it’s no Monet painting, for me it brings the beauty of flowers and gardens into my craft studio where it hangs.

Quilt Stats

Paper Pieces Used – ¾” Hexagons, ¾” 60 degree diamonds, ¾” half hexagons, ¾” triangle (diamond cut in half)

Total number of pieces = 123

Paper Pieced finished size = 11.25” x 11.5 “

Border Size = 1”

Finished Quilt Size = 14” x 14.25”

Hours to prep & piece shapes = 18

Hours for hand pieced borders = 6.5

Hours to Quilt = 13

Hours for binding = 1.5

Total hours = 39

Here are some detail photos:

Hand quilting.

Border and binding.

Binding and back.

Hanging sleeve and ribbon hangers.

Happy stitching lovely makers!

Miss Leela x

making

A Special Dolls Quilt

Jan 12, 2019Jan 12, 2019 missleela83

Last year a lovely friend commissioned me to make a dolls quilt for her little girl for Christmas. She had been inspired by my large scrappy hexagon quilt and was after a scaled down version. Naturally, I was happy to do this.

My friend had made a patchwork quilt for her daughter and so I asked if she had any fabric left over from that quilt and I would incorporate the prints into the dolls quilt as well. Knowing my friend was a lover of Liberty fabric, I also included some special floral prints as well as some other fabrics from my stash. I also pulled some fabric from the stash of scraps my friend had given me from her children’s clothing business Ecolier Kids.

I decide to use ¾” hexagons. This is a nice versatile size, the perfect scale for a quilt to go on a dolls bed, which measured 41 x 26cm. After I had pieced the hexagons to a size that would allow the quilt to hang slightly over the sides of the bed, it was time to quilt.

I chose simple quilting in straight lines vertically down the quilt that dissected the hexagons in half. I chose fabric from my stash for the backing in a lovely soft pastel brocade floral design.

For the binding, I also raided my stash to find a plain soft creamy yellow that went nicely with the backing fabric and didn’t overpower the quilt front.

Of course, I decided that you couldn’t have a dolls quilt without a pillow as well, so I made a ¾” hexagon flower using lovely liberty fabrics and appliqued it to a square of the same binding fabric. I made a two piece overhanging slip back from the quilt backing fabric. I then made a stuffed pillow that was sewn up all four sides to slip into the pillowcase.

My friend loved the finished quilt and the extra pillow. More importantly, her daughter loved it and has been busy putting her dolls to bed with their new quilt and pillow.

It is such a wonderful thing to create something so special and to know that it will be treasured for many years to come. I think it is a very true statement when someone explains that an item was stitched with love. I like to add that something was stitched with joy as well. Sewing gives me great pleasure and enjoyment, but the act of sewing something for someone else and seeing the joy on their face when they receive, well that’s one of life’s most beautiful and simple and pleasures of all.

Happy Stitching Friends!

Miss Leela x

making

Flower Power Mini Quilt

Sep 28, 2018Sep 28, 2018 missleela83

Sometime after finishing my first Miniature Quilt ‘Garden of Patience’ I started what would turn out to be a long term quarter inch hexie project. I decided that I wanted to make a giant hexagon flower. Each petal would be a different colour of the rainbow and would be pieced from quarter inch hexies. Now I didn’t record the date I started this insane idea, but I’m taking a guess that it was approximately seven or so years ago.

Flower-Power-Mini-Quilt---Miss-Leela-27 — Piecing the petals.

This year I decided that I was going to finish all of my English Paper Piecing WIP’s because I have quite a few of them! I had a rummage through my WIP basket and came across a couple of finished and half-finished petals for my hexagon flower quilt. Straight away I knew this was one that I had to get finished. Over the next few months I pieced together the individual petals, finishing the ones I had already started and starting the colours I hadn’t yet begun. At last I had all seven petals pieced.

Flower-Power-Mini-Quilt---Miss-Leela-26 — Piecing the petals to the center

The project gained steam now as I could start to see it coming together. The petals pieced I began to sew them together, first attaching each petal to the centre white pieced hexagon, and then piecing the sides between each petal. That done I needed to decide how I was going to finish off the flower. Did I want to leave it as just the centre and petals? Did I want to square it off and add in a multi-coloured arrangement of quarter inch hexie flowers with borders? I spent a bit of time weighing up my options before settling on adding diamond shaped blocks pieced from more quarter inch hexies in white and cream fabrics. This allowed me to create one giant pieced hexagon shape with six straight edges.

Flower-Power-Mini-Quilt---Miss-Leela-25 — Petals are all pieced to the center, time to piece the petal sides together

Flower-Power-Mini-Quilt---Miss-Leela-30 — Piecing on the diamond corner blocks

The piecing complete, it was time to attach it to backing fabric. I did some stash diving and settled on a neutral pale cream cotton fabric. I used a large square of visafix to adhere the piecing to the backing. I then also did some thread basting along the sides to help keep the work in place and to try and avoid distorting the backing fabric while I hand appliqued around the six sides of the piecing on to the backing.

Flower-Power-Mini-Quilt---Miss-Leela-15 — Appliquing on to the backing fabric

The applique complete I then had to decide how to quilt it. I knew I didn’t want to do any kind of visible quilting over the top of the pieced quarter inch hexies as I thought it would detract from the overall look and design. I didn’t want all of my painstakingly pieced hexies to be hidden under quilting stitches! In the end I decided to hand quilt very tiny stitches along the sides of each petal. I’m going to try and explain this as best I can. I would do a very small stitch in the corner of an individual quarter inch hexie piece, then bring my needle up in the next corner of the hexie piece. I would continue in this manner along the edges of each petal joint. What it created was virtually invisible stitches on the front and larger stitches on the back. It has had the desired affect though. The piece is not interrupted by quilt stitches, but it has done the job in connecting the front of the quilt through the wadding to the back of the quilt.

Flower-Power-Mini-Quilt---Miss-Leela-28 — Sewing tiny quilting stitches

Flower-Power-Mini-Quilt---Miss-Leela-29 — Quilting along the edge

I then decided to hand quilt small visible quilt stitches following the outline of the whole pieced hexagon. That done the whole project sat for two months waiting for me to come back and finish it off properly. I had left a border of the backing fabric so I needed to decide how I was going to quilt that. I decided to machine quilt it and drew three lines of quilting following the hexagon sides and radiating out. The first quilt line measure a quarter inch out from the piecing, the next line measure half an inch from the first quilting line, and the third measures three quarter inch from the second quilting line. This has then left me with about a half inch of border fabric before the binding which measures quarter inch. I was pretty pleased with how that symmetry worked out.

The binding is hand sewn on to the back. I stash dived for both the backing and binding fabrics. I trialled a couple of different binding fabrics before settling on the neutral taupe colour.

Flower-Power-Mini-Quilt---Miss-Leela-22 — The back

Flower-Power-Mini-Quilt---Miss-Leela-23 — Hanging sleeve for rod and ribbon loops to hang on wall hooks

And just like that my ‘Flower Power Mini Quilt’ is finished. I love it! It brings such a happy burst of loveliness to my studio wall. It feels great to finally get this piece finished. It’s really quite satisfying to see all the time and effort that goes into something for it to then bloom in front of your very eyes.

Without further ado, here are the quilt Stats:

Finished Quilt Size: Each hexagon side = 11.5” Width = 23” x Height = 20”

Finished Pieced Size: Each hexagon side = 8.5” Width = 17.5” x Height = 15.25”

Binding Size: ¼”

Hexagon piece size = 1/$”

Hexagon Centre and Petal individual hexie count = 127

Total Count (7 Petal Blocks) = 889

Diamond individual hexie count = 42

Total Count (6 diamond blocks) = 252

Grand Total Quarter Inch Hexie Count = 1,141

Time

Hexie Prep = 7.5hrs (cutting out and basting the hexie pieces) (that’s pretty conservative really, probably a lot more time than that!)

Hexie Flower Piecing: Individual Petal = 15hrs Total for 7 petals = 105hrs

Piecing Petals together = 8.5hrs

Piecing the diamond borders on = 24.5hrs

Applique = 4.5hrs

Quilting = 4hrs

Finishing and Binding = 4hrs

Grand Total time to make = 158hrs

Flower-Power-Mini-Quilt---Miss-Leela-18 — What the back of all that piecing looks like!

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making

In Her Studio

Aug 30, 2018Jan 12, 2019 missleela83

Hello Lovelies!

Hope you are well and enjoying the best possible creative life? I’ve popped by to share something super exciting with you.

For a long time, ever since I found my making niche and started my little handmade business, it has been a goal of mine to be published in a Craft or Making magazine. I have long been interested in writing for magazines. Initially when I was studying Interior Design I thought very seriously of going down the publishing road, writing articles for decorating magazines and putting products together etc. Recently my interest has shifted to writing editorial pieces for craft magazines, hence one of the reasons why I decided to start a blog again.

As well as writing, I have a keen interest in styling photos for craft magazines and other publications. I really enjoy putting scenes together, or flat lays of crafty things as well as handmade items and interior décor pieces.

All these dreams and ideas lead to one day a few months ago when I received a message by an editor from the Stampington Publishing Company. She had seen an image of my Studio Space on Instagram and was keen to showcase it in a new magazine they were publishing called ‘In Her Studio’. Of course, I’m sure you can imagine that upon reading this message I became immediately excited of the possibility of being published! The idea that someone wanted to share my studio space with the crafting community world-wide was quite head-spinning.

After learning about all the details, I received an email with a list of question prompts and begun to write my article. I discuss how my creative journey began, a little about my back ground and where I’m from and of course the nitty gritty details of my studio, how I use it, how I set it up, and my tips for creating your own studio space. I also shared in my article my top ten podcasts.

Then there came the photography. Never has my studio looked so spick and span than it did for my photo shoot! I took all the photos myself on my SLR camera and then edited them all in Photoshop Elements. I enjoyed taking the photos, trying to find interesting angles to show the bits and pieces in my studio.

I am immensely proud of my studio space and extremely grateful for it. I know it is a luxury to have such a large room that I can dedicate to my making space…I am very lucky indeed. I wish I was able to spend more time in my studio. I am away at my day job as an Interior Designer four days of the week, and then when I am home there is housework to do. Being a mum to a toddler also makes finding studio a little difficult. I savour the time I can spend in my studio. I have set up a small table in a corner our Living Room where I can sit and sew or crochet whilst still interact with Tilly and my Husband. It also helps to keep needles, scissors and my paper piecing away from little fingers!

Writing this article has settled in my mind that publishing is definitely something I would like to pursue. Watch this space!

Happy Making,

Miss Leela x

You can purchase a copy of the Premiere Issue of ‘In Her Studio’ from the Stampington Website.

making

Liberty Mosaic Miniature Quilt Two

Aug 10, 2018Aug 10, 2018 missleela83

Hello!

I do hope you have been well. It has been a little while since my last post, but I’m here today to share with you my finished Liberty Mosaic Miniature Quilt Two.

I am really happy with how this quilt has come together. I started with the June Liberty Subscription club bundle I received from Westwood Acres.

From the eleven patterns I was sent I think I only omitted three of them. I paired them up with some solid Liberty Tana Lawn fabrics.

I decided to try a new shape, the Octagon and paired it with squares to create a mosaic pattern. The size I used are ¾”. I printed out a pattern colour sheet and assigned each fabric print a colour pencil, I then coloured in my pattern with which fabric I wanted where. I find using colouring sheets like this very helpful.

Because these shapes were a bit larger than what I usually sew with, I was able to glue baste the fabrics to the papers using my trusty Sewline Glue Pen. Basting is so much quicker when using this method.

I really enjoyed piecing the octagons and squares together. The pieced front grew quite quickly and it was nice seeing the fabric prints and colours start to play with each other.

To square of the quilt I used triangles, again all hand sewn. I then created large paper strips to connect the border in the pale pink solid.

I decided to quilt this one on the machine. I used a very thin cotton batting rather than the iron on pellon I used in my previous mini quilt. I did a lot of quilting lines and I think this paired with the thin batting has created a really nice flat miniature quilt. The first Liberty Mosaic quilt I did looks a little puffy in areas which I think is from using the pellon and hand quilting it. I decided to go out of my comfort zone and did the quilting in a teal blue thread that matches the teal blue binding.

I dived in to my stash and found the blue and white patterned fabric for the back. I think the design of the backing quilt goes really well with the pieced front. I added a sleave for a hanging rod, as well as two ribbon loops. You can put a hanging rod through the sleave or loops, or you can hang it using the loops and hooks on the wall.

Here are some shots of the finished Mini Quilt.

Quilt Stats:

Design and preparing shapes – 5hrs

Piecing (by hand) – 19.5hrs

Hand piece borders – 4hrs

Machine quilting – 2hrs

Binding and finishing – 2.5hrs

Total of 28hrs

I really enjoyed working on this miniature quilt. I think it’s my favourite one to date. It reminds me of the Greek Islands for some reason, so as I sit and look at it hanging on my studio wall I am reminded of summertime, of azure blue seas, and warm breezes….and Gelato!

Happy Stitching,

Miss Leela x

making

Liberty Mosaic Mini Quilt One

Jul 6, 2018 missleela83

About a month ago I was delightfully surprised to be selected as a Westwood Acres brand rep for their Liberty Subscription Monthly Club. In return for some glorious Liberty Tana Lawn fabrics I was asked to, alongside some other very talented reps, use the fabrics to make some items and share on my Instagram feed.

Naturally I decided that I was going to make three hand pieced Miniature Quilts using English Paper Piecing. In my quilts I wanted to highlight the flexibility of quilt design that you can achieve from hand piecing, and of course the scale of the design and quilt was to be significantly reduced.

So, for my first design I chose a traditional star quilt block that consists of squares and triangles. I picked out my favourite five Liberty prints from the bundle of eleven I received and paired them with some cotton spot and plain fabrics that complemented the colour tones in the Liberty fabrics.

I used the program Electric Quilt 7 to design the layout and nominate what fabrics would form the blocks. Once my design was done I could move on to the fun part. I cut out and basted all the shapes using my trusty Sewline Glue Pen. If you’re new to EPP this is one of my must have tools!

For the piecing I started by piecing each individual block, then pieced all the blocks together. I made some border block papers and hand stitched them on last. Then it was time to quilt, by hand, and lastly sew on the binding. I’m not going to give too much away with the construction as I’m planning on writing this quilt up as pattern and kit!

I’m very pleased with the finished quilt and it looks lovely hanging on my studio wall. It will be a great addition to my sample Mini Quilts to showcase my range of EPP papers.

Here are the stats:

Quilt Size: 14.75” x 14.75”

Centre Pieced Size: 12” x 12”

Pieced Star Block Size: 4” x 4”

Time to design & prep shapes: 5.5hrs

Time to Piece: 23.5hrs

Time to quilt & bind: 20hrs

Total Hours: 49hrs

Happy Stitching,

Miss Leela x

making

Half Hexagon Sample Mini Quilt

Jun 15, 2018Jun 15, 2018 missleela83

This year I have decided to extend the range and sizes of paper pieces I sell in my shop for use in English Paper Piecing. I also decided it would be a great idea to make sample quilts using all the shapes I stock in all of their various sizes. The idea sounded great in theory until I realised how many sample quilts or hoop wall hangings I’d have to make! I still think it’s a good idea though, especially as next year I hope to take my little market stall to some of the local quilt shows and craft trade shows. I have a picture in my head of how my stall will look and it includes a back drop of mini quilts and hoops.

One of the new shapes I’ll be adding to my range of papers are Half Hexagons. This is a shape I myself had not yet sewn with. Being a new shape to my shop I decided this would be the perfect place to start with a sample quilt. I had a look on Pinterest for some ideas and settled on creating hexagon blocks using two colours of half hexagons. The completed design almost has a chain like look.

I raided my stash for some soft pink, blue and purple fabrics. I settled on 14 different prints & paired them up. I used half inch size half hexies (where the half inch is measured along the 3 short sides).

After completing my hexagon blocks I then played around with their placement until I was happy with the final composition before then sewing them all together.

To straighten up the sides I had to add 3 half hexagon blocks to the two long sides and a few extra half hexagon pieces to the top and bottom edges. Once I had pieced it all together I cut and basted the border fabric to large rectangle card and using small paperclips to hold in place, hand sewed the borders on. When it came to piecing the top and bottom border on I folded the extra half hexies I added to get a straight edge.

I wasn’t sure if I would need to quilt this piece, so I worked a little backwards when it came to finishing the quilt off. I picked a pretty floral fabric from my stash for the backing and used a light weight batting in-between. I chose a neutral fawn coloured cotton fabric for the binding and decided to add a little peeper border in pink, something else I tried out for the first time. I had a bit of trouble hand sewing the binding on around the corners due to the extra bulk of the peeper border, so I’m not entirely happy with that.

Once I had the quilt bound I decided I did need to do some quilting. I chose to hand quilt vertical lines running down the seams. I decided to just do every second vertical seam line, but then I made a boo boo and quilted down the wrong seam. There was no way I was going to attempt un-picking it so I decided to just quilt down each vertical seam. I think the finished effect looks really good. Because I wanted the quilting stitches to disappear on the front, rather than using quilting cotton I used the same thread when hand piecing the shapes together, Superior Threads Bottom Line in white. This worked perfectly as the stitches on the front have literally ‘sunk’ in to the pieced seams.