making – Page 3 – My Making Life

Podcast Episode 8 – Shownotes

Aug 17, 2018Aug 17, 2018 missleela83

Hello! Here are the show notes for Podcast Episode 8!

You can view the podcast here. Thanks for watching.

Finished Makes

Tilly’s Baby Doll Blanket – not pattern, treble stitches in rows, simple shell scallop edge. Yarn Rico Baby So Soft Print dk, Farbe 002 / Partie 770

Tilly’s Headwarmer – Braelyn Headwarmer by Velvet Acorn

Yarn – Shiver, Moda Vera, colour 38. White wool yarn, green yarn from stash – buttons from Dailylike

Wrist Warmers – Soul Soothing Mitts by Sandra of Cherry Heart. Made for the Cherry Heart Makealong. Yarn by The Australian Wool Store, 100% Superwash Merino, colour Strawberry Malt.

Liberty Mosaic Mini Quilt 1 – see an in-depth blog post here.

Liberty Mosaic Quilt 2 – ¾” Octogons and squares – see an in-depth blog post here.

Liberty fabric from Westwood Acres ( @westwood_acres by @a.crafty.fox ) Liberty Fat 16^th Monthly Subscription. Pattern design by me. I plan on writing up this pattern & also doing paper piece kits in the near future.

Mini pin pennant & pincushion – Using Liberty scraps for the @ava_and_neve #libertyscrapchallenge. Hexies are 3/8”.

Makes in Progress

Learning to knit

Pincushions

Fabric gift tags

Flossie Teacakes Guide to English Paper Piecing by Florence Knapp

See my book review here. Find Florence’s Blog here.

Sydney Quilt and Craft Fair – Goodies!

Yarnish

Mary Maxim Prism, Colour 2013 Seascape, 100% acrylic
Scheepjes Whirl, Watermelon Hell Raiser, 60% cotton 40% acrlic

Material Obsession – Travel Threads, Heart by Wendy Williams

Hatched and Patched

Nature’s Pace Ipad Cases
Ceramic Dish
Wool fabric cuts

The Strawberry Theif

Liberty solid fabrics
Cotton bundle
Liberty fat 16ths

The Bay Window

CGT Threads Perle – Apricot Ice 1101, Apple Strudel 2305, 2202 Tutu, Mabel 1306
Valdani Pearl Cotton – 12 & 8

The Crewel Gobelin

Rustic Wool Moire, colour 443

Can Do Books

The Home Sewer’s Guide to Practical Stitches, by Nicole Vasbinder
Knit It, by Melissa Leapman

Other Goodies!

Project Bag from Quiltkween @quiltkween

Stitch Markers from Mark my Stitches

Willow Basket Bag from The Ivory Fawn @theivroyfawn.co

Happy Making!

Miss Leela x

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

Podcast Show Notes

Podcast Show Notes Episode 7

Jun 19, 2018 missleela83

Hello, thank you for watching my podcast. Please find below additional info & links mentioned in this episode.

You can watch Episode 7 here!

Tilly’s Lamb

Pattern by Anatilia. Acrylic yarn in a pearly white & dusty pink (can’t remember exact details sorry). Bobble stitch cap & body pink yarn held double with a pink fake mohair.

Tilly’s Doll Blanket

Crochet rows of treble stitches worked in Rico Baby So Soft Print dk, Farbe 002 / Partie 770

Soul Soothing Mitts

Pattern by Sandra of the Cherry Heart, find the pattern here. Yarn by The Australian Wool Store, 100% Superwash Merino, colour Strawberry Malt.

Link to Centre Pull Ball Tutorial here.

Half Hexagon Miniature Quilt

Please refer to my blog post for all the details and pictures here.

Granny Flower Miniature Quilt

Made from ¼” hexagon, English Paper Piecing. You can purchase ¼” hexagons from my shop. I also have a tutorial on basting & making a simple hexagon flower which you can view here.

Liberty Mosaic Quilt 01

Podcasts I mentioned:

The Stranded Dye Works (Amy Edwards Green)

The Creative Obsession

If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to ask!

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.