Hexie Love!

My father had a short stay in Intensive Care a couple of months ago, just before he passed away.  We spent long days and evenings at the hospital.  I know I got a few funny looks while I sat in the family room with my little Bionic Gear Bag full of fabric scraps and hexie templates but I've said over and over again for the past 3 years that my sewing keeps me sane at times....... and while my hands and brain were busy, I was able to be there for hours on end.....and it served its' purpose, it kept me sane and one lovely thing I discovered during that tough time is that I love my newest portable sewing project - hexagons!! 


  





Recently, I won a little prize from colourmehappy2 on instagram.  I showed you the picture of my prize in my last blog post but this is it again.........

                               


I made a tumbling block using English Paper Piecing way back when I made my Sampler Quilt but hadn't tried it since.  In my head, I had convinced myself that I couldn't make the points match.  How daft, the papers take all that effort away! 

After a few long days in the hospital, I grabbed my bionic gear bag on the way out the door and got through basting most of a pack of deliciously pretty Moda Mini Charms from the Best Day Ever Range.  How could anyone not be distracted by the beautiful bright colours? 

I tried two methods of basting - firstly, I was using a tacking stitch.  It's easy, it makes the paper or card templates secure but obviously you have to pull all those tacking stitches out later.  And next I decided to use the Sewline Glue Pen from The Quilt Shop (where I work, for those of you who didn't know) and see how that went.  I have had this in my sewing kit for well over a year and never used it.  I thought it was a glorified pritt stick and I just couldn't imagine it holding the fabric securely or for any length!  Well.......... I was wrong!  It was fast, super easy and way more secure than I could have imagined!  I have one less step to deal with when pulling out all the templates too!  Consider me converted! 

When I started, I honestly thought I would string a few together and make a notebook cover or a pencil case but I'm in love with these colours, so I'm going to make a lapquilt.  They're deliciously scrappy together and so bright and beautiful. As time has gone on, I've added quite a few extra colours from Moda's Daysail and another range called Just My Type (thank you to The Fat Quarter Shop for that mega sale) and some random scraps! 

This quilt will be totally different from ANYTHING in my house.  I have 3 sons and a husband, so my house is not what you'd call girlie.  However, check this picture out....... my husband bought me 2 of these footstools as part of my anniversary present recently.  How well does it match?  Now, I'll admit, I'm a bad wife, I took his gift back to the shop and exchanged them for 2 more sedate versions.  They actually have similar colours but aren't so ultra-violet-hi-viz-like......... and they still work great with the quilt!  If he was trying to match something though - he did well!!! 

I'm just about finished piecing the quilt top.  I'll shop it off properly once it's been quilted and bound.   I'd say it's about 45" x 55" roughly.  A nice lap quilt size and I'm seriously thinking about redecorating my livingroom to give this a proper home (alongside my new footstools)!

It's nice to slowly get my motivation back for sewing, it feels like I was off-track for the past while (understandably) but I feel like I'm getting somewhere again and it feels good!

Handwarmers, Totes, a competition win and more........

My main "thing" is quilting but after finishing a couple of big quilts, lately I just needed a few small projects that I could start and finish fast!  And the fun I've had! 

First I made the Fabric Wreath that I showed you yesterday.  Check out my first ever little tutorial if you haven't seen it already.  It's a no-sew project so suitable for everyone!  You will see the Tutorial Link at the top of the page, under the header!

Then, I made a few hand warmers for my mum and a good friend, Georgie who has Reynauds Disease so always has blue hands in the cold.  I filled them with rice and added a few drops of cinnamon to give them a nice smell. 

Next, I wanted to make something for my friend who has recently taken up crochet.  We've been friends since we were 10.  I have always been the one who was into "make & do" and always had a box of some craft or other in the corner whether it was glass painting, jewellery, card making and eventually, my total addiction, sewing/quilting and it's lovely to finally be able to share the love of making with her.  So, when I found this pattern online, I had to buy it and make it up for her.

It was my first time making a tote....... I have to admit, the base was a bit of a challenge so it's not perfect but it taught me alot!

I get fierce excited when I start to see a project come together so it takes a little longer because I need to stop regularly to admire it....... hence this picture of it before even adding the lining and it's turned right side out!

  It's a Crochet Tote.  It has a fine big center to hold up to 5 full balls of wool and then all the way around there are different sized pockets to hold the crochet hooks (or knitting needles), scissors and any other related notions!  I chose bright and cheerful colours because she's young and funky (just like me, ha ha)! 

And finally, I had bought some of the Gorjuss Fabric about 6 months ago and just didn't know what to do with it but finally, FINALLY, I cut into it and made my friends two little girls some bags.  I did some straight line quilting on them (which I love since I haven't mastered free-motion yet) and they turned out cute. 

It's hard not to turn out cute when you are using anything Gorjuss by Santoro........... it's just adorable!

I used a stem stitch and added their names on too.  You can't see the names because I hadn't gifted them when I took the picture so I covered it up with a bit of selvedge!

Now, before I go.............check out my little "win" on Instagram.  I entered a little competition with @colourmehappy2 and I won!!!!

I got orange chocolate ( my fav) (well, one of my fav's), a funky fat quarter, a mini Moda Charm pack, some wonder clips and hexie templates!  EEEEEEEEEK, I'm going making hexies!!!!! How cool...........

Daft pic won't rotate properly - sorry!

No Sew Fabric Wreath Tutorial

No-Sew Fabric Wreath Tute

I totally forgot I said I would do a quick tutorial on the super-easy, use-up-your-tiny-scraps Fabric Wreath that I made a couple of weeks ago. 

This requires NO SEWING whatsoever so is suitable for beginners!

Materials Needed:
Ruler
Rotary Cutter
Scraps
Florist Hoop (I got mine at The Quilt Shop, Tuam for €1)

Step 1:
Gather yours scraps.  You can use all one colour or for a truly scrappy effect, use a little (or a lot) of everything! I started with red and whites but quickly made my way through all the drawers for a rainbow of colours!  Selvedges with some text can add a bit of interest too!



Step 2: 
Cut the scraps to the desired length.  Mine are 1/2" x 5"
This takes some time but the growing pile of cut up scraps is really pretty all by itself!





Step 3:
Take your florists ring and a scrap and simply tie on!  Repeat this on both lines until your ring is chock full and you can't squeeze any more on.  The fuller, the prettier!







Please link back if you do try it........I'd love to see!

Scrap Happy!!

Scrap Happy, oh yes I am! 



I've had great fun this week so far, making things from scraps! 

First I made another zipped pouch for a friend who fell for the first one I made.  It's great when you make something with mad colours and you think it's a bit out there but someone loves it!  I also made another set of bunting which is currently winging it's way to Australia!

Yesterday I had loads of time with nothing to do.......... okay, that's not true, there were loads of things I could have done but it was the first day that all three of my kids were back at school after 10 days of sickness.  I had a quiet house and decided to make the best of it.......... but really I spent half the day deciding what to do !  Finally, at 5pm, I finally dug out the scraps and made this heart wreath.  I love it, it's totally scrapilicious!!!  There are dozens of different fabrics and colours in there!  It's hanging on the blue wall of my sewing room and pops with colour in reality - the pic doesn't quite do it justice. 
I will do a tutorial on this in a few days if anyone is interested!





Today, I got to the sewing machine earlier and when I found one single Eiffel Tower scrap, I chose to make a scrappy cushion cover around it.  I used the quilt-as-you-go method so it came together very fast.  By noon, all I had left was to put the backing on and I had a squishy, scrappy, pink cushion! 


Wonder what I'll do tomorrow morning!

3 Special Quilts for 3 Special Girls

A family that I've known my whole life recently lost someone very special.  Sonja was loved by so many, not least by her three beautiful daughters and her husband.  I'm not great with words, I never know what to say at times of such sadness......so I usually don't.  I am brilliant at saying very little and shying away from situations when I probably should say something thoughtful and profound.  Sonja's three girls, Kelsie, Alisha and Sofia are pretty amazing and I wanted to do something to let them know that I'm thinking of them.  I might not say the right things (probably the very opposite in fact) but my heart is with them during this terribly rough time. 

So, I had started the Economy Block Along a few months ago and realised that the fabric I had chosen to feature really reminded me of Alisha.  It has a couple of different Riley Blake fabrics that show a little girl picking apples, feeding the chickens, going camping and all sorts of other activities.  Alisha, in all the years I've known her, has been up to something interesting - whether it's fishing for mackerel with her aunty G, baking with her nana or crocheting but she's always seems to be doing something!  So I was about half way through this quilt when I realised that this was her quilt and it gave me more pleasure to finish it with her in mind!

 

I loved the colours in this one.  I got to use any and every type of fabric and overall eclectic effect is just fun!   I decided to hand quilt it so it took a while but it gives it a nice crinkly effect I think! 

                                              

I had a few extra blocks left over so I added them in to the backing and then I used offcuts from all the blocks to make a scrappy binding.  I think I love scrappy-effect quilts most of all, they're so girlie and fun!

 Next, I moved on to little Sofia's quilt.  I am an unashamed lover of paper-piecing so I found some patterns online that featured lots of different Fairy Tales and I thought they would be perfect.  Sofia is just 4 and a little fire-cracker - full of personality and has a lovely cheeky glint in her eye.  I thought she might find it fun to tell the stories in her quilt.

Each block features a different fairy story - The Ugly Duckling, Snow White, The Three Pigs, Puss In Boots and more........ the only one that didn't really stand out to me was the Three Pigs so I asked Sofias lovely Aunty Gina to make me some piggy buttons to help that block and now I love that block!!!  Gina has always been a whizz with Fimo, since forever (!), and she really helped me out with this despite the fact that she was heading to America and is still very much dealing with losing her lovely sister, Sonja, herself.  I really love that she had a little part in Sofias quilt - even though she didn't even know what the buttons were for!

                               

The last block in the quilt has a bookshelf full of books and I added some embroidered words to personalise it for Sofia.

Tada!  (Can you name each fairytale?)

And finally........... Kelsies Quilt. 
Kelsie is that bit older than her sisters and I didn't want to make anything too childish for her but I wanted it to be a bit of a memory quilt for her too.  I decided to make a family tree, a little reminder that she's surrounded by so many of her family when she's missing her mum.  

I didn't have a pattern or anything for this so just drew out the tree freehand appliquéd it and the leaves and then embroidered all the family names putting her own little family at the top centre and then all Sonja's family to the right - including grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins and the same for her dad Clives family to the left.  One little leaf is awaiting a name of the newest cousin, who is a little boy, due in October!

I asked for a little help regarding Kelsies colours and was told greens and pinks....... thankfully, her lovely granny and my lovely friend, Heather, said we got it right, phew!  I quite like the colours myself.  I had planned to machine quilt this one but in the end I decided to hand quilt and keep all three the same in that respect.

Finally, I wanted to put one patch on each quilt that was the same and to show that it was kind of in memory of their mum, Sonja.  The fabulous girls in WeSewCrazy Galway helped me out here.  I told them that I would like to put a patch on each quilt that would have the cancer awareness ribbon for the type of cancer that Sonja battled with and also a little something to do with Irish Dancing because every childhood party that I can recall,  Sonja was "the" Irish Dancer of our little community.  Every party I went to as a child, you could be sure that Sonja would have us clapping along.  And each of the girls learned too and eventually we were cheering them while they danced so I thought it would be nice to add that little momento!
 
Imagine how perfect it was when Fiona, from WeSewCrazy Galway (who happens to be a twin mum like me, so we had loads to gas bag about when I collected the patches) came back with a little image of an Irish Dancing girl with RED hair and a YELLOW Irish Dancing dress........ just like Sonja had years ago. 
The girls at WeSewCrazyGalway were sooooooo good and donated the patches for my quilt and I want them to know I really appreciated it so much! 

So I delivered the quilts last week.  It's been just over 3 months since the girls mum passed away and these quilts were meant as just a little reminder that they're surrounded by family and friends who love them very much.

xx Naomi

Sonja (Gardiner) Kubath with her big brother Alan, many years ago..... in that adorable yellow dress!

Whooooooosh.............. that's the sound of tumbleweed.....

My poor blog, I feel like I haven't visited it, much less posted in ages!  The problem, if you'd call it that, has been that I've been working on gifts and when you work on gifts, you can only post about them so much because you don't want the receiver to know they are for them before they get them! 

So, I just finished three different quilts this week.  Hooray!  I will hopefully get them wrapped and gifted in the next few days and then I can show them properly!

In the meantime, I finally got to make some bunting!  I was assured it was the "easiest thing in the world" (Roisin from The Quilt Shops favourite line) but I'm always afraid of cutting up fabric for something I've never made before!  So Roisin made me delve in one day in the shop.  She needed some bunting to advertise the letters that can be bought for personalised projects and I learned that yes, it is rather easy.  Now I'm addicted! 

So I stocked up on more bias binding. I love to make my own for quilts but at 80c per yard, this stuff is brilliant.  My favourite is the candy stripe red, you can't see it in the picture above but it looks fab with the navy flags!

Then, after making a set of wedding bunting in the shop, I wondered why I wasn't making any for my own house?  Then my 10 year old asked could he help me with anything and so I gave him the lovely job of picking out some nice solid colours, some funky robot fabric and I got making!  I got my letters cut, of course, at the Quilt Shop and my big boy picked the right letters for the flags and Wow, but my small boys are so happy with their new "flags". 

Check out little Levi's proud face........he loves his side because it has a green flag, his favourite colour.  I must thank my 10 yr old for reminding me to put green in his name!!

So that's me and my new favourite thing............bunting!  The husband wants me to make some now for outside before bbq season ends and who am I to complain when I get to put something pretty swinging from the trees without the men-folk (of which I'm surrounded here) giving out about the girliness?

My Sewing Room Tour!

Ooooh it's been a fun old couple of weeks. After a trip to Ikea, my sewing room got a bit of a jig-up and I can show you almost all of it............ I still have a wardrobe and an alcove to sort out but time enough!

I have to admit, I love Ikea, there are so many storage solutions and you could spend all day choosing but I pretty much knew what I wanted, a larger version of what I already had!  This unit gave me 9 extra square boxes!  I have pretty much filled them already but I love it.  Just rearranging the room (my husbands idea, actually the bigger storage was his idea too) has really helped.  Even though there are more items and a bigger unit in there, it feels more spacious and it's proving a more effective work layout!

What do you guys think of my space?  It's compact, yes.  The walls are dark blue having inherited my sons décor and my other half keeps suggesting painting it white but I like the blue, with all the white furniture, it makes it cosy and I think it will be a nice backdrop for some mini-quilts on the walls! 

Check out all the cards in the middle shelf, second row, that I'm getting with each delivery of 2.5" squares from around the world........... "Lovin' it"

You might notice the few items that I've acquired from around the house....... I love when things have dual purposes!  There are my Salter Scales........so handy when I need to weigh items that I'm posting and I seem to do that more than baking these days.  I also have a letter organiser from the office holding my rulers - it's brilliant for the small and big rulers!!  My small ironing board and mini iron are on a small, light table so that I can put it under the cutting table when not in use.  I love being able to have it right next to the sewing desk, saves soooooo much time!

 

and I still have that rolly-trolley-thing-a-majiiggy that I stole ahem, borrowed from the office last year!  It's really handy by my desk for my measuring tape, patterns, ribbon etc..... Plus, it keeps those fiddly bits out of sight when the small, inquisitive people in my life visit my little sanctuary!

So that's it for now........ I still have to sort the shelves by the door, the wardrobe (which I had forgotten to take into account when buying storage - BONUS)  and the alcove that you can't see in these pictures.  It's beside the big storage unit and currently holds a rocking chair and a little table stacked high with cushion fillers and leftover wadding and beads!  I think I managed to keep most of my disorganised mess out of sight!!!  Hopefully, you'll think I'm just a neat crafter (as if such a thing existed!)!

It's all about appearances, right?  ..........and then you get to know me and therefore the truth! Whoops!

Medallion Quilt Along!

I've been getting the emails about the Medallion Quilt Along from the Modern Quilt Guild of Ireland and  I reallllllllly wanted to join in but couldn't decide on a center block to get me going.  I should have done what was suggested, which was to create a mosaic of central blocks which would probably have inspired me and got the creative juices going..........but no, instead I chose to just let ideas float around in my head, allow them to get all muddled up and talk myself out of joining a few dozen times.  However, I bit the bullet last night and just decided to buy the "Liberty Love" book for the kindle (oh yes, instant gratification...... pay for it and receive it in less than 3 mins, now that's service)!  My plan was just to follow the Marcelle Medallion pattern - I have been drooling over it on Instagram and other blogs for about 18months after all..........but as soon as I flicked through the book, I decided on another design altogether for my centre block and got to work!

First a fabric pull............. 

I chose a paper-piecing block for the centre because I love the patterns that can be achieved with this method and it gives such accurate results.  I hated paper-piecing when I first tried it, so much so that I dumped my first couple of efforts out of sheer frustration but then I took on a twin-sized seaside quilt done completely with paper-piecing and I fell in love with the process.  It's perfect for those days when you just want to sew and don't want to think about what you're doing too much!  Effectively sewing by numbers!! 

I don't have the exact recommended measurements so I'm hoping it'll work out as it grows but I'm rather pleased with my first block & border!  I LOVE that text fabric from The Quilt Shop.  I'm hoping I haven't added too much pink/purple.  I don't want it to end up completely pink themed so I need to try and add new colours as I go.

Now to add some more borders....... so many choices but I won't take so long this time, watch this space!

Friends, Fun & FABRIC!

Wahooooooooo, my buddy made it over from America and was in our area for one night only (yes, I sang the song in my head far too much.......... "for one night only, one night only....." Drove myself mad) and we had fun, fun, fun......... how much chat, food/drink and shopping can you fit in less than 24 hours......well, ALOT!!!!

So, her lovely visit is over already but she left her mark by bringing over my shopping from America.  Since October/November she'd been sending me links to websites that I should check for fabric, notions, and more....... being the dutiful friend, of course I checked them out and then I was compelled to buy a little here and there!  Well, let's just say I've fairly added to my stash overnight and I love it!  So here's a sneaky peek at some of what she brought...........

The top three photos are from Craftsy.com, who have an advert on my page right now! (coincidence? hmmm :) ) and the bottom pictures are some of the scrap packs from Hawthorne Threads.  I love these, they sent completely different ones to the ones I got last year and the "scraps" are a very generous size!

 
You might not see me now for a little while, not because I'm going to be in a big feverish sewing frenzy or anything.  More than likely, I'll be sitting with my fabric, stroking it and colour co-ordinating my little piles and imagining what I can make......... aaaaaaaaah bliss!