Folksy Fabric Mosaics

Stitched in Color periodically runs fun fabric mosaic contests on her blog. This one is sponsored by the Intrepid Thread. I've created two different mosaics with my interpretation of the Folksy Fall theme.

This is my Folksy Autumn mosaic, maybe not enough colour variation but I love a colour gradient!

My second mosaic is my personal favourite. I based it around the colours in the two central fabrics and like to think of it as my Folksy Navy mosaic.

I love making mosaics for these contests, it's shopping with no guilt!

My Underwater Castle Bag

I wanted to share a project I completed a few months ago. I made it using the Underwater Stripes pattern by Sew Sweetness. This bag was my first proper bag with a zipper and has inspired me to make more since!

I was using scraps from another project and had enough diagonal pieced strips left to make the handles from those rather than HST's, it worked well and was much quicker! I rearranged the HST panels into my own design, giving a sort of 'Castle' shape. In order for my design to work I needed an even number in the panels so I sewed my HST's together with a scanty seam allowance and made my bag slightly narrower so I could get away with 6 HST's wide instead of 7. An unintended consequence of my scanty seams was that my pattern pieces also ended up fitting on 4 HST's high instead of 5.

Here's the other side, they don't match as I was using up the scraps I had on hand!

I am most proud of my zipper, I hadn't really used any before so this was an adventure. The instructions in the pattern were clear and helpful, it didn't turn out perfectly but I love it!

I used a leftover piece of grey linen for the lining with a pop of colour in the pocket lining.

I would certainly recommend this pattern as a great first bag pattern, especially if you're already a quilter. I'm certain it would look great with plain fabric instead of a the HST's as well, it has a lovely shape to it. The best thing about the pattern? It's free!

Tessellation Quilt

Well it's 11:30pm and I have just finished the Top of my Tessellation quilt. I participated in the SAL for the pattern by Allison Glass that was organised by Sara at Sew Sweetness. 

I really loved the pattern but my favourite bit was the star. Therefore I decided to rearrange the triangles to make more pretty shapes!

I apologise for the quality of the picture but I just finished and the deadline for the SAL is in less than 6 hours.

Time for bed!

WIP Wednesday

Hiya

I have been a little bit of a failure in updating this blog but I have been getting a little sewing done.

My Acacia star duvet cover has stalled at the complete top stage:

However I have been working hard on using my scraps to make some coordinating pillows. I have 

made Half Square Triangles out of some of the Acacia prints then appliquéd them onto the existing 

black pillows that came with the ikea duvet set I bought. I believe the technique I used is raw edge appliqué? At any rate I ironed them onto bondaweb, trimmed them to 2" square, ironed them onto the pillows then stitched around the edge. I ended up using my buttonhole stitch and going round twice to get the effect I wanted, I'm quite pleased with it in the end.

Well it would be more accurate to say I'm quite pleased with my one completed pillowcase out of four! The others are sitting on a pile on my ironing board waiting to have the HSTs ironed on.

I'm linking up with freshly pieced

WIP Wednesday

This week I've been working on my Star Duvet cover. This is my design (that I did myself):

I've been making it using a 20 fat eighths from Acacia by Tula Pink and a black Ikea double duvet cover. I cut out the centre of the duvet and I intend to reinsert the patchwork, we'll see how well that works later on!

I've made my blocks and joined them into columns, looking good so far!

Now I need to join up my columns, then see how flat it is. I'm linking up with WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.

2014 Pantone Quilt Challenge

Hiya

Having somewhere to post my entry for the Pantone quilt challenge was one of my motivations to finally start a blog. You can go have a look at all the fabulous entries over at Play Crafts.

I have to confess that I've never quilted a quilt before and have been procrastinating over taking the plunge. Therefore I have made an entry for the Just The Top category.

I came up with the design myself with inspiration from Pinterest and it consists of 12 blocks which are 12" square and a 6" wide border.

I tweaked my original concept slightly but the basic plan I made is shown above. I used 1 mostly black fat quarter (Minimalista by AGF studio) and two mostly black half yards (Summersville Spring by Lucie Summers) to form the border. The centre background consists of 6 white/black/grey fat quarters (Also Minimalista). My 3 radiant orchid inspired fabrics came in fat quarters and I used Kona cotton solids in Plum, Spraytime in Aubergine from Makower and a print from Bungalow by Joel Dewberry. I bought the fabric from Plush Addict and  Knotted Threads and John Lewis!

My colour choices were intended to highlight the radiant orchid fabrics and my radiant orchid palette was intended to tone in with my Mum's Living Room as that is where the quilt will eventually go.

This is by far the most complicated sewing project I have ever attempted and  I'm very happy with how it's turned out, even though its not perfect! My theoretical dimensions were 48" by 68" and my finished top is 46.5" by 58". I'll leave you with a couple more photos!

Hi

Hi! Welcome to my first ever blog!

My name is Catriona and I love to make a whole variety of things using a wide variety of techniques. I make Jewellery and Stitch markers out of silver:

I dye my own fiber, card my own batts and spin yarn on a spinning wheel.

I also knit and weave and do whatever takes my fancy.
Recently I have been doing increasing amounts of sewing. It started with some simple knitting project bags but I've been doing more and more. As part of this sewing discovery process I've been reading some great blogs and decided to start one of my own for the first time. I intend for this to be mainly about sewing, patchwork and quilting with other random stuff I get up to thrown in on occasion. I hope some people will read and enjoy!

I'll be posting about some recent sewing projects very soon.