bobbles with everything

I am attempting to be disciplined at the moment, and concentrating on making the quilt for my friend...she didn't want it too wonky, and yet not too rigid, so I have gone back to the 'magic numbers' design I've used before, here:

http://molebags.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/jim-jams-and-tablecloths.html

and here:

http://molebags.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/nearly-finished.html

You just need to cut squares six and a half inches, four and a half inches and two and a half inches square, and they will always fit together. I decided to have more cream squares than any other colour for a random look.

To see if I was on the right track, I photographed the fabric individually, and made this mock-up in Adobe InDesign. It looks quite convincing, and no fabric was harmed in making this picture!

She was pleased with the idea so now its up on the wall (and the top of the cupboard), waiting to be sewn together. 

Here are the first few to be joined up (they are actually square, but this isn't a very good photo..)

While we were in the Eternal Maker choosing fabric, I somehow found myself agreeing to make a ruffle top for my other friend- just as well its a quick thing to make, so I can get back to the main event!

These peppered cottons are gorgeous! Might have to make myself one of these too, hmm, maybe in lovely terracotta colour...

I have managed to make a little something for myself too this week, a cushion made from vintage fabric, with lovely yellow bobbles! I am having a craze for these and I'd really like to sew them on to everything, but Mr P is ambivalent to say the least regarding bobbles, so I may have to restrain myself..

Its very satisfying to make something from bits I already had, and some odd buttons from the button tin. Mr P. says this cushion is kitsch (which is usually a good thing) but hideous (which isn't), but I don't care...

Loving those bobbles (sorry Mr P)!

love all hexies

I think there's something addictive about hexagons! Here are the ones I've been paper-piecing for the last two years or so. These are two inches across. (tiny tennis players added for scale).

I was surrounding each flower with a white background, but now I've decided that black looks better, so now I need to start a new production line of black ones. At least I never get bored during the long cold wet evenings in front of the fire.

(Of course this leaves me with lots of orphaned white ones to use for another project...)

Then there are these black flowers, which are waiting for the perfect background. Maybe this black and white crosshatch? 

I have also been experimenting with larger hexagons, sewn by machine.

Last summer I was thinking about a faded blue quilt:

http://molebags.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/blue.html

.. and I think big hexagons could be the ideal method. I'd like it to look as though its already old and soft and faded, which it will be, as it will be mostly made from my collection of vintage bits and pieces. 

I love it when an idea that's been on hold comes together, and I like the idea of updating a traditional method for this quilt.

These six inch hexagons come together quite easily, especially using a quarter-inch guide foot on the machine. You need to start each seam a quarter-inch from the edge of the fabric, and make a couple of reverse stitches to anchor the end of the seams. Even I (Mrs Slapdash) can do it!

Meanwhile, back at the tennis, its game set and match to Cecil on the right. And he raises his arms in victory!

But what's this? A giant cat has invaded the court!

Run away! 

(you don't get excitement like that at Wimbledon!)

inspiration- embracing the beige

This weekend the sun came out! Mr P was delighted to be able to spend time in the garden, hacking and slashing. The snowdrops and hellebores are out, giving us hope that one day spring will finally arrive.

Meanwhile, after a trip to the fabulous Eternal Maker,

https://www.eternalmaker.com/

(and a delicious lunch),

 I now have this stack of beautiful fabric waiting to become a quilt for a friend. I was deeply impressed at her speedy and decisive choices- I've never been known to spend less than an hour in this fabulous fabric emporium, and then I always leave with a guilty bag of things I didn't know I wanted, which need to be smuggled into the house up my jumper....

Loving these colours (even the beige!), especially the splash of lime green. Now we just need to decide on the design...

I have been musing about where inspiration comes from, and this weekend the landscape seemed to be obliging by using the same steely grey/silver palette.

The stubble makes me think of the pelt of an animal, spread like a rug over the hill.

The last lit-up corncob lantern amongst the ragged shreds.

Silvery saw marks, against the blue of the corrugated iron (mmm, corrugated iron is amongst Mr P's favourite things- strange man!)

..and look at this striking abstract image made by chainsaw cuts in a fallen tree- maybe these will all work their way into the quilt?

oh my ears and whiskers...

So many interesting things to do, so little time...

I think I can honestly say I don't know what it is to be bored, here at home anyway (plenty of that in the day job, but that's another story. If I could take my sewing to work with me I could fill in the boring bits quite easily!).

Its probably because its the start of a new year that I've been taking stock of my many different projects...

Next month my hexagon obsession will celebrate its second birthday- joining the bits together takes AGES, as I only do it in the evenings while half asleep in front of the fire, but one day I'll have a quilt big enough for our bed, once these:

have been attached to these:

Then I'd like to make another one with GREAT BIG hexies, just for the joy of finishing it at faster-than-glacial-speed..

(and maybe have a go at machine-pieced hexies too...)

Then there's this quilt:

... (with lovely Daisy!) which has been up on the wall for months now. I think its finally ready to be joined together which is just as well because next week I'm going with a friend to choose fabric to make her a quilt, which will of course take priority.

Meanwhile, I have a piece of lovely soft double voile which I am dithering about cutting into. I'm thinking of a simple tunic-shaped dress, but I want to try out the pattern with a piece of old sheet first.

I've also promised to make some more little purses and phone cases for Jenny at Handmade Happiness, 
http://jenny-handmadehappiness.blogspot.co.uk/

and I want to experiment with more fabric bead jewellery....


And one day these pieces from an upholstery sample book will magically transform themselves into new covers for the kitchen dining chairs- I've bought the big dangerous stapler, so there's really no excuse (except fear of stapling myself to a chair) for not getting on with it.

Now its getting slightly lighter in the evenings, and it will soon be time for sowing seeds for the garden (if it EVER stops raining). At least when the weather is so awful there's no better place than indoors surrounded by bits of fabric.

I'm hoping that now I've publicly declared a few of my various unfinished things I'll actually finish some of them before being distracted by more!

Just as well I've always said I'd prefer to have on my gravestone "she made exciting things and ate a lot of CAKE" and not "she had a nice tidy (beige) house and cleaned her grouting weekly with a toothbrush"...

back from the dark ages

There has been a bit of a pause on the blogging front, I blame the dark and wet Christmas holiday, amongst other things!

Our electricity was off for three and a half days, leaving us bumbling around the house by the light of battery-powered fairy lights and candles. Luckily we are quite used to losing power in bad weather here in the countryside, and we have a log burner and an open fire so we are warm and cosy (if we can get near the fires for cats..).

The garden fruit in the freezer was starting to defrost after three days though, so I ended up making gallons of jam by candlelight. Happily the hob is powered by calor gas! Blackout jam (blackcurrant, raspberry and blackberry) turns out to be delicious, and we have plenty to give away to friends.

We were with friends on Christmas day, and on boxing day we visited the Weald and Downland Museum, where the historic buildings were all decorated in period festive style. Very atmospheric, with the candlelight, the holly and ivy and the tables set for the feast... not so very different from chez Molebags (apart from the stuffed pigs head)..

Living by candlelight, even for just a few days, made me think of all the (mostly) women who made beautiful patchwork or lace, or even just darned their husband's woolly underwear in very low light, and probably after a day spent in the fields or bashing the washing on a rock. How spoilt we are, with our modern conveniences. Mr P was as happy as a dog with two tails, pedalling away on his pole lathe in the gloom, and chopping the logs in the rain- he says he was born into the wrong century, and I wouldn't mind going back a few hundred years too, although I'd like to take modern medical advances with me to the dark ages!

So as I'm not used to medieval light levels there was not as much time for creativity as I would have liked, although I am still slightly obsessed with making fabric beads. You can see some of them, and some of my zipped purses too, in the lovely shop 'Handmade Happiness' in Petersfield:

http://jenny-handmadehappiness.blogspot.co.uk/

a happy and soggy new year

unruffled, and beaded

When my sister and I were young we used to make beads by winding long triangular pieces of paper (usually cut from a magazine page) covered in messy glue around a knitting needle. Ah, we had to make our own entertainment in the dark ages...

For some reason that popped into my head the other day, and I wondered if I could do something similar with fabric?

Here are my first attempts, and it turns out to be an addictive hobby!

I've already made a bunch of them, which might eventually turn into a necklace or maybe just a bracelet...

Some are more tatty than others, but I think that's part of their charm. I wound the fabric round and then sewed (randomly) through the layers with perle 8 cotton whilst they were still on the knitting needle. I like the effect, which makes me think of the kind of utility quilts that women in India make for their families. Although no doubt if you were a neater person than me you could work out a pattern for the stitching.

They are brilliant for using small strips of fabric, even the patterns you don't like much, as you just get the colour but not the pattern showing.

They make me think of silkworms, or maybe they could be the chrysalises which patchwork quilts hatch from?

I've also finished another ruffled top, but (spot the difference) this one has no ruffle!

I made this one from 'ordinary' quilting cotton, rather than from a more textured fabric like the previous two:

http://molebags.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/ruffled.html

http://molebags.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/russet-tan-sludge-mud-prune.html

and as I suspected the ruffle wasn't 'ruffly' enough, even after it had been through the washing machine.

But ruffled or unruffled, I'm looking forward to wearing it over a long sleeved black top over Christmas. And maybe in the new year I should try a different pattern in my Japanese pattern book?