Showing posts with label scrappy quilting. Show all posts

Thursday, October 15, 2026

Slow Stitching Projects and I Quilted This!

Hi and welcome 😎. I hope that you're all well as the weather turns to fall. The local birds and squirrels are sure busy getting ready for winter. If the rain stops, I'll be outside again, at least to have my morning coffee. So here's what's going on.

Mindful Slow Stitching

A couple of weeks ago it was the fall Making Zen event. There's always at least one project that I gravitate to. This time is was making a smallish pouch. The class was offered by Kate Ward, the host of the event. Here's my jean pouch.

Jean pouch created based on a Making Zen class

Everything is stitched on with raw edges showing (the jean fabric and the strips), I used perle cotton for most of the stitching.

Pouch full and ready to take with me

The back of the pouch, closed with two coiled pieces of fabric

I added a scrappy binding at both ends so that it's a little tidier. The only raw edges that show on the pouch are the side edges of the top closure.

The pouch holds my magnifying glasses and my scrappy needle case.

I created the needle case in last year's Making Zen event. The link is in Related links below.

Not-so-Daily Stitching project

When I was reading Diann of Little Penguin Quilts' post on her daily stitching, I had written a comment and Diann replied that she now had time for daily stitching... which made me stop and think that I do have time, if I make it a priority! Well, it hasn't been daily but I have been having fun resuming my stitching of these little squares. I will often do a few at a time. Here is my latest as a nod to fall.

Fall tree - I like using my fancy silk and linen thread!

I used this stitching time to try out some new thread. I went to a yarn store and bought two balls of Lana Gatto, linen yarn from Italy. It's a beautiful linen that is made like embroidery floss, in that it can be separated in strands. I stitched a couple of squares to try it out.

Trying out two blue Italian linen thread

My problem with not-so-daily stitching is that I often am not inspired to stitch something interesting. So I did make an effort for these blocks.

Playing with linen and silk thread

Trying out different stitches

I have found inspiration from other stitchers who do daily stitching, like Diann and Karen Tucker (see links below). Diann's pretty tree was my inspiration for my fall tree above.

Tonight, before finishing this post, I stitched a new block, playing with two colours, making wonky lines and then threading both the running stitch and the chain stitch. The final row is whipped chain stitch.

Playing with threading and whipping stitches in two colours

What I learned

I discovered that I could stitch my pouch when travelling and visiting. That made the visit so much better.
I've started another project with a larger piece of denim (from a shirt). I kept the larger piece together because I'm not sure that I want to do yet. I've stitched fabric strips on the wrong side at one end. Since JJ and I have been watching the Great British Sewing Bee, I added some ruching as well as pleats. It's cool to add other types of texture on the piece.
At the other end of the jean fabric, on the correct side, I'm stitching up some great dressmaking fabric scraps that my sister-in-law gave me. I just love stitching things up 😍
As I mentioned, I often have no idea what to stitch for my not-so-daily stitching project, so I'll be visiting other daily stitchers for inspiration when it's not coming to me! Thanks Diann and Karen 😊
If you're wondering about Square Dance baby quilt, it's almost done! All of the coloured blocks have been FMQ. Now to add a little something to the centre squares and then the quilt square up and bind. I should have it for you next week. Yay!

I Quilted This!

Welcome to the I Quilted This! linking party that celebrates quilting on a domestic machine or custom quilting on a long-arm. Feel free to link up and share any recent project, even if you're not quilting it!

Here are the posts that included FMQ, ruler work and walking foot quilting last week. Thanks for linking up 😊 and consider grabbing the button.

Preeti from Sew Preeti Quilts finished an improv quilt to help her de-stress. It worked and she got a lovely quilt too! It's called Monsoon. You'll want to check out her post for details and more pictures.

Preeti's Monsoon quilt

Gwyned Trefethen finished FMQ and embroidering her Rainbow Scraps Challenge quilt, Cats in the Attic.

Gwyned's green Cat in the Attic

An almost finished quilt - Cats in the Attic

Vicki from Vicki's Crafts and Quilting has been very busy. You'll want to check out her post to see it all, but here's a wall hanging and runner that she's made.

Vicki is keeping this cool wall hanging for herself!

A Christmas runner made by Vicki

Gail from Quilting Gail gifted this gorgeous bunny baby quilt.

Gail quilted this baby quilt with the Rocket ruler.

It's now your turn 😍

Thursday, August 13, 2026

A Finish and I Quilted This!

Hi and welcome 😊 I hope you're enjoying (or tolerating) the August weather. Thanks for dropping by. Today I have a finished baby quilt. It's been in the works for a while and I finally stopped agonizing about the binding and just got it done!

Orange Scrappy Baby Quilt Finished

The quilt is made of scraps that I got from my DIL's mother. She made a lovely quilt for her granddaughter but didn't want the scraps (can you believe that? 😲) I was quite happy to oblige - there were some nice big pieces in there, enough for another baby quilt. You've seen me make it and FMQ quilt it and now it's done.

Finished and washed - Orange Scrappy Baby Quilt

I made some very simple blocks, mostly the wonky snowball variety. My first post about this quilt was from July 2025, so it took a little longer than a year. Way to go me!😍

Glamour shot with the phlox

It was nice this week so I took some glamour pictures in my backyard. You can see some of the good parts of the yard 😁.

The very yellow scrappy backing of the quilt

The quilt in my favourite part of the yard

As I mentioned above, I've been thinking about the binding for this quilt since I finished FMQ it in April of this year. Should I got with a yellow or another colour? I didn't have enough scraps from the quilt for a scrappy binding and the yellow backing is just too bright. Finally I decided on a brown and found the perfect one in my stash. It was the brown/orangish porcupine in the fabric that decided it. Let's face it, the binding needs to match something - so a cute porcupine will do.

Note - technical details that can be skipped!

Since I was in a learning mood (patient and curious), I decided to push myself to do a good machine binding. I've done them before but they weren't very good, so this was a learning moment. I used a 2¼" side binding (I'm adding this for my records.) I realised that I believed that the binding needed to be flush with the quilt fabric underneath it, with no extra space inside the binding. That's why the back of my binding was always wider than the front and couldn't be neatly stitched by machine. I'm not sure how clear this is, but I ended up lining the back of the binding just beyond the original front stitch line. This mostly worked. I did fix a few spots where I missed the edge of the binding but it was much better than I usually do.

Binding needs to slightly cover the stitch line

The corners are not always easy to stitch, so when re-stitching it, I used a glue stick to keep the corner in place to stitch it. It worked wonderfully!

Gluing down the corner to stitch it well

What I learned

When in doubt about the colour of the fabric to use for the binding, match an element of the quilt - it should work.
Taking the time to think about how I was putting on the binding and what was going wrong helped me get better at sewing the binding by machine. It was time well spent. Hopefully I'll be able to practice and get better!
The tip to myself for future machine bindings is to take my time and concentrate on each step.
I'm hoping to spend some quality time in my studio this weekend and finishing the Rainbow Neighbourhood quilt. Then I'll be able to practice on another binding 😀

I Quilted This!

Here are the posts that included FMQ, ruler work and walking foot quilting last week. Thanks for linking up 😊 and consider grabbing the button.

Terry from Ongoing Projects quilted her Stars and Stripes Guild Challenge. She shared pictures of the quilting, but we'll have to wait until October for the reveal!

Terry using a combination of thread to
quilt straight and curved lines

Terry quilting straight lines on her Stars and Stripes

Diann of Little Penguin Quilts finished this sweet Christmas in July table topper. Here it is. You'll want to go and read the post for more details.

Diann's Christmas in July table topper

Gail of Quilting Gail made a test quilt based on Brenda's new pattern Tilt-a-Whirl. You'll see Brenda's quilt below. Gail made her quilt in low volume colours. Gail used Silly Moon rulers Turkey and Charming to quilt it.

Gail's test version of Brenda's new quilt pattern, Tilt-a-whirl

Details of Gail's quilting of Tilt-a-whirl

Vicki from Vicki's Crafts and Quilting quilted and finished two quilts! The first is a pineapple quilt with large stippling while the other was made using a jelly roll and quilted with large freehand feathers. Check out these two beauties!

Vicki's pineapple quilt with large stipling

Vicki's jelly roll quilt with freehand feathers

Brenda of Songbird Designs has a new pattern out for a new fabric collection. The quilt pattern is Tilt-a-whirl which you saw earlier.

Tilt-a-whirl by Brenda

Brenda also made this great Funky Tulip runner which she quilted using FMQ and rulers. Brenda used the new fabric line. You may want to check out her post for more details.

Brenda's Funky Tulip runner

It's now your turn 😍

Thursday, June 04, 2026

A finish, June's OMG and I Quilted This!

Bonjour and welcome 😎! Thanks for dropping by. The weather has been so lovely here. My favourite part of the day is a morning (not too early) having coffee outside in the backyard. I've been able to do this almost every day. Evening are often in the studio. I'm happy to say that the scraps from my retreat are all put away. There is hope yet for a tidy studio!

Scrappy Improv Sewing Machine Cover

It's done! The improv sewing machine cover that I worked on during my quilting retreat is finished. I like the pattern because it used ties to close the cover. This makes it reversable and easy for those of us who are accuracy challenged!

Sides 1 and 2 were created years ago to make a scrappy fabric bag based on a lesson from Craftsy. It never got passed the stage of sewing two scrappy panels for the bag. Before leaving for the retreat I sewed them together to make sure that they would be big enough for the sewing machine cover. I just added a couple of inches on each side using wonderful fabric that looks like patchwork. I knew that it was too wide but that gave me wiggle room when trimming everything. I also used that fabric for the binding.

Side 1 of the machine cover

Side 2 of the machine cover with orange ties

Sides 3 and 4 were created at the retreat on the Featherweight. There was only one spot where the tension problem showed up. I just FMQ over it - no problems here 😁

Side 3 - lots of 2" blocks!

Side 4 - I got bored with the 2" blocks 😂

You may have noticed that the cover seems quite wide. I did trim it but ~~probably~~ could have trimmed it another 3". I wasn't going to take the chance that it would be too small. There's nothing wrong with some extra room - it might grow into it!

I used a variegated thread to sew the binding on. I sewed it by machine - not great but good enough. The other thread in the photo is a pale pink InvisaFil thread used to FMQ.

Machine cover with threads used on the project

Here are a few images of the FMQ.

FMQ sewing machine cover

More FMQ

The scrappy sewing machine cover with ties

June's One Monthly Goal (OMG)

I've been trying to start quilting my Rainbow Neighbourhood QAL flimsy for a while now. Making the quilt sandwich was my April OMG. I forgot to put it as my May OMG and would have made it since I sandwiched it on May 31st. Quilting the Rainbow Neighbourhood project is now my June OMG. I've started quilting it in-the-ditch. The goal is to do all of the in-the-ditch quilting by the end of the month although I hope to get it done quicker than that. I need this lovely finished by the beginning of August for our friends' 40th wedding anniversary.

The day and night skies have all been stitched-in-the-ditch


Using the walking foot to stitch-in-the-ditch. The quilt is 68" x 65"

I also joined our local quilt shop's, Quilty Pleasures, Summer UFO Challenge. This is one of my three UFOs/WIPs on the list.

What I learned

I'm very happy to say that I didn't have to make the orange ties for the cover. When I was gifted my friend's hand-dyed scraps she had included at least a dozen ties that she would have used to make masks. I'm so grateful because I really, really dislike making these!
I had a difficult time FMQ anything that went left. I know that my machine doesn't like it when I sew in the left direction but it was a little ridiculous. I ended up doing more squiggle lines than I usually do. FMQ forward and backwards is fine. I'll eventually get the machine cleaned and checked but for now, there are no left turns allowed!
For the machine binding, I used a 2" strip but didn't fold it. Again, I'm always afraid to make it too small but 1¾" would have been better. I'm happy to report that my corners were awesome 😊
The Rainbow Neighbourhood quilt will be mostly quilted using my walking foot. If I need a few swirls in the sky, I can FMQ them, probably very, very slowly!

I Quilted This!

Here are the posts that included FMQ, ruler work and walking foot quilting last week. Thanks for linking up 😊 and consider grabbing the button.

Gretchen from Gretchen's Little Corner used up tons of her scraps, even the ugly ones, to make these two quilts, that are not so ugly! Gretchen FMQ diagonal lines in the white blocks and borders. I'm sure both of these compassion quilts will be loved.

Gretchen's two "not so ugly" quilts

Terry Knott of On Going Projects finished quilting her 2022-23 temperature quilt.

Terry's 2022-2023 Temperature quilt

Terry custom quilted the quilt

Look at all of the details of the quilting by Terry

Diann from Little Penguin Quilts made this lovely orange placemat. She used larger squares so that the lovely elephant fabric would show up nicely.

Lovely orange placemat by Diann

The back and simple quilting of Diann's placemat

Melva from Melva Loves Scraps finished her Pieces from the Past quilt. She used some traditional looking quilting designs for the blocks and the sashing.