MOTHER TRUCKER!!

And A Few Cars...

A while ago I set out to make a quilt for a very special little monkey, he loves bright colors, cars, bikes, trucks and more than anything diggers!! I began in my usual way with researching and came across this darling pattern 

PEAK HOUR

They are available allover the place but I bought mine from the lovely Isabel over at Creative Quilting I loved the idea of the rows of different vehicles and signs, but what it really needed was one almighty digger!!  So I set myself the challenge of creating just that! I started with a small A5 size picture that had to be scaled up to almost single bed size.....eeeeeekkk!!!

Once the overall design was complete, each section then had to be individually drawn onto Bondaweb and ironed on to the fabric choices, as is standard for general machine applique. In true blonde style I did have to start over twice.... the first time I put the chair "in" over the door frame and then the window "in" over the chair!! I amaze even myself at times!

I wanted to make it as realistic as possible, I mean go hard or go home right?!? So I spent quite a long time trying to get some shading into the teeth on the big scoop and the wheel arches, although not totally perfect I think it does make a difference. Life got in the way a bit and unfortunately this project had to be put on hold a while which meant I didn't quite make the deadline I had set myself.

A couple of birthdays, high teas, spa days, thunder storms, very long work days, a few fights with my sewing machine and a lot of fabric buying later rows of cars and trucks started to appear.

And eventually after a lot more late nights, fabric cutting, fights with the sewing machine and some words of wisdom from my lovely quilt group this emerged and found its way onto an African bound plane!! 

I wish I could be there to see my little monkeys reaction to it, hopefully he will love snuggling up in it as much as I loved making it for him and I will get some photos of that darling little face.

I have about 13 new projects that I want to start, 4 new projects that I have started and a good 25 more that I have seen that I totally need in my life, don't roll your eyes at me I know you totally have the same list going!! At the same time as I am typing this post I have another window open on my browser auditioning fabrics for Jen Kingwell's My Small World, which is available in Quiltmania's Spring 2015 special.

You know you want it......

Happy Quilting 

Kerry xx

WEEKEND ROUND UP!!

Sail Away With Me....

This week has continued to be all about paper piecing/foundation piecing!! I just can't get enough of it and there really are some fab patterns out there!! 

Carrying on with my Nautical theme I found a great sail boat pattern just from whiling away countless hours on Pinterest and Instagram, it was rather small at 6" squared so I set to work enlarging it....cue many glasses of wine and some colorful language but TA-DA 

With a total of 7 separate sections and some teeeeeny weeeeeeny pieces I wasn't quite sure how this block was going to turn out but I have to say with a bit of tweeking and a good iron I think it will be great sailing alongside the seagulls!!

Onto a favorite of mine the Mariners Compass, this really is such a gorgeous block, it comes together so easily and can look so effective depending on color choices and placements. I am not so sure about the black sections or the red actually but for now it can stay as it is. I will see how the rest of the quilt progresses in terms of color, fabric and design before I make any decisions on redoing it.

I will hold my hands up and admit that I did have to unpick a couple of sections here and there but overall I smashed those points!! The more I look at that red the more I am just not sure....

Quilting In The Surrey Hills...

Saturday meant a catch up with my crew for a good old stitch and bitch, they really are a talented bunch

Kerry Q and her sea creatures baby quilt, it is really beautiful in the flesh although driving her quite potty as she did all the quilting with invisible thread and is now at the stage of tying off ends!!

Sue was busy putting together some lovely beach huts in the rather gorgeous Salt Water by Tula Pink

And Caroline feeling thoroughly inspired by all the Modern Bee work that has been going on was dabbling with the rather beautiful Dakota Stars from The Vintage Quilt Revival

If you have any ideas on all quilts/blocks Nautical I would love to hear from you I am still (as always) looking for inspiration!! Leave a comment here or send us an email.

Happy Quilting

Kerry xx

ONE BEE IS JUST NOT ENOUGH.....

Hello Vinnie!!

You may recall a few posts ago I posted my progress on a quilt I was making for my friend who recently had a baby....well here he is enjoying his quilt!! 

This darling little monkey (I say little monkey but he actually weighed in at nearly 11lbs) is called Vinnie and he belongs to my lovely friend Debbie and her hubby Tom.

We last left off with having to quilt the top and add on the binding, due to all the Log Cabins and patterned fabrics I kept the quilting fairly simple and went for a modest 1 inch binding.

A Painter's Palette - Part 1 

As the title suggests I simply wasn't satisfied being apart of one fabulous Bee, I simply had to join another!!! This one completely home grown and only available to those of us in the UK. This month our Queen is Gina, you can find her over on Occasional Quilter it wasn't enough for her to pick the Painter's Palette block, oh no!! She had to go and make this as her example....

Ok!! Challenge accepted! Awhile back I saw a really cute little block made entirely from miniature tumblers, I just knew I had to do this!! So here we go.....

I made two of these one in red and one in purple, I thought the block as a whole would look quite cool if the colors were in pairs, so I also made 2 mini Log Cabins and 2 mini scrappy blocks.

I really enjoyed making these little blocks, they are all 5" squares and the possibilities are endless, there are so many others that I really want to try, maybe even a weenie little Mariners Compass??!! Anyway for now this is what I have... 

If you have any ideas on what else could look great in 5" I would love to hear from you!! be sure to come back and visit me to see how this block takes shape in part 2!!

Happy Quilting

Kerry xx 

APPLIQUE BABY!

The Magic Of Bonda-Web

I haven't had much quilting mojo the last few days, I lost a friend to the angels over the weekend and whilst it wasn't entirely unexpected, it still took the wind out of my sails abit. It made me think about the circle of life, Caroline's may have ended, but life is just beginning for my friends new baby. Caroline had a huge personality and an even bigger heart, I decided I should really put on my big girl pants and get this quilt moving.

So applique letters here we come....

The first step was to measure the size of the block the letters were going on to - in this case 12 1/2 unfinished, this then allowed me to draw the letters to the correct size in Bonda-Web and ironed them onto my chosen fabrics.

The most important thing at this stage is remembering to iron the Bonda-Web letters on to the wrong side of the fabric, this will ensure that the fabric letters are the correct way around when placed on the blocks.

The final step of this machine applique process is of course the machine stitching! This could be done by hand in many forms such as needle turn or blanket stitch, but I decided that for this particular pattern I would use satin stitch and my machine! 

I chose to use a King Tut integrating thread for blues and greens to lift the letters up....

With all of the letters done B-A-B-Y, it was time to turn 12 blocks into 4 rows of 3 and 1 quilt top for a tiny person.

Happy Quilting

Kerry xx