After completing all the blocks I have now sewn each lot of three into rows with a black border in between. The most time consuming part of the past week has been thinking over my design ideas again.

The blocks work out to being about 12″ too short for the bed I want to put it on so I need to add some length. I decided I had a choice of either adding another 3 blocks, which would mean finding more of the same fabric, or making some strips out of my offcuts. I had a look around and found that some of the fabric I used is no longer available, so I decided on strips.

Here are all the blocks laid out before I joined them into their rows. They will all be getting a black border between them. Tonight I hope to get the second strip finished and start sewing it all together so I can show you the finished quilt top very soon.

My computer considerately decided to die this week which gave me no excuses to slock off with my quilt blocks, so I managed to complete 10 out of 12 this week, though my weekend thus far has been spent catching up on all the things I wanted to do earlier (and enjoying the sunshine) so I haven’t completed the last two yet.

I am uploading the blocks as I go to my flickr, and while you’re over there you should check out the fantastic inspiration in the fabric, patchwork and quilting pool.

Now this isn’t exactly my first quilt, however last time I made what I consider to be some critical mistakes…

1. I used corduroy instead of high quality cotton
2. I didn’t actually “quilt the layers” because I couldn’t work out how to prevent puckering
3. I didn’t know how to do an edge binding.

So all in all my first quilt wasn’t exactly a quilt, though it turned out well enough considering I was still starting to feel my way around a sewing machine.

I decided recently that I wanted to have a proper attempt at quilting to spice up my guest room and attempt a new skill, so I started out by watching some youtube videos. I found the best ones were by Jeanette White who shows everything from basic piecing to binding and other skills and techniques.

Then I looking at examples of other peoples works and finally settled on a style I wanted to attempt. The idea for the pattern is based on Kathleen Bissett’s pattern, however being unable to find a source to purchase it, I have been making it up as I go along.

My tile sizes are currently around 16″ however I believe that I will end up with a quilt that is very wide for the single bed, but only just the right length. I am thinking I might trim the size into rectangles that are approximately 16×14″, however I decided to leave that until after I have pieced all the blocks and I might lay it out on the bed to visualise it better.

The basic premise of this pattern seems to be to start with 9 fabrics for 9 blocks or 12 fabrics for 12 blocks. Queen sizes or larger from this technique use 2×12 fabrics cut into squares. After choosing fabrics and cutting my squares I decided to have a practice run with a scrap piece of material. Good thing I did because as I cut my shapes I made mistakes and had to start again twice! Valuable lessons were learned, however I finally had a block turn out.

Next I layered all my squares on top of each other and marked my cut lined with a fabric pen incase for some reason I needed the guide lines. They were handy, and carefully I cut through all 12 layers with my rotary cutter. I also cut 1m of black cotton into 1″ strips. I believe that you could cut any 4 lines that you like, as long as you end up with 9 pieces that you are happy with.

The next task was putting together a giant fabric puzzle on the floor. Each piece should in theory not have any of the same colour, however it still took me a good 2 hours of playing with the design until I was happy with each of my 12 blocks. I took a photo, but ended up changing my mind after it and rearranging some more to try and break up the greens and pinks.

Finally I started to sew. It has taken approximately an hour per block and I am very glad of what I learnt from my practice piece. Here are the blocks I have completed so far.

There has been so much going on recently that I haven’t had time to get in my sewing room so unfortunately I have had nothing to share.

At the moment I am moving furniture around again so I need to reorganise everything before getting back into it. My next adventures do look like it may be into the realm of quilting, so keep an eye out if that interests you.

I would like to share a new addition to the family with everyone, which has been taking up my free time. We had to build them a new home first and they make lovely pets. After their first three days they were happily settled in and started to enjoy being picked up and patted.

Every now and then I get questions about dress makers dummy’s usually centred around making them match unique sizes. I personally have an old bra that is a permanent attachment to my dummy, stuffed with tissues. I found this article on how to make your own dummy to your own perfect size and thought it might be of interest to others.

Homemade Dress Maker’s Dummy

Back in March I posted a link to the wonderfully inspirational Suzi Blu and her encouraging words on buying an art journal and drawing in it every day. Just making some marks and seeing where it leads you without feeling pressured to make art, or ashamed that your marks aren’t worthy.

Has anyone gone out and bought an art journal after seeing her videos just like I did? Have you been making marks in it?

My random encounters with inspirational art have increased since then and so has my desire to make art, and to draw in my journal. Though I am primarily drawn to textiles I am seeing a growing enthusiasm for pencil, so I really need to start taking my journal everywhere with me, or I will end up with a lot more pieces of scrap paper stuck in so I can keep my random scribbles - but I guess that is ok too.

Today I lead myself through a series of links to something I want to show you all. First, I was inspired by the latest drawing by Aimee Majors, which lead me to do a Google search for Oiran, which is a Japanese Courtesan.

This in turn lead me to discover the work of Audrey Kawasaki. Her subject matter are beautiful stylised Asian looking girls in dreamy soft blues and browns often painted on wood to show the beautiful grain through her art. I have had trouble selecting only one image to show you, so please visit her website and browse her gallery or live journal.

And before I finish this post, I have been browsing through Audrey’s live journal blog when I found another little piece of art that caught my eye. It is a piece by Mark Ryden which seems to be drawing inspiration from both religious iconography and styles like anime or Suzi Blu’s petite dolls. You can have a look at the making of his piece (the printing and framing) at Pressure Printing.

Now I am inspired to make some art myself, however my journal is stuck at home, and again I am without a pencil.

What inspires you to make art?

I got this pattern for baby shoes, size 0-6 months from Stardust Shoes and decided to make some for a friend as part of a little gift for her. We don’t know what she is having yet, and I think these turned out a little feminine, however she does love purple and perhaps I can make it a little more unisex with an applique or something if I need to. I will hold onto these until I know what she is expecting (hopefully she finds out cause I am eager to make her a few more things!)

I found a free embroidery foot in the little compartment of my sewing machine and decided to have a play with it. Free machine embroidery involves lowering the feed dogs and then moving the fabric around in order to create the pattern on your fabric. I have not done to well keeping to lines at this stage, but my free-hand face is actually kind of whimsical.

I don’t know if this is something I will continue playing with, but it was an interesting experiment.

I have started the mask pattern by TotusMel, but I have run into a little problem. Hopefully someone will respond to my questions so I can get going with it again.

I made the eye wire eye parts with some unknown guage wire I found in the shed and then started on the tatting. The centre ring was fine, but then it took my three tries of the first clover shape as I didn’t realise/remember at first that a + symbol means to join at the picot. Now I am not sure how to get to the next clover.

Well here is a photo of the progress so far… Not much, but perhaps it will help me explain the difficulty I am having.

TotusMel has posted a video of her creating a motif from one of her tutorials on instructables.

She starts off slow and builds speed (ps: there is no sound, just video). She has completed this motif in 6 minutes! This is one I did recently in approximately 20 minutes, so I am no where near to her skill level yet. I think this video is good in that it shows exactly what to do with basic needle tatting, and I’ve linked the pattern so you can try it yourself.