Practically Paper Piecing roundup

Well today is the last day of August and I promised that I would draw the winner of my giveaway today. The lucky winner will receive a copy of amy Friend's vintage kettle pattern. There were 22 comments in total - and the winner is -

Comment No.6 was from AlyceB.

Congratulations! I will contact Amy and she will email your pattern to you in the next few days.

Please  pop over to QuietPlay and join the linky party. There are some great prizes up for grabs if you have a completed paper piecing project to add. There are some great entries so far!

I managed to make a start on a new project this week using the Half Moon Modern layer cake that I bought a few weeks ago. I have completed all the blocks...now I just need to piece the top together. I think it is going to make a great quilt! Block size is long and narrow - 16"x8".

If I get this quilt top finished over the next week, it will mean that I have 3 - yes 3 - quilt tops that need basting and backing. Basting is my LEAST favourite part of quilting..I hate the pinning on my hands and knees. During the week, a fellow QCA member Sheila shared the technique that she uses - 

I am very keen to give this a go for my next few quilts.

I would love to hear what techniques you use to make basting easier. Please feel free to leave me a comment.

Sunday Stash #5

I have lots to show you today - but I have to be quick! Hubby is out on his bike so I have just enough time to get my fabric out of hiding show you what made it into my stash this week.

On Monday I ventured to Spotlight because they had 30% off storewide. My rationale was that I needed some more grey homespun to make more diamond stars! I did get some grey homespun...and also some purple too...am thinking I might be able to add some purple in for sashing when I come to putting the Diamond Stars into a quilt top.



Grey and purple homespun.

Now seeing I was already at Spotlight I thought I'd have a quick look thru the clearance rack, which is usually $8/m. I picked up three more Denyse Schmidt prints....I thought that at under $6/m  with the 30% off was not too bad!

Denyse Schmidt fabric goodness.

I particularly like the pink and red spot fabric in the middle. I have already used it in quite a few projects, most recently as a binding for my paper pieced coaster project for the Practically Paper Piecing bloghop.
I also picked up some thread and managed to leave Spotlight relatively unscathed financially!



My other big excitement for the week was that my order arrived from FabricShack! I have ordered from the lovely ladies there several times now. They have great service and friendly emails and I guess the most attractive things for me is that they can fit 9 yards...yes 9....in a postage satchel for US$8.50....which is 50% off the standard international postage from the US.

So seeing you can fit 9 yards in a satchel it seems only right that I take full advantage and fill it to the brim! This is what I received..

Three yards of what we call "Pearl bracelets" in our quilt group. This is by Lizzy House and actually is used in several of her fabric ranges - Hello Pilgrim, 1001 Peeps and Out Foxed. This isn't all mine - I am planning on using some to swap with Jane from Where Jane Creates for some of the Tufted Tweets that she received from a travelling stash earlier in the week.

Little Pearl bracelets in brown, pink, green and yellow.

Speaking of Tufted Tweets....I got some of those too! That's it in the middle, sandwiched between the Raindrops and the Wrenly Blooms.

Raindrops, tweets and blooms

 

These next three are all from Robert Kaufman - the outer two are from the Groove range and the middle is from Remix.

A Groove sandwich with Remix!

 

I was hoping that there would be a bit more "green" in these fabrics...it's often hard to tell online, so they are not exactly was I was after, but I am sure that they will come in handy at some point!

Layered nature, Heirloom, City Weekend.

I also got some lovely fabric from Lecien - that's the little bowls and chopsticks in the left. I couldn't resist the bunting of "Reunion" and the retro sewing machines of "Sew Happy"

 

Asagohan, Reunion, Sew Happy.

I look forward to making use of these prints in some paper piecing projects in the coming months,

 

And finally....my fav fabric from the order...Heaven and Helsinki. Am just loving the bright colours and house designs in this fabric!

 

Helsinki

Well I better go and hide this again put away all this beautiful fabric. Looking forward to some show and tell at this afternoon's quilt club.

I'm linking up with Fiona's Sunday Stash over at Finding Fifth

Have a great Sunday!

Like a diamond in the sky

I am still working on the Diamond Star blocks that I started last week. I had rather a productive weekend so I now have 6 10" blocks in total.

I am loving how the purple and grey is working together with the white star outline.

I still have 2 fabrics from the FQ bundle to use, so I am thinking that I will be making at LEAST another 6 blocks. Not quite sure how to bring it together as a quilt top as yet. I did buy 2 metres of homespun this week as I have a vague idea of keeping the blocks set on point with a thin line of purple sashing between each one.

I am still finding that I am fairly generous with fabric while paper piecing, which leaves me with quite a few offcuts. I decided to down scale Kristy's pattern to a 5" block to see if I could make use of any of my scrappy pieces. Got to say that I am really pleased with the result, and given the amount of scraps that I have, I think I will be making more of them...maybe I can do a border of 5" blocks around the edge of my quilt!

I am itching to sew some more, but am working for the next two days - bring on the weekend.

I'm linking up with Freshly Pieced's WIP Wednesday (my very first ever!!)

Sunday Stash #4

Good morning! I only have a little addition to my stash this week. It's a selection of four FQs from the "Andrea Victoria" by My Mind's Eye for Riley Blake in the fuschia colourway. I actually stumbled on this fabric line last weekend when I was googling for dandelion fabric - I have a thing for dandelions going at the moment. Then later on that day, a lovely lady called Kym popped this little bundle up on Sew you're Destasting and I snapped it up!

As you might be able to guess....the dandelion fabric on the left is my favourite.

Now in an attempt to put off constructing the 2 quilt backs I have to do  put this gorgeous fabric to go use  I thought I would try some paper piecing and mix up the colours a bit.

The block is called Diamond Stars and is designed by my lovely friend Kristy from Quiet Play. You can download a FREE copy of this block here.

Here are the results of my efforts yesterday afternoon. Am loving how these are turning out....the grey really helps to "pop" the fuschia. I am really pleased with the "reverse colour" star with the grey on the inside.

I have traced enough patterns to do at least another 4-5 blocks so I'm hoping that I can make a start on those today. Great day for sewing today...windy and wet!

I'm linking up with Fiona at Finding Fifth for her Sunday Stash!

Oh and if you know of any other fabric lines that contain dandelions...I would love to hear about them!

Practically Paper Piecing Blog Hop - Day 9

Welcome to my little blog! I am very excited to be hosting Day 9 of the Practically Paper Piecing Blog Hop.

This blog hop is all about making things with those orphaned paper piecing blocks that we have lying around. This project started out as a way of using up a few little blocks that I had, but after some non-quilt related googling  for an easy Ipod cover, it ended up turning into something a little bigger - but much more fun!

So these were my orphan blocks - cute little teacups made using the free pattern from Piece by Number. You can download it here. There are 4 different designs to choose from - the one I used was Teacup 1.
Now the funny thing is that my mum showed me a similar pattern a few months ago that my aunty had given her. I remember saying to my mum "why would you bother with that?" This was obviously BEFORE I caught the paper piecing bug! You can see my first paper piecing project over at Jessica's Blog - she was my QCA Handmade swap buddy and I really have to thank her for making me try something new and stepping outside my quilter's comfort zone.

Anyways...back to the blocks. My thought with these was to make a set of coasters.

Then whilst googling for an easy Ipod cover tutorial I found During Quiet Time - a blog by the lovely Amy Friend. I went for a browse in her little  Etsy shop and found this gorgeous kit for a retro kettle tablerunner. I just knew it was what I needed to go with my teacup coasters so I snapped it up.
By the way - I also made the Ipod cover from the tutorial on Amy's blog.

My pattern arrived via email and I got cracking!

I choose some fabrics in reds by Denyse Schmidt for the handles and the main body of the kettles.

Amy's pattern was straight forward and the two kettles came together in an afternoon at Quilt group. As part of the kit, Amy also sent me some of her handprinted fabric inspired by the retro kettle designs of Catherineholm.




It is such a funky design! And it looks fabulous on the white linen.

So I pieced the runner together, incorporating some linen from the teacups into the centre strip.

Amy suggested that some free motion quilting was in order to add some steam to the kettles. I gave it my best shot! I have to admit that it has been quite a few months since I have attempted any FMQ....I seem to be in a bit of a straight line quilting groove at the moment (see the quilted linen in the top of the pic!)

I have a bit of a thing for spotty bindings at the moment and I am happy to report that I was able to use some binding that was left over from my last QS quilt. There was just enough left to bind the table runner.

Backing

I then turned my orphan teacups into coasters with a bit of red sashing.

I backed them using the Robert Kaufman fabric that I scored a few weeks ago at BigW.

I added binding in fabrics that I had used in the table runner. I then realised that I probably needed more than 2 coasters so whipped up another 2 in blue. And here they are all together -

I am so pleased with the way that this project turned out and it was so fun to do!  I am going to give this set to my mum to enjoy on her sunny table in her family room :). I am happy to say that I am well and truly hooked on paper piecing.

Now I have exciting news! I have a copy of Amy's kettle paper piecing pattern to give away!(Thanks Amy :)). If you would like a chance to win, please leave a comment and random.org and I will draw a winner on Friday 31st August. If you are a "no-reply" blogger make sure that you leave an email address so that I can contact you if you win.

Tomorrow, join Sally at sallyballycreations for Day 10 of the PPP.

:)