{big} city girl QAL - London

 way back in the summer aylin and amy asked me to be part of their new QAL - {big} city girl QAL and i jumped at the chance.

so here i am, the final leg of the QAL with my home capital city London.

whilst i am from leeds in the north of england i lived in london for 16 years and it will always in some ways be home.

i really couldn't decide which landmark to use in my block. there are so many to choose from - tower bridge, big ben, houses of parliament, st paul's cathedral, buskingham palace, the gherkin and even the meandering river thames.

but there was one that stood out for me...one that is a modern renowned landmark, the london eye. i used to travel up to the centre of london by train regularly and my heart always skipped a beat when the big wheel came into view. 

so here is my interpretation of one of my favourite london landmarks, the drunkard path way.

you will need:

for each circle: 4 dark circle quarters, radius 2"

4 low volume outers with a 1.5" radius cut out.

Using a 2” inner circle and a 1.5” concave outer piece make each quarter piece. Check out this great tutorial if you are struggling with making your drunkards patch pieces. Sew together each quarter and trim the combined square to 4”.

Repeat to make 6 drunkard path circles.

In addition you will need a 4x4” square for the centre and 4 2x4”corner pieces. Sew the 3 rows together as illustrated below and then sew each row together. Finally cut and sew a 3x11” border along the bottom.

Now for a little hand embroidery detail to sew the frame of your London Eye. Sew with a running stitch from capsule to capsule and across to opposite capsules. Use chain stitch to sew the support posts.

And there you are done! 

please do add any make to the {big} girl city QAL flickr group and do catch up on all the other wonderful city blocks from around the world if you missed out on visiting them.

01.09. Aylin - Nilya2011 from Germany with Berlin and Istanbul http://aylin-nilya.blogspot.de/
08.09. Alyce - SewBlossomHeart from Japan with Tokyo http://www.blossomheartquilts.com/
15.09. Julianna - Sewing under Rainbow from Poland with Warsaw http://jednoiglec.blogspot.co.uk/
22.09. Sil - silort from Brazil with Brasilia http://www.flickr.com/people/silort/
29.09. Sylvie - -Vivie- from France with Paris http://lafamillecreative.blogspot.co.uk/
06.10. Marit - Sy-elsk-lev from Norway with Aalesund http://www.sy-elsk-lev.blogspot.co.uk/
13.10. Amy- During Quiet Time from USA with Boston http://www.amyduringquiettime.com/
20.10. Jane - Quiltjane from Australia with Sydney http://quiltjane.blogspot.de/
27.10. Lotje - Lotje M from The Netherlands with Delft http://slootjesschilder.blogspot.co.uk/
03.11. Rachel - wooden spoon from New Zealand with Wellington http://www.flickr.com/photos/wooden_spoon/
10.11. Annabella - liferichpattern from Morocco with Marrakech http://kechquilts.blogspot.co.uk/
17.11. Felicity - felicity.quilts from Canada with Vancouver http://www.felicityquilts.com/ (you are here)
24.11. Karen - blueberry4park from UK with London http://blueberry-park.blogspot.com/

:: normal ::

another week, another set of projects...

it's amazing how much time you feel you have when things get back to normal. when i say normal i obviously don't mean normal, but rather back to routine. it's never normal round these parts.

having had our routine disrupted for 2 weeks worth of half term, i am always amazed by how much time i feel i have when the kids first go back to school.

without constant interruptions i have had a successful week getting through the long list of projects I am working on, all of which will be revealed in the up-coming weeks. I actually haven't finished any of them, but it has been fun having time to work on all of them.

a good productive happy week round these parts. no doubt next week will be back to the only normal i know about...normal mayhem.

hope whatever your normal is, it has been a good one. 

x

ps watch out for the middle of next week when one of these projects will be finished and be featured on a blog tour!

with a little help from my friends...

it all started back in September when i was queen bee for bee a brit stingy flickr group...a fab bee filled with lovely british quilters.

i have never been in a bee before so i wasn't very sure what to expect or how it was all going to play out.

my first dilemma was what block to choose. the bee started in january and some peeps had already picked some blocks that i may have chosen so that was those out. some demanded a more cohesive palette, some were too large and some were just too fiddly.

i eventually decided on this hourglass block and requested low volume, 1930s, liberty, vintage type fabrics.

to be honest i wasn't entirely sure how it

was all going to pan out. when i create my quilts i spend forever picking fabrics moving them around until they don't jar in my eye anymore and remove any fabrics that just don't sit well. in the bee group we are all very different, have different styles, different fabrics to pull from and i was a little nervous with how this would work for me.

but apparently what i love most about this is that it is full of little jewels of fabrics that normally i don't get to see in my own work, from overtly pretty florals to more muted geometrics. every single block that arrived filled me with EEEEEEKS!

honestly they are a magical bunch this crew.

i'm not even sure you can tell how wonderfully everything gels here, but in the flesh it is all so alive. the bee group made about half the blocks and they all look stunning with the ones i made.

it's all been a great big success in my eyes and hopefully we'll do it all again next year. (i hope so because i have already picked my block...)

and if you want to see how everyone else's quilts turned out go and check out the group here. there are some stunners.

the only question that remains is...

how on earth shall i quilt this thing??

my week in pictures...

what a week.

it's quite amazing what you can fit in when you have to.

first up, the week here in the uk has been hit by mega snow which meant kids have been off with snow days. 

second up, I have been avoiding the issue of tax form deadline looming which always means throwing myself into other suddenly way more important jobs.

thirdly, my poor frail father went for a fall and broke his hip at the beginning of the week which has meant lots of round trips to the hospital visiting and shuttling mum to and fro.

it's quite a wonder i have done anything more than get dressed this week, but looking back on it a fair amount of activity has actually taken place...

1. a snowy walk around the lake...

2. trying to stick to my january fitness regime, but not easy to drag myself out of my cosy bed in this cold...

3. starting to organise my new spring collection with a canvas and linen foldover bag...

4. getting through a few more blocks for my low volume scrappy trip along quilt...

5. a nice little selection of fabrics sitting on my desk at the mo waiting to be tested...

6. beautiful views all over at the start of this week...

7. getting details for some new designs...

8. dumpling pouches galore! just loving making these little pouches (courtesy of michelle patterns)

9. arm warmers made out of an old favourite jumper that simply couldn't bear to throw away.

i hope you have had a good week with not too many stressful interruptions and

have a great weekend x

Thangles...

 Have you come across the wonders of Thangles yet?

If you have, I'm guessing I'm preaching to the converted.

My lovely sponsor Kate of M is for Make sent me a pack to try. Kate is well aware of my love for HSTs and having recently got into these herself knew I would love them.

And how right was she! Have you tried them? Have you??

 To be honest, I wasn't wholly sure that they'd offer me something that I needed. 

How wrong was I???

I absolutely love making HST quilts and to be honest they aren't the most complicated block on the block (see what I did there?!) but what Thangles do do is make a relatively easy block downright pips, cutting out all that boring mindless trimming after you have pieced them all. I mean, how tedious is that stage? 

 Thangles work by cutting the right strip pieces to begin with and then simply sewing along the dotted line and cutting along the solid lines.

THAT IS IT...perfect HSTs every time.

Honestly, to do just these 8 little HSTs trimmed in all their perfection would take unnecessary and tedious trimming time.

With Thangles there is none of that. 

The trickiest thing about working with Thangles is stopping! I've been at it for 2 minutes and already got 2 projects on the go. I started with piecing some LV with reds and secondly with greens. Greens? I don't do greens, but am rather finding that I do.

Anyway enough from me and the wonders of Thangles. Go see them for yourself. In fact go check out Kate's beautiful HST quilt she made for a wedding gift. Not only is it stunning, but I'm betting Kate enjoyed every second of creating it, thanks to Thangles.

Kate has packs to make HSTs from anything from 1" up to 4".

 I'm using 2.5" for these 2 projects but am thinking I'd like to make a larger quilt with 4" HSTs...

**pops off to purchase a couple of packs before Kate sells out...**

Oh and did I mention Kate is very kindly offering 10% off all purchases of Thangles before the end of November. Simply quote "thangle" at the checkout.

And one final thing...if you aren't signed up to Kate's Newsletter, then you must. She regularly has things you need to know about...including announcing her Black Friday Sale this weekend...you don't want to miss out on hearing about that! 
Go sign up at the bottom here!

Summer of the Simpatico...

September already? Wow where did the summer go?

Amazingly for once I actually got a summer project finished. Well, if you exclude the fact that it isn't actually made into anything, but a completed thing none-the-less.

Summer 2012 will definitely be remembered as Summer of the Simpatico. I did a tutorial of my fold-over pouches for The Daily Stitch - Annie of The Village Haberdashery's blog in Simpatico and I had such a summery, fresh making time with them that I decided that I was going to use the collection for my summer of hexie fun. We spent a lot of time in the car this summer - London for the Olympics, Bristol for family birthdays, mid France via London (again) and Paris. I was in need of a good hand stitching project that could be done on the move as well as picked up in a shady place.

Perfect!

 I am not 100% sure what it will become - possibly a wall hanging, possibly a cushion, but definitely not a quilt! I really really loved sewing these little hexies (just over 1" across!) and loved sewing them together too, but the reality of now the summer is over that it will stay in a corner with all the other "i've-started-but-goodness-knows-when-i'll-ever-finish-it" projects is making me realise that I need to stop here.

Also, to be honest, I'm a tad disappointed with how I've pieced it. The flowers (top pic)  were so lovely when sewn individually but when I began piecing together they all got lost together and looks rather random instead. If I wasn't away and impatient about not wanting to wait to come home and finish (besides, we had a 600 mile journey - I needed some hexie-ness) I would probably have pieced the flowers with solids between so they would show up better. I may trying embroidering in coordinating floss around each flower. They may stand out a little clearer.

Either way Summer of the Simpatico was a very enjoyable one.

Now we are back I have started on the next project. This one may take a while. I have been wanting to make a quilt for our bed for a couple of years. I even started some blocks last year but I was never that enamoured and now I've gone right off them - too much yellow. Yes, you did here correctly. The wallpaper in our room is rather bold and I think what is needed is something a little more easy on the eye. I've been drawn to all the Low Volume creating going on at the moment and thought this was the way to go here. I am also tying my hands behind my back and not including any yellow but a little splash of red. You may remember the gorgeous pillow my lovely friend Kylie sent me at the beginning of this year. The splash of coral red works so beautifully in the room. I am not entirely sure where this quilt is going or where it will end up, but here is the start of Block 1.

I hope you have had a good creative summer (month for you Southern hemisphere peeps) and do link up to Lynne's Fresh sewing Day if you want to see what other people have been up to.