Thursday, June 20, 2013

Let's take a scrappy trip, shall we?

Scrappy Tripping

Scrappy tripping 

 Hello peeps,

My Grandmother's quilt should not have been my first.  I had actually started another quilt before I made hers - this one I am going to show you now.  Back in late December of last year, I noticed on Instagram that a quilt-along was happening, called the Scrappy Trip Along. The blocks for the quilt looked so interesting, I was fascinated how they were made and I so desperately wanted to make a quilt of my own. I knew that I would soon be trying one of these blocks.  Of course, I loved making my first blocks, but I was not happy with using random fabrics.  Maybe the control freak in me did not like the randomness. I wanted more control.  I chose to have each block as a colour theme.  Six different fabrics of the same colour together in each block, kind of like a rainbow.  I do like rainbows!

By the end of January, I had 24 finished blocks.  All fabrics used had come from my stash. I was in love.  To be honest though, I had no idea where I was heading with this quilt.  I laid out all my blocks together, seen in the photo below, and I knew it needed to be bigger, a few more yellow and orange blocks too.

Scrappy Tripping

Scrappy Tripping

I took a break from my Rainbow quilt to make Grandma's.  I was itching to add more blocks, but I had the deadline of Grandmas 90th birthday party.  I had to finish that quilt before her party.

Finally by the end of May, I had 30 completed blocks.  As I was laying them out with much excitement, I believed I had finished all my blocks.  Once they were all together though, I knew immediately I had to make 5 more.  If this quilt was to be the one we snuggled under on our couch, it had to be longer.

30 blocks

So 5 more blocks were made.  I have yet to take a photo of all completed 35 blocks, it is getting more and more difficult to photograph as this quilt is so large and our living area very small.

If you want to make your own scrappy trip quilt, all the instructions are here.  It really is easy to do, the blocks come together quickly once you have all your fabric strips cut.  I used this photo as a reference guide how to iron my blocks before cutting (the photo in the instructions is not clear to me)

I have created a board on Pinterest with all this info together, you can see that here.  There is also a Flickr group with so many photos of gorgeous scrappy trip along blocks and completed quilts. Go check it out of you want some inspiration.

I am so eager to finish this quilt, but a secret project has been taking up my time, I'll share that as soon as I can.

Do you want to make a scrappy trip along quilt, or have you already made one?

Happy Creative Space day to you.

Cat xox

Tuesday, June 4, 2013

All stitched up with love.

Us, stitched up.

Hello peeps,

I recently commissioned Sonia from Dandelyne to make our family portrait.  This is how we look, all stitched up.

It warms my heart looking at it, our little family frozen in time, made out of fabric and thread and stitched up with love by Sonia.

I supplied the fabric for our outfits, some of it sentimental.  The purple paisley fabric used in Abbey's dress is vintage.  I bought a remnant of this fabric at an opshop (charity shop) almost 20 years ago.  As a teenager, I made a mini skirt out of it.  Unfortunately, the skirt no longer fits, but I have kept it to re-purpose one day.  I love this fabric.  The fabric used in my dress is Liberty, I adore Liberty.  Enough said.

How cute are Zoe's pony tails?  Love them!  And the head band in Abbey's hair, perfect.

Sonia really captured us perfectly.  I have never met her, we do not know her.  She managed to make us perfect by looking at photos of us, how clever is that?

You can find the Dandelyn shop here and her facebook page here.  Do pop in and be amazed at what she can stitch up.

Thank you so much Sonia, you are one clever lady!

Happy day to you.

Cat xox

Us, stitched up.