William & Daisy

Yey - had a lovely play day today working on my own little project.
Inspired by a photo I took of my Grandson and dog last year.

It's lovely to take and have pictures. 

But sometimes I feel the need to commit a memory to fabric.

Using some fabric I had hand painted,  some freemotion quilting and appliqué - and a touch artistic licence (I changed the direction Daisy was running in). Some scraps of fabric for the binding. It's all finished and hanging proudly on my wall.

Again, I quick printed out this picture so I could use it to make templates.

Choosing fabrics to match the picture I Appliqued William & Daisy onto a fabric background.  Added some wadding, machine stitched wavy lines.

Added a colourful binding. 

An another Memoty Picture Finished.

This takes me right back to when William had his first walk on 'Our Beach' Aberavon Beach, Port Talbot.

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Grandmothers Pride

Quilt Block

Grandmother's Pride

Beginners Guide to how I Rotary Cut

To make this block you need two different fabrics a dark (feature) fabric and a light (background) fabric.  

From the dark (feature) fabric cut:

9 x Two and seven eighth inch squares.

From the light (background) fabric cut:

4 x Two and seven eighth inch squares.

4 x Three and a quarter inch squares -
Cut these squares in half on the diagonal (corner to corner) this gives you 8 triangles. These go around the outer edge of the blog.

And

2 x Two and a quarter inch squares -
Cut these in half on the diagonal (corner to corner) this gives you 4 smaller triangles which form the corners of the block.

Use quarter inch seams throughout. 

How I use my Quarter Inch Foot

Lay the squares and triangles out next to your sewing machine. 

You need to stitch them together in diagonal rows  ( see pics above and below) nice slippers! 

Stitch the rows together

And you'll end up with this.

Quite a neat little Block don't you think?

And you can use it in so many ways.

You could simply add a border and it could become

A cushion front

A Table Mat

A Bag Front

Or

Repeated with Sashing to make a little Quilt

Added into a Sampler Quilt

Read my Sampler Quilt Blog Quilt as you Go Post

There's them spotty socks again!

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Fidget Quilts

I hadn't heard of Fidget  Quilts until a few months ago.  And once I had I wanted to find out what they were. A Google search quickly educated me about them.
They are small lap sized quilts (about 20") with items such as buttons, zips, pockets etc securely stitched on for the recipient to fiddle with and so sooth restless hands.
Typically they are made for people with Alzheimers/dementia or any other condition where the user would be comforted by occupying restless fingers.

Coincidentally at around the same time a friend of mine asked if I knew anyone who made Fidget Quilts as she wanted one for her mum. Of course I jumped at the chance to make her one myself.

I then took it to my Quilting class to encourage others to make them.
They are lovely projects to make. They don't take too long and you get to be quite creative and playful. 
The three pictured are my original one and the first two that class members have made.

The Quilters Knot

I'm often asked to show people how to do the Quilters knot.

It's an easy and quick knot to do.
BUT
I managed to confuse the quilter who tried to teach me this knot many years ago now.

The poor lady spent ages showing me how to make this knot, but every time I tried it my knot disappeared.  In the end we gave up.

When I got home I was telling my son about how I couldn't learn how to do the Quilters knot. I wondered if it had anything to do with me being left handed.
My son said show me how you do this knot.
So I duly demonstrated me not making a knot.

At this time my son was quite into magic.
And as he saw my knot fall off the end of my thread he said. 'Mam, your not making a Quilters Knot - your making a Magicians Knot'!
You must have all seen it when the magician ties a knot in a rope and then it magically disappears off the end.
We'll I can do that! Apparently it's something to do with slight of hand - I can't tell you how that's done, I'm sworn to secrecy; ) 

Anyway today I give you my little video on how to make a Quilters Knot.

Yours in Stitches,  Joy

Stunning Book Covers

So proud of every one who brought in their finished book covers last week. Well done ladies.

And they make a stunning display.   Great gift ideas.  I hope you're inspired to make some.

How to Make the Book Cover

A chance to use some of the lovely fancy stitches on your

 sewing machines.

I just love the little Daisy Stitch on this Book Cover 

There are so many different Embroidery Stitches you could try out on you Sewing Machine on this Fun Project

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Part Two - Book Cover

Ok ladies here is the video for part Two of the Book Cover.
The Thursday Ladies done well.
Below is a selection of their book covers all stitched and ready to make up.

 Click here for Part One

And this is one finished

Click below for the Video

Hope you enjoy - Feel free to ask any questions.

Yours in Stitches, Joy

Patchwork Book Cover

Some of you will have made this Book Cover with me before.
Gloria asked me for the instructions and I though it would make a nice little project to take my Thursday Ladies up to 16th July when we break for the summer.
We did this first part in class this morning.
So this is a recap. But I think the instructions are clear enough for any of my readers to follow along with us.
They would make fabulous Christmas/Birthday presents.

And Here is Part Two

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