Merry Christmas

This is our first Christmas as a family of three so it's rather special. When I think how life was this time last year, my mind boggles.

No we don't have a star on our tree,
it's a model of the space craft Philae that landed on a comet.
We are cool that way.

This time last year, I was extremely pregnant, 38 weeks exactly on Christmas Eve. I will never forget that as my husband and I spent most of Christmas Eve in hospital wondering if I was going to need an early induction. I was being tested for a nasty condition which only goes away after birth and was incredibly uncomfortable. Thankfully they all came out negative, and we were able to spend Christmas Day together and at home, and I had to wait out my discomfort for another three weeks before Baby A made his appearance.

This year we have a near one year old tearing up the house. Life is hectic and busy and noisy, but never has it been so fun and loving and exciting. Even though I know Baby A won't remember any of this, I have been super excited for his first Christmas, and so has his daddy.

The tree skirt I sewed by hand back when I had free time!

So Merry Christmas to all.

Red Baby Quilt is Finished

I needed something to do with all the leftover fabric from Andrew's bedroom, so of course I made a patchwork quilt. There wasn't enough for a full size quilt, so I made a baby one, which was as big as I had enough fabric to do. The theme is red and yellow.

The fabric from his curtains and bunting all make an appearance. I had to buy some poly-cotton for the backing fabric as I didn't have a big enough piece, but that was about £4 a metre, so all in all this quilt was a bargain.

I'm pleased with how it looks in the room, really adds a splash of colour. And even better, this is one of the only baby blankets I have that he doesn't seem to be able to entangle himself in.

Summer time!

Here is a mini quilt (not a dollhouse miniature) I made a couple of years ago that feels particularly apt now Summer is officially here. We even had a weekend of good weather recently - although it's now gone grey and overcast again. This is Britain after all.

This design was my own, hand-sewn using English paper piecing. I really enjoyed how intricate it was. Each hexagon is about 1.5cm across, the whole mini quilt was about 45 x 45cm. 

There are a few insects hidden about the place.

And a few mice! an you spot all the mice and insects?

And lots of summer flowers of course.

Here's hoping for a bit more sunshine in the weeks to come.

My name is Anne-Marie and I'm addicted to patchwork hexagons

I do love a patchwork project when I find the time. I especially enjoy English paper piecing as you can get really precise joins all sewn by hand so you can do in front of the telly without annoying your other half with your sewing machine blaring away. See, I'm being thoughtful of others (sort of, if you ignore all the bits of fabric and thread strewn about the place).

I am particularly obsessed with hexagons. I don't know why they're so appealing, but ever since I discovered the English paper piecing technique for patchwork, I've become a hexaholic. If more proof were ever needed, I present to you the hexagon quilt!

Please excuse the terrible photography, but you get the idea.

The hexagon quilt started off life as hundreds (maybe thousands, I never counted them) of little, individual paper hexagons which I covered in fabric:

These were then all hand-sewn to each other like this:

And they were all sewn to each other with a little white path between each one.

This design is a grandmother's flower garden, although mine is quite a funky one.

Once I'd finished hand sewing all the hexagons together, I had to quilt the whole thing. I had planned on doing this by machine, however my sewing machine is really not set up for quilting and it couldn't handle the thick wadding I used (clever me). So I ended up hand-quilting the entire thing along the white paths, which took For.Ev.Er.

Once all the quilting was complete, I machine sewed the binding on the front side, and hand sewed the binding on the back side by stitching in the ditch. Also seemed to take forever! I am a lot more enamoured with the patch working than I am with the quilting.

More hexagons...

So there we have it. This quilt took ca. 13 months to complete from start to finish, although I did do several other projects during this time, as well as moving house, doing tons of DIY, changing jobs, relearning how to drive. So a normal person could probably finish it sooner. I really enjoyed sewing all those hexagons together, but I am relieved it is finally finished. And it's being given to a special friend of mine, who I hope will get plenty enjoyment out of it too.

If you're interested in going hexagon mad (and how could you not be!?) then I highly recommend the following tutorial from Cintia at My Poppet. I found it easy to follow and pretty to look at. What more could you want? 

PS, I only meant to make a table runner at first, and it went and turned into a double quilt. Like I mentioned, hexagons are addictive. You've been warned.