The nursery continues

We've pretty much finished the baby's room (he's only 8 months old, it's about time) but I add the odd thing here and there still. I've put a couple of handmade wall hangings up. I made these both a couple of years ago, before we even thought about having babies, just because I enjoy sewing patchwork. But we decided they would fit in well with the baby's room.

The first one is an 'artistic interpretation' of our house. 

I'm super pleased with the button flowers in the pots.

The second is a space themed hanging I made for my husband who loves all things science. I needed something to do with all our space mission patches, so here is an Apollo rocket about to lift off.

It hangs vertically, I've no idea why I can't get this to upload the right way!

The most famous patch on my hanging.

Now the boy has something interesting to look at instead of bare yellow walls.

My Dear Jane Quilt

A few years ago I discovered the joy that is patchwork and quilting. Since I always like to run before I can walk, I decided as my second ever quilt to go for the mother of them all, a Baby Jane quilt, based on a Dear Jane quilt. 

A Baby Jane quilt is based on the blocks from the original Dear Jane quilt, a quilt made by Jane A. Stickle in 1863. It consists of 225 individual patterns - each square and border triangle is different. 

The original Dear Jane quilt

Now I cheated, I admit. I didn't do all the blocks in a proper Dear Jane, and I left all the triangular blocks blank. But I certainly did well over half of the square ones, and for a complete novice, I'm quite pleased with it myself, if I do say so. This was my second ever quilt and far more complicated than anything I'd ever attempted previously. It took eight months to complete start to finish. Good thing I didn't have a baby back then or no doubt it would have been a lot longer.



It will fit the bed it's intended for,
which is a King whereas this is only a standard double.

One day I hope to complete an entire Baby Jane quilt using all the patterns. If you want to know all these patterns, I would recommend the Dear Jane book by Brenda Manges Papadakis, which is what I used. It's well worth the money and you could use the patterns to make hundreds of different patchwork designs.

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.

Alphabet Quilt

I made this Alphabet quilt a couple of years ago, long before I even decided to start trying for a baby. I didn't have anything in mind for it, I'd just learnt how to appliqué and wanted something interesting to do with that skill. Letters are interesting shapes! It will have a purpose when my little lad is a bit older.

I hand appliquéd each of the letters, then machine pieced everything else together.

It measures about 30" x 35" overall. I love doing a bit of appliqué, I find it really satisfying.

I admit to being super lazy when it comes to prepping for patchwork. I don't even pin or baste the appliqué patches to their backgrounds properly before sewing them. I just hold them in place and hand fold the seams as I go. I'm astonished it ended up as neat as it did in the end! I did use templates to cut out the letters though. I made my own just by printing off a font I liked in a large size and cutting them out. Super simple.

It's a bit of a mish-mash of colours as I was just using up random scraps from my fabric stash, 

but I don't think my little lad will complain. 

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.