I finished my projects for the feather your nest competition and uploaded them to flickr - not sure if they'll be accepted as I was working on US time and as you know - in Australia we're ahead and flickr has put yesterday's date on my uploads even though it was still sunday in the US when I uploaded them!!
so please feel free to get a cuppa at this point - you may need it - just saying !!
anyway, I had such fun doing these projects and of course, I've learnt heaps as well - such as ...
- when you're on a deadline don't leave things till the last minute as everything that can go wrong will go wrong
- don't do projects for the first time when you are on a deadline and you've left things to the last minute
- unpicking is really just another form of meditation - just keep chanting :)
- 3/8ths of an inch is 3/8ths of an inch - NOT 7/8ths of an inch !
- always buy that little bit more than you think you'll need so that if you have to re-do something you have the supplies at hand
So I decided to make a few projects for the feather your nest competition - it all started when I picked up the green cotton top at the thrift store recently - I always wanted to make the paper pieced quilters clock by
Sylvie Rousell from Issue 8 of the Fat Quarterly e-zine so I thought I could do that and use the green fabric as the background fabric.
Then I thought I'd make a set of
Nova's Nesting Fabric Bowls as well or maybe instead and of course I had a kit for making a
table runner that I thought might be a good project as well.
So you can see I had problems right there - too many projects to decide on - so of course I decided to do them all - that was on Friday, yes, just a few days ago !
I knew I'd need a few supplies to get them all done so on Friday around lunchtime I decide to go to shopping and I also visit a couple of thrift stores just in case - so around 5pm I get back home - so I've lost a day already !! but I did pick up a thrifted checked skirt and gorgeous linen skirt for fabric purposes :)
I decide to put the charm squares for the table runner on the design wall to decide the layout - the charm squares were on that wall until Sunday night before I finally decided that was it - I wasn't moving another square - I'd have to be happy with the layout I had - I also used the
thrifted red fabric for all four corners - I did want to use it for the backing but I know why it was at the thrift store - there were holes all through it !
after that it didn't take long to do but I'm thinking I might have been a bit light on with the quilting - after quilting my
dsq12 mini nearly to death I've now gone the other way and only quilted a few lines - oh well, I can always do a bit of hand quilting later if I feel the need :)
meanwhile I made the nesting bowls ... well sort of ...
I bought a fabulous pattern for
Nesting Fabric Bowls from Nova who blogs at
a cuppa and a catch up just before I came up to queensland and I should do a separate post about the fabulous pattern !
so - the nesting bowls...
I started preparing the nesting bowls and of course I had a brain wave and thought that I'd embroider some birds onto the feature panel as I'm using a little birdie fabric for the front of the bowls. So I go ahead and make up the lining for three bowls that I've decided to make - 4", 6", and 8" - using the
thrifted fabric with cute orange and yellow daisies !
and then cut and prepare the outers for all three as well using the cute birdie fabric I purchased last week and draw up some embroidery on the panels - I'm loving all the feather your nest references - fabric, pattern, and now embroidery !
I finally finished the embroidery on the small bowl and though I'd just check to see how long it would take to finish it up so I knew how long I'd have to get the others done - so I sewed it up and went to insert the lining only to find that I'd in fact read the instructions wrong and had cut 7/8ths of an inch rather than 3/8ths of an inch so that the linings for all the bowls were way to big - so at that point I gave up.
just a slight size difference !
The next day I realised I didn't have the required interfacing to redo all three linings so I decided to do just the small one to enter into the competition and I'll finish the others soon :) and this way I'll have six bowls as I'll make new outers for the already made linings and then make new linings for the already made outers !
so after all this I decide that I still have time to embark on another untested project - yes, I think I might be quite mad !!
enter the quilter's clock and paper pieced at that ! so I print out the pattern onto scrap paper that my dad had as I couldn't find any plain copy paper - big mistake - always use plain paper that has not previously been used and preferably very thin paper when doing paper piecing - hot irons and ink from inkjet printers don't go to well together !
I pushed on and only had to unpick one seam which I was pretty pleased with until I went to sew the quarters together - I didn't line up the seams properly so unpicked all of those - wish I had of checked after the first one - but still - unpicking is a form of meditation, unpicking is a form of meditation - keep chanting !!
but really, it went together pretty easy after that apart from trying to get the thick paper off the back without upsetting the seams too much - though the clock mechanism was easy to put together - the only thing I'd do differently next time is to put batting or a medium interfacing behind the fabric to give it a bit of support before putting it in the hoop - as the green background fabric used to be a
shirt it was fairly thin - and of course use plain, thin paper - but another fun pattern that I highly recommend - it will look so good on the wall of my craft room and I'll be able to keep an eye on the time for my deadlines !!
and just before I go ...
here's a photo of pippi with her new jumper - I bought a kids jumper from the thrift shop on Saturday - we had a cold snap and she was shivering badly - and modified it by taking it in at the back and front and chopping off most of the sleeves (yes, I did that in a spare five minutes !)
I just love the stripey mohawk look and also the cowl collar - and I think she loved it too :)
and this is a photo of her (very) late Saturday night - the face says it all doesn't it ! I think she was a bit fed up with all the sewing activity :)
now ... onto my other deadlines :)
