A life in the country quilt

Is it too late to wish you all A Happy New Year? The time seems to be flying by already and things are already getting busy in the sewing room here. Ellie had her baby and I made a gift for husband to deliver to her, along with a chocolate chip cake because we all know that flowers are lovely but gifts you can eat are great when you have just had a baby! Here is the quilt I made for baby Wilfred who will grow up knowing all about foxes and pheasants....

Countryside Quilt by Green Star Quilts

I used lots of small pieces of fabrics which I have been saving for just such a quilt with a 'throw everything at it' approach which always seems to turn out well amazingly!

Countryside Quilt by Green Star Quilts

The pattern is a 'bricks and mortar' one. Most the pieces were put up on the design wall to start with to get the balance right with the darks and lights. When it all got too big for my small wall, I used the floor too, a good reason to hoover the carpet of pesky threads! With all the patterns of the different fabrics, it is magical how they almost become joined up in your mind when you look at the over all quilt top and the darks and lights of the colours become much more important. I love this style of quilt but I can quite understand that it might be too much for people who like a calm life!

Countryside Quilt by Green Star Quilts

The quilting is a simple quarter of an inch from the seams to create a grid and little squares in the corners of each brick.

Countryside Quilt by Green Star Quilts

I have attempted to take the photos in the summer house down the garden but it is cold and a bit muddy.... how do quilt makers take such gorgeous photos of their quilts in the snow and on the beach etc without getting them dirty? It is a mystery to me and one I continue to struggle with!

Another finish is The Beast..... which felt as though I was knitting a large dog at the finish! 

Icelandic wool jumper

This is a jumper I have been knitting for daughter who is living in Norway, temperature -7 degrees, lots of snow, beautiful pink twilight all day and many many sledge dogs to exercise.... Again I have tried the arty photo, the jumper ended up covered in leaves and bits of twig, this doesn't seem to happen to those clever knitters who have snapped their finished jumpers on reindeer skins beside camp fires and in the snow..... what am I doing wrong?? Husband looked at he photos and commented that people would think the wood pile was really untidy..... just another thought!!!

Icelandic wool jumper

I now know how the knit a yoke though and really I love the Lopi Icelandic wool which is so warm although a bit hairy and itchy so she will need a thick t shirt underneath. The knitting grows at an amazing speed too.

This week I am making little new baby quilts and finishing a scrap one too. More attempts at arty photos to follow soon,

Happy New Year and thank you for visiting my blog,

Kind regards,

Sue 

Icelandic jumper pattern

What is about winter evenings that draw me to knitting? When the heating goes off in the sewing room I settle in the sitting room with a log fire, chocolate, crossword and at the moment some very warm knitting. Daughter who is living in Norway has asked me to knit a jumper from a lovely Norwegian design company called Valley Knits. You can find them on Raveley, the knitting pattern site. The jumpers are photographed on snow, with husky dogs and reindeer fur and they look amazing. I do hope mine will look amazing too, but I haven't  got to the difficut bit yet! Yes, that is the circular yoke with traditional patterns mixed with paw prints.... I suspect there will be much undoing, some grumpiness and hopefully triumphant photos when I get it right!
Here it is so far, no husky dog here to style the photo though....That may come when I finish it and post it to Norway!

Design by Valley Knits, norway

The sleeves come next, then hopefully it will all join up to make the yoke stitches, I  really hope it does!! 

Carrying on knitting,

Kind regards,

Sue 

Scrap fabric bibs

This week I have been addressing the pile of fabric scraps which I can't bear to throw away. I found a lovely pattern for bibs ages ago on the internet and sadly can't find it now, so I drew around an old bib to make my own pattern and here are my scrap fabric bibs.....

Scrap fabric bibs by Green Star Quilts 

The fabrics come mostly from a quilt I made which was designed for a bike ride and picnic. I loved the bikes fabric and kept even the tiny scraps afterwards. I'm so glad they have been used!

Scrap fabric bibs by Green Star Quilts

I stitched the three layers together and then turned the bib to the outside. It was a bit of a fiddle with the wadding but cutting it really close to the stitching worked well. After turning, I quilted the whole bib in straight lines and round the edge. The fastening at the neck is a large popper as I find velco catches on soft fine hair and pulls.

I  am also making a memory quilt and you can see this on my website commissions page. 

Are you all making Christmas quilts and gifts? I haven't got to that bit yet!

Hope you have a good week,

Kind regards,

Sue 

Little elephants on the move

This week I have made a cot quilt for Sophia Rose. Such a pretty name! She is very new to the world having been born in October but is now the owner of her first quilt. I have made so many elephant cot quilts over the years and they all look different with the same over all style. This one is in pinks with pale greens and soft yellows to make it look more modern. Many years ago I was in Paris and saw a window frieze of cut out elephants in a shop display. I drew a quick sketch on the back of an envelope and with more design this has become a favourite quilt pattern. Here is Sophia's quilt....

Cot quilt by Green Star Quilts

The backing fabric is white with tiny bright pink flamingos in rows:

Cot quilt by Green Star Quilts

This quilt measures 36 x 36 inches and has a cream coloured binding...

Cot quilt by Green Star Quilts

Now I am finishing a tractor quilt which is needed for Christmas. So far I have finished the top of the quilt and here it is.....

Cot quilt by Green Star Quilts

Just the quilting needed to complete this one. I love these autumnal colours, the leaves of the beech tree in our garden have  turned to amazing shades of gold which echo the golds in this quilt. The weather is still quite warm and bright low sunshine too, but evenings need a log fire and a cosy blanket when the central heating goes off. At the moment in the evenings I am making felt food.... pasta shapes and lots of cupcakes using lids from plasitc bottles as the base. The internet has lots of free patterns so tonight it is ravioli and an attempt at a pizza! I will show you when I have a complete meal! You should see the bananas!

Have a lovely week sewing, thanks for stopping by,

Kind regards,

Sue   

Time for a change

This month my website has decided to go off sick. Bits are feeling poorly and other bits seem to be having a month away.... it has gone off to bed with the duvet over it's head, will not get up in the mornings and it has no intention of being helpful when I try to fix it!! Grrr, so now I have to become a web designer, which is a slow and painful process for me..... 

Green Star Quilts

Once I started thinking about a new website though, I quickly got enthusiastic, thanks to my lovely son-in-law who helped me with lots of ideas. Now it is just a question of finding the photos I need for each page and there I have to confess to woefully inadequent filing, indeed, no filing system at all for digital prints.... You know what it like when you think 'One rainy day I will sit at the computer and label, sort and file all my photos so I can find them easily but right now I'd rather be quilting' ? Well that's the problem, and now my chickens are throughly home to roost with that one!! Anyway, it will be sorted eventually and then I will have a shiny new up to date site with loads of pictures and some new text.

In the meantime I can still be contacted through the website contact page, and here is the link:   www.greenstarquilts.com/page9.htm

Daughter is home from Norway with her Viking and has ideas for making picture hangings. They will have a Northern theme and will all be A4 size. It is such fun designing something so small and the Bond-a-Web sticky web stuff you iron on has been in full use. This is where we have got to so far.....

Green Star Quilts

I am delighted with the Northern Lights fabric which is designed by Timeless Treasures. Next will be a sledge and a husky dog with more Northern lights. It is a lovely project and it will use all sorts of scraps up. It is also something we can do at a distance as she will be back in north Norway for the winter, training sled dogs. Where she is working is so so beautiful, my fabric pictures can't do it justice. You can see it here and no that is not her Viking! Goodness I miss her so much but she is very happy there.

That's all for this week, our garden is strewn with twigs and even a few branches from the huge gales here, I am amazed that some of our trees are still standing, but the sun is shining and I must go out with a rake. It is cold in the evenings now and we are lighting the log burner although I am still wildly hoping for an Indian summer. It's not quite time for woolly tights yet!

I hope you have a lovely week dear readers, thank you for visiting,

Kind regards,

Sue 

  

Returning to quilt making

Without realising what was happening, I seem to have taken the summer off from the sewing room. Commissions for quilts have been completed, then no more appeared so I sat in the garden, well actually I did quite a lot of gardening too. I read books and took a watercolour painting course. We decorated two rooms in the house and visited people we hadn't seen for ages. We went to a wedding and also sat at the bedside of a dying friend and wept. It has been a strange time and one for many considerations and the counting of blessings. Then Google sent me a message to ask if I still wanted to carry on with the blog and it made me realise how long it has been since I wrote a new post or made a new quilt. 
So here I am again and here is my first quilt of the autumn. It has been made for our own personal small petrol head who hero worships Lightning Mcqueen from the Disney films....

Race Car Quilt by Green Star Quilts

I quilted it in a straight grid 2.5 inches wide. There are a few wobbles, it is ages since I used the walking foot and guide and I need to practice! Looking at this photo makes me think it needs more lines of quilting as it looks a bit saggy. The backing fabric is a upcycled duvet cover with his favourite character in larger than life and full colour:

Race Car Quilt by Green Star Quilts

At the top of the quilt I have added a vintage fabric badge I found in my sewing box, I can't remember where it can from but it was just the right thing. I stitched it on with machine double blanket stitch which helped to cover up a few marks on the edges.... 

Race Car Quilt by Green Star Quilts

The edges are bound with a plain navy fabric. I know the quilt will be on his bed within minutes of him seeing it!

Race Car Quilt by Green Star Quilts

This winter I want to make more quilts from fabrics in the sewing room. Some will be for a charity like Project Linus UK which donates quilts to children in need of an extra cuddle. Others will be for sale on the website initially and I am thinking of opening an Etsy shop too. If you have experience of this please leave a comment, I would love to hear from you. Has it worked for you? Please let me know.
Today I am linking with Amanda Jean at Crazy Mom Quilts, I'm so glad she is back after the summer holiday. Thank you for reading this, I hope you are still visiting me even after such a long break,

Kindest regards,

Sue 

A Memory Quilt

I can't believe my last post was in March. The weeks have slipped by and I had very good intentions  which never quite made it to the computing stage. Really it has been nice to have a break, but I hope you are all still there! I have made quilts though, and this is Gemma's memory quilt made from her little son's outgrown clothes. It has been a joy to make, handling soft baby clothes is so nice, little designs, logos and buttons and the 'I remember' feeling when seeing similar navy and white dungarees to those worn by my youngest who refused a dress until sixteen years old! Here it is:

Memory quilt by Green Star Quilts

It is a single bed size with pockets, buttons, a fluffy dog, straps, rabbit ears and two appliqued stars from a baby hat fabric.

Memory quilt by Green Star Quilts

A tip for adding tiny pockets.... if the fabric the pocket is sewn to on the garment is too small a size for the quilt block, cut the right size from the back of the garment and applique the pocket piece onto it before completing the block. You can just see one I have done in the left bottom corner above with a machine blanket stitch and in the centre of the photo below. 

Memory quilt by Green Star Quilts

I do get asked if I use a stablizer for stretch fabrics and I don't as it would be so fiddlely and expensive. I find that using a simple design for the blocks works best so there is no difficult piecing. I cut all the seams off the clothing and iron everything with steam before cutting the pieces with a rotary cutter. I handle them very carefully and use a walking foot to the stitch pieces together with pins horizontal to the seams. I press seams flat with steam and baking parchment, be careful of polester threads and rubbery pictures on clothes too. Yes, seams can be a wonky sometimes but this doesn't seem to spoilt the cuddle comfort levels of the quilts.These are not the flatest quilts but they are very loved! 

Memory quilt by Green Star Quilts

This month I have sadly decided to stand down as a Project Linus UK co-ordinator. I am doing more to help our family, the garden needs attention and I need a quieter life. I have loved volunteering for Project Linus UK and have met many amazing people. In 11 years I have given 63 talks and raised hundreds of pounds to buy fabric for the quilts. We have given out 3325 quilts to children in Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire and I am very proud of that achievement. Now it is time for some new ideas and I so hope that someone will step forward and enjoy being a co-ordinator for Lincolnshire as I have so much. 

And I will have time to make some Project Linus UK quilts myself, so here is the one I have made for Dylan, a very brave little boy........

Spiderman Quilt for Project Linus UK

Here is the back:

Spiderman Quilt for Project Linus UK

I am just catching the last link up this spring, run by Amanda Jean at Crazy Mom Quilts. I am so grateful to her for running this, it shapes the quilting week for me and I am sure many of you too. 

Happy quilting and summer is nearly here I hope, thanks for visiting,

Kind regards,

Sue