Lazy Pattern Making

With quilting out of the question, I'm determined to be productive. There's only so many hours a day I 'allow' myself to spend on the computer, so although I have several patterns lined up for release shortly, I decided to "do" something. My wardrobe needs an overhaul and a clear out but whenever there's domestic duties to be done, I usually find a way out of them... and today's been no different.

Whilst I was packaging a bag of clothes to drop off at my local op shop, I found this green shirt.

Does anyone else remember wearing fabrics like this in the 90's?

Anyway, I love the shirt, just not the fabric, so you know what that means: time to draft another shirt pattern. I've drafted many shirt patterns in my life and I'm totally over it, so I decided to draft the lazy way, and unpicked the shirt, ironed it onto a sheet of stabiliser and hey presto - pattern.

 Then I decided to take over my kitchen (of course my sewing room is completely chaotic with quilting patterns at the moment) and stash busted some red fabric I'd actually wear

 I love it and soon it's going to be a shirt I'll enjoy wearing

 Once you have the pattern, the making just flies by

 I'll probably pull out my over-locker for this one, 

but first I stabilised the front to make sewing even easier

Years ago I would have laboured hours over a shirt pattern, now I'm taking the path of least resistance. Hopefully I'll be able to show you tomorrow. Let's see what the final result has to say about it...

WOW: New Pattern Sneaky Peek!

WOW = WIPs On Wednesdays

Talk about unexpected! This is me, drafting my new quilt project. I've had the design at the back of my mind for a while now. Then when I got Di Ford's new fabric range into my house, I draped it over some chairs as was constantly looking at it. I wanted to use it up in a quick project (by my standards) so a wall hanging felt ideal - Lily Rose size or thereabouts. I wasn't sure if I had the time or motivation to fix another pattern - but last week I found both!

These pics are from last week and I'm looking forward to releasing the pattern here in the next week or so. I'll show it off properly just as soon as I work out how to get around my scanning issues.

What's Your WOW?

An InLinkz Link-up

Soothing Love Entwined Hours...

I've been a bit stressed since my 820 got taken away for repair. Of course, it had to happen just when I'd packed most of my other machines into storage - so I'm at a complete stop, machine quilting wise. And LE2 and Oma's Blues are still waiting to be quilted, draped over in the living room.

----Sigh----

It's one thing to get the time to actually quilt without interruption...and quite another to watch that time slip away. WIP wise, it's so frustrating. My solution? Hand work.

There are still hundreds of hours of hand sewing left in my original Love Entwined top, so I'm tackling it the only way I know how - an hour at a time. It's been a few weeks since I spent a a few hours on LE and I must admit, once I find my stride, it's soothing.

I've reached that point of progress where you can actually see it 'taking shape' and it's getting rewarding to see the changes after each session - it's happening that quickly now. 

I know it's mine, but even so, I really have to say how much I love this quilt.

Just in case I've left you in any doubt?!

I know I always go on about this quilt, but it really is oh so special. 

WOW: Forced Pause :(

WOW = WIPs On Wednesdays

Well, I have to admit I'm rather frustrated and somewhat annoyed. By now, my quilt Oma's Blues should have been finished. Would have been finished - except for one thing. Let's just say that due to technical difficulties, my favorite state of the art sewing machine is currently indisposed. I'm going to leave it at that for now because I am rather upset about the whole thing...

Here I have Oma's Blues on top and Love Entwined 2 beneath, both waiting for my attention...

so much for my schedule :(  Hopefully you've managed to be more productive than I have since last week. How's your WIP pile going? I went to the supermarket and suddenly it's time for Christmas everywhere so my mind has turned to thoughts of wondering what I can get done before the end of 2015.

What's Your WOW ?

An InLinkz Link-up

Tree of Life: Variations on a theme

I've cut up my panel. Now it's time to play...

 and re-frame and maybe even introduce something new

I've grafted a branch

 re-located some birds

 and settled on a new background that is very close to the original in tone

I find that no matter how busy I am, there's always room for another WIP.

Do you have this panel? What are your plans for it?

WOW: Pinterest Fail

WOW = WIPs On Wednesdays

I found a recipe on Pinterest whilst I was admiring some other stuff on there. A lot of people are down on Pinterest but I like it because endlessly pinning things is easier and cheaper than buying them. I actually think I buy less since I started Pinterest boards. I wonder if that's true for anyone else? Anyway, my DH was complaining that I never bake. And this is true, I rarely do. But then I found a recipe that promised to be fail proof, so between my quilting and preparing dinner, it seemed effortless enough to whip up something for my long suffering DH and I trusted Pinterest instead of opening one of my hundreds of cook books.

And this is what happened. 

And it's still sitting in my kitchen, just like this. Because it isn't just dry or a bit bad. It's inedible. 

I told my DDs about it and they informed my that just anyone can post anything and that if I actually hung around on Pinterest long enough, I'd be curing people with coconut oil and losing 10kgs per week in home body wraps. So that's my baking fail sitting right there.

I'll definitely stick to quilting for the rest of the day...

Have you made anything from Pinterest? How did it go?

What's YOUR WOW?

An InLinkz Link-up

Love Entwined 2: the Hand Sewn Top

After months of countless handwork, I wanted a post to document my completely hand sewn applique top before I quilted it. Hand sewing has definitely bonded me to this quilt in unexpected ways. We all know what a mysterious background it has and the constant wondering of the woman who designed it in the 1800's is always there, lurking n the background. And, true enough, each time I took up my top to sew a little more, there was always a brief thought of her, the unknown woman, as I set about completing her extraordinary motifs in the pattern. 

looking at it now, I can barely believe I did all this work!

I can tell just by looking at it, what time I did the work

The small neat stitches were made during the day, the larger looser stitches were made during the night, I have two stitch speeds, daytime and nighttime :)

now all that's left is to quilt it...

The original Love Entwined Coverlet was designed to revive interest in the lost original - a cause many quilters around the world took up - managing to finding the original and reigniting interest in it's origins by taking part in the pattern. Thanks to this effort, this design is no longer forgotten and by the looks of things, will be around for many more years. 

This second version LE2 is a focus on the original centre panel but as a wall hanging and is therefore much more achievable for many more quilters.

This pattern is currently not available, however I may make it available for publication in a magazine next year, depending on their interest to run it. My hopes are to have it published so that it may be professionally photographed - something I am unable to do myself.

I'll keep you posted..