Family Quilting - Fractured Landscape Bird

A couple of years ago I started a fractured landscape quilt with my family. Now that we are going to exhibit them in 2018, I need to finish it!
My quilt was designed as four copies of the same bird. I aimed to get at least one of the four small quilts done for the exhibition in February.
This is one set of the four panels pinned together:

And this is the set that I have decided to make up for the exhibition:

The first step was to make sure that the sizes of the blocks matched well enough. you can see in the top right here that I have added dark green to the block on the right. It was a lot smaller than the one on the left.

Everyone used very different backing and styles in their blocks, so they are different thicknesses as well.

These two blocks don't seem to match very well, but I'll wait and see!

I sewed the four together, using some careful pinning.

I moved the panels until the front of the beak met up, because it looked really strange when it didn't.

The middle points don't match up, but with all of the patterns it isn't actually as noticeable.

The top of the back doesn't meet either, and I could sew over the gap and make it meet, but I actually don't mind.

I squared the block off on each side - cut the excess off.

And was left with this:

Now to decide what to put around the outside as a border. I had imagined the four birds as glimpses through windows, so I had wanted to put black around the outside. I tried a few things though, just in case. The green fabric on the right is my backing fabric, a nice Bali cotton that I bought a whole roll of on special.

I had to dig through 6 boxes and 2 bags, but I found the black cotton I was pretty sure I had. I'm trying not to buy anything at the moment, as I want to use what I have. But if I hadn't found the black I was probably going to go and buy some, because I really wanted it as the border. Often I take what I have and the creativity comes from that, but quilting is different: there are so many parts and you are working towards a set look. The type of fabric limits you as well.

I cut off even strips to use on each edge and pinned them face-down and sewed them on. 

The two long edges first.

Apologies for how dark this photo is, but you can see how the two pieces and the border fit together.

Trying to pin around feathers... quite a challenge! I had to kind of brush them aside, then pin the fabric into place.

The border is mostly straight, though I did have to trim a couple of the corners to square. This would have been because my inner blocks weren't straight.

My wadding came in a giant roll that will probably last me the rest of my life at the rate I do quilting. I cut just enough for my quilt, with about 1cm around the outside just in case.

 Once I had them I also cut the backing fabric out, leaving extra around the outside in case I decided to use it to bind the edges as well.

I had bought a variegated thread to use for quilting that was lots of pretty greens to match the backing fabric.

 See how many pins I put in to keep all three layers together? I didn't know if I had enough still! The quilt gets bent and folded and shifted a lot when you're sewing it together than it'a easy to create bubbles in the fabric if it isn't pinned securely.

But into the machine it went. I had identified key features of the bird that I was going to do as my quilting lines.

 Plus some leaves in the green part.

 But when I tried to use the variegated thread on the top and bottom it did this:

When I changed the top thread to a cotton/polyester blend I had no trouble. I may come back and unpick this later, but (running out of time) I left it for now.
On a side note, it turns out my backing fabric was the wrong way up, so the bright side is facing the wadding... 😅 I was too pinned in at that point, so I made a mental note for the next section.
Quilting is tricky, because you have to feed a bulky collection of fabric through it and manoeuvre it around the machine. And the piece that has the feathers on it makes it even trickier because I was trying not to snap them!

 As with the piecing, I had to "brush" the feathers out of the way to sew around them.

 But I love the effect of them sitting over the edge of the black "frame".
Here I've finished the quilting and, having decided to use the backing fabric to bind the edges (lack of time, mostly) I cut it down to an inch around for binding.

 Pinned it very carefully around all of the edges and sewed them down with the machine. Often people hand sew the binding so that you don't actually see any stitches, but I'm not bothered.

 Again, running out of time, I did a patch job with some safety pins to be able to hang it.

 And ready for the exhibition!

Repairing the rascally rip - mending pants

Why is it that our clothes often break in the most inconvenient places? This pair of my husband's pants had ripped in the groin and he was going to throw them out, but I was pretty sure that I could fix them.

I went into my stash to see what I had. I actually keep scraps of jeans fabric for this very eventuality, but I didn't know if I had any black that would be suitable.
While it would have been entertaining to patch them with a fluro green owl, I was actually looking at the wear of the fabrics. The other black material that I have was too black, it hadn't faded like the pants had over years of wear. But the owl fabric had, so it was a good match for a patch.

I didn't need a huge piece, so I cut around the owls.

It was tricky pinning the patch on, because I had to thread my arms through the legs of the pants to reach the spot. But I made it secure eventually and carefully put it through the sewing machine. I used a Jeans needle, which is designed for this kind of fabric.

I cut the ripped part out of the inside of the pants once it was mended, because otherwise it would just keep fraying and annoy him when he wears them. I used pinking shears, to try and slow down any further fraying.

Not very obvious, is it?

And because of where it is in the groin, you actually don't see most of it when the pants are worn.

 Now there's some more life in them 🙂

Skirt Refashion: retiring the owls to everyday wear

I love this skirt, but the fabric is starting to fade and I suddenly feel like wearing other things to work. What to do? Why, make it into something else of course! This is a refashion from work wear to everyday wear.

I want to remove the zip from the back:

Because I'm going to do that, I'll need to shorten the skirt so that it has a wider waist otherwise I won't be able to get it on over my shoulders or my hips. I also want to put elastic in to make it easier to pull on for everyday wear. 

I think this is about where I'll cut:

First step: get out the ripper and take the waistband off and remove the zip.

I wanted to separate the waistband from the fabric so that I could use it on something else. Then I chopped the top section off.

When I went to cut the bottom off I remembered that I had made it high-low at one point, so the bottom is uneven.

It means that I cut a decent amount off to make a straight bottom. The owls still look holographic!

That leaves the space from the front of the skirt to patch.

I happened to use a scrap of the fabric that I had made a pocket from, too. A quick straight stitch sew on. I found the elastic that I wanted for the waistband (after searching 2 boxes I realised that it was on my desk).

Once that was sewn on I hemmed the bottom and started to think about the top. Slight issue: I had cut too much off and now the pocket was in the way! I had to unpick some of it and fold it down so that I could actually sewn the waistband.

But I did it and popped the skirt on the mannikin to pin the waistband and check the length. I had to make the waistband wide enough to be able to thread the elastic through.

It's much shorter now!

It only took a couple of minutes to get the elastic threaded through, using a big safety pin to guide it. I always pin both ends in place so I don't lose them - very annoying to have to try and dig them out! 

A final, 5cm quick-sew to close the waistband and the new skirt was done! 

#lovelypennypatterns