Merry Christmas!

Just a quick post to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas!

"You will find a babe wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger" Luke 2 v 12

Dotty Squares

It's ages since I've blogged.

I've been out of the country for the past two weeks.

Travelling in Uganda with a team from Fields of Life.

What an experience!

So I'm back to normality with a bump.

And today I get to share a project I completed for the Riley Blake Cutting Corners College-

 Dotty Squares - well, what else could I call it??

 It's made using Riley Blake's new Cotton Dots collection.

 With a pieced back - it's super bright!

I quilted in the ditch around the squares, then did a 

little free machine quilting on the border.

A bright quilt, to cheer up some drab winter days!

Now I guess I'm going to have to start some Christmas projects!

Am I too late?

Catch up

Where did September go?? I can't believe it's October already!

Here's a few photos of bee blocks I have made this month:

Firstly, for September Hipbees, a wonky Friendship Braid for Judith - loved making this!

and would you believe it October Hipbees is done and dusted too!

A wonky star for Jan made with Denyse Schmidt fabrics. 

 and finally some scrappy star blocks for Cindy in the September Modern Irish Bee. 

I also wanted to share this t-shirt with you - in August I took my daughters to see a band from Northern Ireland called Rend Collective Experiment. 
(They're currently touring in the USA)

I spied lots of people wearing the 'sewing machine t-shirt' 
and thought it was so simple and so true!
You can find their music on You Tube.

X Marks the Spot

Summer has gone and Autumn has definitely arrived today!

I've had a long break from blogging, I have been busy, just not blogging.

Children are back at school and autumn patchwork classes are up and running.

Recently, I've been working on a dotty project which is very nearly complete,

I'll share that another day.

Here's one I can share today -

a quilt I made early this year has made its debut!

X Marks the Spot is published in the latest Sewing World magazine. 

The fabrics are Perfectly Perched by Laurie Wisbrun and Robert Kaufman Fabrics. 

I love these fabrics! the chairs are super and the little birdies so cute!

Seeing spots..

I had a lovely day on Monday, meeting up with some fellow N.Ireland bloggers - 

Fiona @SewFi, Judith @JustJude and Tina @Secret Ingredient:Love

Unfortunately none of us remembered to take any photos!

Anyway we had a lovely morning, and I'm looking forward to the next meetup :)

I'm getting ready to go to the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham tomorrow,

meanwhile here's a taster of a new project I'm starting

with Riley Blake's Cotton Dots and solids. 

and here's a random photo of some blooms in our garden, that have 

survived the torrential rain this week!

August Bee blocks

 Just popping in to show my August blocks for Modern Irish Bee

Scrappy wonky houses and wonky blocks!

and also Hipbees August block - more wonky houses!

This time made with Summersville fabrics.
I'm getting ready to go to the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham on Friday,
anybody else heading that way?

Janome Binding Finish!

I have just finished a new quilt design, made using these fantastic fabrics

Perfectly Perched by Laurie Wisbrun from Robert Kaufaman fabrics.

Fun, fun, fun :)

Unfortunately, all I can show you is the back of the quilt,

the front will follow at a later date!

What I really wanted to tell you about is a new addition to my Janome Horizon - 

A Quilt Binding Set - yes a speedy way to attach the binding, 

front and back sewn at the same time!

Now when I first opened the packaging, I was totally daunted 

by all the bits and pieces that made up the set.

It's a substantial add on to the machine - my first fear was that I would

end up breaking something on my new machine, just by trying to get it to work!

But my fears were unfounded - I just followed the instructions!
here's how it works:

Firstly attach the binder foot, which comes in the set. 

 Next, remove the bobbin cover plate - nothing painful so far :)

This is the underside of the base plate -  notice the metal rectangle (support plate)

- this fits in, where the bobbin cover plate came off.

 Place the base plate on top of the needle plate,the metal rectangle should fit in neatly.

 Take the specified screw and secure tightly.

This bit of kit is what the fabric is fed through.

Fold out the wiggly wire bit (The tape guide!)

Feed the binding through the wiggly wire, wrong side facing you.

(Binding cut at 2" and end cut diagonally)

Then insert the binding into the guide tube, and use a pin or tweezers to

slide it on into the tube.

Place the binder on the base plate and secure in place with the

two screws supplied.

Pull about 2" of the binding out of the tube and pull at a right angle

to the binder, under the binder foot.

Place the edge of the quilt into the fold of the binding and start sewing!

Keep the edge of the quilt in the binding fold as you sew.

Keep an eye on how the tape is being fed in to the tape guide, 

it is important that the tape doesn't get stuck or distorted.

There it is - finished 1/2" binding in a fraction of the time it normally takes!

I must emphasize that I did practice on a few samples before I actually started on my quilt, but I did find this attachment very useful and certainly time saving!

I know a lot of people still prefer to hand sew the binding in place, 

and I guess if I were making an 'heirloom' I would too! 

But I think this is a great solution to speeding up the binding process on quilts.

Janome have some great tutorials on using the binding set, on You Tube.

The question is, do you machine or hand sew your binding?