The 100 day project – update

June 28, 2019 by dottiedoodle ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

It’s day 89 of my project, 100 days of stash busting. It’s been going well – the finished projects are piling up, and the stash is decreasing. There’s certainly plenty of fabric left, but it does now all fit in the chest of drawers I bought to keep everything in!

I haven’t got anything completed to show you this week, so I thought I’d post a quick round up of all the unfinished projects I’m hoping to have done in eleven days time.

First is a Warm Hearted dog bed cover I started about a year ago. Every heart is a different print, so it’s a very scrappy quilt! I’ve got one more row to add, then pieces to the edges to straighten them. The pattern is by Tales of Cloth.

This is the top of my Up and Away Baby quilt. The pattern is by my lovely friend and fellow Guild member Sarah Ashford, and I’ve been taking part in the sewalong she is running on Instagram (#upandawaysal).

Next is the result of another sewalong, run by Karen Lewis for her Wire Flower pattern. Each group of nine people made nine flowers, then swapped them. I’m making a laundry bag with mine, and the reverse will be this gorgeous Liesl Gibson fabric which I’m quilting today.

Finally, I’m quilting my Oodalolly quilt – in stages because it’s quite big and I get bored! I’m quilting in between the lines you can see, and then across them to make a curved crosshatch.

I wonder if I could restrict myself to just a couple of works in progress in future!

Quilt-As-You-Go

May 16, 2019May 15, 2019 by dottiedoodle ♥ 1 Comment

One of the first projects I decided on for my 100 days of stashbusting was a quilt for the garden bench. Looking through my patterns and quilting books was frustrating. I have a lot of fabric, but it’s mainly in fat quarters so not enough of anything to make most patterns.

Jera Brandvig‘s Quilt As You Go Made Modern provided a solution, as her Red Square quilt uses 14 fat quarters. I certainly had those! I chose blue prints, with a single golden yellow piece in each square.

I went a bit more scrappy as I went along.

I enjoyed making this quilt. It comes together quickly, and of course you don’t have to quilt it when the top is finished. I did take a break part way through, when I realised I had to make an extra 5 blocks to make the quilt big enough to stay on the bench. It’s a lot of stitching, and I had had enough at that point. A week or so off with some slower projects, and I finished the quilt in a couple of days.

The 100 Day Project

May 2, 2019May 2, 2019 by dottiedoodle ♥ 1 Comment

I’m taking part in The 100 Day Project for the fourth time this year. The Project is

“a free art project that takes place online. Every spring, thousands of people all around the world commit to 100 days of exploring their creativity.
The idea is simple: choose a project, do it every day for 100 days, and share your process on Instagram with the hashtag #The100DayProject. “

I first took part in 2015 with 100 days of new recipes and loved it! In 2016 I tried a drawing project but gave up pretty quickly, then in 2017 I completed 100 days of slow stitches.

100 days is a long time and I was in two minds about taking part again. It certainly is a rollercoaster ride of “love/ hate/ please don’t make me do this anymore/ maybe this is good/ I did it!”

The thing I love about the project, and what keeps me coming back to it, is that if you do something for 100 days, something will happen. I’ve always learned a lot, even if it’s what I don’t like doing.

I thought about trying free motion quilting, but decided that might be too difficult – as I can’t free motion quilt at all! Maybe next year.

The day before the project began, I thought ‘I’m always complaining I’ve got too much fabric, why don’t I do 100 days of stash busting’. It will be interesting to see how much of my stash I can use, if I do something with it every day.

So that’s what I’ve been doing. Today is day 31 and so far I’ve completed a quilt top, almost finished a quilt, made some gifts, worked on an epp cushion cover, sewn some really tiny quilt blocks, knitted most of a cardigan for my niece, and made her a sweatshirt. I’m delighted to say there is a considerable dent in my stash already!

I’m also not buying any fabric or yarn during the Project and I haven’t wanted to. Which if you know me, is quite something! I think I’m finding it so satisfying to see the fabric drawers emptying, I don’t want to add to it.

If you like to follow along, I’m dottie_doodle on Instagram.

SWMQG Showcase 2018

October 4, 2018January 10, 2019 by dottiedoodle ♥ 2 Comments

I’m a member of the South West Modern Quilt Guild, and we are holding our first exhibition this month – exciting! I thought I’d share a few pictures from the hanging day on Monday.

I was very much looking forward to seeing the blocks from our Rainbow Challenge. This was Charlie’s idea, and we were all thrilled to see her idea of a ‘quilt’ made from the mini quilts come to life.

I spent most of the day climbing up and down ladders – you can see my Sunflower cushion in the centre here –

This is Mary Emmens‘ mini version of her Caernarfon quilt. It’s paper pieced, so a completely different construction to the full size version which I made at the beginning of the year.

And I had to share this corner. Kerry’s mini quilts are on the left, my Highland Cow, and Fiona’s Hare. Sarah’s Trellis Blues quilt is on the right.

So that’s a very personal view of a small part of the exhibition. Apologies to everyone I haven’t included here – all the quilts are amazing! The exhibition is taking place at CICCIC in Taunton until 27 October.

Vintage Home BOM – Egg cups & ‘Royal’ mug

May 10, 2018May 10, 2018 by dottiedoodle ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

This month on the Vintage Home quilt along the blocks are egg cups and a commemorative mug – great timing with a royal wedding next week!

Jo included an embroidery design for the mug which is lovely, but I wanted a cross stitch design to go with the caddy’s I’ve already made. I found a Queen Bee pattern by The Prairie Schooler, Inc here.

The mug took quite a while, so it was good to contrast that with some quick and easy egg cups.

The bird fabric (far right) is a new one. I know, I wasn’t supposed to buy any fabric this year, but apparently I have no self control. None. Pretty isn’t it?!

Looking forward to next month – I wonder what it will be?!

2018 Pantone Quilt Challenge

May 3, 2018November 1, 2018 by dottiedoodle ♥ 1 Comment

I shared my plans for the 2018 Pantone Quilt Challenge with you last month, and my quilt is now finished! The challenge was to use the Pantone colour of the year, which for 2018 is Ultra Violet.

My inspiration came from Roman mosaics, and I also wanted the quilt to look like a picture, so I added a grey Essex linen border and mosaic frame around the Highland Cow.

The mosaic is strip pieced and made from lots of scraps, including pieces of metallic Essex linen in black, navy and gold. I quilted the border with lots of straight lines and added some hand quilting – in purple of course – to the cow’s fringe.

I tried to take a photo of the sparkle, but it is hard to capture! Hopefully you can see the gold of the background and silver in her fringe here.

Click to visit the 2018 Pantone quilt challenge page and see all the entries as they come in.

The cow pattern came from Animal Quilts.

Vintage Home BOM – plates & all the blocks so far

April 26, 2018November 1, 2018 by dottiedoodle ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

This time the Vintage Home blocks are plates, using the porthole technique, which I hadn’t tried before.

The instructions in the magazine were very clear and I’m pleased with the results. I especially like the one with the boats fabric!

There is also a larger plate with paper pieced petals around the rim, and I really liked this one. I intended the centre of this one to be one of the smaller plates, but used the wrong template when I cut it out – oops!

I think it was a happy accident though. I wouldn’t have planned to put the zoo animals in the centre of the florals, but I like it. It’s a plate I would love to own.

Finally, here’s a picture of all the blocks so far. I spent ages trying to get them all in the photo using my ‘proper’ camera, but the best picture was a quick snap with my phone!

Ultra Violet the highland cow

April 12, 2018April 11, 2018 by dottiedoodle ♥ 3 Comments

I’m taking part in the Pantone Quilt Challenge this year. The colour for 2018 is Ultra Violet (a rich blue purple) and as soon as it was announced I thought of the Highland Cow in Juliet van der Heijden’s Animal Quilts.

And here she is!

I’ve used gold Essex Linen for the background – you can see it sparkle at the top of this photo.

She took a while, but lots of fun to make. Here is the back, with all my planning scribbles.

I’m thinking about adding a wide border, using strip piecing for a mosaic effect. Haven’t tried it yet, so fingers crossed it works.

The details of this pattern are lovely – just look at those nostrils!

Postcard swap

April 7, 2018March 30, 2018 by dottiedoodle ♥ 15 Comments

I’ve just taken part in my first postcard swap – organised by Patty at Elm Street Quilts.

We were asked to give an inspiration word, and this is how my partner Natalia interpreted mine, which was ‘water’.

Isn’t it lovely?! My postcard is proudly displayed on a shelf in my sewing room, and I will treasure it.

Diane’s inspiration word to me was ‘turquoise’ so I decided to make one of Tartan Kiwi’s birds with a turquoise wing.

This bird is a Rifleman, and the first in Tartan Kiwi’s On the Wire Pattern Club series. It’s a lovely pattern, and I’m looking forward to making the others.

If you’d like to see more, the hashtag on instagram is #esqpostcardswap

Here are the other blogs taking part in the hop –

Isis @ Creation d’Isis

Karen @ Run Sew Fun

Lynette @ What A Hoot Quilts

Laura @ LC’s Cottage

Lisa @ Sunlight in Winter Quilts

Marsha @ Quilter in Motion

Michelle @ Creative Blonde

Paige @ Quilted Blooms

Patty @ Elm Street Quilts

Sandra @ mmm! quilts

Susan @ California Fiber and Music

Valerie @ Val’s Quilting Studio

Thank you so much Patty for organising this, it was a lot of fun!

Elm Street QuiltsPostcard SwapBlog Hop (2)

Vintage Home BOM – Teacups

January 25, 2018January 25, 2018 by dottiedoodle ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

I’m playing catch up for Jo Avery’s gorgeous Vintage Home block of the month. The instructions for the second month were to make four teacups in two different styles.

I bought some Liberty sample swatches from Alice Caroline a while ago, and a swatch was big enough to make a teacup. So I chose four of my favourites. They are (in order) Sarah, Capel, Mushaboom and Clara.

Jo includes photos of vintage china in her articles in Today’s Quilter, so I thought I would show you some of the pieces we have, as I make the blocks.

I prefer a mug to a teacup, but we do have these Coronation teacups from my husband’s family. So elegant!

dottie doodle

a simpler life – with a lot of fabric

Category: Challenges