Special finishing Wednesday

Ohk so it's not a WIP Wednesday today I have a special finish to show off. My friend had her baby shower on the weekend and I spent my time from Thursday sewing desperately to finish the chevron quilt. I have had the top finished for a couple of weeks now but it's taken this long for me to actually finish it. I wrote an interesting post about finishing items over on AndSewWeCraft this week. As you probably realise the more time I spend here talking to you that I am hopeless about finishing off projects.

Most stuff is left in the last stages, just sitting and waiting for me to make the last moves and finish. BUT I finished a whole pile of stuff in the last week, ends sewn in on my dishcloths and a quilt and toy FINISHED!!!!!

I used a black homespun on the back with a couple of rows of the patterns from the front. I followed the chevron pattern with the quilting and I love the effect on the back of the quilt.

Oh and you may notice the awesome giraffe poking out over my shoulder. I also spent the day Saturday making up a giraffe for her as well. I fell in love with Funky Friends Factory patterns again she has so many awesome awesome patterns and they are so easy to follow. It looks so much more complicated that it actually is.

So today is not a WIP Wednesday it's a special finishing Wednesday because I have ticked a couple of projects off my list.

Happy Stitching,
Caitlin

Chevron Quilt - Cutting Out

This quilt came about as a gift for a friend's baby. I kinda offered something and this is what was asked a quilt that is black, white and Tiffany green. If you haven't been keeping up with my blog, or you just can't remember, I talked about my inspiration for this quilt pattern HERE.

On the weekend, I knew I'd be spending the day at my parents house because James had to work on the car in a quiet spot. (It's an excuse to visit.) So I brought the fabric that I spent the weekend before washing over to cut out.

Mum has a great set up downstairs where she has a tonne of room to move and to do what is needed. I ironed and cut out strips of fabric at 4 1/2" I decided not to use the biggest triangle because I found it too big and I didn't want to use the smallest one so 4 1/2" it was.

I then spent Sunday morning on the floor at home cutting out the triangles and laying them down on the floor. As I cut them I started putting the colours down. I started with the black and laid them out on the floor.

Notice the change of cutting board from mum's good green one to my cheap purple one, but it does the job.

I lined the triangle ruler up on the strips and off I went. I got 7-8 triangles out of a strip depending on the fabric. They weren't all the same width.

As I worked I started to lay out the chevron pattern on the floor. Replacing colours and mixing the patterns around the see how they looked.

 I loved looking at the pretty strips all laid out ready to cut. I didn't end up cutting all of them. I almost have enough to make a second quilt which I am tempted to do!

Don't they look amazing??

The quilt sits at about 45" square which will probably make an awesome size though I am wondering if I should add two more rows of triangles to make it a rectangle. I'm not sure if I like squares or not.


What do you think... Square or Rectangular? 

Now comes the fun part of sewing it all together!

Happy Stitching,
Caitlin

Chevron Quilt - Thought process

There is something about triangles that are just calling me at the moment. When my friend asked me to make her a quilt for her baby I was delighted. I've seen a lot of triangle quilts recently (last year but they've stuck in my mind) and I seemed to recall that we (mum and I) had bought a triangle ruler one time when we were at a craft fair. I thought it was an isosceles one which would have made an awesome quilt.... but it was a right angled triangle ruler.

I saw that and got very excited and started thinking up all sorts of awesome ideas. I also may have lost myself in pinterest for a while. I'm going to have lots of fun with this ruler :D

I started off looking at the isosceles quilts because they came up first and that is where my inspiration started.

See Kate Sew had an awesome pattern and quilt that she made it looks lovely but using the isosceles pattern.

I was thinking about using the random pattern anyway just using a different shaped triangle but then found some awesome chevron patterns that I can use my lovely ruler for.

This one is for a Tote bag but I love the pattern.

It gave me the idea that I wanted to do. Using a mix of fabrics I'm going to do a chevron like this, but going white, green, black, green, white, green, black etc. Each chevron will be made up of a mix of fabrics. So there is an element of random in it but being me there is also a pattern. I'm so excited about what it will become.

This is always the exciting part when crafting is sorting out your ideas and trying to work out how to make it fit your vision.

Where do you go for your inspiration? 
Do you check out pinterest?
Or do you go through your stash of patterns and books?

Happy Stitching,
Caitlin