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

WIP Thursday :D Again

I'm not sure what it is at the moment but Wednesdays hasn't been working as a posting day. Though I blame that on the spider. I have a phobia of spiders. It's not something I'm proud of and I'm trying to work through it. I no longer freak out just seeing a spider but I still can't handle touching one or getting too close. Well yesterday I didn't just see it I walked into the web and ended up having to untangle the web and SPIDER from my hair. Cue absolute meltdown with hysterical crying. I don't deal well at all. So posting or anything didn't happen yesterday afternoon.

AWESOME news though. Two great things have happened to me just today.

1. I have finally bought myself a domain name. www.naughtscrossstitches.com :D So it is much easier to find me now! It's all connected the only change is when you check my feed you get directed to my domain instead of the blogger address which is great.
2. As of today I am now a contributor to And Sew We Craft. It is very exciting for me and I'm looking forward to sharing some of my crafting journey on there as well.

 SO What have I been up to this week? Not much.... but a whole lot of thinking. On Friday I DRAAGGGGEDDD (there wasn't much dragging really) my mother down to East Coast Fabrics, an awesome fabric store if you aren't picky on the lines as they stock end of line which means it's roughly $9 a metre but you're not guaranteed to find it there again.


I have a friend with a baby due in March and another with a baby due in July. It's just that sort of year!
The friend due in March I'm making a cross stitch sampler for and it's my secret stitching at the moment. But the one due in July asked me to make her a quilt if I could. I couldn't resist the challenge and along with my mum and sister we're all contributing to make it sooo pretty.

Now I will be sharing my quilting journey as she has said she doesn't mind knowing what it's going to look like before so I'm very very excited to share as I go. I don't do hidden stitching very well. It's killing me not to share my cross stitch but I will stay strong!

I will share more about what I want this quilt to become in another post once I can get my thoughts aligned properly.

I also spent Sunday at an all day rehearsal for my band which was pretty cool but very exhausting. I got an awesome photo of the brass section :D

Now the music we're playing at the moment is fun but it is devoid of a lot of trumpet parts. Then when we do play there are 6 of us playing the same part. So during the rehearsals at the moment I am managing to get some knitting time.

You should be able to recognise this pattern by now. I love it because it makes a lovely easy cloth that doesn't require much thought on my part. I can easily drop my knitting and pick up my trumpet if I have play without losing my spot.

Anyway I'm going to stop rambling and go to band.

Happy Stitching, 

Caitlin

My sewing machine is getting a workout!

I don't know what has gotten into me but since the other day I spent making up the tape measure holder I had he urge to stitch some more. So I was browsing blogs and found a link to a quilted fabric BOX!!!! I just couldn't resist.

Link Here

It's such an easy pattern and as I was reading something came over me. I went from feeling very blah. To going well I have the stash ... I have all that black and white fabric that I don't have a purpose for anymore but I love using because it makes colours pop... (I need to get a bigger collection of black and white and some plainish colours to go with it.) So out came the sewing machine ... which at the moment is a feat in itself as I don't actually have anywhere to put it it ends up on a stool and I have to almost sit on the floor! My table can't take the weight of the machine.

But I am getting distracted. I measure out the fabric and decided to make two at once and did two different sizes. A 12 inch and a 9.5 inch. I was curious how they would turn out. One is just the opposite black and white fabrics while the other is a black and white with purple to contrast.

I should show some photos now I've talked enough.
The two boxes and some other stuff I was coerced by my head into making. 

 My table looked a little bit messy, I had the iron set up there as well as I needed to iron as I went. The only batting I seem to have is the iron on pellon.
Though I like to use  this as I don't have to worry as much about the fabric bunching.

 Box number 1 the 12 inch box. It is using a purple fabric and the black and white flowers. I used a multicoloured purple/bluey/red thread to quilt it so it was a statement. I only made it two inches deep so I'd have a wide shallow box for storing craft supplies. It is already in use with my tape measure, scissors and new pin cushion. More to come on that later.

 The second box is the black and white contrast one. I quilted this one with a rainbow coloured thread. So it looks gorgeous against the black and white. I'm going to use this as an ORTs container for the foreseeable future until I find a better use for it. 

See the pretty colour?

 Now onto the stuff that after I finished the boxes I couldn't resist making. I have about 3 pincushions that I know of hanging around the house. But I just had to have one that matched the new sewing set it seemed I had to make. I also wanted a case to hold my scissors so that they don't cut open my new kit. I think I need to fiddle though because I don't quite like the design and I wanted to incorporate my stitching but because I'm not happy it will wait until I like the design.

 I made the scissors blue and the pincushion green because I wanted colours I hadn't used yet. (I already have yellow for the tape measure and purple for the box.)

 All together in their special home. They look so pretty!

See I'm already using it for orts, but I've got to get back into the habit of keeping them again instead of just throwing them on the floor. I got a bit lazy with all the moving.

So with all my wonderful work yesterday I actually have a lot to show though really not much stitching. I hope to have a stitching update soon but I just want to have a decent amount to show everyone then I can post it. At the moment it's not really worth it.

Happy Stitching,
Caitlin