Two More Jelly Roll Jams ...

So, I made two more of the Jelly Roll Jam quilts, one for Mum and one for Angelique ... only they couldn't decide which one they wanted so we had a raffle! The top one is Ang's, the bottom one Mum's. 

EPP Caddy

Another project finished! I started this bag in 2009, and didn't get round to finishing if, because I didn't understand the instructions on how to attach the handles and binding. But it's amazing what a few years and a little bit of experience can do! I got it out a couple of weeks ago, and on Saturday, as the two handles were already sewn up, and I had the fabric strips to make the binding, I thought I'd have a go and see if I could finish it - and I did! 

The English Paper Pieced flowers are appliqued on. There are four flowers on each side of the bag, and I tried to be as "scrappy" as I could with the fabrics. 

This is the inside of the bag, and it has two Velcroed pockets and the pink fabric in the middle of the bag is felt, to use to park pins and needles. 

 It's a free pattern from Vicki Bellino. It's still available here - https://www.connectingthreads.com/search?q=EPP

Design Board

 

Made this portable design board tonight (a la Lori Holt), from a square of foamboard, wadding and bias binding. I want to make a couple of larger ones, but I thought I'd give it a try and use an A4 sheet of foamboard I had, before I buy a larger piece of foamboard. These make it easier to take pieces of fabric to the sewing machine - the fabric sticks to the wadding. It's 20cm square.

Jelly Jam Roll Quilt

 I've made my first real size quilt ... OK a lap quilt ... but it's done and beautiful! It's called Jelly Jam Roll, and it's a free pattern from The Fat Quarter Shop. I wasn't able to print out the pattern, because I'm out of colour ink, but it was really much better to follow Kimberly Jolly's video on YouTube. The whole quilt went together really quickly - I started it on 31st August, and finished it yesterday (6th September). It's one of their shortcut quilts, which means you sew strips together, and then cut those strips into smaller pieces, re-arrange them and sew everything up. I used the same wavy stitch I used to quilt the mini kitazine quilt. I now want to make a larger one next - usinga Tilda Pardon My Garden jelly roll, for the bed, and then make quilts for Mum and Angelique.

                      

I used an old Moda Petite Prints Deux Jelly Roll, the binding is some of the fabric I bought to make a bag to store my sewing machine's extension table. I bought so much of it I had plenty to use for the binding for the quilt! The backing fabric is the pre-shrunk backing fabric I bought on eBay. Next time I think I'll go for a printed fabric for the backing.

The advise from Kimberly was to not think too much about which fabrics to use, and to start with I was scared to just pick out fabrics, but in the end it just works! 

I had to put all the pieces of the quilt top on the bed, to arrange the blocks, and then I had to iron the bits for the quilt sandwich on the bed too! I wish I had half the room these people on YouTube have to work on and with ... 

I used Aurifil 50wt in shade 2000, for the piecing and the quilting. I used a dark pink thread to machine and then hand sew the binding though because I didn't want the pale colour to show on the pink of the binding. I've got a little collection of Aurifil 50wt threads now, although they're all neutrals, but I've got lots of colours coming soon ... I've bought a box of threads for myself, and I'm getting another set for either Xmas or my birthday. I bought two more colours yesterday, and those are to use for quilting my Grandmother's Flower Garden EPP quilt, and I wanted to use matching colours rather than one of the neutrals. 

(This is for future reference 😊)

This is the back of the quilt, and it shows the wavy stitch I chose for the quilting. I wasn't confident enough to use a straight stitch for my second attempt at quilting, so this stitch didn't have to be as straight.

    

And the finishing touch ...