What started it all

Its getting colder in Sydney the Autumn has well and truly set in, I'm getting out all the quilts and blankets.

This quilt caught my eye today - my youngest daughter claimed it for her bed. She has no idea of its significance or its history.

This is the quilt that started my love of fabric and quilting.

When I was 5 my Grandmother took a quilting class and had to make a sampler quilt, I ohhed and arghed over the fabric and pattern - It was love at first sight and being a child I insisted it would be mine. 

Luckily Nana agreed.

I happily watched the process - each week checking after her class that progress had been made and then like lots of nearly finished projects it was folded up and put in the cupboard.... all forgotten

fast forward to me being pregnant with my eldest child, Nana reorganising her house and the finished quilt top resurfaced! 

I remembered it and still loved it so Nana finished it and gave it to my eldest when he was born (he is now 13yrs) 

It's still in perfect condition and very used and incredibly loved.

I hope some of my quilts end up with my grandchildren one day. 

Xx Siobhan 

New Sewing Machine :) & Autumn

Hello!

This week on Instagram (@beaspokequilts) I was saying that Autumn is my most favourite time of year.

The light is perfect

Its not to hot

or to cold

Things start to slow down

I see more family & friends

Its Perfect cooking weather......

my list could go forever

but most importantly its lovely in The Shed this time of year and I'm getting lots of stuff done :)

I'm trying out a new sewing machine at the moment and instead of finishing off the last bits of two quilts I'm working on 

I have given myself a challenge to make a jelly roll quilt.

I rant on a lot about consistency in my patchwork classes 

- If you make a mistake - make the same mistake through the whole quilt

- try to use the same sewing machine for a whole quilt

- use the same rulers or at least check that the cutting mat at class matches the one at home

Things can be out by a few millimetres from manufacturer to manufacturer and it can mean the difference between blocks joining or not joining.

anyway - Thats why I started a new quilt

To try out the new Bernina 7 series machine (this is not a sponsored post)

My Long arm quilter friend Kim is a Bernina Dealer and she has kindly let me use her machine to see if I like it :)

Whats not to like ??!!? 

I will eventually probably write a blog about the machine. I currently have a Janome, Pfaff and now a Bernina in my studio and they all have their own merits.

any way back to the jelly roll quilt

Often in my classes I am asked "what can you make with a jelly roll" or "how many jelly rolls to make a quilt"

so I bought five Moda jelly rolls - all different designer collections and I am making a Trip around the world quilt

Here is a little math

5 X Jelly Rolls = 33 X 6 strips

Each set of 6 strip = 2 X Blocks

5 X Jelly Rolls = 66 Blocks 

Each block measures 12 inch finished

If I use 8 X 8 Block configuration

= 64 Blocks

This will make a king sized quilt

96 X 96 Inches

I was making around 8 blocks a day

and with a bit of procrastination it was taking me 3hrs.

I've had two days of no sewing so I'm behind on my schedule....

Friday I was being social and hosting a lunch and today (Saturday) was our kids sports day.

Hopefully next week I can finish it off!

Although it is School holidays....

In other news I popped into Calico & Ivy Balmain, Sydney store

They are closing down early May 2013

and have a most things reduced in store.

Its worth a look if you are in the Sydney area

I picked up some Liberty of London fabrics so I can make some more Leather bags and have liberty as the lining.

How cute are the Tea Cups?! 

and last Thursday I dropped into NSW Leather at Waterloo,Sydney again and picked up some more sheep skins - Its so lovely and soft.

I now have some teflon feet to try out(Thank you Christine Mitchell from Hobby Sew Top Ryde) for sewing leather with the Bernina 7 series machine - Fingers crossed it makes it easier than with the standard foot. 

I had some lovely emails and comments from my last blog post about sewing with leather - THANK YOU!

I stupidly deleted them in my half asleep state and couldn't retrieve them.

I usually reply.... so - sorry I didn't reply and thank you very much for writing to me :)

I've also had some emails about pattern errors - which is unfortunate.

 Sometimes its a mistake in the editing process and sometimes its diagrams being taken out because the pattern is too long for the amount of pages allocated to my story... etc etc

Either way it reflects badly on me.

It happens alot to everyone - when students bring other peoples patterns from magazines to class they do tend to have errors...

It pays to read the pattern all the way through and double check fabric requirements / block / finished sized - I can usually pick up a mistake or at least correct it for a student so we avert any disasters when I'm teaching.

In the future I will try to get a read through before patterns go to publication - but things go through so quickly its hard for magazines to do.... I'm not sure what the answer is?

I like sharing my patterns and having my quilts published but I don't want a bad name.

If you ever have any issues with my patterns please don't hesitate to email me

Anyway I best be off!

The Girls have soccer tomorrow morning and I need to make sure all their gear is ready - Otherwise it will be mayhem.

Xx Siobhan  

All in the bag

Hope you all enjoyed your Easter long weekend - It was beautiful Autumn weather in Sydney, perfect for eating :) 

I've been making bags again.....

I'm waiting on the go ahead on some quilts and happily making myself some smaller projects and testing out some skills in the mean time.

I loved the green corduroy bag I made in my previous post and whilst admiring it I was wishing it was leather...

Then thought to myself - how cool would a leather version be with Liberty lining!

and so a week later here we have it

a leather bag with Liberty of London lining made by me - I'm a little bit over excited about this project!

I used the Amy Butler Nappy bag pattern again.

and sourced my leather from 

NSW Leather Co in Sydney, Australia

with their advice I bought some really soft sheep skins ($25 each) - I needed two to complete this bag. I went for a nubuck feel with a ostrich finish effect.

The Nappy bag pattern is cut in two whole pieces and the strap is included, If you wanted you could have more cuts/ joins to use less material. 

I was a bit impatient and dove straight into my leather sewing - I did buy a leather needle and upholstery thread. The needle was great but the thicker thread kept getting gobbled up by my machine so I switched to a polyester sewing thread instead. 

I used my standard plastic foot on my machine which seemed to work fine (although did struggle at times) and had my walking foot engaged.I own a PFAFF Expression 4, which has a built in walking foot.If you own a different type of machine it might be worth using a walking foot?

I read somewhere that a teflon foot is good for sewing leather? If I make another bag I'll look into that a little more.

I had to adjust my stitch length all the way up to 6 - I usually sew on 2.5 for piecing and around 3.5/ 4 for quilting.

Make sure you do a few practice runs on the leather off cuts first.

The lining is Liberty of London Tana Lawn - the red Liberty Fabric was bought last October 2012 in London at the Liberty store its from the seasonal Tana Lawn range.

For the inside pockets and the outside pocket I used the off cuts of Liberty Tana Lawn that I had used in the Green Corduroy bag from the last post.

Leather and Liberty!

I LOVE it :)

Have you ever sewn with Leather?

Any advice or links to your projects?

I'd love to hear from you and see what you made

Xx Siobhan