Marimekko River Quilt Update and Me-Mending

Since making a more conscious effort to create a hand-made wardrobe over five years ago I have taken part in an annual event called Me Made May set up by Zoe from So Zo blog. For MMM you pledge a personal challenge for May relating to your own me-made wardrobe and things you want to achieve or address over the course of a month. My pledge this year is:

I will write a separate post about my first week of MMM tomorrow so I can focus on my me-mending today. It was like I had jinxed myself by specifically mentioning me-mended items because this week two items I have made ended up needing mending!

The first item is a beloved Camber Set Top which I made in May 2016 from a lovely soft, drapey viscose. Both the shoulder French seams have burst open and started fraying as you can see in the photos below. A similar thing happened to the neckline which I mended with black bias tape.

To fix the fraying shoulders I used a zig-zag stitch a few times over the area to strengthen and pull together the seams. Next, I pinned a length of black bias tape I luckily had in my stash and used a straight stitch to secure it over the shoulder seam hiding the mending and continued down the sleeve to create a 'design-feature'!

I was really happy how this turned out!
The second fix I did was a very straight forward mend. I caught my Christine Haynes Emery dress (made in September 2017) on a door at work and it ripped the side-seam near the pocket. It was a simple seam fix and I reinforced it with some zig-zag stitching too. I didn't take a photo of the finished fix because you couldn't really see it (I guess that was the idea!).

I also wanted to update you on my Marimekko River quilt. I attended another 'finish the quilt' session with Jenny Haynes at Village Haberdashery in West Hampstead where Jenny taught me how to bind my quilt. I finished hand-stitching the binding this afternoon and I am very happy how it looks. I will still hand-quilt and embroider sections of the 'river' whenever I feel an urge to do some stitching during the remainder of the year. I started the quilt-top in a class with Jenny in April 2017, so it has taken some time to come together. What I can say is that I thoroughly enjoyed the process. Be warned, there are lots of photos!

Quick River Quilt Update

Hello readers and happy Monday!
I am especially chirpy this evening as I survived a very intense time at work last week with a two-day Ofsted inspection. Needless to say, I had a lot of late nights and early mornings and I am just about beginning to feel OK after also doing a Saturday session with my GSCE art class to get ready for their exam this Thursday and Friday! Phew..... onto some sewing news.

On the 8th March, the lovely Jenny Haynes ran her 'Finish that Quilt' workshop at the Village Haberdashery and I took along my River Quilt in Marimekko fabric to continue the quilting. I spent the first hour of the session drawing out the lines I wanted to quilt on the grey Essex linen. I tested the washable pen on a scrap piece of fabric and it luckily disappeared very quickly with a damp cloth.

You can see a before and after washing shot below. I have also included some examples of my hand-stitching and how the quilting lines look on the improvisation quilt at the back.

I aim to bind the quilt at the next 'Finish that Quilt' session in April and then take it slowly with the remainder of the hand-stitching and embroidery dispersed through the 'river' of the patchworked design.

How has your Monday been? I hope it was a good one!

Marimekko River Quilt Update

I started the Jenny Haynes River quilt at a workshop at Village Haberdashery in April 2017. Over a year and a half later I am still enjoying the patient process of quiltmaking.

I joined Jenny Haynes again for a Finish that Quilt workshop at VH last Friday and had a lovely evening of chatter and some good progress on my quilt. To make things more interesting I decided to create an improvised quilt backing using all the left-over sections of fabric to save having to buy more new fabric. I think it has made a really interesting quilt backing and I am looking forward to seeing how it is going to look when I eventually get around to quilting the whole thing.

My finished improvisation 'scrappy' quilt back using leftover fabrics from the river quilt making

Jenny gave us some tips about how to sandwich the wadding (batting for USA readers) between the quilt top and backing. We laid the quilt back face down on the floor and masking taped it down carefully smoothing out any wrinkles working from the centre of each side outwards.

Jenny explaining how to sandwich the wadding with the backing fabric and quilt-top to the rest of the Finish that Quilt class. This is the first stage where you lay out the backing fabric face down and tape in place

Next, lay down the wadding. Smooth any bumps or wrinkles but take care not to stretch the wadding by being too aggressive with the smoothing out stage.

Lastly, lay the quilt top over the whole thing making sure it is lined up with the quilt backing. Ideally, the quilt backing should be an inch larger all the way around the quilt as well as the quilting wadding. You can see the white wadding sticking out all around my quilt-top.

Keep on pinning!

I purchased some quilting safety pins which are bent at a 45-degree angle to make it easier to pin together. Jenny advised me to apply the safety pins in the direction I am going to do the quilting stitching. I have chosen to machine stitch length-ways on the black sections and machine stitch width-ways on the grey. On the multi-patterned 'river' part will be a smorgasbord of hand-quilting techniques which I will explore as I go!

Jenny and I co-ordinating our socks with my quilt!

I am looking forward to seeing how it develops as I stitch each section.

April Work in Progress

I haven't got anything finished to share with you this week, but I have got two works in progress.

The first project is my Jenny Haynes river quilt in Marimekko fabric which I started in April 2017 (I can't believe I started it a year ago!).

I attended a class at the Village Haberdashery on Friday called 'Finish that quilt' with Jenny and a lovely bunch of ladies. We all had quilts at various stages of completion (mine was the least finished!) and Jenny skillfully helped us all with what we needed to do for the next stage be it sandwiching the wadding, binding or hand-quilting. 

Here is where I got to on the quilt top on Friday (only the top four rows are sewn together).

I spent a few hours on the quilt this morning and got to this stage by lunchtime. I have changed the layout of the 'river' to a more asymmetrical set of curves compared to the original design which meant a little more thinking time to work out which seams to sew first.

The only section I need to sew now is the grey Essex linen on the left-hand side of the quilt top. I will then have to figure out how I would like to quilt the whole thing. There a few options; hand-quilting, machine quilting or pay to have it quilted for me.

I haven't decided yet. Have you any suggestions?

The second item I'm working on is the New Look 6446 jumpsuit and dress. I saw this via the Foldline's new patterns feature and it so happened to be on 50% sale at WeaverDee.com  so for £3.00 I thought I would try it out as I'm not even sure if this will suit me. I am half-way through a (hopefully) wearable toile in one of my remaining tropical H&M tablecloths to check the fit.

 I fear that by the time I finish the jumpsuit the gorgeous weather in the UK will have passed!

I did some internet searching and found some lovely versions of the New Look 6446 by other sewing bloggers so you can get an idea of what it will look like when I eventually finish it.

I love the feature piping on this version by Evolution of a Sewing Goddess

Erica has made this gorgeous striped version with a lightweight cotton lawn

Jane has sewn a summery dress version of the 6446

Abi from a Crafty Pin-up has made a striking black floral version

Have you got any unfinished projects you are working on at the moment?

Marimekko Jenny Haynes River Quilt Top

After attending the Improvisation Quilting workshop with Jenny Haynes at the Village Haberdashery I had such a lovely time I booked myself on another workshop. This was a more advanced quilting workshop based on a technique called the drunkards path. Here is a great video from LoveBug Studios that explains how to sew this style of quilters block.

Jenny Haynes has made some beautiful quilts using the Drunkards Path technique; the Sunflowers quilt and the new River Quilt.

Jenny Haynes Sunflower Quilt (Image Source)

Jenny Haynes River Quilt (Image Source)

To make the full River Quilt you need 1.5 metres of three different fabrics. I already had all three fabrics I wanted to use already in my stash (although not quite enough so I had to buy a metre more of each colour).

The colour scheme of the guest bedroom where this quilt will eventually live is grey, white with highlights of yellow. I have already made some bold Marimekko cushions in the Rasymatto and Unikko prints you can see below.

The first part of the workshop was spent cutting out the sections of the Drunkards Path blocks. Jenny provides the acrylic templates and to make things easier I cut everything out using a rotary cutter. Then onto sewing the curved blocks, ironing and then cutting down to size using the square templates provided. 

When I got back home I laid out the quilt blocks so I could get an idea of how the final quilt will look. As well as the three main fabrics; Grey Essex Linen, Marimekko Rasymatto Cotton and Black Kona Cotton I used a number of scraps of spotty black and white fabric from the stash. There is also an addition of Yellow Kona cotton to continue the punctuation of yellow found in the Marimekko fabric. 

The gaps in the quilt above are left for the Marimekko fabric which I had ordered but unfortunately it didn't turn up in time for the workshop. I have also added a black spotted cotton in some of the sections of the black area of the design but I am still undecided if I will add this in the final quilt top.

What do you think fellow sewists?

I'm looking forward to sewing this together and then the long task of quilting. I think I will do a combination of machine and hand-quilting to add a range of textures.

Check out lots of other cool crafty blogs at #handmademonday organised by Julia of Sum of their Stories.