Alison Glass Chroma Baby Quilt

I started this baby quilt during an improvisation quilt workshop with Jenny Haynes at the Village Haberdashery back in March. To create the quilt top I used the beautiful Chroma Collection for Andover Fabrics by Alison Glass. I was sent the fabric by a friend Kathy who works for Andover Fabrics in New York, the collection is not yet available to buy until June 2017. Lucky me that got a sneak preview!

I have spent the past month slowly hand-stitching the quilt. I added organic wadding and self bound the quilt using the backing fabric. I forgot to take photos of this process so if you would like to try this method yourself hop over Ludlow Quilt and Sew blog who has a great tutorial about how to do it.

I also used up lots of embroidery thread left-over from my textile students days from the 1990's.
Does anybody remember when Maderia threads produced hand-embroidery floss in these packets? I used them all up (and lots more) on this quilt!

I got a real sense of satisfaction completing this baby quilt and it got me wondering how long it took me to make it.

Session 1: Selecting colour combinations, cutting and machine stitching together = 6 hours
Session 2: Cutting out backing fabric, wadding, pinning together, hand-basting all together = 3 hours
Session 3: Creating / pinning the self-binding, sewing binding and 1/4 hand-quilting = 4
Session 4: Hand-quilting with fine thread = 3 hours
Session 5: Hand-quilting with fine thread = 3 hours
Session 6: Hand-quilting with embroidery thread = 6 hours
Session 7: Hand-quilting with embroidery thread around the border = 3 hours

Approximately 28 hours to produce a predominantly hand-sewn quilt. I have to admit after session six my hand was sore after 6-hours of hand-quilting.

I am hoping all the hard work will be worth it when my friend and her wife receive this gift for their baby girl in June!

I alternated between thinner sewing thread and the thicker embroidery thread to add more textural interest to the quilting. As the fabric was so busy and colourful I chose to sew regular running stitches in straight(ish) lines across the width of the quilt. The thread I selected were picked from a wide range of colours found in the prints. 

You can see the different coloured threads more easily on the reverse of the quilt, although some of the finer sewing threads blend into the background.

I have been inspired to make my own quilt and I am already mid-way through the construction of a double-bed sized quilt. I will reveal more in my next blogpost.

I hope you enjoyed seeing copious amounts of patch-worked and hand-quilted Alison Glass fabrics as much as I had sewing it!

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

Stash-Busting Patchwork Cushions

I was inspired to make my friend Charlotte a present for her flat when I saw her colourful bookcase. I also spotted this rather awesome mural on Carnaby Street which reminded me of patchwork. The two ideas merged into a fun stash-busting and selfless sewing project in the form of quilted patchwork cushions!

I had some charm packs of patchwork squares left over from when I made my friends Nik and Cheryl a purple and green baby quilt  and luckily the colours remaining were natural, orange, olive, coral and yellow which worked out perfectly.

I arranged the patchwork squares until I was happy with the composition then quickly sewed them together. It was at this point I realised I wanted to add an extra level of texture in the form of quilting. With good stash-busting karma I was very happy to have just enough quilting wadding left for the two cushions!

On one cushion I quilted a series of L shaped lines creating a cross effect on the front of the cushion whereas on the second I free-quilted parallel lines.

I am pretty happy with both cushions and I hope that my friend enjoys her present. I really enjoyed the time spent making these gifts and I think they will be very comfy additions to Charlotte's sofa!

Me Made May 2014

So after much deliberation about whether or not to join in this exciting challenge I have firmly decided it's a yes!

Due to this being my first Me-Made-May I am going to be realistic and gentle with myself considering the fact I haven't got a huge amount of self-made garments to wear during the month; so I aim to be pragmatic and practical with my pledge.....

 'I, Caroline of CJ Made, sign up as a participant of Me-Made-May '14. I endeavour to wear one home-made / customised item of clothing / accessory from Monday to Friday for the duration of May 2014'

The reason I have had to leave out Saturday and Sunday is because I am doing some pretty hard-core house rennovation and will be wearing this outfit every weekend. No joke!

The Jackson-Pollock-esque emulsion splats on the purple fleece counts as customisation right?!
And my worn away trousers have been lovingly patchworked with a variety of fun fabric scraps from my stash!!

I haven't yet figured out the logistics of recording my outfits yet - do I photograph them / sketch them / get a friend to photograph me? I will have a think about it and it seems practical that it will probably be a combination of all three in a round up at the end of every week.

Have you signed up for Me-Made-May 2014 yet?