My Small World QAL (& Giveaway Winner!)

Following on from last weeks bloghop for 50 Fat Quarter Makes: Fifty Sewing Projects Made Using Fat Quarters I have a winner for the girls twirly skirt bundle!

Using random number generator, there were 23 comments (24 actually but the 24th was spouting spamming nonsense about about my post being helpful and insightful, thats gotta be spam!)

And the winner is comment number 10 who was SewLittleToSay! Congratulations! I will be in touch for your address!

Thank you to everyone that entered and for all the lovely comments about the book. Don't forget you can buy 50 Fat Quarter Makes in all good bookshops, or here on the publishers website where you can also buy an e-book version for your tablet or iPad. And of course you buy from Amazon!

You can also find a video tutorial for the gathered skirt, Satchel bag and nesting bowls in my new '3 projects in 30 minutes' film course over on Craft Daily. In the video I will take you through step by step how to make each project so its great if you feel you need a little extra help! While you are there why not take a look at the other video tutorials Craft Daily has to offer, there is something for everyone!

When I have had any downtime recently (which isn't often as you may have guessed!) I have been mostly working on a new project, My Small World Quilt.

Image from VeryKerryBerry.blogspot.co.uk

The quilt is a design by the talented Jen Kingwell published in the Spring Special 2015 edition of Quiltmania magazine. The QAL is being hosted by VeryKerryBerry amongst others and full details of the posts and support available can be found here on her blog.

I LOVE Jen's style and have had it on my 'to make' list for an age to make one of her quilt designs. However until now I never seemed to find the time. I think I saw them as long term large scale projects, with the challenge of lots of new skills in the different piecing techniques. So, it kept on being bumped to the bottom of the list despite my passion for the quilts

Step up 'My Small World'. It just fits the bill and my life so perfectly, the time I have to 'selfish sew' and my family and ethos. The size (at 33"x52") means it is a manageable project to take on, the new skills I need to hone will be practiced on a smaller scale so somehow feel more achievable. The size also means I can use the ample stash of scraps I have, with no need to buy more fabric which is always a bonus in my mind, not least because I can dive in and sew whenever the opportunity arises without waiting for supplies.

low volume stash explosion!

My Small World also struck a cord with my emotional connection I often seem to develop for quilts. The children have loved looking over the pictures and finding new hidden treasures in the quilt each time they look, I really enjoy it when the quilt and the making becomes a real family activity. Our world IS small. We live in the rural countryside, with everything being fairly close. School is a mile up the lane, I work from home only occasionally travelling to teach. I like life this way, it suits us well and we are all happy and secure.

This quilt just seems to reflect that so well. Whilst my life is lived in a small world my connections are huge, thanks to social media I am connecting with likeminded people from all over the world everyday.

 

It seems that this quilt has struck a cord with many people, although perhaps not everyone will read as much into it as I! What can I say, having come from a family virtually devoid of heirlooms I seem hell bent on creating as many as I can for my children and their children and more generations to come. And so ingraining meaningfulness in them from the very first stitches makes them all the more special straight away, compensating for not having decades of family heritage in them.

So far I have completed part 1 of the quilt. I am thoroughly enjoying playing with my scraps, the challenge of the needle turn appliqué was equal parts frustration, agony and delight! So much so that I decided to hand piece the curved section in the bottom left corner over machine piecing it.

Some of my point are pretty horrendous, the seams don't match in places. But it doesn't matter. This is a quilt made for enjoying the process and the using, for showing favourite fabrics and inventing  stories to go into it.

I will keep you updated with my progress!