Bloggers' Quilt Festival...

If you are popping over for the first time from Amy's then Hi! Welcome to Diary of a Flutter.Kat! 
I hope you'll get a chance to take a look around and see a few of my other creations and tutorials.

Today I want to share my newest creation for the festival...
I chose to share this quilt rather than one I've already shared before for a couple of reasons, namely no one has seen pics of it in it's finished state yet, but most importantly I really pushed myself to try a number of new techniques in this quilt. It really stretched me, mostly in a good way but not all. Frustration levels did rise at certain points I have to admit! (Ahem - tiny, over ambitious paper piecing perhaps...)
But overall I'm thrilled with how it turned out!

So without further ado I present to you my Modern Christmas Swap Table Runner....

A couple of close ups of new-to-me techniques...

Piecing trees:

tutorial here...

A paper pieced star:

pattern here...

Improvised stars:

Process here...

Peekaboo border:

Quilting detail:

And here it is on my table being tried out for size...

Oh & the back - just a random green print that I had enough of in my stash since my partner wasn't that keen on the one I originally bought for the backing. I am not a massive fan of this print to be honest, but it wasn't a Christmas print as per my partner's requests, and it happened to be the perfect size. So it seemed like a logical choice. And I figure how often does anyone ever look at the back?!
Therefore random green print it was...

Here are the stats:

**  Scrappy, asymetrical pattern of my own design
(Step 3 in the pattern: final sashing & border measurements will be coming in the next few days for those who want to make their own)
**  Table runner finished at 40 x 16 inches
**  Echo quilted around the stars in light green thread
**  Bound using light green dotty stripes. (That's actually my one regret actually - I think a sold may have been a better choice to reduce the busyness)
**  16 trees all in different fabrics
**  3 scrappy stars
**  14 different red designer prints in the scrappy border
**  Only 2 small scraps of Christmas fabric in the entire thing. See if you can pick them partner ;)

I'm pretty happy with it, despite my small regret that I didn't bind it with a solid.
So hopefully my partner will be just as thrilled when it arrives to her!

Check out all the other cool quilts in the festival over at Amy's...

When life gives you lemons....

Make Lemonade....

Our lemon tree has been fruiting abundantly this year! Even after the neighbours, our friends & all my visitors have taken some, we are still left with soooooo many lemons! 

Today I decided it was time to do something with them that didn't just call for 1 lemon & a dozen other ingredients! I wanted to use them up in quantity...

So we made good old fashioned lemonade. Mmmmm mmmmm mmmmmm.....

Littlest Flutter wasn't quite so sure about it at first. She usually only gets to drink water or milk - so I guess the taste & the feeling of all those bubbles would have been a bit of a surprise at first!

But she went back again...

thought about it some more & 

went back again.... and again.... 

and despite all the face pulling she very quickly produced an empty cup for me; 

So it can't have been all that bad!

Recipe found here.

Other good lemon recipes gratefully received, as we hardly made a dent in our supply! 

Sunday Snippets...

**  Thought I'd change things up a bit this week since I didn't get to do my Tuesday Tidbits post last week...

**  I've had a fairly low-key weekend thanks to another dose of head cold & a wicked sore throat

**  Yesterday I stayed in bed most of the day thanks to Mr Flutter's Daddy daycare service. Bless him!

**  It was exactly what I needed - Lemon & Honey drinks, new seasons of my favourite TV shows online & getting my Google Reader down from 400 to 0. And I even read almost all of them rather than pushing "mark all as read"!!

**  Come the afternoon I decided to roll out of bed & pretty myself up because we had our churches birthday celebration dinner & AGM to attend. I really didn't want to miss it, so I drugged up to kill my headache & frocked up...

The Hubby & I

**  I didn't scrub up too badly considering I'd spent most of the day in bed with a headache feeling sorry for myself!

**  It was a really lovely evening but I made Neil take me home at 8.30pm as thanks to the pain killers making me dozy I could hardly keep my eyes open.

**  I'd LOVE to say that it was a good decision to go & I woke up today feeling totally awesome today, but unfortunately I woke up feeling like I'd swallowed some razor blades & could hardly talk.

**  By lunch time today I decided to harden up, because I hadn't been able to sew in nearly a week and I wasn't quite sure what was worse - feeling so sick, or having such bad crafting withdrawals. So I figured that since I could do something about once of those symptoms, I finally got out of bed.

**  And it's a good thing too, because I turned out to be surprisingly productive...

Meet Scrappy Pouch 1:

& Scrappy Pouch 2:

Both were commissions, so hopefully both off to new homes this week...

And I also managed to finish the quilting for my table runner, although you can only have a sneak peak of this because I will take more when the binding is finished (and when it's daylight!)...

So all in all not a bad effort really!
Although I did make some incredibly silly mistakes thanks to dozey drugged brain - I don't do well on pain killers,  (Or any drugs for that matter) as they tend to also numb what few brain cells I have left after giving birth!! But thankfully nothing too fatal.
- At least I hope nothing too fatal- the juries out on the quilting of the table runner until I see it in daylight tomorrow. Because I decided to be brave & quilt with green instead of my usual go-to white. I'm not yet convinced it was the best decision, but hopefully seeing it in daylight will make it grow on me!

Hope you had a nice weekend!

Nosey Parker in the Neighbourhood #2 - The Questions...

I'm so excited about the feedback & level of interest in my Nosey Parker in the Neighbourhood linky party. It's going to be sooooooo much fun!!

So much interest, and so many great questions suggested in fact that I've decided to make it a regular feature. I think I might throw a nosey party every month with a new set of questions for us. Not for ever, but for a few months until we run out of good questions & we'll see how it goes... How does that sound?

I know a huge amount of the questions you offered were about sewing & sewing spaces - I love that! Obviously that's what I'm into as well!
But I think to really do them justice we should do a sewing feature all on it's own.

So - the first list is going to be very generic. A basic get-to-know-you & introduction list.
Then in December we'll do a Christmas feature, exploring how we each spend Christmas in our different parts of the world & different cultures...
Then the 3rd & 4th months (January & February)v(plus the 5th etc... if we keep it going) will be all about sewing & craft. Yeah!

Without further ado here are the questions for the big launch day...

17th November 2011

1) Tell us about your home:
Where do you live; (town, state, country that is - obviously not your street address!!)  & what is it like e.g. do you live by the beach or a lake or in the desert etc..., is it famous for anything in particular (e.g. industry), and maybe what is the climate like etc...

2) What are the houses like in your area. Apartment style, Joined, Semi-detached, Detached etc...

3) What are some of your favourite places to visit or favourite things to do in & about your town/city. - Show us plenty of photos here if you can.

4) How do most people travel around your town/city? E.g. subway, bus, bike, what are the most popular styles of car.

5) Is there a type of food that would be quintessential to where you live? E.g. a famous local produce etc...

I think 5 questions each time is more than enough - but feel free to tell us anything else you think we'll find interesting about where you live :)

***

A few tips for your post:

**  When you are writing it try and break the text up by putting lots of pictures, and headings if you can.
- paragraph breaks are really good!! Lots of pictures are also really good!! :)

**  Try & pre- write it so that you are all ready to go for the 17th November, but don't post it in advance

**  Please add the button to your blog or post & link back the relevant Nosey Parker Linky Post - blog button now down the side. All you need to do is copy & paste the code into your post. If you want to add it to your blog bar as well then you just need to add that code as an html gadget. Let me know if you want help with this...

**  Feel free to blog about it in advance & let everyone know it's coming up so that as many people as possible who want to can join in.

And that should be it - lets have fun getting to know each other!

Just as a bit of a teaser shot of what will be coming up in my post -
- this is a shot taken yesterday of Hannah & my brother playing at our local beach, 2 minutes drive from my house (yes we probably could have walked but we had too much stuff to carry and it was hot!)

Beautiful hey?!
Needless to say that is one of my favourite parts of our neighbourhood!!

Happy preparing everyone!
Let me know if you have any questions...

How I made my stars...

Step 2 in how I made my Christmas Runner:

First up - let me just clarify that I'm not going to call this a tutorial...
It is just me sharing my process of how I made them and I am going to assume that you are already proficient in improv piecing and can figure out the details yourself.
Because...
a) I'm feeling annoyed with these stars because they are fiddly, and {not to put you off before I've even started - but} you know I can't stand fiddly things right?! Therefore I cannot be bothered to write out a proper tutorial for them sorry LOL...
b) Paper piecing is a better method of making these stars if you want a less improv & more accurate result. If I was more proficient in paper piecing then I would probably do it that way instead using this pattern here. So, if you can stand to paper piece then I would probably recommend you try that first instead.

But - since I dislike am not yet very fluent in paper piecing & do really like improv piecing, then this was my preferred method this time. This way makes it darn near on impossible to make two the same though,  unless you were to practise a lot and add some fine tuning to my method. So I would definitely say it was improv piecing and the result will net a unique, possibly quite probably slightly wonky star.

If that is your thing, and it suits your purpose - then I'll share my process in case it is useful to you...

A really important note before you begin though - is that you really really need to concentrate hard when you are lining up your star points to the middle piece, otherwise they'll probably be in the wrong place entirely. It's not like piecing squares or straight lines where you line them up centrally before you piece. With stars & angles you actually want to line them up quite off centre to where you think you'll need to. The reason that I'm so annoyed with this method really is because of this & the fact I still have not mastered it. I had to use my unpicker several times. It can take a while to get the hang of it.


So I would highly recommend that you line it up then flip it over with 1/4 inch seam & see how it looks before you sew anything and make the necessary amendments to your placement.

That all being said, here is my process...

First I drew a star & cut out the bits onto freezer paper adding a 1/4 inch seam as I went...

Then placed them on my scraps & cut them out.
{Back to front as it happens - but that's only because I had issues with my freezer paper turning out not to be sticky when I ironed it. Doh! So that shouldn't happen to you....}

Grab a large white scrap & work out the best place to sew your angle

Sew it, press it over & trim

Sew it to the big piece in the middle so that you have your first segment completed...

Work on the next segment & construct it just as you have this one...

ooops - didn't quite make it big enough so I had to add an extra piece (I was just using scraps)
Moral of the story - use pieces bigger than what you need!

all fixed...

line up the points carefully!!!

sew it to segment A

Last segment... 

This is the bit that gets the most tricky... make sure you are careful to line it up and flip it over 1/4 of an inch to see how it sits before you sew.... 

See I got to this point before deciding that it looked too off centre for me so I decided to unpick it and start again...
(that was after I'd already lined it up & relined it up several times. Probably why I'm annoyed!!)

The finished product after said unpicking....

Not looking too bad!

And the finished star made into a mugrug with one of my trees....

It could have looked better with being on a slightly different angle in the mug rug! ooops... oh well, too bad, it's done now & I was working with the short side so it would be the right height, that is why :)

Let me know if you have any questions & I'll try to help where I can.

And if you are feeling really brave you could try improv piecing them in this way without the freezer paper templates - that's actually how I made the ones in my table runner - just totally freestyle. But I think this way gives a more "starlike" star - if there is such a thing, but most of all it makes it easier to control the final size.

As always I'd love to see your ones if you have a go...