I have just added lots more fabrics to my destash sale, including some Christmas fabrics, please pass this on if you know of anyone who might be interested. see this LINK for details.
Dana :-)
Wednesday, 24 October 2012
Thursday, 18 October 2012
Fabric sale/Destash - NEW FABRICS ADDED!
I am selling half yards for £5 each, and fat quarters are £2.50 each. U.K postage is £2.50 (2nd class) or £3.50 recorded for up to 8 fabrics. The first to leave a message on this post with their numbers/fabrics of choice will have priority. Im not sure if you can still get hold of some of these fabrics, some of them are going for much more on ebay. Re fat quarters - Please note that there will be slightly more of some of the fabrics then others but assure you that you should get at least a fat quarter. All are designer fabrics from a smoke and pet free home.
PAYMENT TERMS: Once I have confirmed availability, please send me a personal payment only through paypal. It’s free to send money when you use your PayPal balance or bank account as your funding source but if you are paying with a credit/debit card please add £1 to the total amount to cover paypal fees.
1- Amy Butler Lotus Flower- red
3- Amy Butler lotus spot -red sold toLiz
4-Denyse Schmidt fabrics pink and red spot
6- MM- Black stripe SOLD
7- MM- Orange stripe sold to LIZ
Kona cottons 8-Chartreuse, 9- Spearmint 10-Jade green 11-Tangerine 12-Ash
17- Cloud 9 fabric (you will be getting over half a yard as there is a bit extrs on this piece) SOLD TO FIONA
18- Cabana Blooms - yellow SOLD TO FIONA
19- Sarah Jane orange/blue stripe Sold to Nicky
20- Marigold sold to LIZ
21-Large red spot and blue dot Sold to Nicky
23 pink spot on wine Sold to Nicky
24- Apples SOLD TO FIONA
26- Bambi SOLD TO HADLEY
27 - aqua spot SOLD TO FIONA
28 blue broken circles Sold to Nicky
29-Leaves Sold to Nicky
30- green swirls and birds Sold to Nicky
31- green spot Sold to Nicky
32- Japanese import SOLD TO HADLEY
33- Christmas trees on green SOLD LORRAINE
34- green birds and leaves (difficult to capture the shade on camara but its a goregeous primary green)SOLD LORRAINE
35- multi trees SOLD LORRAINE
36- Christmas 2d zoo SOLD LORRAINE
37 SOLD LORRIANE
38 SOLD TO HADLEY
39 SOLD LORRAINE
40- reindeer (screenprinted fabric) SOLD LORRIANE
41 SOLD LORRIANE
42- white trees on red SOLD LORRAINE
Girl on a swing in Vanilla x 3 yards £27
Hope to hear from you soon.
PAYMENT TERMS: Once I have confirmed availability, please send me a personal payment only through paypal. It’s free to send money when you use your PayPal balance or bank account as your funding source but if you are paying with a credit/debit card please add £1 to the total amount to cover paypal fees.
Half Yards:
1- Amy Butler Lotus Flower- red
2- American Jane Orange mono Pezz
5- Michael miller blue stripe
13- Sarah Jane spot 14- Sarah Jane hopscotch
15- Aneela Hooey puppies on pink
16- Kaffe Fasset pink circle fabric
FAT QUARTERS £2.50 EACH
22- blue spot on red sold to Nicky
25- flowers
***I also have some larger cuts of fabric which I would like to keep as one continuous length for sale:***
Alexander Henry 2d zoo 1 yard £12
Hope to hear from you soon.
Wednesday, 22 August 2012
Pfaff Quilt Expression 4 – 1 year (and a half) review
Sorry folks, I’m a little late to the table with my 1 year review but as I have had a few requests for an update I thought I would put together my final thoughts on this machine.
There are many feet you can use that have better contact with the feed dogs, in place of this horrible recessed quarter inch foot the machine comes with. Keep in mind that the feed dogs on this machine are 9mm apart to accommodate all the decorative stitches. This can make smaller piecing that only touches one feed dog more difficult, however, I have not found this to be an issue as I don’t piece with tiny pieces but its worth considering depending on what projects you are interested in doing, and what’s more important for you.
Choose any foot that you feel gives you better contact with the feed dogs for your project. The seam guide foot has better contact so if small piecing is your thing, have a play around with this in the shop and see if it helps.
I purchased the Pfaff foot book on Ebay and found it an interesting read as it gives you some alternative uses for some of the feet. The manual really should contain this information but at least this is available to buy.
I now exclusively use Aurifil thread (orange spool) for piecing and quilting, this produces little lint which means less time spent cleaning the bobbin and my thread cutter works most of the time. The thread is so thin that it means that I can fit loads of thread on to a bobbin and when the machine tells me my bobbin is low, it actually is low.
I recently mocked up another Kaleidoscope piece to see if experience has taught me anything about bulky seams. It turns out that I have learnt quite a lot over the past year and a half. Using my more stable quilting foot I now begin my seams a quarter if an inch in and back stitch then forward stitch to prevent the machine chewing up my fabric. The thinner thread I now use helps massively with thicker seams, as does pressing each seam as I go and spray starching each piece to give extra stability. (I do all of these things as standard now, and would do on any machine as it produces better quality results in my opinion.)
I think when I first made my kaleidoscope quilt I was trying to open each seam as I went along but I should have pressed them all to one side and opened just the final seam. No problems with this at all now. As you can see from the pictures below.
Here are the 6 intersecting seams that I want to put together:
Here is a quick video of me joining the seams and the end result:
A couple of smaller stitches over the bulk but the machine didnt have to much trouble this time due to preparing the fabric properly.
and the front:
Free Motion quilting. Spring motion vs Sensormatic
When I first began to FMQ, I didn’t like the sensormatic mode at all. I thought the machine didn’t like the bedsheet I was using but that had nothing to do with it. I just didnt reduce the pivot height.
During the first 3 months of this year I got a lot of FMQ practice in. I successfully managed feathers and swirls. The new open toe sensormatic foot I purchased made life much easier and I actually prefer this mode now to spring motion as you don’t get the hopping of the fabric and the needle just glides over the fabric effortlessly.
If you're thinking about purchasing this machine make sure you either buy this foot seperatly, or check that you get the open toe version with the machine.(I have been told they are selling these in place of the old foot with the machine but be sure to check this.) My initial problems with this mode stemmed from my own inexperience. Its essential that you adjust the pivot height to match your quilt thickness otherwise you will get skipped stitches. -2 or -3 normally works for me.
If you're getting skipped stitches and you’ve already adjusted the pivot height try going slower when creating curves and try setting the speed on the machine so its one less thing to think about when you are trying to control your feet and the movement of the quilt at the same time. Also, if your thread is cross wound lie your spool down in the horizontal position and use a spool cap.
Well thats pretty much all I have left to say about this machine. Yes there is a learning curve, but trust me it is worth it! and yes the manual is rubbish on detail but the online community and links I have provided in previous posts on this machine have made life much easier, and there are many, many happy people out there with this machine, its normally just the unhappy people who post topics about it!
:-)
There are many feet you can use that have better contact with the feed dogs, in place of this horrible recessed quarter inch foot the machine comes with. Keep in mind that the feed dogs on this machine are 9mm apart to accommodate all the decorative stitches. This can make smaller piecing that only touches one feed dog more difficult, however, I have not found this to be an issue as I don’t piece with tiny pieces but its worth considering depending on what projects you are interested in doing, and what’s more important for you.
Choose any foot that you feel gives you better contact with the feed dogs for your project. The seam guide foot has better contact so if small piecing is your thing, have a play around with this in the shop and see if it helps.
I purchased the Pfaff foot book on Ebay and found it an interesting read as it gives you some alternative uses for some of the feet. The manual really should contain this information but at least this is available to buy.
I now exclusively use Aurifil thread (orange spool) for piecing and quilting, this produces little lint which means less time spent cleaning the bobbin and my thread cutter works most of the time. The thread is so thin that it means that I can fit loads of thread on to a bobbin and when the machine tells me my bobbin is low, it actually is low.
I recently mocked up another Kaleidoscope piece to see if experience has taught me anything about bulky seams. It turns out that I have learnt quite a lot over the past year and a half. Using my more stable quilting foot I now begin my seams a quarter if an inch in and back stitch then forward stitch to prevent the machine chewing up my fabric. The thinner thread I now use helps massively with thicker seams, as does pressing each seam as I go and spray starching each piece to give extra stability. (I do all of these things as standard now, and would do on any machine as it produces better quality results in my opinion.)
I think when I first made my kaleidoscope quilt I was trying to open each seam as I went along but I should have pressed them all to one side and opened just the final seam. No problems with this at all now. As you can see from the pictures below.
Here are the 6 intersecting seams that I want to put together:
Here is a quick video of me joining the seams and the end result:
A couple of smaller stitches over the bulk but the machine didnt have to much trouble this time due to preparing the fabric properly.
and the front:
Free Motion quilting. Spring motion vs Sensormatic
When I first began to FMQ, I didn’t like the sensormatic mode at all. I thought the machine didn’t like the bedsheet I was using but that had nothing to do with it. I just didnt reduce the pivot height.
During the first 3 months of this year I got a lot of FMQ practice in. I successfully managed feathers and swirls. The new open toe sensormatic foot I purchased made life much easier and I actually prefer this mode now to spring motion as you don’t get the hopping of the fabric and the needle just glides over the fabric effortlessly.
If you're thinking about purchasing this machine make sure you either buy this foot seperatly, or check that you get the open toe version with the machine.(I have been told they are selling these in place of the old foot with the machine but be sure to check this.) My initial problems with this mode stemmed from my own inexperience. Its essential that you adjust the pivot height to match your quilt thickness otherwise you will get skipped stitches. -2 or -3 normally works for me.
If you're getting skipped stitches and you’ve already adjusted the pivot height try going slower when creating curves and try setting the speed on the machine so its one less thing to think about when you are trying to control your feet and the movement of the quilt at the same time. Also, if your thread is cross wound lie your spool down in the horizontal position and use a spool cap.
Well thats pretty much all I have left to say about this machine. Yes there is a learning curve, but trust me it is worth it! and yes the manual is rubbish on detail but the online community and links I have provided in previous posts on this machine have made life much easier, and there are many, many happy people out there with this machine, its normally just the unhappy people who post topics about it!
:-)
Monday, 20 August 2012
A Colossal Finish
So here it is, after 10 months, this huge double quilt is finally completed. I began cutting fabrics for this way back in November. The pattern is taken from material obsession and as soon as I placed my eyes on the front cover, I new I had to make it. I enjoyed all the hand quilting even all the crosshatching:-). It's definitely more enjoyable when I dont put myself under pressure or give myself deadlines, even if has taken me 6 months to quilt, I can honestly say I've enjoyed every moment of it and have given it 100% throughout.
I used a smaller scale print for the dots than the book. I think this was the trickiest decision for me, as although I love the Michael Miller ta dots I wanted to save these for the petals. The tone of the red on the ta dots was very bright aswell and I wanted something a tad toned down so I settled on some Tanya Whelen red and white polka dots.
For the backing I went budget and used a white Tesco bedsheet I bought a while ago. It hand quilted easily and the thinner fabric even adds to the crinkley quilted effect, you would never know it was thinner as once it has batting between the layers it looks no different.
It took some serious effort to find somewhere big enough to display this quilt for photographing as it measures around 68.5 x 97.5 inches, but there was just enough room on the fence to get a fairly good picture.
I can't believe there are just two more weeks of the school holidays left. My youngest Jacob will be going off to big school this September. I have a mixture of emotions. I thought I would be exited as I'll have a lot more time sewing time, but I will miss him dearly and he will be one of the youngest in his class so I had a bit of a worrisome night feeling a little anxious about how he will feel about it all.
Jacob turned 4 just last month, I do hope his days at school will treat him kindly.
TTFN
Tuesday, 3 July 2012
***Blog sale now open: Books and fabrics***
I have some books for sale that I thought I would post on here. U.K only please. I accept personal payment only through paypal, and have provided a list of various delivery options to suit you. All books are like brand new apart from the tilda sew pretty homestyle as I've worked from it but its still in very good condition as you can see from the picture.
Material obsession 2 £5 plus £4.45 recorded or £3.50 second class standard
Kaffe Fassett's Quilt Romance: £5 plus £3.50 recorded or £2.50 second class
SOLD TO WENDY
Sew Pretty Homestyle £5 plus £3.50 recorded or £2.50 second class
I Love Patchwork: £5 plus £3.50 recorded or £2.50 second class
The practical guide to patchwork: £5 plus £3.50 recorded or £2.50 second class
Please note I will not be responsible if royal mail loose your item, so I would recommend choosing recorded delivery for this reason, however its up to you.
Fabric sale: I have some bargain designer DS/Kaffee/Aneela/Sarah Jane half yard fabrics up for grabs, they are £5 per design and postage is £2.50 (2nd class) or £3.50 recorded for up to 8 fabrics. First to leave a message on this post with their numbers of choice will have priority.
Ready, steady, go!
xxx
Material obsession 2 £5 plus £4.45 recorded or £3.50 second class standard
Sew Pretty Homestyle £5 plus £3.50 recorded or £2.50 second class
I Love Patchwork: £5 plus £3.50 recorded or £2.50 second class
The practical guide to patchwork: £5 plus £3.50 recorded or £2.50 second class
Please note I will not be responsible if royal mail loose your item, so I would recommend choosing recorded delivery for this reason, however its up to you.
Fabric sale: I have some bargain designer DS/Kaffee/Aneela/Sarah Jane half yard fabrics up for grabs, they are £5 per design and postage is £2.50 (2nd class) or £3.50 recorded for up to 8 fabrics. First to leave a message on this post with their numbers of choice will have priority.
Ready, steady, go!
xxx
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