Showing posts with label Amy Butler Nigella. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Amy Butler Nigella. Show all posts

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Nigella Rail Fence



Wow, I can't believe how long this quilt sat in my "in progress" bag and how quickly it got finished once I really worked on it. I started this quilt (my very first!) way way back in January 2008. Yes LAST year.

I'm a rather haphazard sewer and I was definitely careless with having my pieces be the exact size and then again with having an even seam allowance. So my squares ended up all different sizes. Of course when I attempted to put them together it wasn't working at all and none of the seams were lining up. (I must have thought it would just work out magically!) So very frustrated with my "good for beginners" rail fence quilt I put it aside.

Fast forward a year and half and some much-improved skills and appreciation for a 1/4" seam allowance and I felt confident enough to tackle this mess. I first had to trim down all the squares to an even size. Very unfortunately for me, the pattern of the prints meant I had to trim down every single side of every square. Not the most fun.



But this time putting the squares together was a snap! Amazingly, when you do things right and take some care it does actually work out. Not magically -- but it feels like magic when it all comes together perfectly. I added on my border and binding and my lovely mum was wonderful to finish it up by doing the hand-stitching of the binding to the backing on her visit. Thanks mom!



The fabrics are all Amy Butler Nigella, a light home dec weight. The quilt pattern is a basic railfence with a few squares of a single fussy cut flower tossed in. It's backed in a furry fabric I got ages ago and no batting.



Yes this turned into a baby modeling session, but I just love taking pictures of little Ben!

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Sewing Space Makeover

My sewing table is in my basement and I've made lots of projects with Amy Butler Nigella prints for it so far (and someday, maybe, hopefully I'll finish the quilt for it!!)
I still had plenty of fabric leftover so I made some cushion covers and a machine cozy!



The chair has removable cushions that were purple velvet. Not bad, but they were getting old and dingy anyway. I decided just to cover them over.



The sewing machine cozy was so fun! I used the instructions from Spool Sewing, modified just a bit for the dimensions of my machine. For the front I just went through my scrap bag and started laying out pieces. It was fun! Piecing bits into strips and then piecing the strips together isn't hard, you just have to have an idea of which pieces to sew in which order! The sides, top and back are just the solid print. I added a light interfacing behind the pieced front just to keep all the seams neat and from snagging anything on the machine. I also added a pieces of fusible fleece on the inside of the top piece. I really like the shaping it added, I may add the fusible fleece to the remaining pieces too. I'd like it to basically stand on it's own.

More pics of my space, with my "inspiration wire" over my worktable -- just bits of fabric, pictures, ideas and cute things.


And just because I *LOVE* to look at it, my fabric stash