Sunshine Stitches

It has been hot here in Ireland this week. It still is. Very hot. I have been enjoying some sunshine and sewing whenever the kitten will let me. Mostly mindlessly piecing scraps together. Because my tiny scrap collection was bothering me. Normally I don't keep scraps less than 1.5" square. Sometimes I give them to my mum, who might one day use them for a school art project (she is a teacher), or sometimes I use them as toy stuffing. But this week I decided to see how it would be if I tried to actually sew them.

The first attempt was a strip quilt in Prince Charming. Each strip was approximately 1" wide. I pieced all the strips I had then squared them up into my tiny top. I used some wider strips and an off-cut from the strip panel to make an improvisational pieced back. I'd never tried improv piecing before and I must say,  really like it. Even in micro scale. I used a scrap of Hobbs 80/20 blend batting and machine quilted organic straight lines. Finished quilt measures just 8.75" x 5.5".

My second scrappy mini involved randomly sewing from my micro scrap bag. Piecing, pressing, cutting and piecing some more, until I had an amazing piece of rainbow fabric. I used some Ikea sheeting and a strip of cute animal print cotton for the back. Batting for this quilt was lightweight cotton flannel and I used the same organic line quilting as before. This little quilt measures 9.75" x 15".

Third and final mini for now, Lemon Drizzle! I've had this idea in my head for a while, but finally got the chance to sew it up yesterday. Lemon Drizzle involves a paper pieced hexagon cloud, appliquéd to a bright lemon curd yellow background, with hand quilted rainbow drizzle droplets. My tribute to summer weather. I need to figure out how to actually make a lemon drizzle cake now. It is one of my very favourite cakes and just the thing for Summer afternoons, rain or sunshiny ones. The lemon background is my current very favourite fabric. Moda Bella Solid in Citrine. Hexies are mostly Anna Maria Horner's Little Folks, with a touch of Liberty, Good Folks and Denise Schmidt. Binding is Kona Coal and backing is Klona Candy Blue. I used Simply Soft 100% cotton batting. Quilting is a combination of hand and machine work. I used a light grey thread to machine quilt around the hexi-cloud and in vertical lines on the background. I then hand quilted with cloud grey Aurifil 12wt inside the individual hexes. Rainbow droplets were hand quilted in a variety of pearl cottons and Aurifil 12wt. I added a hanging sleeve at the back using Rachel's tutorial here. Lemon Drizzle Measures 17" x 12.5". I definitely want to make more hexi-cloud projects. I can see them as pillows and as a baby quilt with larger hexagons.

Please excuse the overly-bright-sunshine-concrete-path photos. My usual spot on the studio floor is out of bounds until I finish the last spot of painting. But I hope to be all finished and moved in by the middle of this week coming :)