How to - roll up your binding while sewing

I thought I share another little tip today.

There are different methods of how to roll up your binding and this is how I do it:

I use a wooden spool, which I bought in a lovely fabric store in Dublin. For this baby quilt the binding wasn't too long, it does get quite full when it's a lap size quilt though, but it still works!

While sewing the binding to the quilt I place the spool on my lap. The binding rolls up nicely and lays already flat on the quilt. It works really well for me. Try it out!

What do you do with your binding?

Linking this to the 'Tips and Tutorials Tuesday' at Late Night Quilter.

And so the seam ripping begins....

I have started to rip the quilting stitches out of my Sea Breeze quilt... finally! I don't know why I've put this off for so long.
 

Ah well, yes I do know why... because it takes forever, it's destructive work and seems to be a reverse process. Taking something out you later put back in again.
But my post about my goals for the year really helped to get me started. I have removed the stitches from more than half the quilt and I'd say there is one more ripping session and I'm done!
Looking forward to quilt that baby properly!

Linking this to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.

First finish in 2016!

It's only the first week of January and I have already my first finish done! It's the smallest of my goals for the year but that doesn't matter.

It's another open wide zipper pouch following Noodlehead's tutorial. And I've also found this super tutorial by Ros of Sew Delicious. I never knew where to have the zipper pointed while sewing the layers together, sometimes I did it correct, sometimes I didn't but never knew why my zippers looked different.  Now it's neat and tidy, great!


I used a coated fabric for the inner lining so that it's easy to clean.

This one is (again) for my Mum... I seem to make her a lot self made stuff recently but Mums always do so many great things that this is only a small way of saying 'thank you'!

Linking this to Finish up Friday with Crazy Mom Quilts.

Outlook for 2016

I've decided to share my planned projects for 2016, it's always good to have goals to work up to. I have similar feelings with my sport (rowing), if I don't have a goal or a regatta to train for, I don't train as regularly and hard as I could.

So, here comes:

1. Quilt for husband
I posted the fabric selection already here, I actually finished all the blocks of the quilt top this week and will assemble the quilt top today. I don't exactly know how to quilt it yet, but I hope to have this quilt finished this month. A QuiP is coming soon!

2. Triangle Quilt
I have started to cut triangles out of these beautiful fabrics and I'm all excited about it!

3. Sea Breeze
Remember this lovely quilt top? I have this quilted more than half way... and I don't like it! So I'm going to rip the quilting all out and do it again. I know that sounds crazy but believe me, I looked at this so many times, put the quilt away, looked at it again... still don't like it. That's something I feel I have to do otherwise I'm not going to enjoy the finished quilt.

4. Bee Quilt
It's my turn in January/ February with my 'Quilty Circle of Bees' and I have picked a lovely block pattern (more about that later). I hope to have this quilt also finished this year.

That's 4 quilts this year, theoretically every quarter one quilt. I think this is realistic and achievable.

There MAYBE is a 5th quilt (since the one for my husband is almost there, I have quilting bees who help me with the bee quilt and the Sea Breeze quilt sandwich is also done).
As I discovered quilts during my honeymoon in 2013 I went to Sew Modern in LA and bought lots of fabric. Lots. I honestly bought 3 yards (!) of all these and more. (Luckily there was the Memorial Day Special Offer!!)

I didn't know hat I was doing and had no idea how much fabric I need for a quilt (and of course ignored the  advise by the lovely lady who cut all the fabric for me). I made already two quilts of this fabric, one for myself and one for my Mum, but as the lovely lady in the shop said:' You're gonna make A LOT OF quilts out of these!' Yeah, what can I say, I probably will!

I'm also planning on making an open wide zipper pouch, (I have that done, see here) a divided basket (I actually made two! Here and here) and a super tote, all pattern by Noodlehead which I purchased a long time ago but didn't find the time and muse to make them.

I feel all good about these projects and looking forward to all of them (apart from the quilt stitch ripping business...). I will come back to this blog post to see how I'm doing and strike off things I have finished, yay. That's good!

What are your plans for the new year?