Skip to main content

When the Farmer met Peggy




I don't normally name things, and my Janome sewing machine never had a name. But yesterday I picked up my new Husqvarna Viking. And she is so pretty that she deserves a name. So my new sewing machine is called Peggy. Here she is quilting my Merry Cushion.

I'm teaching myself to free motion quilt on her: I found some fantastic video here. My first and second attempts were disastrous, then I found the videos above. My third attempt was far far far better. My fourth and fifth attempts were quite good, all things considered. I have now layered up my Animal quilt top and my Countdown to Christmas Sampler quilt and I am ready to practice practice practice.

This afternoon I introduced Peggy to the Farmer's Wife Sampler quilt, with two more blocks: #14 Butterfly at the Cross Roads: I love this batik, but it looks much better in larger areas where you can see the variation between pink, green and blue.

# 26 Country Farm: I love this one. It's so straightforward but really pretty - and I will always love the combination of green and blue.
Today's blocks also mark another milestone: this photo marks the half way point in the blocks:
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

365 Quilt Challenge 2016 [A finish]

I can't believe I've just typed that heading! When I made the block for January 1st 2016 I could not have imagined the journey this quilt would have taken me on. So make yourselves comfortable and grab a cup of tea, because this blog post may get lengthy! I'd seen the 365 Quilt Challenge on Facebook. I think every quilter on Facebook must have been aware of it. Loads of my friends had signed up and it kept popping up as a "Page you might like" thing. In the end, in November 2015, I joined the group, had a poke round. Decided it wasn't for me. One of the things that really put me off were the fabric requirements: you needed x amount of dark dark fabric, x amount of medium dark fabric, x amount of dark medium, medium, light medium, light, background.... I just couldn't get my head round those requirements. I'd looked at the mock ups on the wesbite and couldn't bring myself to pick a colour. I put it to the back of my mind. But I had obvious
6 comments
Read more

Hidden Agenda [A Finish]

This is very possibly my favourite ever finish - I know I've said that in the past, but this one is going to be hard to beat. This time last year, I attended a day long lecture/workshop with Tula Pink and it was inspiring. Having not really loved her fabrics in the past (but loved her patterns), I suddenly saw them in a new light, linked with my 2018 new year's resolution to try more fussy cutting). Fast forward 8 months and I confess that my Tula stash has expanded quite a lot. I found some UK shops with older ranges of fabric, splurged on a few destashes and found the odd piece of her fabric already in my stash. The plan was always (and remains) to make a Smitten quilt, but I'm well aware that I have plenty of fabric to make other projects as well! So when I saw the Hidden Agenda quilt pattern by Angela Pingle, this fabric sprung instantly to mind.... and we all know I love a rainbow! And what could be better than rainbowfied Tula? I was ably assisted by my friend Ti
3 comments
Read more

February Embroidery Along [A Finish]

I've really been enjoying my embroidery this year, after not doing very much last year. One of the challenges I set myself at the start of the year was to learn to colour tint my fabric before adding the embroidery - I love buying the pre-printed panels, but I'd like to do this myself as well. And the opportunity to learn this arose in February. Meg Hawkey of Crab Apple Hill Studio hosted a stitchalong to celebrate National Embroidery Month, and the first step was colour your fabric. I bought the pencils she advises,  the blending stumps, something called fabric extender and the pigma pen. And I gave it a go. My first attempt ended badly. Because the one thing I didn't buy was a new, clean paintbrush. So when I came to add the fabric extended, it went all bleary and muddy as, despite cleaning the paintbrush thoroughly, it obviously wasn't clean enough. It was unsalvageable so I started again, and I was so much happier with the results. The practice piece was, in
1 comment
Read more

Labels

Show more

Archive

Show more