I have finished and bound my Gira Rosa quilt. It was designed by Michelle Marvig and published in Australian Patchwork and Quilting. I was lucky to grab a kit from Michelle so a)I didn’t have to think too hard to match my fabrics and b) mine looked like hers  - which I loved.

Anyhow, here are the pictures.

On the grass – this shows the whole quilt – it is 60×60 inches.

Gratuitous shot over the chook pen. Please understand this is MY quilt and I would NEVER do this with a client quilt.

Flung over the clothesline for a better detail shot.

More detail. My quilting is indeed freehanded. Those feathers come out of my head, through my hands guiding the quilting machine and on to the quilt.

I love my new quilt and as quick as the quilting seems to be, I started making this in, I think, 2009. Maybe even 2008.

Last night, I cut it out, put it together and bound the neckline. When I got up the morning, I bound the arms and hem instead of folding it over – I had cut enough binding, so why not? It adds some weight to the hem. I cut 1 inch strips of bias with my rotary cutter and patchwork ruler for the bindings.

To make the neckline frill, I cut strips 1.5″ and 2″ wide.

I stitched the strips together. Just one on top of the other. I overlapped the ends of the bias strips and just kept sewing to join them. They are bias and won’t fray.

I broke out my ruffler food that I bought with my Bernina and used it to gather the strips. A tuck every 6 stitches on stitch length 2.5mm.

The ruffler is quite the contraption!

Oooh pretty!!!

I ended up with a lovely long strip…

Here is my finished Sorbetto. I inverted the front pleat and left it open after about 10cm as I wanted a loose flowy cool top for summer.

I pinned, making sure the stitching line of the ruffle was on the stitching line of the binding. Yes, I left the raw edge of the binding on the inside. This top is a) experimental and b) the binding won’t fray anyway, so why fuss turning it under…

When I got to the end, I unpicked a ruffle or two, and folded the left side back underneath, overlapping them.

You can’t really see it, especially after trimming that triangle end back.

I stitched it on with a 25.mm x 2.5mm zig zag.

And here’s my ugly mug in a pretty top.

I love the pockets!

An inside shot showing the lining and pockets.

From behind.

The ‘flasher’ shot.

Close ups of the finished jacket. I early like how neat it finishes up, and only a teeny bit of hand sewing to be done. Yay!

My welt pocket. Now I can see the sleeve needs a quick press.

I love my new jacket and it will be a hard worker in my wardrobe come winter.

The pattern was very well written. I thought I’d made a mistake with the zipper when it didn’t go all the way to the bottom of the front band. The drawing on the pattern from indicated that the zip went all the way to the hem edge but in the pattern instructions the zip is shown at the actual way it turns out, about 6ish centimetres from the hem edge. Not a biggie but I did have to double check to be sure.

I am really happy with my jacket. It will be a few more months before I will be wearing it as it is quite heavy to wear. I hope I have enough ease to wear it over a thin jumper in the winter. It will be perfect for throwing on when I need to run out the door and need an extra layer when the weather is cool. I am very happy with my welt pockets. They are a great addition.

I like it so much I might make another unlined version for a throw on jacket for warmer weather. But not yet.

It has been quite warm lately and I really need some summer tops pronto. I printed out traced and cut out a Colette Sorbetto this evening. Inspired by the Japanese ‘Simple Modern Sewing’ book I am making it with the double ruffle neckline like one in the book.

Pictures of everything tomorrow.

I also took about 7cm from the length of the sleeve – I don’t love my sleeves too long.

I like my pockets, so decided to add a welt pocket to the fronts. I used the very scientific method of holding the pattern up to myself and guesstimating where I would like the top of the pocket. I then held a welt-sized piece of pattern tissue up to the front of the pattern to see where I would like it.

I placed the pocket bag pattern underneath (pattern and instructions courtesy of Ottobre Woman 2.2007) To check if it would fit. I could see the pattern piece would not fit within the lining, so I stuck some more tissue under it and drew another shape.

Double checking that my hand would fit in. I also copied the assembly instructions from the magazine to keep with my Minoru pattern.

I marked the position of the pocket slash on the pattern.

Now I am good to go, so I cut out my fabric.

Note to self – I used a smidge under 2m of this 150cm wide fabric.

Now that it is cut out, I don’t think I will be playing nice and sewing along. Tasia wrote that she is aiming to finish the sew along mid to late February. I am just going to work along at my own pace, seeing as I am still on holidays (vacation) I would rather finish sooner than later…

I am imposing a “finish it before beginning another item” rule on myself. I got some yarn for christmas that I really want to start using, but I have this cardigan to finish knitting first.

I am making Cerisara from Chic Knits. I have just one sleeve left to do. I also have a sneaky suspicion that it will need to be made longer in the body too. I am using my urge to begin the next project to motivate me to finish this one. Especially as this one is for winter and the yarn is for a summer cardi…off to knit for the evening now…hopefully I can make a dent in this second sleeve.

It stayed that way on my bookshelf in the studio until January 2012 when I finally pulled it off to quilt.

It was still on the zippers – I just always put clients’ work before my own. I finished off the crosshatching and had a bit of figuring to do for the feathers – I did have parts of the spines already stitched. Here it is being loaded back onto the longarm.

I had to try and make the feathers look like they were crossing over each other. Took a bit of fussing but it worked OK. I will not own up to the wonky bits if you can’t find them yourself.

It needs a wash and blocking then I will bind it.

I also had chosen a nice (Denyse Schmidt, actually) quilting cotton for the lining, but as I was standing near the counter waiting for my turn, I spied this nice100% cotton that felt very silky. There were a few black and white prints available, and I chose this one. Yes, it looks migraine-inducing close up, but I think it will look nice as a lining. I am very happy that the jacket will be monochromatic.

I also found some elastic at Spotlight. My zipper came from Zipperstop. I ordered them via ebay last week and they arrived today. I have bought zips from A. Feibusch before and knew it would be easier to just order them than try and find some locally. I ordered 4 zips, but I thought I had also ordered a red one. Oh well, another time – I have the red fabric, maybe I will make it in red too – time will tell.

I ordered two antique brass zips on black, on regular brass on black and one plastic in black. I know that they can be shortened (I sell custom length zippers to longarm quilters) so they will not go to waste.

Now I have my fabric, I will pop it through the washing machine in the morning and maybe trace out the pattern and make a muslin (maybe).

When we got home, I measured her and traced the PJ pants pattern from the latest Ottobre Woman, 5.2011. It took me about 30 minutes to make them. So fast and at only $5 to make, not too expensive. For the same price, I could have bought her a crappy cheap pair at Kmart, but these are a really nice thick and soft cotton. A quick wash and they will be ready to wear.

She likes owls. I made her an owl quilt last year for her birthday. I cut a scrap of fabric and stitched it into the back casing so she could tell the front from the back. I also stitched the elastic at the sides and centre front and back to stop it shifting and turning in the casing. The fabric is surprisingly lovely (again, spotlight fabric). A quick, easy project.

Anyhow, he asked me to make a cover for it and I made one following this tutorial from Erin Erickson. I omitted the tab and made the size correct for his particular phone. The fabric was scraps from my recent quilt. Quick, easy and free. What’s not to like?