Sunday Stash #22

Uh-oh, going shopping with a fully-blown nesting instinct is no good idea, even worse when the shop you're visiting has a 25 per cent birthday discount. Then again, supporting the brick and mortar down your road and getting some exercise at nine months pregnant surely is a good thing. I mean, I also won't have the time or frame of mind for a while and it's always good to have a replenished stash, too, right? (Shhhh, I'm not even talking the Black Friday online order that sneaked in yesterday which totally fulfils the same purpose, just like the Cotton & Steel order I handed over to my mum to give me for Christmas.)

Anyway, if you're in Berlin - the Nähkontor is a lovely little shop that also offers classes. Go check it out.

I got some pretty dotty prints and a Cotton & Steel print I didn't order and that hasn't been handed over to my mum.

Beautiful, cutesy FQs and fabric scraps - just look at those mummy and baby animals. Not a chance that hormone-me could have left it behind in the cold world store. I'm also proud to have added some yellows and prints on white because I don't usually stack up on these colours.

Could you believe they had two spools of the perfect silk thread for the Eggplant Kona in my Grecian Waters HSTs? The thread I'd ordered online and showed you last week is a beautiful shade and would have worked fine but this is a match made in heaven! Kismet!

I also got some old snap-fasteners - they sell old notions, presumably from clearances, for a lot less than the new shiny ones and with the little one on the way they'll come in handy for makings - and some essential solids. They're not as drapey and soft as Kona but will work fine for the pillows they're meant for and the white was much needed for the big snowflake in my Winter Baby Girl Quilt.

It was quite a lot to carry home. Told you it was exercise!

Happy sewing!

Winter Baby Girl Quilt #9 - Assembling the Top

So I did it, I made a new snowflake using Shape Moth's beautiful paper pieced "Snow Cristal". This time around I avoided the mistake of cutting away my seam allowance and I made the block so much prettier, too, by using different fabrics for the different tiers. I still like the idea of a white snowflake against a dark background but it simply wasn't working for this particular quilt.

Just look at the difference a proper seam allowance makes! The new block is lying all flat and wrinkle-free.

This block has given me a huge boost and I've finally decided on my layout. Not only that, I've even started assembling the top as evidenced by our bed.

Time for a break now because the bump is getting in the way and demands a period of rest but I'm sure to sew up at least another column today. Whoop whoop.

Evening update:

Happy sewing!

Winter Baby Girl Quilt #8 - Layout

And the journey continues.

It's not that easy to put all my blocks together in a well-balanced way that pleases me. It took me probably an hour to come up with these variations. The first one isn't so good because there are two irregular stars next to each other.

In the second one the faulty snowflake (still to be re-done) is too dominant and the snowflakes are too close too each other.

I think I like this third layout best but the big snowflake is still too prominent. Maybe I should rather make a third one from parallelograms if my scraps allow for it, maybe I should consider re-doing the big snowflake with some of the beige fabric and not just my teal remnants. I'll give it a pondering. What's your take? Excess blocks aren't problematic. They'll be relegated to spicing up the backing.

Happy sewing!