Two Cheese Please

Still obsessed

Published September 20, 2013 | By Holly

Is it possible to love something even before it’s completely finished? Because I am totally smitten with my quilt-as-you-go cross stitch pouch – and so far it’s not even sewn together!

It’s been over four months since I last sewed and I’m really glad this was my first project to get me back into it. This is the back panel for my pouch, with another Dear Jane block as the feature. I know I’ve said it before, but I really think the D.J. book is a fantastic resource for inspiration and some really ace traditional quilt block styles! This one is M4 – Stepping Stones and as much as I’d love to do a whole quilt of these blocks, there’s 45 pieces… in each individual block! Ouch! But still. Even though it was fiddly and complicated and took forever and came out wonky, I love it.

I’ve included some of my very best favourite pieces of fabric in this panel. There’s some Japanese printed linen, a liberal sprinkling of Heather Ross favourites, and one of my more treasured scraps ever – little 1” linen bear.

You guys, I’m the hugest “precious precious fabric hoarder no touchy” stasher but I realised recently that life is short and fabric is meant to be seen and touched and loved and used. I have more fabric than one person needs (hands up who’s guilty of that!) so my new sewing goal for 2013 is to sew things that scare me, and sew from my stash!

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MY DUDQS3

Published September 18, 2013 | By Holly

So I just realised that I never showed my half of the Down Under Doll Quilt Swap (#3) that I sent out to my partner, and this swap was nearly a whole ago! Sheesh guys, talk about slacking!

This quilt was made very much at the last minute – my own fault really, I thought the mail-out date was a month later than what it actually was! Oops! So there was a few long nights work in this one, especially because I decided that of course it needed to be hand-quilted as well!

I’d had the idea of a sewing themed mini in my head for a while and I’m not sure if I’m happy with how it turned out, but I do really love the super crinkly, puffy texture of the hand quilting, and that was without a go in the washer and dryer. It (almost) makes me want to hand-quilt a whole quilt like that. Almost.

My fingers got so sore while hand-quilting that I had to resort to pliers. I’m pretty sure using pliers to pull your needle through the fabric is against some kind of quilting rule but at that point I really felt that pliers were the way to go! I know that ‘Modern’ Quilting is all about breaking the rules and reinventing traditionalism, but I’m really not sure pliers was what they had in mind! It’s a little embarassing, but I hadn’t actually heard of leather thimbles until I was posting these pictures on Instagram so now I know these magic little devices exist I might try one next time, but if I’m honest (again) the pliers actually worked really, really well.

The DUDQS is on again for another year and I’ve signed my name up again. Now that I’ve got my sewing stuff unpacked at my new house I need an excuse to dive back in, and I can do with the excuse to take pictures so I can actually update my IG and blog some more, too!

I can’t wait to find out who my partner is for this round, and do a little sneaky stalk of their Flickr page! I love the excitement of a blind swap!

Posted in Patchwork, Quilts, Swaps | Leave a comment

30 Days of Lists {2012}

Published September 16, 2013 | By Holly

Last year I signed up for the 30 Days of Lists journaling prompt group and bombed out pretty quickly. I’m not really a stick-it-outer kind of person, I think. I’m more of an exciteable-best-intentions crafter. I get very excited, and then I get very distracted, and it’s definitely something I want to work on in the future. With that goal in mind, I signed up for this year’s 30 Days of Lists and so far so good!

I want to share my lists (the ones I managed to complete, anyway) from last year because this was a massive leap for me – seriously! I am NOT an improvisational person at all, so for me to just sit down and write and stick and glue without planning each page in advance with individual mock-ups and versions was HUGE. HUUUUGE. It felt kind of good to let go, even if I do get a little anxious looking back over my lists and seeing all the things I could have changed if I’d planned it out beforehand. It’s good to just breathe and let it go.

And – most importantly – I get an excuse to go and look at all the pretty shiny sparkly stickers and scrapbooking supplies at the store! (Priorities, people! Priorities!)

Posted in 30 Days of Lists | Tagged 30 Days of Lists | Leave a comment

I’m Bloglovin’!

Published May 13, 2013 | By Holly

I’m sure everyone on the internet (except me!) has heard that Google Reader is closing its doors for good on 31 June 2013. I was quite devastated when I found out – partly because I really am always the last to hear these sorts of things, and also because I love Google Reader! It’s clean, it’s simple, and most importantly – because it’s run by Google it gets around the internet filters in my office!

So it seems like a lot of the crafting/sewing/making circle are migrating to Bloglovin’, and although it doesn’t get through my work’s internet filters (what do you mean I can’t read blogs on work time?!) I think it’s one of the better (ie: easy to use for simple chimps like me) free RSS aggregates out there, so I’ve migrated everything over.

See that new Bloglovin’ widget on my sidebar? Click through to follow Two Cheese Please via Bloglovin’ if you haven’t already! Bloglovin’ have a couple of little buttons you can add to your blog; you can find them (and a tutorial on how to add them) right here.

Or you can pop over to the lovely Isabelle’s blog and grab her gorgeous Bloglovin’ widget that she DREW HERSELF (oh geez I’m jealous of artistic people!)

I look forward to catching up on all your blogs over there!

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My current obsession.

Published April 26, 2013 | By Holly

This is my current obsession.

Do you ever have those projects you just can’t get out of your head? I’ve been day-dreaming about working on this project every day now; whittling away the hours at work until I can rush home and work on it again.

It started as three little stars I made because I wanted to sit down and “just sew something” in an afternoon – sit down and sew something from start to finish, just for the joy of getting it done and having something to show for it at the end of the day. Don’t get me wrong – I do love a good slow-burn project! I’m doing the year-long Woodland Sampler cross stitch, I have not one but TWO Dear Janes I’m hand-piecing, and I’m also hand-piecing two Marcelle Medallion quilts! But sometimes you just want a satisfying ‘quick finish’. (Speaking of Dear Jane – the big star block is part of a block from that quilt. I love the D.J. book – it’s become my go-to resource for traditional block styles so I think even if you’re not going to attempt the whole quilt, it’s a great book to have just as a block resource!)

Each day I’ve been adding little bit by little bit to this quilted panel. Some days more than others, depending on how long I can steal away into my craft room. I’ve been sewing this quilt-as-you-go style following Oh Fransson’s tutorial (find it here) and it’s so addictive! For someone who plans things down to the last detail (I mean plans EVERYthing – I even glued down swatches of actual fabric in block order on a paper miniature quilt layout for both Dear Jane quilts just so I could be sure I liked the fabric choices for each block and how they worked together across the whole quilt…), doing this improv “bit here, bit there, slap it on and sew it down” style is quite freeing!

I think I’m going to turn this into a little zippered pouch to hold my Woodland Sampler cross stitch. I’ll be working on that each month of 2013 and I think it deserves something a little better than being carted around in a plastic bag!

Does anybody else spend longer working on a project pouch than they do on the actual project itself?!

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