Sunday Shopping #4

I had a fun week last week getting fabric for a quilt for a lovely friend who is 18 next year.

You may remember that I made a quilt last October for my friend Lily who was turning 18. Well, when I delivered the quilt Lily's twin sisters put in their orders. Luckily they aren't 18 until next year.

Becca loved Angela Walters first collection, but I missed out getting bundles. Plus I was put off by the panel.... I just didn't know what I would do with it. When I spotted Legacy by Angela this year I knew it was perfect. This week I found a wonderful bundle at a new-to-me shop, Stash Modern Fabric:

Legacy by Angela Walters

It is an absolutely beautiful bundle, plus they had a wonderful bundle of coordinating solids which will make designing a quilt so much more fun!

Pure Elements solids 

I can't wait until it arrives! Sometimes I wish I could teleport over the pond to be able to collect the fabric in person...

You can get Legacy at these wonderful stores:

Stash Modern Fabric
Fat Quarter Shop
Hawthorne Threads

I have a slight obsession with Tula Pink.... it is more like a massive obsession!

So her new and totally fabulous collection Acacia is on my MUST HAVE SOON list:

It is so fabulous:

My only issue is that I need to save up to buy the entire collection, I just can't choose a single colour way!

You can get them at these wonderful shops:

The Village Haberdashery
Fat Quarter Shop
Hawthorne Threads

Hope you like these 2 collections.

Happy Shopping!

FMQ Design Part 2

Last week I blogged in the FMQ series about design, and it was a fun blog to write, but I was left feeling like I had listed resources and placed for inspiration and not much about my actual process - basically how do I do I go from blank canvas to finished quilt...

My usual blog style is to explain things from my perspective, last week was hopefully useful to you, but I feel like it needs more..

So how do I take a blank canvas and change it?

Well I am a huge fan of Angela Walters and her attitude that quilting should be fun - if your not having fun then what's the point right?

To begin with I have only been machine quilting since January 2012. Before that I was a firm hand quilter having attempted machine quilting and failed at every turn. The books seemed impossibly hard to decipher and everything I found said that I had to be accurate - something I just can't do!

A short deadline on a quilt for mini changed that I completed my first machine quilter quilt in less then 2 weeks - a single bed quilt that he drags around everywhere!

Now I love machine quilting, I turn to it first, but how do I decide on how to quilt?

For me is it about looking at the space. Take this quilt that is mid quilting:

This quilt is made up of triangles left over from the Tula Pink Quilt. They have been sewn onto the white top using the quilt as you go method with the edges still raw - I kinda like the way they are unravelling!

According to mini, who has claimed it as his, it looks like a snake of kites! 

There is loads of space to play in as you can see - Negative Space. I wanted to continue the idea of swirls so I have fanned out from the main line of triangles and the used tight swirls, pebble and waves in the spaces.

The blank canvas could be scary, but I see it as a place to play, a space to have fun in trying out new ideas. It reminds me of waves crashing onto pebbles! 

The back shows the intensity of the stitching, all of the shapes formed as well as the travel stitching which is the areas I have travelled back along the design to get together point - they are the heavily sewn sections.

This quilt is going to crammed full of stitches and designs - maybe along the same theme, maybe not. I am just letting the design play out at the moment.

This small baby quilt I made last week has been quilted very differently. I didn't want to detract from the fabrics. They are Sweetwater, which are my favourite so I wanted them to play centre stage. So only the negative space, in this case cream, is quilted in matching thread with a meandering hearts and swirls pattern. Very pretty, but not heavy. The quilt has a light weight feel to it, which suits a baby quilt ad the visual impact of the fabric isn't imposed on by the quilting, added to in a delicate way.

Maxi's city quilt is another example of quilting on the quilting table. The quilt has huge, lush curves and hard rectangles built into the patchwork.So far I have decided on this mixture of swirls and pebbles, but I am letting the rest of the design sink in before I move onto more sections. I want to add to the design created by the patchwork...

In each case I am going for a different feel, adding more texture either in buckets or very gently. But in all cases I have fun!

Are my designs perfect?

NO. They most definitely are not, but they will be gorgeous and much loved quilts when they are finished, and I will have learnt something new....

If you want to catch the rest in the series you can here:

• Needles
• Threads
• Feet
• Design Part 1

Quilters Fantasy List

I follow so many quilt bloggers, fabric designs and quilt shops on Twitter that my feed is full of glorious fabrics, ideas and inspiration. At the moment though it is cruelly taunting me with Quilt Market.

For those of you who don't know, it is a huge quilt festival in Houston. It is the biggest quilt festival in world and is on my bucket list to visit. It has been a long time ambition to go... but I would need to rob a bank first!

I do have a list of people I would like to meet there - kinda like fantasy football, but with quilters!

I am dying to meet Jennifer Paganelli. Her fabrics are so vibrant and full of life! They just pop out any quilt I have ever seen with them in. I bought her Girl's World book and my young sewers have made a few things out of it - Jennifer even sent over badges for them to have! The girls were chuffed!

I taught an adult class in dress making from the book and one of the little girls who got a new dress keeps telling me how much she loves wearing the dress. I don't actually have any Sis Boom fabric yet, but it is definitely on my list for the new year.

If I met her, I would like to thank Jennifer for her support, generosity and friendship on Twitter and Facebook.

I am pretty sure she thinks I am stalking her, but I would still like to meet Angela Walters in person. I have taken her Craftsy course, bought her book and chatted with her on Twitter - one very embarrassing series of tweets which I won't repeat here....

I had shied away from machine quilting for many years. Fear of the machine, too many failed attempts and anxiety all kept well away from doing it. Hand quilting was the way in my house! Until a short deadline to make a 3yo a quilt for his 4th birthday earlier this year! I took the plunge the quilt is simply gorgeous.

Angela has helped me to learn the technique to make my quilts gorgeous, and whilst there is a long way to go until they are perfect, without Angela I wouldn't be doing the intricate work I am currently doing!

I have a signed copy of Kaffe Fassetts autobiography from the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham this year - it is in my must have bedside pile of craft books! I got all tongue tied when it finally came to seeing him - if you know me, you will know that doesn't happen very often!

I would like to thank him for the years of joy he has given me with his books, designs and fabric. How is life is an inspiration and how he has influenced the path my life has taken more than anyone else. His books were the first I bought 17 years ago when I started quilting and they are still my favourites to pull patterns ideas out of, or even just to leaf through for inspiration.

Of course I would need a strong coffee and a shove in the right direction before I could say these things to him!

The last person I would love to meet is Tula Pink. Her designs and fabrics are a new obsession to me! I did have a brief conversation with her at the Festival of Quilts, but that was before I had actually added any of designs to my stash.

I now have my Prince Charming quilt bee blocks on the design wall waiting to be put together and the Birds and Bees quilt being quilted. I love the intricate designs, the colours and they make me smile when I working with them. I would love to know where her ideas come from, how does she start the design process... can I buy her a mug of coffee?

I can't wait to see her new line in the shops... 

Okay so there are so many only quilting peeps I would love to meet, but these guys are my top 4.

Who would you like to meet and why?

Perfecting the Design...

Last week I finished a quilt top for a special birthday present.

It is gorgeous, but huge!

I have taken the Craftsy course by Angela Walters about Quilting Negative Spaces and she suggested breaking large quilts down into sections to quilt. To be honest I was a bit sceptical about that working - I mean if I quilt certain areas and then move on to another surely the layers will bunch up?

So I sat down with the gorgeous quilt and pondered a design... and I decided that the size of it does mean I have to work in sections, so what to do?

I had already decided to do a sun ray pattern in the octagons, a swirl in the middle and wavy lines radiating out, but the negative spaces had been a bit more of a mystery...

I tried a hoop design and turned over the quilt to discover a great big crease... plus the design just didn't look right in the space... seam ripper was found...

Then I tried a large single swirl... again it didn't look right and I got a crease....I hate that bloody seam ripper...

Finally I took a break and decided on a line design in one section and swirls in another... Now I am happy!

 

 

The Tula Pink design suits the sun ray design in lilac thread.

 

 

 

The corners of the octagon have lines rediating out.

 

 

Sun ray in progress on the next octagon.

I had drawn everything out, but when the ideas were actually transferred to the quilt, they looked wrong... so I am machine quilting the biggest quilt yet in sections, taking care to get it as perfect as I can...


I am late with my gift already, but I am hoping the work and effort I have put into it will make up for the lateness!



A Community

I don't know about you, but I sometimes feel isolated in the creative life I am creating.

I have a serious addiction to fabric and quilts - I can talk the hind legs off a donkey about both things! I create new patterns and designs in my sleep. I simply love everything fabric...

Whilst my lovely and fabulous friends listen and nod approval in the right places, they just don't get it.... my passion for quilting and creating patchwork is a slightly oddity - one that they love in me because they get given quilts that I have been experimenting with! But they just don't get it...

For me the blogs of the quilting community are as close as I get to 'talking' to other people with the same passion...that and Twitter!

Blogs that I follow - I have around 40 on my favourites list - are a link to other people who are just as potty about fabrics and quilts as I am. They are inspiring, informative and down right gorgeous...

They are my quilting bee!

The lovely quilters who write the blogs will probably never know that they provide a creative life line that allows me to explore ideas, learn new techniques and just feel part of a community....

There are a few I love: I'm a Ginger Monkey, Quilting is my Therapy and Stitched in Color to name 3, but I have found a couple more this week that could become firm favourites:

Live a Colorful Life is a fabulous mix of quilts, book reviews and life. It is bright a bold and I love that. The bi line 'selvaging my sanity... one stitch as a time' describes exactly how I feel!

Another fabulous blog, Handmade by Alissa is a blog all about modern quilting. There are some amazing photos of fabulous modern quilts. I love the clean lines and the negative spaces. Negative spaces are a new thing to me and I love them!

The last blog is by Angela Yosten. Again it is a mix of quilts, techniques and life. It is  full of gorgeous photos and I am a sucker for photos of quilts, fabric, cake.....

I hope you enjoy exploring the blogs... let me know if you have any I could check out!

Taking an Online Class

A little while ago, Alison from Pollyanna Patchwork wrote a blog post about the crafting website Craftsy.

It is an amazing resource of classes for all sorts of crafts, including patchwork and quilting.  The site is very clean and easy to navigate, with loads of opportunities to learn something new.

There are plenty of patchwork classes for beginners to experienced quilters, so I was really excited to find it! But money over the summer is always really tight - higher childcare costs and no private lessons....

So I had to wait until I could have a go! Luckily the site offered a free class to try out. The class is Creative Quilt Backs by Elizabeth Hartman. I tried out the course and I was really impressed, the class is broken down into sections that are easy to navigate, you can ask questions as you go and you can upload images of your work so Elizabeth can give you feedback!

I have been slowly saving my pennies, because the class I really wanted to take is Angela Walters called Machine Quilting Negative Spaces. I have been a fan of Angela for quite a long time - she is really approachable on Twitter and her blog is fantastic.

So far I have managed to watch the first 4 sections of the class, each around 20 minutes. It has been fantastic. She gives you so much information, support and ideas. The class is really well filmed and clear.

The best thing so far is that Angela is really reassuring that it doesn't need to be perfect - it is your design and the aim isn't to be perfect quilters but to add texture and design to spaces of colour. That makes me happy, since my machine quilting is no where near perfect!

I am so impressed with the class and really glad I bought it. So if your considering a Craftsy Class I say go for it!