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!

A Special Delivery

If you have been following my blog over the last few weeks you will know that I have been working hard on a gorgous Tula Pink quilt for a very special friend.

I has been a long 8 weeks with lots of late night quilting!

We went to a family party at the recipients house this weekend and I needed to make sure the quilt was finished by then - I wasn't going to trust the post with this precious quilt!

Unfortunately my manic week of work and being a Scout leader had finally got me and I gave up attaching the binding in favour of sleep, so the quilt wasn't quite finished when I presented it to her on Saturday afternoon...

I have to admit I felt very nervous driving up. Her mum and I had selected the fabric and I had put the design together, so Lily didn't have any input into the quilt at all... it is an 18th birthday present, what if I had screwed it up?

Luckily she absolutely loved it! The huge smile and look of wonder in her eyes told me it was fine!

So we partied on Saturday night and I got up super early on Sunday (the monsters dragged me out of bed at 5.50am after going to bed at 1.30am!) to finish the quilt binding for her:

 

 

The best bit about finishing and gifting a quilt is seeing it being used! Lily has already had a snooze under it and as you can see it is already part of the household!

 

 

 

Lilys sisters have now booked their colours for their 18th birthday presents in 2014... 2 quilts for the gorgeous twins!



Backing it in brown!

A little while ago I posted a blog about an idea I had for using up the triangle scraps from the Snowball quilt I am currently quilting.

These little triangles are small and worth using (what fabric isn't worth using), but I didn't fancy sewing them together in the traditional way to make blocks.... I had an idea to quilt them as I go onto a white background, and since money is tight I had to use the fabric in my stash to back the quilt... hence the brown backing!

As you will know if you follow my blog, I have been pondering Autumn colours this week and the brown fits into the colour spectrum, but it is a washed out kinda brown so it wouldn't have made it into a starring role on a quilt.

Today one of my lovely sewing girls didn't come to class and as I had set up her machine and my one young lady was working on free motion designs, I thought I would get started with my idea...

It was a bit haphazard in the planning stage, because space and time was limited, but I managed to get the 3 layers together and started to quilt the scrap triangles:

I have used my walking foot to go around the outside of the triangles starting at the tip and then move onto the next one by quilting through the middle of the triangle to the next one.  So I have a chain of flying triangular scraps:

I have now pinned all the triangles into place on the front so that they trail across the quilt. The backing is looking really good with the trail of quilting:

So far I am really pleased with the experiment!

Have you tried a new method recently?

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!



Post box watching...

No I don't have a fascination with the Postman, I have just got loads of yummy things coming!

First there are the blocks for the Anything Goes Quilting Bee. As you know I created the bee so I sent out the first block instructions fabric. Now the fantastic finished blocks are coming back:

They are all fantastic! There are 7 more to come back, so I will be watching the post box for quite a bit longer.....

I also have a fantastic bundle of fabrics coming from Fat Quarter Shop.... Now that only left the US on Saturday so could take 3 weeks to get here... but I wish it would get here soon!

I have this fabulous bundle from Tula Pink for a very special quilt and this month bloggers choice bundle too.... So fly fast my parcel from Fat Quarter Shop!

And finally I have been really naughty this morning and ordered some fabric from Eclectic Maker for my sewing classes. My young ladies on a Tuesday really wanted some 'big boy' fabric for Daddies Christmas present. They chose this wonderful bundle from Parson Grey:

I also bought some mega cute Micheal Miller Elephants for a secret project...

So Mr Postman, remember I bought you a box of chocolate at Christmas? Please deliver me some lovely fabric soon....