Bloggers Quilt Festival Spring 2013

Phew I just made it! 

Yes, I have just snuck in to the Blogger's Quilt Festival Spring 2013 on the last day!

Thanks so much to Amy for hosting one of my favourite events in the quilting year.

Usually I am right there at the front of the queue but this year I was waiting for a quilt to come back from the Long Arm Quilters. I picked it up last night.

This is 'Frida', and this is the first time I have ever had a quilt professionally quilted. It is also the first quilt I have 'made' that properly fits my bed!

And what a quilt!!

Frida was made as a Round Robin quilt in the Flickr group 'Around the bend and across the pond' (an offshoot of The Old Red Barn Co. Quilt Along) and finished last September.

We were a group of 8 tackling medallion quilts and called 'The Awesome Rawsome Round Robins!' Or ARRR8 for short.
We each sent a centre to the next person on the list and they added a border and sent it on to the next person who added a border, etc.
Every month we posted photos on Flickr so we could see how it was developing, which was so exciting!

My centre was this amazing Frida Kahlo fabric by Alexander Henry that was given me in a Flickr swap by Marilyn. I had been hoarding it as I didn't really know what I wanted to do with it and couldn't bear to cut in to it! I asked the group to use the centre as inspiration for their rounds.
And as you can see they all really went for it!
I don't think I have ever seen another quilt like it . It is huge (85 x 79" or 216 x 200cm), incredibly bright and loud (with a distinctly rastafari feel!) and with really extraordinary details. You can read more about the evolution of this quilt here.

I knew I wasn't up to quilting this monster myself, so I turned to Brian and Carole of Beechwood Quilting. I had been recommended to them by a few other UK quilters and they are based not far from where I live.
They spent a long time with me discussing how to tackle the quilt and coming up with great suggestions. In the end I pretty much left it up to them.

And I totally love what they've done! Look at those amazing leaves above! Aren't they incredible? They have added a whole new dimension to the quilt top.

This was always going to be a challenge to quilt and could so easily have been spoiled by an all over pattern. Instead Brian and Carole have picked out areas to quilt heavily, like the black above and left these incredible paper pieced leaves to 'pop-out' in relief.

Boy was this quilt hard to photograph! My husband just didn't have the arm length! And it was too windy this morning to hang it on the line. I used this Anna Maria Horner Field Study print for the backing and pieced it around the siggy block (which was signed by all the makers).
I was lucky enough to have the perfect binding, a stripe from Global Bazaar by Blend, and I stayed up pretty late last night attaching it. I knew I wouldn't have time to hand stitch from the back so I worked from the back first, turning over at the front and top stitching. It is my easy cheat method and actually looks really smart here.

This photo shows the gorgeous detailing coupled with the amazing quilting. Dolores appliqued and embroidered those beautiful exotic blooms in each corner and Jo added the 3D pinwheels along with the bunting style final border. Brian and Carole stippled so carefully in the black and orange so that the motifs really stand out. I also love the trailing leaves with little berries quilting pattern that cover the Echino jungle print which Dolores kindly provided.

This is such a special quilt, made almost entirely by others. All I have done is piece together the backing and bind it! Thank you so much to all my fellow ARRR8ers and to Brian and Carole for their wonderful quilting . I would thoroughly recommend them to anyone wanting to try a professional quilter. Their website is here.
There are so many amazing quilts in the Bloggers Quilt Festival, make sure you check them all out here. And voting starts tomorrow!

Finish-a-Long 2013

I didn't take part in this last year. Somehow I thought I didn't have that much to get finished. Well this year I have!

But I am going to try to be realistic as the FAL is divided into quarters which gives me only 3 months to tackle these.

So in this first post I am going to list just 4 projects to get finished.

1. First of all my ARRR8 Across the pond, around the bend quilt top needs quilting...

... it's a whopper! I really want to hand quilt it, but do I have enough man hours available? Anyway the first think to tackle will be the basting!

2. Then there's my African Flower Blanket...

... the oldest project on this list, started 2 and a half years ago. To be fair I have been treating this blanket as finished recently, it is often wrapped around me on the sofa and I don't really need to make it any bigger. But I do need to square off and finish the edges and sort out all those 'tails'.

3. The most recently started project, my Forth Bridge EPP top, made for the Travellin' Pic Sitch Blog Hop...

...featured in a very recent blog post, it's still waiting for inspiration. Well actually I have decided to make it into a wheelchair lap quilt for my dad. And Dolores had the great idea (why do I never think of this?) to add borders to get it to the right size. So that's what I'm going to do and then it needs quilting too.

4. Last of all the jumper I started knitting...

... for my son Felix. Much to our delight, he announced on New Year's Day that he would be coming home some time in February! We have not seen him since he went off travelling at the end of March. He is in South America at the moment so he'll be really needing this jumper when he gets back to Scotland! I've done the back and about a third of the front. This finish better go to the top of the list I think!

I'm really excited about taking part in the FAL this year, and am even sponsoring a prize! I already feel motivated to get finishing. What about you? Are you planning some finishing off soon?

Finished Round Robin Top

My Frida Kahlo quilt top has arrived home!  And just look at it! Who would have thought that centre panel would inspire such a stunning quilt!!
It is actually SO big that I can't get a very good photo of it (90 x 81"). But taking it outside yesterday in the sun should give you an idea of how incredibly saturated with colour it is.

The girls that worked on this did such an amazing job. Here are some close ups from the outside in. The last round was done by the only other Brit Quilter in my group SewJo. I love how she framed the whole top with these brights/black points. And look at that tiny piece of fabric origami in the corners! Jo is so good at these tiny pieced corners.
You can also see part of Dolores's round here too. I had suggested a 'mysterious jungle' theme inspired by the centre fabric and Dee really went for it with this gorgeous Echino fabric - so perfect! And then out did herself with those needle-turn appliqued exotic flowers in the corners.

The round before was Greta's. How ingenius is that piecing?! I love this effect and the way she carried on the swathes of solids from Nichol's round of black gold and green bands (Rastafari!)

Susan pieced these clever stacked bricks for her round, all the girls have done such a great job matching the colours for this top!
Those awesome leaves and lines of sawteeth were all paper pieced by the very talented Christine, and I think this round, along with Pam's first one, really set the tone for the whole piece (and totally intimidated the rest of the group!). I am also in awe of their piecing abilities.

And here is Pam's first round. Those blue and red ribbons are all curve pieced into the red! She has done it so well that you are fooled in to thinking it is the design on the fabric. And looking it this again while typing, I've just realised how cleverly Dolores has mimicked the piecing in Pam's corners with her appliqued flowers!
There is just so much details here that I am still finding stuff!

 Here is the siggy block I sent with the quilt, all filled up!

 Look where Frida has been! She is very well travelled round America! You can read more about the start of her journey here.

I think I may have had a few wee moans about the cost of posting the tops to the USA, especially as they got so big! Dear Jo, who was always sending to me from Northamptonshire, sent me up one of her beautiful sewing/crochet wraps to compensate!

Jo, you are such a sweetie and I can't believe you hand made this, it is so professionally done. And also just what I need!

And on the day that my Around the Bend Across the Pond top came home, somebody else came to visit from Across the Pond (but she's not round the bend!). It's Karen Cosmos, an ORBC regular and Flickr friend from Vancouver. Karen came over 2 years ago and we had a lovely day in Edinburgh with Marg and Lynz. Karen was over then for her son's wedding to an Edinburgh girl and this time she is over to visit her first grandchild. She came to my shop to see me and buy a couple of my husband's photographic prints. I jumped at the chance to show her the top and she helped me spread it out on my craft table (which is actually really big!).

I feel so honoured to have this beautiful quilt top which all these lovely ladies have worked so hard on and put such beautiful work in to. Thank you ARRR8!!
Now this is going to have to go in my UFO pile for a bit as I have decided that I really should hand quilt it *gulp*, and I have a few other projects to finish first!

ARRR8 completed

Isn't this just stunning?! It's not mine and I can only take credit for a small part of it, but this is the last top in the 'Around the Bend and Across the Pond' round robin I have been participating in (an Old Red Barn Company group).
Our group is called ARRR8 (long story and even longer name!) and we have been at this since January and I think I have managed to finish first (a fluke and not really down to me). I last wrote about the group here.
This is Pam's (uberstitch) top. She made that amazing middle with the most incredibly yummy palette.

Every month a different member of the group puts on a another round and sends it on.
Boy, have these tops grown big! Way bigger than we anticipated I think!
I added that last border of scrappy piano keys mixed in with the black and white floral fabric (Adventures with Alice by Darlene Zimmerman). I think Pam's top is my favourite of the whole swap. Pam will be getting this back now and will see the finished top for the first time as soon as I get the photos loaded to Flickr (unless she is reading this now!)

Here is Christine's. Again, another stunning centre piece. The last round before mine was made by Jo (Sewjo) and she totally outdid herself with that amazing paper piecing to echo the centre. I didn't know how to follow that! In the end I kept it simple with bunting flags and plain pink corners. This still needs one more round.

This is Susan's, I love her limited palette of black, grey and yellow. Everyone also sent out a little notebooks so that each of us could write about our ideas as we added our round. We also all did siggy blocks for everyone to sign.

Jo had done those amazing flying geese with paper pieced cornerstones (I really drew the short straw having to follow Jo!), the geese are in the sky above the houses Dolores had made (she called them her little villages).  I thought I would continue the analogy and put a starry night sky above.

I machine appliqued them and put the moon in 4 different phases in the corners

This is Nichol's and is already huge and after my round needs another 3!! Jo had outdone herself again with the quarter New York Beauties *sigh*. I really liked the pinwheels Greta had used on her round so I decided to echo these with mini floating pinwheels on mine.

I think this round took me longer than any of the others!
It has been such a great challenge to work out what to do each month. I think that has been the best bit about this, getting a fat parcel in the post and taking out another half finished quilt top and deciding what you could add to it.
I have really loved taking part in the round robin even if the postage back to the States has been killing me every month! I think next time I might try to get an all UK group going! And possibly make the maximum size for the centre a little smaller!

And now I have the extra delight of getting my top back too! My Frida Kahlo inspired top is looking amazing and still has 2 more rounds to go! I am going to wait till I get it back before I show you, but for those of you who can't wait, here is a link to the Flickr Group.

Remember the Cygnet Superwash DK I told you about in my last post? The one I am going to use in my Budget Granny Blanket? Well here it is sitting on the shelves in our Edinburgh store. It is also now available on our website. Only £2.60 a ball for 50g 100% pure merino wool!

Irate Pirate Update

Here's a quick update on the Around the Bend Across the Pond quilt tops I have been working on. Our group is called ARRR8 (which in my head has become Irate Pirate), and we are doing a Round Robin Quilt. This is an offshoot of the Old Red Barn Co group on Flickr and you can read more about it here.

This is Greta's quilt. She wants orange, turquoise and grey, but otherwise we get a free hand. Greta did the centre star and Dolores did the thread spools and the scrappy stripes. Then Jo did the next border, with those awesome pieced stars.

And then I was up next. First off I decided I wanted a bit more contrast with the colours, so I added the thin charcoal strip. Then I ummed and ahhed and eventually decided to do that diamond border made of HST blocks. It was going to go all the way round with something different on the corner blocks. But I miscalculated and didn't have enough blocks (distracted by something shiny probably).

So I decided to take up the thread spool motif and made 6 of these and scrappily wedged them in to the short edge. This is the first time I have pieced these - they are fun, fun, fun! One of the nice things about working on these tops is getting a chance to try out some techniques without committing to a whole quilt.

So that was this month's quilt. Last month I worked on Dolores's top. She is going for a very scrappy affair and wants us to use any colours from her centre piece.

All the autumnal colours were making me think of trees and I had an idea that I would applique circle tree tops above those thin scrappy stripes above. But in the end it looked way too busy and squashed in. So instead I needle-turn appliqued a different scrappy leaf on to each corner square. Maybe Pam will attempt the treetops in her round, or maybe she will have a much better idea! The other thing I love about this round robin is that you end up with a stake in every quilt in the group as we will each have contributed a row. So not only are you looking out for what is happening with your quilt but also all the other quilts you have worked on.

And what is happening to my quilt? Well here it is! Just 2 rounds so far but they are both stunning. Pam pieced, yes pieced, that red ribbony border and Christine also pieced those amazing leaves and that gorgeous saw tooth! I just adore all the black and can't wait to see what happens next!

And one more piece of exciting news... tonight I am off to Glasgow to join in the West Coast (of Scotland) Modern Quilt Guild!! That means I get to meet Katy, Fiona and Lynz!!! And have a drink as we are meeting in a bar and I am getting the train!

I will let you know how it goes...

Scrappy Colour Squares

Remember I showed you the centre of Jo's quilt for our Around the Bend and Across the Pond Round Robin a few weeks back? Well I've finished the first round.

After all the time I spent with solids working on my FLQS top, I just didn't want to stop, and as Jo had asked for 'bright colours mixed with white' I thought I could get away with a few more solids here.

So I got out my scrap bag and made these little 'double scrap' 2" squares, then bordered each with a bright solid. After adding an aqua border to the original centre, I sashed all the little blocks in white, and somehow it all worked out and fitted together! Usually my maths or my seam allowances are all off, so I was very pleasantly surprised that this all worked.
Now to send it off to Pam and wait and see what she will do next. Meanwhile I have received Dee's but have another Month before I need to get that finished and sent on (phew!).

I love using up scraps and often start straight away with left over bits and pieces after finishing a project. As I had made my curved blocks for the FLQS top a bit bigger so I could trim to size, I had lots of strips left. I sorted these into 3 lengths and sewed them together. I thought I could make at least one of them into a little extra for my partner.
I was thinking needlebook, but have already had a suggestion of a mug rug (I hardly dare admit that I have never actually made a mug rug - I guess there is a first time for everything!).
Any more ideas from my dear readers?

And as we are covering colourful squares today, I thought you might like to see the progress I am making on my Psychedelic Granny Circles.

That's 20 done with 80 more to go before the end of April!