Please vote for me!!

***UPDATE***

I won the Viewer's Choice!! Thank you so much to everyone who voted!!

Last week I entered 2 quilts in to the Autumn 2015 Blogger's Quilt Festival, and amazingly my Buffer Wheel quilt has been nominated for the Viewer's Choice!!

How exciting! I have never had a quilt nominated for anything before!! Thank you so much to all who nominated me, you have made me so happy!

If you would like to help me win a lovely prize (which perhaps I will share...) you can vote for me here. It is very easy to vote, just click on the heart in the corner of the photo. And you get 3 votes which helps with the decision making!

While you are there you can scroll down and vote in the other categories too, you can even vote for this quilt again in the ROYGBIV and for my Off-Centre Medallion in the Modern category. You know, just if you have time and actually like them!

A huge thanks to whoever votes for me!!

Blogger's Quilt Festival Autumn 2015 - Modern Quilts!

Here is my second entry for this Autumn's Blogger's Quilt Festival, this time in the Modern Quilt category.

This is my Off-centre Medallion Quilt. I made this a few months back for issue 26 of Love Patchwork and Quilting magazine (which was out last month in the UK but may be hitting the stores in the USA very soon if not now!!), and I was so delighted that it made the cover!!

The editor had seen a medallion quilt I had made last year and asked me to make a really modern one for the magazine. I decided to make it off-centre so that it was different from my previous medallion, and ended up using mostly solids (and tiny dots) to give it a bold dramatic look.

The whole time I was making it I just wasn't sure if it was going to be okay, or if I liked it or not. But once it was finished I totally fell in love with it, and it is now one of my all time favourites!

I just love the way the magazine styled this photo, I want to live in that apartment!!

I couldn't decide which category to put this in - modern or original design. In the end I went for modern as I think it is one of the most modern quilts I have made so far!

Thanks again to Amy for hosting this wonderful online event for our community. Please head on over to the festival now and take a look at the other quilts, and don't forget to nominate your favourites for the viewers choice!

Blogger's Quilt Festival Autumn 2015 - ROYGBIV Quilt!

It's that fun time of year again - Blogger's Quilt Festival time!

When I first started blogging the Quilt Festival had just started too and I have managed to take part in all but one festival ever since.

It used to be that I would save up a new quilt to preview in a big 'Ta-dah!' moment. But now the festival works with categories and is more like a proper quilt show with voting for the best quilt and prizes!

So I am posting again about my Buffer Wheel quilt as I have always wanted to have something in the ROYGBV category and this is actually the first proper Rainbow quilt I have made!

The inspiration for the design came from those moments where I stare at my phone waiting for a page to load! I suddenly realised that the spinning wheel would make a great quilt!

The quilt is made completely with Karen Lewis's screen printed textiles with the background from Carolyn Friedlander's Architexture line.

The quilt was featured in issue 24 of Love Patchwork and Quilting magazine, so if you fancy making one yourself you can get the pattern there (back copies or digital copies are available). Also this design will be a new workshop for my Edinburgh studio in the New Year. I have been asked for workshops on FPP and curved piecing so I think this will fit the bill nicely! Plus as you can see my cat Hector loves it too!

A huge thanks as always to Amy for organising such a fun event! Head on over to the festival now to check out all the amazing quilts and nominate your favourites!

Blogger's Quilt Festival Spring 2015 - Lone Star Rising Quilt

Welcome to the Blogger's Quilt Festival Spring 2015! Today I am entering a second quilt to the Festival for the first time. 

This is my Lone Star Rising quilt which I am entering in the Modern Quilt Category.

This is also the first time I have ever entered a quilt that I have previously posted about as I usually keep the BQF for 'Premieres'!

I made this quilt earlier this year for issue 9 of Quilt Now magazine. The editor Katy specifically asked for a Lone Star design and having never tackled one before I jumped at the chance.

I chose to chop off 4 of the star's 'arms' and place it in the top left hand corner so that it would look like a rising sun - hence the name.
It is made entirely from Carolyn Friedlander's fabric, the star is all 'Doe' with the background and binding from her previous ranges.
I free-motion quilted a trailing leaf pattern all over the quilt which contained 4 different types of leaf.

My original post about this quilt is here.
The quilt only arrived back with me a few days ago and is now firmly ensconced on my bed as our official 'bed quilt'. But I did manage to take one new photo of it for this post...

For those of you who like all the stats it measures 181cm square (71 inches) and was pieced and quilted with a green Aurifil 50 number 5017.

Off you go back to the Blogger's Quilt Festival now!
And thanks again Amy for all your hard work hosting this amazing event!

Blogger's Quilt Festival Spring 2015 - Modern Medallion Quilt is finished!

Hello! Today I am entering my Modern Medallion Quilt into the Original Design category of the Blogger's Quilt Festival!

I have taken part in almost every Blogger's Quilt Festival since they started but I missed last Autumn's. So it's good to be back and showing this finished quilt for the first time!!

I made the quilt top last December for an evening course that I ran earlier this year. It was a bit of a rush to get it finished before I launched the 2015 prospectus so I didn't have time to quilt it. You can read about this quilt's beginnings in this post.

The course has now finished and some of my students were already busy quilting their's so I thought I better get on with it!

I actually finished the FMQ a few weeks back but have been adding some hand quilting details and this has slowed me down a bit.

I chose this Riley Blake word search fabric for the back and spent a REALLY LONG time on the FMQ! I think about 12 hours which is the most I have ever spent on a quilt. But I wanted to try out a different design for each 'round'.
And now I want to show them all off to you so prepare for a photo heavy post!

For the centre I tried out some big spirals with bubbles. This is a pattern I tried out on a Long Arm at the Angela Walters class I took at QuiltCon earlier this year, it's very effective. And just so you know I have a Pfaff Quilt Expression 4.0 domestic machine, no Long Arms yet for me!

I love quilting leaves but wanted to try a different approach here, these leaves are interlocking and veined. I also changed the colour of my Aurifil 50 on each round.
Above the leaves is a Paisley pattern I wanted to try out. I think this has more potential and I plan to expand on it in a future quilt.

This is a sort of mussel pattern variation in the corner blocks. Trudi showed me how to do the 'mussels' at Fat Quarterly Retreat a few years back and they are great fillers.

I wanted the Spools to 'pop out' more so I quilted tiny clamshells in between them added the hand quilting on the spools later with coloured perle cotton 8.
The top and bottom of the spools were meant to resemble knots in wood grain - not sure how well that works but it was a fun border pattern. More leaves in the yellow border above.

For the wide Twirling Stars border I quilted long lines of very meandering feathers. The last border got a simple daisy chain in yellow which really stands out against the Franklin hot pink fabric.

I missed out this 'Ladder' round which the square quilting. This was another pattern I tried for the first time with Angela Walters, it's fun but stressful as you have to make so many quick decisions! And I do find curved lines easier than straight.
I little more hand quilting filled up those portholes in the corners.

The only bit I didn't FMQ were the New York Beauty corners which got a little walking foot action and a last hand quilted detail.
For those of you who like to know this sort of thing the quilt is 171cm square (67 inches).

I took this quilt out to our field to photograph last week when the sun came out on an otherwise cloudy day. Here it is by our top pond, with views over to the Firth of Forth and the Kingdom of Fife.

At the top of our field my husband has recently built this gorgeous Gothic Arbour, so we can sit sheltered by the wind (and rain!) and enjoy the view. We can see the Forth Bridge from here. Would you like your own Gothic Arbour? Check out the details here.

Of course it also works rather well as a quilt prop!

Thank you so much for indulging me and getting through this very long post!

I hope you are enjoying the Blogger's Quilt Festival and please head on over/back and check out more of the beautiful quilts.

As always a huge thanks to Amy for hosting this wonderful event!

The Stitch Gathering Ticket Quilt!

Today I am taking part in the Blogger's Quilt Festival Spring 2014! I have exhibited at every festival apart from the first (didn't get my blog started until a few weeks after it took place!).

Once you've read all about this quilt please head over to Amy's blog and take a look at all the others!

Last August I hosted the first Stitch Gathering Modern Quilt Retreat in Edinburgh. It was a huge success and we are just gearing up for another great day on September 14th this year.

Last year all participants were sent a fabric ticket in the post. We had these printed in 7 different colourways by Spoonflower.

We asked everyone to embellish their tickets any way they wanted and hand them back at the event.
Well, as you can see, our Retreaters excelled themselves!

A couple of weeks ago I started piecing all 56 blocks in to this quilt which I just finished (almost) yesterday.
I'd love to show you a close up of every single ticket as they are all so imaginative and creative, but I know you have other quilts to view so we'll just highlight a few sections.

I started to hand quilt some of the centres to add extra texture (see top left and right tickets above) but ran out of time (and my wrist was twinging again), but I will continue to hand quilt where I think it adds to the design over the next few months.

Here's a close-up of the FMQ quilting. I did a sort of trailing double loop in the sashing using a dark turquoise colour and daisies in the border using a variegated green that gives quite an unusual effect. Both threads were Aurifil 50 in shades 2810 and 4653 respectively. Both of which I received in the amazing Stitch Gathering goody bag from last year's event! Thanks Alex ;)

I also machine quilted around a lot of the inner circles with my walking foot, but it was fiddly so I decided to try hand quilting the rest.

The plan has always been to raffle the finished quilt for charity, and so that everyone who had a hand in making the quilt gets to help choose the charity we are going to hold a poll on our website and ask Last Year's Retreaters to vote from a short list. Once tickets are ready to sell I will let everyone know here.

We can then exhibit the quilt at this year's event and choose the raffle ticket at the end of the day. I love how this has become a kind of community arts project now!

Here is the back, I didn't have enough of the Amy Butler fabric to match the pattern but the colours work so well that I decided not to let it annoy me too much!

It was hard to decide which category to enter this in, as the group quilt category has disappeared this year, so I have plumped for Art Quilts as each one of these tickets is a little work of art in my opinion! And somehow they've all worked together to produce a beautiful quilt!

I have a fantastic, and quite different idea for this year's Stitch Gathering ticket which I am working on currently. Tickets should be landing on doormats in June and if you'd like one yourself and to take part in this year's ticket project (as well as all the rest of the Stitch Gathering fun!) we still have some event tickets left. All the details are here.

Now head on over to the quilt festival for more quilty beauty and fun!

Blogger's Quilt Festival Autumn 2013

Today I am taking part in my 9th Blogger's Quilt Festival! 

Thank you so much Amy for hosting this wonderful event for our community.

This time I am previewing my Scrappy Trip Around The World Quilt.

But as I have used polka dots throughout I thought I should call it Polka Around The World!

Not only did I use all dots but I also tried to deliberately go from light to dark squares from the centre out of each block. This has given the whole design a more pronounced 'diamond' effect than the scrappy ones I have done in the past.

I know there have been a lot of these quilts around this year due to a QAL, but I actually discovered the fantastic Quiltville Tutorial a couple of years ago and used it to make cot quilts to sell in our shop. I then taught the technique as part of a Modern Patchwork Technique evening class. A month or so back I taught a full day workshop  too and realised I had used up all my class samples on cot quilts and needed to make more for the class.

The class went very well so I thought I better make a whole quilt which would help sell a repeat class in the new year.
Also I was loving these dotty blocks! So I made 16 blocks and thought that might be enough, or should I add borders? But after a discussion on Instagram and some great advice, I decided to keep going and make 25.



Here is the back, it's very bright even on a dull day like this! It's a Kaufman fabric that didn't sell so well in the shop, but I really love it.

I used up some scraps to make a strip between the seams, but the fabric pattern is so busy that you can hardly see them!

The binding is a Kaufman newsprint fabric. I am very in to using monochrome binding, I think because my quilts usually have enough colour in them already they need some good old black and white to frame them.

Oh and the quilting... I was quite experimental here (for me!). I decided to FMQ a single circle in the middle of each square with a single line between each circle.

It was a very zen type experience to spend so many hours (approx. 4 in total) trying to draw the perfect circle with my sewing machine. As you can see I only managed it some of the time but it was fun trying!

I also love the idea of a circle inside a square and then circles all over the squares! It makes sense in my mind.
Overall I am pretty much in love with this quilt and it even got the thumbs up from my husband and son!

Thanks for listening to my story and now head on over to Amy's Creative Side and enjoy all the other beautiful quilts on display there. Oh and I think I will be entering this quilt into the scrappy category!