Sneak Peeks and Hand Sewing

I've entered a bit of a frantic period with lots of magazine commissions due all at once, lots of teaching in the studio, and the Stitch Gathering coming up on Sunday - eeek!

Normally I wait until I have lovely finished project to chat about over here, but alas I have nothing finished I can show you at the moment. So instead I thought I would share all the sneak peeks of the secret sewing I have been posting on Instagram, plus some new adventures in hand sewing...

I can't wait to share more about this new project I am working on using Tilda's Harvest fabric (I can in about 5 weeks time!). I haven't worked with Tilda fabric much before and I absolutely love it!

The fabric feels gorgeous and looks so good that I hardly need to do anything to it to make something beautiful. I'm really enjoying using these pretty pastels and more muted shades (for me!).



This was my fabric pull for a new hand sewing project. The palette was inspired by my new Anna Maria Horner collection of Aurifil 12wt threads that I obtained at Festival of Quilts (I won't say bought as it was a freebie 😀)

Here's a sneaky peek at the hand quilting on this project. I loved using the 12wt, it glides through the layers so effortlessly and is easier on my hands than the number 8 I've used previously. I've ordered some for the shop (including the AMH box) and they should be in any day now.

My latest quilt finish uses Denyse Schmidt's new Washington Depot fabric. It's such a fabulous collection, classic DS style and colour, and also available at our online store here! 

I'm totally in love with this new quilt and can't wait to show it off (at the end of the year)!

In the meantime I had a little fun with my scraps. I had a rare weekend day off week last Saturday, and made these two improv panels.

Of course you can probably work out by now where this is going...

Yes, another tendril pouch!!

I am acquiring quite a collection!

In fact...

Here comes another one!

Everybody loved the last one I made using Outback Wife fabric so I thought I would try the other design I have in this line, and this time with circles instead of leaves! This fabric is Elaine in orange.

And talking about that rare Saturday off a week or so back... I actually had time to get my paints and brushes out and do a bit of design doodling.

It's something I love to do but never seem to make time for. But I took myself off to the Tiny House and had a blissful afternoon being creative. I was chuffed with the result!
(note to self: MUST DO THIS MORE!)

I liked it so much that I used it as inspiration for this applique hand quilted panel. I am going to turn this into a fabric storage pot, and while I'm at it I plan to turn it into a Tutorial for you all! This will hopefully be later next week, so stay tuned!

It's time for another new project! This is for another magazine and a new one to me. This won't be published till next Spring but there is a fair bit of hand work involved so I've started early.

And also because I was longing to do a bit more applique after finishing that last panel above. I just love appliqueing circles, especially in these bright cheerful colours!

I am really enjoying my hand work at the moment, and my hand and wrist issues seem to be under control. Maybe it's because of all the lovely Aurifil thread I am using along with those super fine Tulip needles?

The right tools can certainly make a lot of difference!

Announcements Galore!

I've been meaning to publish a newsy post for ages and now my 'news bag' is full to bursting! So I am going to get everything out there in one big announcement splurge! 

Did you know it is World Craft Week this week?! 

Check out the Facebook page to find out how to get involved with this year's challenge:

"Share your craft crush and take part in World Craft Week's inspiring challenge!

To celebrate all things crafty, we're challenging you to post a photo, or share a short crafting video, of something you've made on our Facebook page. Tag someone or something that inspires you and your craft, encouraging them to take up the World Craft Week challenge as well. Remember to use the hashtag #worldcraftweek when you share your craft crush with us"

Plus there is still time to sign up for more info and get a free digital magazine with 25 craft projects!

That lovely little 'yarn bee' above is the logo for the Indie Burgh Yarn Crawl, brain child of Jessica from Ginger Twist Studio. In previous year's this has been a yarn shop crawl around Edinburgh, but this year it's expanded to include all sorts of fabric and craft shops too, and myBearpaw is taking part (plus we do sell yarn!).

It takes place on Saturday 17 June 2017 and is a great way to support local craft shops and get involved with the crafting community. Each shop validation on your 'Craft Passport' counts as a raffle entry. Check out the Facebook page for more info. Passports will be available from myBearpaw and other participating shops soon, plus look out for some special offers and other excitements that we have planned for the day!

This year's Thread House Retreat was such a great success that we are repeating the event at the same time and at the same place next year! This is a residential weekend retreat hosted by myself, Karen Lewis and Lynne Goldsworthy for around 40 participants, held at Folly Farm near Bristol. Take a look at the retreat page on our website for more info about last year's event and sign up for news about the next one. We'll be releasing tickets sometime in June, more details soon!         

And speaking of Retreats... 

Get ready everyone! Stitch Gathering 2017 tickets will be released on Friday at 1pm. This will be our 5th event and takes place on Sunday 8th October at Napier University's Craiglockhart Campus, Edinburgh. As in previous years we won't release details about workshops, teachers, ticket projects or swaps until the summer. If you are new to the event and would like to know what all the fuss is about check out my report blog post from last year, and this page featuring last year's classes from our Stitch Gathering website. Tickets will cost £120. 

The second Knitting and Stitching Show Edinburgh is coming up soon! 

It's at the Royal Highland Show Ground, just by the airport on 27th - 30th April. Last year's event was a huge success and this year there is even more reason to come - our Edinburgh Modern Quilt Guild have our own Gallery Space and will be exhibiting a number of our member's quilts!

Plus I will be teaching a class every day to make this Patchwork Storage Caddy. You can buy tickets for the workshops here. I will also be demoing twice a day in both Origami bags and Log Cabin Tote Bags - all demos are free!

If you haven't already bought a ticket to the K & S show then you can get £2 off each ticket (£1 off concessions) by quoting code DISC3 at checkout .

If you can't make it to Edinburgh then perhaps I will see you at the Festival of Quilts in August! 

I am teaching there again this year - my Patchwork Portraits Workshop and my 3D Improv Dresden Workshop. Tickets and booking is available already to Quilter's Guild members with general public release very imminent. Check out all the details here.

Plus don't forget to enter a quilt this year! I will be entering a few including one to the new Modern Quilt Category that launched last year. The quilt exhibition is not juried so if you enter your quilt it will be hung!

We have some new fabric which I actually managed to list online! This is Denyse Schmidt's Winter Walk and Joel Dewberry's Modernist. We have it available it FQs, yardage and bundles! Check out our website here.

Lastly a huge thank you to whoever voted for me in the British Craft Awards! I came third in best Quilt Designer of the year and second in Best Quilting Blog of the year!! The last one makes me especially pleased as I guess it means some of you really like to read my ramblings over here. 

Thank you so much, that means such a lot to me :)

P.S. If you haven't had enough of me yet then why not read an interview with me on Judith Hollies blog, part of her Meet the Maker series. It was published a month but March went by in such a blur that I only just got a chance to read it!

Fujiwhara Quilt

Ta Da!! This is my Fujiwhara Quilt and it's already one of my favourite quilts ever - maybe actually THE favourite! I find it very difficult to stop myself staring at it lovingly - is that weird?!

I made this back in February/March and have been desperate to share it since then!

But of course it was for a magazine so I had to wait. Look at this stunning photo from Today's Quilter! They always make my quilts look so lovely.

And it made the cover - what a thrill!! If you haven't tried this magazine yet then you really should, it just gets better and better!

I was sent this beautiful fabric by the lovely folks at Coats late last year. It is Eastham the new collection from my favourite fabric designer, Denyse Schmidt. Unfortunately Coats have since then decided not to make this available in the UK... except from... me! Yes I should have part of the collection available for sale very soon (fingers crossed, and in some ways I'll believe it when I see it!).

My initial idea was to do something with stars, that would have interlacing sashing and cornerstones.

But then I came across this Storm at Sea block which I used for my  Mystery Quilt, and totally fell in love with it. I love the way diamonds turn into curves, and how kaleidoscopic it can be.

I simplified the block design and then using my EQ7 software I played around the colour and values for ages till I came up with this version.

For the magazine I did a whole bit about colour placement, using some of the other versions plus a blank block for readers to try out with themselves. And if you look at the bottom you will see another slightly different version of the block as a matching cushion. I don't think this will be the last 'storm at sea version' quilt I make either!

I used variegated orange (4150) Aurifil 50 thread to FMQ a mussels patterm. It's probably one of the most successful patterns I have done - I could pretty much do this on every quilt, I think it looks fab and was quick and easy!

Here's the cushion (without it's pad), refer to top pics to see it alongside the quilt. I just adore that acid yellow/gold colour. Also in the photo above you can see the background fabric clearly - it is 'Spot on' in Meringue by Kaufman, one of my favourite lines.

And you are probably wondering about the title? For a long time this quilt was called the 'Eastham quilt' but when I finished I thought I better re-name it and stared googling 'storm at sea' weather terminology. And this came up:
"The Fujiwhara effect is the tendency of two nearby tropical cyclones to rotate cyclonically about each other." This seemed a pretty perfect description to me!

And what will become of this quilt? Well I have had lots of requests to teach it as a class already (and I will do I promise!), but actually I am planning to give it to my best friend Lisi, who has a special birthday coming up next month, and only a really special quilt will do for my special friend :)

Mystery Quilt Update

We are up to week 7 of my Mystery Quilt evening course tonight so I thought it was a good time to share the quilt's progress so far.

I shared the first couple of blocks in posts earlier this year and explained how offering this class back in December (when we launched the term) had given me a couple of extra months to plan a new intermediate patchwork course. This was of course completely dependent on my students having faith in my design abilities as they had nothing to go on when they booked this (luckily they trust me!)!

Here is a re-cap of the first 'snail's trail' block and the first block I made, top right. This ended up as block 4 as I thought students needed a bit of a 'run at it'!

So the bottom left 'shooting star' block became week 2.

And this 'sawtooth checkerboard' was number 3. Yes I have to keep coming up with names for the blocks too - not my strong point!

The idea is that we make a block in class and then at home students 're-mix' the block any way they like for their second block (giving us 16 blocks at the end). Here is my re-mix of number 3. So far the students have all amazed and impressed me with their imaginative re-mixes!

Here is my re-mix of number 4, except this is actually the original block 'storm at sea' and the first version was my remix (keep up at the back!). I have been using EQ7 for some of these blocks (the ones with FPP templates) and am finding this software really useful as I get better at it.

I have also become increasingly fascinated by this block and the way the diamond shapes give the optical illusion of curves. I have just finished a whole quilt with some of these same elements for a magazine. I can't wait to share it here but publication isn't until the end of May!

Block 5 was a mini Lone Star. Each week the blocks are getting more challenging for my class. But they are totally up for it and are rising to the challenge with no complaints!

I thought this block had limited options for re-mixing so didn't really try anything for my second one (except switching the background from light to dark). But then one of my students astounded me by rotating each of the corners 180 degrees (and making each corner have a different background) to make a totally different block!

This same student, Mags, is actually making 4 different blocks each week (for a giant quilt!) and is really shining with her different re-mixes, as are all my students. One of the most wonderful (and surprising) things about teaching is how much you constantly learn from your students!

This is block 6 and another from EQ7. They call this 'morning star' and it is all FPP and therefore quite time consuming. But I love it!

I wasn't sure how the mixed light and dark background was really going to work for the re-mixed block but actually it is my favourite block so far.

It's quite hard coming up with ideas for new blocks each week so I have talked the students into designing their own blocks for the last class.
I thought a really fun last class would be to let the students design their own blocks! I think they have acquired enough confidence and knowledge of techniques through this quite rigorous course to give it a go under my tutelage.

But that still leaves week 7 tonight. Carrying forward my 'each week more challenging than the last' mantra we are really going for it this week with a double New York Beauty type block which I adapted from an EQ7 block (there was actually even more detail in the original!) called 'Rolling Wheel'.

It is ridiculously laborious! I managed to make a quarter of the block last week to show them and I feel like it has taken me all week to finish it! And it is very far from perfect!

Poor Mags, can she really make 4 of these??!! So I am thinking I will offer an easier alternative as well. I have a block up my sleeve that I was going to use for my 'design your own block' week (yes, of course I forgot that I will need a block anyway to finish the quilt myself *sigh*).

I may also manage another easier 'curved piecing' block before the class tonight - I have a few hours to spare! Maybe this Mystery Quilt wasn't such a great idea after all...

Hopefully I will be back relatively soon with a whole finished quilt to share!

New Bedford Disappearing Nine Patch

I have a bit of a backlog of stuff to share over here which hasn't been helped by the longest period of dark, miserable winter days I can remember which makes decent photography very difficult!

Finally we had a bit of frosty brightness and I managed to get a few shots of this Disappearing Nine Patch quilt I made for a new evening course at myBearpaw Studio.

I finished this just in time for our open weekend at the beginning of December. Then I went on my hols toTenerife (seems SO long ago now!) and then it was Christmas and so I am only just getting round to telling you about this new class now (it starts a week on Wednesday!).

No sales pitch here as the class filled up in that first weekend (though there are places left on another class... read on!).

I used the gorgeous new Denyse Schmidt collection New Bedford, which I think is one of the best she has ever produced (and that's saying something!). I love the bright happy colours.

The background is good old Kona Snow. It's not a big quilt at 51 x 61 inches, though students will be able to make it larger if they like. The background is an extra wide fabric by Swaffing, which you will probably see quite a bit of over here as I have it in three colourways!

Amazingly my husband adores this quilt! You never really know how they will react... And he's been using it for a little extra warmth at night recently (I'm at that stage of life when I seem to be heating up at night!).

Over the (almost) 5 years I have been teaching at myBearpaw the nature of my quilting students has changed from mainly beginners to mainly intermediates, so for the first time this term we have two different intermediate evening courses and no beginner's (though we have beginner day workshops and a new evening course starts after Easter!).

Our second evening course is a Mystery Quilt!! That's right I didn't have enough time to make this before I launched the classes!! And thanks to Sheila for that excellent teacher's cheat ;)

But of course the class starts in a couple of weeks so I need to get planning it now and have produced the first block...

This is a version of Storm at Sea and may not be the first block we actually make (we might need a more gentle intro!). It's made with Denyse Shmidt's up and coming collection Eastham (plus a little New Bedford), which is equally beautiful and very 1930's (would be great for Farmer's Wife). I am very lucky to already have some of this to play with :)

I have some wonderful plans for the rest of the blocks in this course. The idea is to make one in the class and a different version at home, giving you 16 blocks by the end, enough for a full size quilt (perhaps with sashing or borders). We will be playing with colour values at lot and working on many different techniques, and hopefully you trust me to design a lovely finished quilt for you! 

I have just 2 places left - would you like to join me (providing you are local obviously!)??

All the details are here and check out all our classes here - still places left on lots of our day classes!