New Snowball Bag

I've been busy this week organising our next term of myBearpaw craft classes. We have 5 new classes but I have to admit to not making anything new for them, but I did manage to make a new version of my Snowball Craft Bag.

This was originally made as a pattern for issue 22 of Love Patchwork and Quilting, along with a matching needle roll (I wrote a post about it here). The original version was rainbow coloured and I gave it to my sister as a birthday present.

But then last year I decided to use it for a class, but instead of making the same bag I made this very different version of it.

Recently we've been selling the wonderful Quilter's Linen by Robert Kaufman in the shop (we have some great bundles available here online too). This has a very subtle crosshatch that resembles the texture of linen and comes in some gorgeous colours. Everyone has fallen in love with it and I decided I wanted to use the red along with some black/white/grey to make a new bag for the next class.

I was all set to cut the pieces up when I was minding the shop last Friday when my colleague Barbara popped in and said 'use the mustard instead'. And of course I immediately saw she was right, the mustard would work even better than the red! Thanks Barb!

Though I did sneak some red into the lining - a Denyse Schmidt design from 'Winter Walk'.

I made the first side of the bag with the shades 'checkerboard' style and then thought, hmmm...

So I made the other side in a colourwash (shadewash?) style with the snowballs changing from dark to light from one corner to the next.

I think I still prefer the first side though! What do you think?!

But what about the rest of our new classes!

Here's a little mosaic of some of the new classes, including the Slalom Quilt (Bias Tape Curves) by the wonderful Jenny Haynes of Papper, Sax, Sten, who will be visiting us from Sheffield. Our local quilting legend Tatyana Duffie will be teaching an FMQ masterclass, and one of my students, Tess Joyce, will be switching rolls for the day to teach that amazing Crocheted Viral Shawl and raise funds for her charity event at the same time!

Expect to see more of that viral shawl soon as I can't wait to give it a go!

You can check out all our classes and even book one here!

Quick and Easy Quilts Book GIVEAWAY!!

I am so excited to be part of the Quick and Easy Quilts bloghop!! This is Lynne Goldsworthy (of Lily's Quilts blog) new book which is published by Kyle Books.

And as well as a quick preview of the book and a look at a project I've made from it I will also be giving away a copy later in this post!

But first of all let's talk about this excellent book and the glorious quilts contained therein. Like Planet Baby above, one of my particular favourites, and the wonderful cover 'star' quilt below

I absolutely love the styling and photography by Jan Baldwin!

The book contains so many wonderful projects with a huge range of techniques. Even if Lynne wasn't one of my best quilting buddies I would still thoroughly recommend this book! You can buy your copy here.

I have always been a huge fan of Lynne's designs since way back in the Flickr days. One of my all time favourites is the Scrappy Trees she used for a round mini quilt years ago which was also her logo for a while.

I was so pleased to see the Scrappy Trees reappear in the book!

At last I could make my own!

I needed a class sample for the Snowball Knitting Bag workshop on Sunday but instead of making snowballs I decided to use the scrappy trees and make a different shaped bag!

These panels were so fun and easy to do and a great way to use up precious scraps. Lynne has made a quilt-as-you-go full sized quilt using this motif in the book.

I used a mixture of straight line and free-motion quilting (scattered leaves) on these panels, then made them into this bag along with the class.

It's an odd shape for a knitting bag but I am sure I will find a use for it - what about a couple of bottles of prosecco??!!

So what about that giveaway then??!

I have one copy of the book to giveaway here.  All you need to do is to leave a comment below!

Let's make this quick and easy too so just say what you will. If you would like another entry then share the giveaway on social media and leave another comment to let me know!

Giveaway ends this Friday 22nd April at midnight and is open to international entries too!
Don't forget to leave your email if you are a no-reply commenter! Good luck!!

Text Embroidery and some more Matchstick Quilting

I've been busy launching our new myBearpaw prospectus over the last week. These are my workshops and evening courses from mid April till mid June. There are 5 new classes, four of them are for quilts and projects that I have made previously like this House Quilt and the Snowball Craft Bag. But I did make one sample for a new class - the text embroidery hoop above.

The idea is to learn some basic outline and filler stitches while embroidering your favourite slogan or just playing around with letters and text. 

I am very happy with this piece above and am already working on at least one more. I will try to publish some patterns of these soon too. The quote is by David Bowie. I am still pretty heart broken about his untimely passing so this was a nice way of sewing a personal tribute.

If you'd like to join me for this class you can check out the details here, and view the whole prospectus here.

Last weekend I taught my Dishes Quilt class for the first time. I made some extra blocks as class samples using Jennifer Paganelli's stunning upcoming collection 'Color Brigade' (which she has very kindly sent me for a commission). 

I made these into two panels and then finished them with matchstick and hand quilting as I'd done with the original Dishes Wallhanging below

This time I used Manchester Linen in Pepper (instead of Stone) and so managed to use my original test block (made with Jen's earlier line 'Circa') in one of the panels. The 'shelf fabric' is from the amazing 'Carkai' line by Carolyn Friedlander.

I turned the two panels into this pretty tote bag! The lining is by Heather Bailey, a fabric we had in our sale, but then I realised I loved it too much to sell it and took the rest of the bolt home with me!!

Despite being somewhat in love with this bag I am actually giving it away! 

Apologies right now for those of you not on Instagram as you won't be able to take part in this giveaway (but hopefully you have still enjoyed looking at the pretty bag!).

I just passed 5000 followers on IG and to celebrate and as a thank you I am giving away the bag, a fat eighth bundle (24 fabric) of the complete new Joel Dewberry collection 'Wander' (not out for a few months actually - another kind donation from the lovely folks at Coats UK!), plus...

...I will also be knitting a pair of socks for one lucky winner!! 

I recently took a ball of our new Arne and Carlos sock yarn (by Regia) for a spin and made this pair for my son. I may have mentioned before that sock knitting is crazily addictive and now I just want to make more! But I am running out of people to make them for - hence my very generous giveaway!

If you do have an IG account why not pop over and enter - you have till tomorrow evening?!

Or if you don't already then maybe you should consider joining? There is so much fun and inspiration to be found over there!!

And she was making matchstick bags and matchstick caddies and wallhangings...

...sung to the tune of 'Matchstalk Cats and Dogs'! But unfortunately it doesn't quite scan as well!

I am wondering if younger people or those outside the UK are thinking I've gone mad - I have a feeling that was probably just a British hit single! There is a video at the end of this post for the curious amongst you.

Meanwhile let's talk about matchstick quilting! I have been doing quite a bit lately and posting photos on Instagram, so I thought it would be nice to have a round up over here.

This is matchstick quilting, just machine quilting lines very close together. I'm not sure who started this but I first saw Leanne doing it - so maybe it was her!

I like to leave some wider spaces and fill them with lines of hand quilting in perle cotton (#8 or #12), I saw this on a quilt at QuiltCon and loved it. I first tried it out on this bag earlier in the year.

Recently I have been trying this out on various different surfaces and making the pieces into storage caddies like the one above, they make great gifts.

This year's Stitch gathering goody bag contained a lovely Liberty Tana Lawn hexy pack from Sarah at Duck Egg Threads. I couldn't resist sewing the hexies together (with a few extras) as soon as the event was over, and this was my little Swedish Teaching Trip project.

Before that (I am working backwards here!) I tried out some matchstick quilting on some needle turn applique.

I always have a few of those leaf shapes around (as they are scraps from using the Sizzix machine Drunkard's Path dies) and some circles left over from this project last year. You just can't beat some bright colours on Manchester yarn-dyed in pepper!

Here I am adding the hand quilting in a rare moment of Autumn sun.

And here is the finished caddy from a few angles. This was a gift for my friend Hikaru to thank her for all her amazing work teaching at the Stitch Gathering.

The first Caddy I tried the matchstick quilting on was this next one. I wanted to make something lovely for Nicky to say thanks for the sweetest little toadstool pincushion she sent me earlier in the year (or was it last year?), and as she was coming to the Stitch Gathering this seemed like the perfect opportunity.

The fabric was screen printed by me during a workshop at QuiltCon earlier this year. I haven't been able to decide what to do with it, but the size and shape seemed perfect for a caddy. I lined it with gorgeous Blueberry Park by Karen Lewis.

After trying screen printed linen, needle-turn applique and EPP hexies I asked folks on IG what I should try next and someone said 'selvedges'.
So here we go! I have made 2 pieces using selvedges but have yet to make them into caddies.

And matchstick quilting isn't just for caddies!
This version of my workshop bag was made for a special quilty friend's (Lynne) special birthday. The main part of the bag is made from a large block started at the last Fat Quarterly Retreat (in Thomas Knauer's workshop), it had been hanging around not getting finished so I made it into this bag (as a sample during a recent class) and banded it with Essex yarn-dyed linen in Black. The main part of the bag is FMQ'd with a loopy pattern but I have matchstick quilted the band (it's quite subtle though!).

And lastly we have the wall hanging!
I was so excited about the recent Today's Quilter magazine cover featuring my Dishes Quilt that I totally forgot to show you the extra mini quilt I made to go with it!

And guess what? It is matchstick quilted! Yes I am obsessed!!
It will also be a new workshop for 2016... Prospectus will be launched on 5th December!!

WARNING! Ear Worm will be activated if you watch the video below!

Using up my class samples (again)

This week I have been tidying my sewing room. A few weeks ago I hosted a giveaway and asked all you lovely, wise peeps to give me your fabric storage tips as an entry comment. I got some great ideas and the one I liked best was to store my fabric in a trolley that would live under my sewing tables.

So I got my husband to buy me some plastic boxes on a recent trip to Ikea and make me a trolley to stack them on (I know, I am very lucky!).

Here is a 'Before' photo to show you the fabric storage chaos I was dealing with... (some folks admitted to gasping when I shared this on Instagram!)

and here is the 'After' photo!
Of course I didn't have enough Ikea boxes for all the fabric, I'm going to get double the quantity to give me a little growing room ;), but it's looking a lot better. Those big boxes contain larger pieces and neutrals. And the First Aid box is full of threads (I'm not some health and safety freak in case you wondered!).

So while I was in the tidying zone I thought I'd have a rifle through my bag of class samples and see if I could 'use them up' as Odyssey would say (another one for the older reader there!).

But then I remembered that I had done quite a bit of this class sample recycling recently but hadn't shared any of it here! 

So first up is this workshop bag that I made from bits and pieces from my 'Scrappy Improv' workshop.

The whole thing was made from scraps, even the straps, and when I finished the pieces for the front and back I basted them with wadding and used them as practice pieces for the FMQ patterns I used on my Modern Medallion Quilt. AND the best bit is that this is now it's own class sample as I gave a workshop on how to make this handy bag (for carrying mat, ruler etc to workshops, see this post for more info) a few months ago and will again in the Autumn!
So I made the class samples into practice pieces and then made the whole thing into another class sample!
That kind of thing makes me very happy!!



The other class samples I have been using up recently are Flying Geese. Every time I teach students to make these I get 4 units. 8 untrimmed units are the perfect size to make these storage caddies!

This is one of the classes I will be teaching in Stockholm this October (at the Swedish Patchwork Association's AGM) and so I never miss an opportunity for a quick practice. They are also very useful containers around the sewing room, and make lovely gifts...

This Priory Square version was a wee thank you gift for our EMQG long-arm maestro Tatyana, after she helped me out with a commission quilt in June.

And that brings us on to this week and the bag of class samples. These are mostly from my Modern Sampler Quilt evening course which I have taught maybe 5 or 6 times now.  I try not to make new samples every time but some of the techniques need to be demonstrated, hence I had 6 fan blocks.

I thought these 4 looked good together and really couldn't resist sewing this up . And so my 'scrappy wheel' block was born! I added the Pam Kitty Morning border to make it big enough for an 18 inch pad. Somehow it has become a little distorted, with the centre circle more egg shaped. But I have decided it looks nice and quirky and just adjusted the border widths to sort it (I was too exhausted by all the tidying to care!).

And then I just had to hand quilt it! It was just crying out for a little perle cotton 8 love! This is still a WIP as I type.

So back to that bag. As well as MSQ class samples I found practice pieces for commission quilts like my Feathers Quilt and the reversible 'Village' table runner I made for 50 Fat quarter Makes and some orphan 'Bearpaw Squared' blocks that I had made for a 'design your own quilt block' class years ago (a class I am about to revive!). I spent a lovely morning planning out a quilt top (like doing a giant fabric puzzle!) and then just decided to go for it.

And here it is all put together (and being held up by one of my tall and helpful sons!). As well as a few 'filler' strips there are (still more!) Flying Geese, some HSTs and a piece of AMH's Lolouthi I have been hoarding for the right moment.

I absolutely love the way this had turned out. In fact I love it so much that I've decided not to finish it yet but to add more to it to make it a really big quilt, then to spend many hours hand quilting it with care. And when it's finished I am going to give it to a really special person - ME!

Yes I am going to make a quilt for myself! And this one will be very special, a sort of 'greatest hits of Jo' as it will have so many different blocks I have designed and will hold so many memories. Plus it's totally scrappy which is very 'me'!

So with this in mind I had another dig around at home and found a load more HST's and matching squares and put together this little block (still having a wonderful time as I love all this 'use it up' activity!).

Then today I worked in the shop and had a rummage around the studio and came up with all these goodies...

The original Feather prototype, some scrappy solids that I was going to turn into a needlebook and some EPP either already appliqued or ready to be appliqued!.

I am off to London tomorrow to stay with a friend and to give a talk at the Richmond and Kew Quilters (where I will meet Benta!), but as soon as I get back I know I will be right back on to this project, long term or not!

Turning Japanese...

 ... oh yes I'm turning Japanese, I really think so!

Those of you of a certain age may remember this song by the Vapors. And it comes into my head as I consider my growing obsession with all things Japanese. Well as long as it's sewing related that is!

It started about 5 years ago when my husband bought me a book called Kokoro No Te 'handmade treasures from the heart'. I made a few items from it including this 'Tomato Cache' which I just dug out of a drawer for this post (seems a shame to stick it back in the drawer, maybe I should give it away to someone, or maybe to you lot?!!).

I went on to give a 'Fabric Origami' class at the first Stitch Gathering which included lots of embellishment techniques I'd learnt from the book.

And then there's the Sashiko. I bought my first Sashiko panel 2 or 3 years ago. Here is the latest one.

I love taking these panels on journeys as they are so portable and quick to do. I finished this on my recent trip to teach at Simply Solids in Huddersfield.

I now have 4 finished panels, and still the vague woolly idea that these will one day be turned into a quilt for my youngest son.

Meanwhile I now have a real life Japanese friend, Hikaru who has been helping me teach Sashiko at the studio. Hikaru has made this class extra fascinating by telling us all about the origins of Sashiko, the meanings of the patterns and showing her vast array of Sashiko samples.

And at this year's Stitch Gathering Hikaru will be teaching some workshops alongside me. Our 4 afternoon sessions have a combined Japanese theme so I think we will keep our classes close together.

I will be teaching Sashiko and also Origami Bags. I started making these earlier this year after my EMQG friend Tatyana showed our whole guild how to make the drawstring version above. I've just finished this one made out of lovely Dashwood fabric line 'Fly Away'.This is my fifth bag - they are such a fab easy gift!

But of course Hikaru knows lots of different ways to make Origami Bag and showed me how to make this 'water lily' version (I just gave it that name BTW, it probably has a different Japanese name).

Hikaru made the top one for a sample, then she made me the one on the left (with the beautiful hand stitching) as a birthday present, and I just made the last one to finally try it out for myself (seeing as I will be teaching it!) and as a birthday present for my son's girlfriend. We will be teaching both versions in the SG class.



Hiakru will also be teaching Clamshell Purses and Macaroon Pouches, both are proving very popular classes!

I first met Hikaru when she came to our shop a few years ago to buy fabric. She bought a lot of fabric and was very excited to have found us! Later she brought in some of these clamshell pouches to show us what she had used the fabric for. She had made over 70 of these for wedding favours! All hand stitched!

I tried one of these out a few days ago. I have finally caught up with all my magazine commission work (for now!) so I am relaxing with some 'frippery' crafting for the next few days!

I am thrilled with how this turned out (though I must admit that Hikaru prepared a little kit for me and basted the shapes - sshhhh!), and how well does it match my nail polish?!

And how totally adorable are these Clamshell Pouches? No wonder everyone wants to do this class at the Stitch Gathering!  Hikaru made both of these, I have yet to give this one a try.

Apart from being an exceptionally talented sewer/crocheter/knitter Hikaru is also a lovely kind pal who also made me this beautiful Sashiko pincushion for my birthday last month.

Did you know this shape is called a Biscornu? I have been calling is a doughnut but it actually has a proper name (though a very odd one!).

The other thing that Hikaru likes to make for everyone are these Japanese Thimbles. They should sit between the 2 joints on your finger. I had a very swollen finger earlier this year when Hikaru first made me the bottom one. Now my finger is much better so she gave me a new one (though it was hot when I took this photo so my fingers were a bit more swollen than usual - it should sit a bit lower down!).

I am hoping to learn to make my own Japanese Thimbles soon too, they are so pretty and delicate, which just about sums up everything I like about Japanese sewing.

I decided to add these little felt and bead 'cherries' to the ribbon end. These are something I learnt from the Kokoro No Te book, I used to make loads of them and add them as embellishments to the 'leaf needlecases' I used to make and sell in our old shop. I saw that Hikaru had made little fabric cherries for the ribbon ends on the bag she made me and (constantly inspired by her) I thought I would add some here too, they make a lovely finishing touch.

This photo was taken in our (almost finished) Japanese Zen Garden that my husband has been working on for the last year! Photo of the whole garden to follow soon.

See I told you I was turning Japanese! And it's catching!