A Journey of Some Scraps

I'm not the sort of quilter who keeps every last little scrap, in fact I'm pretty brutal with the sizes of scraps I throw away (otherwise I would be drowning in them even more than I actually am!), but when I finished making this 3D Improv Dresden block the fabrics were so pretty and looked so good together that I couldn't bear to bin them.

The block was made as a class sample for my Stitch Gathering workshop in September and I used mainly fabrics from our goody bag, including beautiful Cloud 9, Michael Miller and Lotta Jansdotta fabrics. The background is from Euclid, the gorgeous range of printed Essex linen designed by Carolyn Friedlander.

I was feeling a little frazzled and over stimulated the day after the Stitch Gathering, so I turned my phone off and went to my sewing room for a little relaxing play time.

First of all I sewed the big scraps together, these were the off-cuts from the strips. I made a nice scrappy panel. Then I sewed the little scraps together, these were off-cuts from the Dresden wedges and I had enough to make two pieces, one big and one small, which I bordered with strips of Euclid.

We were very lucky to have Carina Envoldsen-Harris visit us to teach workshops at both myBearpaw Studio and the Stitch Gathering and I was so inspired by her work. Carina is a fabulous embroiderer with a few excellent books of motifs to her name. She taught a class about embellishing patchwork with her beautiful embroidered flowers. So I decided to have a go.

I've been a bit obsessed by teasels recently, there is big patch of them that I can see from my sewing room window and I love their shape and their 'spikyness'.  So I drew up a design and (because I had left the lead to my light box at the shop) free-hand drew it on to the scrappy panel.

I then spent some lovely relaxing hours embroidering the teasels.

I totally love the way this turned out! 

I had intended all along to turn it into a zippy pouch but put it aside until my next workshop which was a week or so ago. 

I used it as my class sample (loving the fact that the fabric had started off as another class sample!) and made this rather fetching pouch using the other scrappy panel for the back.

I may not have mentioned it yet but I am going to QuiltCon in Savannah next year and this little beauty will be coming with me so I can show it off in the workshops I am taking!

But what about that other scrappy panel I mentioned? The small one? Yes I still had a little more life to squeeze out of those scraps yet!

This one got the matchstick quilting treatment with a variegated pink Aurifil 50, together with a few rows of hand quilting with DMC Perle 8.

And then it became a cute little needlebook!

Which of course goes perfectly with my pouch (those QuiltCon ladies are going to be SO impressed!).

So there you go, a journey of some scraps. Instead of binning them I turned them into two (excuse my bragging) beautiful handmade items and had lots of fun along the way!

So next time you go to bin your little scraps - think again!

Linking up with Scraptastic Tuesdays!

Buffer Wheel Quilt

Issue 24 of Love Patchwork and Quilting landed in my mailbox yesterday (and it hits the news stands on Wednesday) so at last I can share this quilt with you!

This has to be one of my favourite quilts ever, and sometimes it's hard to keep things secret for so long!

This was really a collaboration between myself and Karen Lewis as all the coloured fabric was screen printed by her. When she came down to stay with me in March I gave her a big bundle of rainbow Kona to go home with and a few weeks later she sent me this!

Thanks Karen!
The background is a re-printed Architextures fabric by Carolyn Friedlander.

There's a Dashwood Studio fabric on the back and you can see the FMQ well in this photo. It's an overall pattern of a kind of trailing mussel with spikes around. I remember it being lot's of fun to do!

The idea for this pattern was conceived while staring at my phone waiting for a page to load - yes it's that buffer wheel that we see so much of! Fading the colours from light to dark hopefully gives the effect of twirling around.

Of course as soon as I put a quilt down to photograph it Hector jumps up to have a roll around!

The binding is a turquoise polka dot that was suggested by my husband (who's really good with binding advice!).
I think it's the graphic simplicity of this quilt that I love so much.

The magazine sent it back early so I could enter it for the Festival of Quilts. So last night a sleeve was added and tomorrow it will get mailed off. This is the first time I have entered any quilt to FOQ (well last year was the first time I had actually visited!), and I think it will be exciting to see this hanging alongside all the other fabulous quilts - though also a little daunting!

So if you are visiting in August, look out for it! And if you want to make your own version all you need is a copy of the magazine (and some of Karen's beautiful fabric!)!

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!

Lone Star Rising Quilt

I'm delighted to be sharing my Lone Star Rising quilt with you today!
I made this quilt at the beginning of the year for Quilt Now magazine. It is the first Lone Star I have made and I totally fell in love with the pattern. I can see a few more Lone Star quilts in my future!

There are quite a few off-centre Lone Stars around but most of them knock off just one or two of the arms. I decided to knock off 4 arms and place my star right up in the top left corner. When I put it there it reminded me of the way I used to draw a sun when I was tiny. So then it became a rising sun, hence the title Lone Star Rising.

It's also a bit of an homage to Carolyn Friedlander as I used fabrics from her 'Doe' line for the star, a crosshatch from 'Architextures' for the background and one from 'Botanics' for the binding! There's a plain black and white gingham on the back as it seems like quite a masculine quilt and I didn't want the back to spoil that!

I was very happy to see that it made the cover too, albeit as an inset (that main cover quilt totally deserves the limelight!).

And they did some lovely shots inside too.

Here it is on my own bed. It's pretty big (for my quilts anyway!) at 71 inches square, and my husband's a big fan of this one, so I think it might end up staying here when it's returned to me.

I always forget to talk about the thread I use, I am pretty much exclusively using Aurifil 50 for both piecing and quilting these days. One of the things I love most about it for quilting is that you get so much more on a bobbin than regular cotton, meaning less ends to thread in later!

I used this pale green shade (5017) that I bought from Sheila at last year's Stitch Gathering. Sheila sells Aurifil online if you are looking for some. I would thoroughly recommend it.

There was quite a bit of negative space on this quilt which is good for showing off some fancy FMQ. I decided to go for an overall design and not get too fancy, so I quilted 4 different leaves in a trailing pattern. I love doing leaves so this was easy but lots of fun and I think a bit different. Nominally they are holly, oak, beech and sycamore, but don't look too closely, they are not botanically correct!

I hope you get a chance to see the magazine and the way I have tackled the piecing. I think I came up with a neat, quick, strip-piecing method that takes the fiddles out of this design. The size of the diamonds means it grows pretty quickly too.

This last shot is taken against our new mini barn that my husband built. It's the perfect backdrop to photograph my quilts!
You can see more shots of the barn (during and after construction) and his design ideas for Tiny Houses here.