Cathedral Window Cover

At last I can share this quilt with you that I made back in January.
And I'm so ecited that it's the cover quilt on this month's Love Patchwork and Quilting Magazine (out today!)! Eeek!!

This was quite a big project as not only did they want a quilt with a matching cushion, but they also wanted a whole technical feature on Cathedral Windows.
I used charm packs of Chicopee with Kona Natural for both the quilt and the cushion. I hand quilted with different coloured perle cotton 8's in lines between the windows. You can just about see it in the quilt close up below.

Here is the cushion, just a scaled down version of the quilt.

And for the technical feature I made this piece below to show the hand stitching technique and how different it looks if you swap patterns and solids around.

I was really pleased with the colour wash effect I got here and was able to use it as a sample for my Colour Theory for Quilts class too.
How pretty does it look held up to the light?!

I haven't actually got my hands on a copy yet (off to the newsagents later!), so I am sharing this page from their website. I love the photography and styling. They really have shown both pieces off to perfection here! I wonder how much they had to pay that cat to walk about and coordinate with the quilt and cushion?!

I really hope you can all get hold of a copy of this fantastic magazine, and that you may also be tempted to have a go at some Cathedral Windows using my tutorial. Please do share with me if you do!

Improv EPP

I bet you didn't know you could do Improv EPP, did you? Well it turns out you can!

Yes I know it is another cushion, but this one is for me, and it's also my first FAL finish this year.

This project started more than a year ago now as a project to show off the lovely Chicopee fabric that had just been delivered at the shop. I worked out a design and started sewing. But I got this far (above) and it just wasn't working for me. So I made a Cathedral Window cushion instead and put the EPP aside.

But I don't like leaving things unfinished (I'm a good girl really), and this EPP hung around the sewing room, staring at me and sighing a lot.
Meanwhile I had been working on another project using Chicopee charm packs. These had the whole range in, lots more colours and designs than I had originally ordered. And luckily there were some scraps left over.
So I just went random. I had those 3 original shapes (hexy, half hexy and diamond) and I added one more by cutting some diamond papers in half. And I just started adding on bits and pieces and more patterns emerged. I was having fun so I kept going!

A few weeks later I had made it big enough to make into a 20" cushion. And the best thing is that I liked it now! And how nice does it look with my Rustic Granny Square Blanket?!

But, of course, it needed some hand quilting with perles. And again I felt like going 'off piste' a little.
I have been getting very in to my FMQ patterns recently and I wondered how these would look as hand quilting.

I drew the design on to the cushion cover with a Pilot Frixion pen, scaling it up a little, and used a pink variegated perle cotton number 8 to quilt. I'm really loving the way it turned out and would love to try it on a whole quilt one day.
Unfortunately I have been suffering with tendonitis in my left wrist and though I originally thought it was the knitting that caused it, I now think it could be hand quilting too, since recovery has taken a bit of a backwards step since I finished this. So a whole quilt may have to be a very long term project!

Here is the back. I used some old furnishing fabric and my original button loops, they ended up much higher than usual this time. Also I have included a bound edge, a first for me, and largely due to this great tutorial on Amy Ellis's blog the other day.

So I am going to have to slow down my crafting a bit and try to knock this tendonitis on the head. I have tried lots of different solutions and have it strapped up most of the time (I've even ordered some special 'crafters' gloves!) but I have come to the conclusion that I need to actually rest it *sigh*.

The next post will be more about this year's Stitch Gathering, but if I go a bit quiet after that then you will know why :(

Update: This is my one and only finish in this quarter FAL - I feel a little shame faced but am linking-up anyway and this is the post with the original list Katy ;)
I will try again for a better result next quarter!

Chicopee Cathedral Window Cushion

A few weeks back I showed you my attempts to do something with Denyse Schmidt's Chicopee line.

I had attempted some EPP but abandoned it and started on a Cathedral Window project instead.

Well here it is all finished, and I am really quite in love with it so there are a lot of photos to follow!

The background is Essex Linen in Natural, a fabric I am turning to more and more at the moment. It was one of the few fabrics that I thought worked with the Chicopee, which, despite being thoroughly gorgeous, does not seem to mix well with a lot of other modern fabrics (IMHO).
I machined the linen blocks together but hand sewed the chicopee into the windows. Which was a bit hard on the fingers as it is a pretty stiff, unyielding fabric.

On my days off at Easter I enjoyed some sunshine in the garden (well protected from the bitter wind) and started hand quilting with coloured perles. It's made the linen more interesting and melded it better with the prints I think.

More Chicopee on the back. I put the whole thing together and then realised I had forgotten to do the button holes! And these Feather Company pads I use are so plump and full that it really needs more than just an envelope close at the back. So I did them by hand using white perle and blanket stitch.
I bought those gorgeous buttons at the wonderful Edinburgh Yarn Festival that I had a stand at a couple of weeks back. They are from The Textile Garden, Maggie and her husband had come up all the way from Brighton to attend and their amazing button stand was absolutely mobbed all day! Mind you the whole thing was totally mobbed, and it was definitely the best Fair out of the 3 I've done this Spring. This was the first one they've organised, but it was so successful that I am sure they will do it again next year.

One last pic of my new darling basking in the Easter sun. I am teaching Cathedral Window as a workshop again in May. It's a great technique, not too much sewing, no accurate cutting, but lots of folding and ironing!
More info on the class here.
I really hope you like Cathedral Window as much as I do as I have more to share next week!
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Normal service is resumed...

Blimey, two and a half weeks since I last posted!
After that big Stitch Gathering announcement in my last post I did a quilt show, got ill, did a show at the SECC and taught loads of classes in between - phew!

I do manage to pack a lot in but the last few weeks have been too much even for me.
I have one more small event in Edinburgh this Saturday (the first Edinburgh Yarnfest!) and then I can settle down to a more sustainable life again. And start really planning our Retreat this August!

We have had a fabulous response to the launch and have now announced our 5 teachers! Read more about them here.
We are planning to release the tickets next week.

Meanwhile I have been trying to fit in the odd bit of crafting in spare moments.

Back in January I got a load of Denyse Schmidt's Chicopee in to the shop. I really love this line and wanted to make something for the shop to show it off.
So I decided to design a new EPP pattern and make a big cushion. You can see my initial sketch above and my attempts to bring it to life. I tried to make the scale a bit bigger than my usual EPP designs.
But it's just not doing it for me. I think I made the scale just too big.
Maybe I should have kept going but my crafting time is so short that I've given up for now and started a new Chicopee project.

I was teaching a workshop on Cathedral Window on Sunday and managed to start some myself.
I'm using the Essex linen in Natural (again!) for the background, it's a bit heavy (so a thimble is mandatory as I am hand sewing this bit!) but it was the only thing that I thought worked with the Chicopee. Much as I love this line it is quite hard to match it to other fabrics.

I am having 2 days off and enjoying sitting in the sunshine (glinting off the snow!) whilst working on this.
And yesterday I actually managed to finish something!
I've finally finished Felix's Christmas present jumper!! This is the first (and possibly the only...) item from my FAL list that I have actually finished.

And it fits him and he loves it!
At my stand at the recent quilt show a number of ladies came up to tell me that they enjoyed reading my blog (thank you!) and that my son was very handsome. So here he is again especially for you!
I just wish I could have got him to brush his hair first!!