Scraptastic Tuesday - the first time!

For ages now I've been meaning to post about and link up with Scraptastic Tuesday, hosted by the wonderful Nicky and Leanne, but I've never been able to get my act together. If I am using scraps I forget all about it and if I remember it then I have nothing scrappy to show!

But last week I started working on my Blueberry Park Mini Quilt Swap piece. This is an Instagram swap hosted by Nina. I have a lot of scraps of Karen's screen printed fabric left over from the Buffer Wheel quilt I made last year. Karen printed these up specially for this quilt so I think some of them are quite unique and may be appreciated by my Karen Lewis loving partner.

So I started having a good old play around with them and ended up with these improv curve blocks. 

I made these four (above), but when I put them together (on my lovely design wall!) I thought that the bottom left looked a little out of place (with it's thicker circle). So I made another one, below...

But when I put them all together I realised that it was the top left pink and orange block that now looked out of place. So with a little jiggery pokery on the other block, I swapped them back around and I think I made it work (check top photo to see if you agree with my final decision!). 

I then sashed in that lovely charcoal crosshatch from Carolyn Friedlander. There was a lot of very helpful feedback and advice via the IG crowd while I was working on these and sharing my progress .

And then on Friday I found myself using scraps again! I was prepping for my Buffer Wheel workshop which was on Sunday and the first one of these I had taught. In my head it was very straight forward and I had the pattern notes written and everything. Still I thought I better just try it out as a refresher.

So I 'decided' to change around the background and colour wedges to make it look a bit different (yes that's right, I did decide this and in no way did I totally forget the pattern and mistakenly make it this way!). Anyway it's a good job I tried it out so I could show the class how to do it the right way as you can see below. Lot's of Blueberry Park on show here and some very clever students.

Meanwhile I quite like this rising sun half block and think I will leave it like this (otherwise I will have to make ANOTHER cushion!!).

Check out all the other Scraptastic Tuesday action here!

UKminiswap quilt

Somehow I found myself signing up for another Instagram swap! I think it was late last year and of course the April deadline seemed so far away at the time...

This is the UKminiswap organised by Nina and to be honest I was very attracted by the reduced postal rates involved in having a partner in the same country as me.

I hadn't really though much about what I would make but then I started a Cathedral window sample during my last workshop back in January and put a photo of it on Instagram suggesting it could be for my partner. When I saw that she liked it I decide to go with it!

But then I was too busy to do anything with it until the last week, when I finally had a bit of a break.

This is a bit of an experiment with CW as usually I make my background all the same fabric. I did try different fabric backgrounds once before but I made them similar colours so that there wasn't such a contrast.

This has a real checkerboard of low and high volume fabrics, which you can see better from the back (and also you can see my mistake missing a dark square out!).

I used the machine to sew the rainbow windows down (so you get a nice pattern on the back) and then added some hand quilting in different coloured perles.

For an extra my partner will get one of these Japanese Origami bags made from a beautiful new organic fabric line from Windham called Forest Parade. I'll fill it with some goodies too. But I have plenty of time for this as I actually finished way ahead of the deadline for once!

I do like the way the dark 'flowers' between the windows pop out in this piece, it looks very different from my other Cathedral Windows.

And obviously I hope my partner likes it too!

If you are interested in  learning how to make Cathedral windows with me then check out the workshop I am teaching at Simply Solids on June 13th.

Snappy Pickledish

I signed up for the IGminiswap during an evening of social media frenzy and mass hysteria (you know how it is), and at the time the shipping date seemed SSSOOOOO far away.
But of course it comes around...

So very last minute I started this just 2 days before I needed to ship.

I knew exactly what I was going to do as I was planning this for a new workshop in 2015. Of course I didn't know that I would actually be able to do it until I tried!

I've always loved the Pickle Dish block and it's been on my to do list for a long time. But it's also very fiddly to do the traditional way and I am really into improv stuff at the moment.

So I decided to try it using the same techniques as I'd used for the Freehand New York Beauty at my Stitch Gathering class.

And it worked!
I love the wonky random look (I know it doesn't do it for everyone).
When I look at these 'pickledishes' they look like monster mouths, open and snapping, as seen from above (can you see it?), hence the name I've given this mini. Someone else said they look like venus fly traps which I think is an even better description (and I may steal it for a future quilt!).

This class still has places available (unlike a lot of next term's workshops). So if you'd like to try out this technique and really increase your improv and curved piecing skills then I'd love to have you along on Sunday 1st February!

I tried really hard with my FMQ (my partner has terrifyingly good FMQ skills!) and found I could do tiny feathers as easily as big ones, in fact I think it is easier to FMQ small motifs.

I'm actually in love with this mini and, as usual with these swaps, it was hard to send it off.
But I made the shipping date! I'm still waiting to hear that this mini got to my partner safely and to receive mine.
Meanwhile I have signed up for another swap! the UKminiswap has a shipping date in April - that's AAAAGES away right??!!