Pickle Dish Quilt

Happy New Year everyone! Let's start 2017 with a brand new quilt!

This is yet another pickle dish quilt, this time a straight-up version of the traditional pattern, made completely in Jennifer Paganelli's new line Hotel Frederiksted (for Free Spirit Fabrics).

Yay! It made the cover of Today's Quilter! I actually received my copy before Christmas but have been waiting till the official publication day to post about it.

This is the third quilt I have made with Jennifer's fabric and the pressure was on to do something spectacular. The quilt I made with her previous line was this New York Beauty, probably one of my most popular quilts ever!

So I really couldn't just rattle something off (not that I ever do!).

I knew when I suggested doing a pickle dish that I would regret it once I started endlessly piecing those spiky curves, but somehow that didn't stop me! I've always wanted to make one and what better fabric to use.

The editor didn't even know what it was, she just said yes after hearing the name! As she said in the magazine "you had me at 'pickle dish'!" 😁

The whole collection is wonderfully bright and fresh, a perfect tonic to this dark, grey time of year (in Scotland). I used the fabrics in a similar way to the New York Beauty, choosing white for all the spikes and used the red patterned fabrics for the background. The 'lemon' shapes were great for showing off the larger scale flowers and birds in the fabric.

It's quilted with a pale green variegated shade of Aurifil 50 and a sort of flame design, which worked so well that I've used a version of it since on my Starlights quilt. I am sure I will use it again soon.

The backing is Spot On by Robert Kaufman in Pomegranite.

Today's Quilter did their usual lovely styling. 

The fabric really makes this quilt, so exuberant and pretty! 

Unfortunately I have not managed to order it for the shop (though the rep is coming to see me next week so there's still time!), however UK peeps can order it from the wonderful Sugar Bowl Crafts.

Having made a traditional, an improv and a subverted version of this design in the last year I think I may have done enough Pickle Dishes for a while! 

But then again, you never know...

The Quilt Block Cookbook

I've had some free time this week so I decided to do a little recreational sewing (as opposed to work sewing!).

I recently got hold of a copy of Amy Gibson's new book The Quilt Block Cookbook. You may know Amy from her blog Stitchery Dickory Dock (such a great name!).

There are so many great books out there and you will have heard me recommend a few of them over here, but I do think this one is a bit special.

For a start it is really gorgeous to look at, I just love the photography and styling. It's published by Lucky Spool who always seem to produce really stylish books. Also the layout is so clear and concise, with it's concept of 'block recipes'.

Amy offers 50 different patchwork blocks all made from different units and elements (a very good construction section guides you through making these). There is unlimited potential here to change and resize blocks, making it a great entry point to designing your own quilts.

And then what I really love the most are the incredibly creative and original ways she puts the blocks together, making sampler quilts with a big twist. I absolutely love Celestial below - so modern yet so classic!

Here are just some of the sampler quilts, there are more amazing ideas in the book.

And with so many fun blocks to choose from I really wanted to try a couple out.

Jennifer Paganelli has a new fabric line coming out soon called Hotel Frederiksted (another great name!) and I think it may be her best yet! And as Jen and I have a 'special relationship' I get to play with it early ;)

Look at this fabric!! It actually hurts my eyes to see so much beauty together! I will be making a quilt with this for Today's Quilter later this month but I couldn't help cracking into the bundle for a little trial run...

And so I made a few blocks from Amy's book. This is 'True North' recipe number 5. I mixed in some coordinating Kona solids for contrast.

And then I made Spin the Bottle, number 9.

By now I was thinking, hmm... maybe four would make a nice mini quilt...

So I made two more of each, getting to try a good selection of of the fabric as I went.

I purposely kept the same fabric for the corners of each block. Amy specifically talks about corners and the impact they make when the blocks go together. I was hoping something interesting would happen here.

And I think it does! I haven't sewn these together yet as I am really not sure. I may make more and try out some others. I would love to make a version of the Celestial with them, or one of the other sampler quilts in the book.

Or I may just make more of these and put them on point! I actually like them like this better.

There is just so much potential! So they are going to stay on the design wall for now while I (sadly) get back to my chores. But I can't wait to resume playing with them very soon.

Meanwhile if you have any thoughts on what I should do with these blocks then please share them here!

You can get a copy of Amy's excellent book here. I really think it would be a big asset to every quilter's library from beginners upwards.

Color Brigade Bundle GIVEAWAY!!

I mentioned earlier in the week that I would be hosting a little giveaway this weekend (just made it phew!).

I have some Color Brigade fabric left over from making my New York Beauty quilt, enough for two Fat Eighth Bundles with twelve fabrics each. I thought it would be nice to share these with my dear readers. So I am giving away one bundle here on the blog and one on Instagram.

Color Brigade is the latest collection from the amazing Jennifer Paganelli for Free Spirit Fabrics. The quilt below was made entirely from this line. The pattern for this quilt is in the latest issue (13) of Today's Quilter, read more about it here.

So how do you get your hands on one of these cute little bundles (of fabric that is actually really hard to get hold of in the UK!)?

All you need to do is leave a comment below telling me what your all time favourite fabric collection is, or if you can't think of one then your favourite fabric designer (if you don't have one of these either then just say hello!).

For an extra entry then share this post on some other form of social media (your own blog, facebook page, twitter etc.) and leave me an extra comment here telling me you've shared it.

If you are on Instagram then head over and enter the giveaway there to double your chances!

Giveaway is open to International entries and closes midnight on Wednesday (24th August). Remember if you are a 'no-reply commenter' then you will need to leave your email in your comment.

Good luck everyone!

New York Beauty Brigade Quilt

Welcome to my New York Beauty Showstopper! 

This was the design brief I had from my lovely editor Jen when I discussed making a quilt with Jennifer Paganelli's sumptuous new line 'Color Brigade' (I know, it's an American name so it has American spelling, just grit your teeth and let it go).

I have a great relationship with Jennifer Paganelli, I adore her fabric and she loves my quilts! So she always sends me her new fabric lines (you should see the next one, OMG, it's even better than this!) and I really love creating with them.

Unfortunately I won't be stocking Color Brigade in our shop (but hopefully the next one if the new UK distributors get their act together!), it's actually quite hard to get in the UK but I have discovered this lovely online shop Sugar Bowl Crafts that are selling it! 

Plus I will be giving away a bundle of my left-over fabric at the weekend!

Jen asked for a Showstopper because it would be going in the magazine issue that comes out for Festival of Quilts and she wanted something eye catching for the cover and the stand at the show. 

So no pressure then!

Here it is on the cover of the latest issue which is out today. 

This issue comes with a really good supplement all about sashiko by Susan Briscoe, which is almost a book in itself! Plus an absolutely gorgeous Oakshott Lipari quilt by Lynne Goldsworthy and great articles about Jen Kingwell and feedsack fabrics. It's such a great mag, check out subscription deals here (5 issues for £5!).

I absolutely love any quilt pattern with spikes and curves and New York Beauty has been a favourite of mine since I first saw it 20 odd years ago, in fact I have a mini quilt hanging in my studio that I made back in 1995 (when I was sensible enough to label all my quilts!).

But this mini was an improv, free-hand NYB, and in fact I realised when I planned this quilt that I had never actually made a 'proper' NYB quilt but had always subverted the design a little (and never made a whole quilt!).

So for this quilt I used the simplest quarter block I could find (with the fewest spikes you can get away with), not just for myself but for everyone who makes it from the pattern!

The spiky collars need to be FPP'd and they are time consuming. But they are not hard, you just have to put the hours in!

I used my EQ7 software to play around with the blocks, rotating them every which way until I had the design right (that was the fun bit). 

The curve piecing is the tricky bit but it just requires a little practice, and though I don't usually use them (mainly because I have had A LOT of curve piece practice), pinning really does help here.

The fabric was so beautiful and rich, with lots of dark and and light contrast that all I needed to add was a little neutral fabric for the spikes, to help them stand out and give a little space. I used Kona Natural for this. It may look fairly random but I did play around with the contrast to get the most movement out of the design, so there was a lot of standing and staring at my design wall!!

The quilt was so busy already that I decided to go for an overall FMQ pattern that would blend in nicely and chose this simplified version of a Paisley design I had first used on my Modern Medallion Quilt. It's quilted with Aurifil 50 in a golden yellow shade on my trusty domestic Pfaff Quilt Expression 4.0 (people are always asking if I have a long-arm!).

I went for quite a plain background, it's a Carolyn Friedlander crosshatch from Architexture.

Here is the quilt on the FOQ stand last week. Love how they've piled all these beauties on to one bed. The gorgeous pink and grey quilt is by one of our Stitch Gathering tutors, Julie (Forest Poppy) and was on the cover of Love Patchwork and Quilting recently (the mags shared a stand).

It certainly drew a few 'oohs' and 'ahhs' so I am hoping it was showstopping enough!

When I finished it back in May I had a very limited time to take a photo before it got sent off (bumping against the deadline as always!) and the sun was full on to our flat photography area. Which means you get to see the lovely crinckly texture but the colours look a little washed out which is a shame.
 (edit: quilt came back today and I got a new flat shot which I've inserted at the top of the post!)

Hopefully I can get some more shots when the quilt returns to me soon!

Look out for the Color Brigade giveaway coming very soon!

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!!

Dishes Quilt

I am so happy that I can at last share my Dishes Quilt with you! 

I came up with the idea for this quilt back in the summer and offered it to the editor of Love Patchwork and Quilting, Jen. But instead Jen wanted it for her new magazine Today's Quilter. You may remember I wrote in this earlier post about my excitement over having to sign a non-disclosure form before Jen would tell me anything about the new magazine (which had a code name and everything!). 

Well Today's Quilter is now on issue 3 and my Dishes Quilt is on the cover!!

I discovered this on Monday on the same day I found out I had won the Viewer's Choice at the Blogger's Quilt Festival (thanks so much to anyone who  voted for me!!)! What a happy day Monday was!!

I love the photography they've done of the quilt, it looks so cosy here!

The inspiration for the quilt came from the beautiful fabric it's made with. This is Nostalgia be Jennifer Paganelli. I have always adored her fabric and used her previous collection Circa to make both my Gossip Girls and the Boho Pom-pom Cushions that featured in the Weekend Quilting magazine. Jennifer saw them there and asked if I would like some of her new fabric to play with. Obviously I said 'yes please'!!

So she sent me a big bundle of Nostalgia which I absolutely love! Unfortunately Coats are not making this available to buy wholesale in the UK (boo!), so UK peeps will need to buy this from the US.

Hawthorne Threads have the whole line and I took the lovely mosaic above from their blog.

I wanted a quilt design that really showed off the fabric and gave room for the bigger floral patterns. I did think long and hard about this, until suddenly the shape of a bowl came into my head! I have always loved the look of repeated shapes in a row and this seemed a perfect idea to highlight Jennifer's fabric.

And so the idea of a big crockery cupboard with shelves of dishes was born! I like to think of it as the Anthropologie crockery department come to life as a quilt!

Jennifer also sent fabric for a quilt backing, a beautiful design from a previous line. The background fabric is Manchester Yarn-dyed in Taupe by Kaufman. I love the look of it but it isn't the easiest fabric to use for patchwork as it stretches! As always I used Aurifil 50 to piece and quilt, this time in a neutral shade.

For the quilting I wanted a simple, tight, overall design to give a nice crinkly texture when washed, so I free-motion quilted double loops all over.

I hope this quilt acts as I good cross-over between the modern and traditional quilt aesthetic, I like to think it could fit in both camps with a classic, elegant style - at least that is what I was attempting!

I'm still completely in love with the fabric which totally makes the quilt.

I still haven't actually seen this issue of the magazine yet, but if these beautiful shots are anything to go by, it will be worth getting your hands on! Out in all good newsagents now, or check the website for great subscription offers!