Shangri La Farm Sherbert Quilt finished!

Last week I showed the top for this quilt when announcing my new Aurifil thread collection, Sherbert Dip. I am pleased to show you the finished piece!

I made this to accompany the thread box and to hang on the stand at Festival of Quilts. Here's a little reminder of the colours from the box...

I think I got them all in! I mainly used Kona Solids with some matching prints for the quilt.

The original idea came for this piece after I returned from QuiltCon Savannah earlier this year. I had been to a lecture there on minimal quilt design by Season Evans and I fancied having a go at some minimal quilting myself.

We have a long line of poplar trees that border one side of our land towards the west. We often get spectacular sunsets behind the trees and this happened on my return from QuiltCon. Initially I was envisaging a much more minimalistic interpretation with just vertical lines for trees and horizontal lines for the landscape.

But it turns out I can't really do minimalism - at least not yet! Maybe I will have another go one day...

When I found out that my Aurifil thread box would be launching at FOQ I decided that I would make a quilt to hang on the stand and that this landscape idea could work perfectly with the colours I had chosen for the box. 

Here is my initial sketch. I tend to work everything out in my head but still like to put pen to paper just before I start something.

It turned out to be one of those projects that works perfectly first time. It took me an afternoon and evening to finish the whole top! The whole thing is improv pieced with wonky curves. The only time I used a ruler was for the tree 'trunks'.

I don't have one of my Aurifil boxes yet as they are only just ready in Italy now, but I have most of the colours here as I use quite a few regularly and others I ordered while picking shades for the box, to 'audition' in the flesh.

As it is not a large piece  (44 x 31 inches) and as I wanted to include as many of my collection shades as possible I really went to town on the quilting. I used a mixture of FMQ, matchstick quilting (some straight line with a walking foot and some with my FMQ foot) and hand quilting. There were a lot of ends to thread in!

How amazing does the back look?!! As it is was always going to be a wall hanging I just backed it with an old duvet cover without much thought, but it's plainness  works well to show off the 'landscape of stitches'. Those blobby shapes are butterflies which is also kind of appropriate.

As soon as I finished the top I turned some of the scraps into these two improv panels, destined for some more of my 'Project Pouches' (large zippy pouches, perfect for storing your latest portable project!). But then I took delivery of a new laptop and so I decided to make them larger and make a laptop case with them.

I matchstick quilted them and then spent Saturday evening (I know it was a Saturday as this photo has a #saturdaynightcraftalong hashtag on Instgram!) handquilting some extra lines.

My plan was to just make a longer version of my project pouch and so I measured the laptop, adding plenty of extra for seam allowances and so it wasn't too snug, but I totally forgot about the zip opening being smaller than the sides! Duh!! So of course when finished the laptop wouldn't go through the zip aperture. Sigh...

So I cut the bottom off it and made a zippy pouch after all!
Here is one side...

....and here is the other. It has left me with two more smaller panels that I can make into a narrower pouch as well, so two for the price of one! I will need to think again about the lap top case.

Meanwhile as I was in a zippy pouch mood I thought I better finish off the class sample for my Stitch Gathering applique class by turning it into yet another pouch! I used more scraps from the quilt for the other side of this one too!

AND I still had enough scraps to make two more panels for yet another pouch. This one will have added applique 'tendrils'. This is a technique I have perfected for machine appliqueing stems and leaves over patchwork (with no raw edges).

I will be teaching a demo for this on the Aurifil stand (C1) at FOQ on Friday at 2pm, so if you are around then come along and watch me! If you can't make it then it will also be recorded as a Facebook Live demo on Aurifil's FB page. I will post more about this on my return next week and provide a link (and show you the finished pouches!).

Also look out for a quilt using this method coming up in next month's Today's Quilter magazine!

Meanwhile Shangri La Farm Sherbert Quilt is going along to the Edinburgh MQG meeting tonight as my Show and Tell. After FOQ I hope it will end up in Alex Veronelli's  Aurifil Designer Quilt Collection which tours around quilt shops with him.

In between you can check it out in person at Festival of Quilts if you are lucky enough to be going this week.

And just to confirm that my Sherbert Dip thread boxes will be availabel to buy from the Aurifil stand at FOQ. By the end of August I should have them in my Edinburgh shop and online store for everyone to buy!

Linking up with Scraptastic Tuesday!

Almost Black Quilt

Presenting 'Almost Black', a new finished quilt and a bit of a departure for me.

This got sent off earlier today to Festival of Quilts as my entry to the Modern Quilt category.

I've been thinking for a while now about how to make applique look more modern and minimalist.

My recent mini (for the Pantone Challenge) 'Greenery Shoots' was an initial experiment which I have extended here.

I started off using just dark grey, charcoal and black fabric and making panels of what I always call 'scrappy improv', basically lovely playtime in my sewing room!

The first few had too much contrast so I started using just black and charcoal.

Folks were very encouraging on Instagram and a slowly pieced together bigger and bigger panels. It's a bit like working on a giant fabric puzzle.

I even asked for some suggestions for blocks that I could 'improv-up', and Tatyana Duffie suggested a churn dash and Cheryl Arkison suggested some wonky letters, so I created the word 'night' which was a bit of an indication of the design I had in mind.

When I posted this photo of the finished top, quite a few people wanted me to leave it like this and just quilt it, and I did consider it (briefly!). But anyone who knows me would understand that not including ANY colour on a quilt is just not going to happen.

My plan all along was to applique different coloured circles in lines that would appear as coloured 'fairy light' against a night sky.

I prepared three sizes of circles and spent time appliqueing them in three rows (some nice summer weather luckily coincided with this hand sewing!). Using Aurifil 80wt really helps stitches disappear!

I did think about just one or two strands but, after consultation with my quilty advisers (Lynne and Karen) I decided to go for three, as odd numbers are always best (according to Karen!).

Can you see that I have left a gap in the top strand of lights? I do like a little 'oddness' (like the one pink leaf in Greenery Shoots) and I decided to leave a space as if a bulb had just blown, and to hand quilt an empty circle there. But someone on Instagram (Kim Moran-Jones) suggested appliqueing a grey circle instead and I loved that idea (thanks Kim!)!

I really agonised over how to quilt it. I wanted the dense texture I had achieved with matchstick quilting on my Greenery Shoots mini, but didn't want to do straight line quilting (my Pfaff machine, though wonderful at FMQ, really struggles with straight line as the integral walking foot isn't up to it). So I ended up with this kind of woodgrain type thing, wavy lines but all done with FMQ. 

I didn't want to quilt over the circles at all, I love how they stand out when quilting happens around them. Somebody asked me if they were padded the other day. The answer is no, but they do look a bit like they are!

I used a variegated grey Aurifil 50wt for the FMQ, one of my favourites, number 4670.

When I had finished all the machine quilting I hand quilted around each circle with a pale yellow perle cotton 12, to give the appearance of a 'glow'. The blown bulb, now an appliqued grey circle, has a very faint glow (it's very recently blown!) achieved by using Aurifil 80wt in cream.



I had deliberately left space between some of my quilting lines to add some hand quilting. It's quite subtle as I used an ecru perle cotton number 12, but I really think it adds to the texture and interest.

I love the fact there is so much to look at in this quilt, even though the background is kind of dull. I think that makes you notice more because there is so little distraction.

I used a scrappy binding made of the same blacks and charcoals, I just wanted something to blend in really.

I'm really pleased with how this worked out, it's pretty much as I saw it in my head when I first conceived it. Actually it's a lot better!

And I have more ideas for this sort of 'applique on improv' look, so watch this space!

Oh and do any of you recognise the reference (from a British sketch comedy show) in the title?! It's a family private joke in our house and what my husband said when he saw me working on this!

Hawaiian Applique Cushions

As I am sure you all know by now, I do love a bit of applique. So when Alice, the editor of Love Patchwork and Quilting, asked me to do my interpretation of Hawaiian Applique I jumped at the chance.

And look it made the cover of issue 50! There are some fantastic projects in this issue and as it is a special birthday number they have a fantastic 50% off subscription offer!

I made two different cushions, both with bold solid colour combinations. As this issue is so jam-packed the template for the orange and green version is available from their blog here.

19^th century missionaries brought the art of patchwork to Hawaii, and the native woman made it their own with applique designs based on the flora and fauna of the Island, as well as more spiritual symbolism of gods, legends and emotions. Hawaiian women still gather in quilting circles to work on these intricate designs all based around folded patterns. 

My designs are a simplified, modern interpretation of Hawaiian applique, but I do use the traditional techniques. If you want to know more about Hawaiian Applique and try out some traditional patterns then I would recommend the Poakalani books.

There is a long lead time for the magazine projects so I was actually stitching one of these when I was at QuiltCon. It was one of the first projects I used the new Aurifil 80wt threads with and they worked like a dream.

They are very relaxing and meditative to do but be warned, they are laborious, I reckon they took at least 10 hours each to complete!

Starlights Quilt

Introducing my new Thread House quilt - Starlights!  And the third finish on the blog this week!



Yes three months have (somehow) passed since our first patterns were released back in September. So it's time for three more Thread House Patterns, and this is my offering.

I was attempting something relatively simple ( I often tend to over complicate things!) but also a bit clever. It's quite a simple off-centre star block but with fancy sashing that makes another star between each block. 

Plus there's an 'Irish chain' type thing going on through each block which, I hope, gives the impression of strings of fairy lights looping through the stars.

I love a grey and yellow palette and that's what I started with, but it's a little too restrictive for me so I added the bright solids for the stars.

It's free-motion quilted with a variegated grey Aurifil 50 thread in an overall design which is a variation of a mussels pattern.

The back is one of the Heather Ross Mendicino fabrics in the colour I find most indispensable - orange!

I really wasn't sure about this quilting at first, I thought that the grey was too dark, especially over the yellow stars. But after sharing the quilt with my students and getting some encouragement I feel a bit better about it, and I have to say it looks good in the photos.

Lynne and Karen both have stunning new quilt patterns to offer and all three will be ready to buy later this week.

I'll be sharing them all here once they're published!

Square Cogs Quilt

Issue 39 of Love Patchwork and Quilting magazine comes out today and I have a quilt featured!

This is my Square Cogs quilt made with Joel Dewberry's gorgeous Wander fabric (the same line I used for my Crockery Cupboard quilt).

Absolutely love this modern sampler quilt by Karen Lewis on the cover! And Karen has an even better quilt inside (IMHO), along with so many others by the likes of Reene Witchard and Lou Orth.

I designed this quilt at the beginning of the year, I was playing around with HSTs and started to interlock them around a square. I really liked this effect, very simple but a bit clever too. 

I'd been looking for something to do with all the lovely Wander fabric I'd been sent by the manufacturer, so I divided it up into light and dark and added some coordinating Kona solids for extra contrast.

The background is Kona White, which gives it a nice crisp look.

I wanted a fun overall FMQ pattern and so chose this echo circle with spikes around. The spikes match the cogs and the circles soften all those straight edges. It's quilted in Aurifil 50 in a pale pink.

This is a quick and satisfying quilt to make. The overall effect can really pack some punch depending on the fabrics you choose. I hope I see some other versions out there soon!