Story of a Quilt - Magnolia Metallics

This is another quilt I've been busy working on for the magazine. The fabrics were very kindly donated by Winbourne Fabrics who are the UK distributors for Moda. The collection is called Magnolia Metallics and is a classic Christmas-style collection, but not overly so.

Magnolia Metallics aka Cactus Flower Quilt

Designing a quilt using a Layer Cake or Jelly Roll is always an extra challenge as you usually need to tweak any designs to suit cutting the finite amount of fabric that you have. With this block I needed to use half square triangles to create the 'spikes' of the flower instead of a Flying Geese unit as there wasn't quite enough fabric to do this with the 10" squares.

I made a test block for this quilt as I couldn't afford to make any mistakes.

I finally found the time to get piecing. It was a struggle to get going for a bit and I had to delay the project going in the mag by an issue. I think I also didn't twig how big it was going to get! Forty two, 12" blocks makes for a big quilt! The finished size of the quilt is 76" x 88".

Image credit Sharon Cooper Photography

The additional fabrics in the quilt were three fabrics from Moda's awesome Grunge range and a couple of prints from the Magnolia Metallics collection for the Four Patch units.

I used Hobbs 80/20 wadding and backed the quilt with the Cream Grunge. It took me a little while to decide how best to quilt it. I find it hard to even think about doing an all-over pattern so I settled for my usual wiggle using King Tut thread no. 936 which is called Pharoah's Treasures. It was an ideal match as it's red, green and gold. The binding was the green holly print used in the Four Patch units.

The great thing about this design is that it lends itself to be made with any Layer Cake so the pattern I'll be selling of it is called Cactus Flower.

The quilt will be appearing in the November 2017 issue of British Patchwork & Quilting magazine which is out on 20 October 2017.

Joanna

Layer Cake Sampler Quiltalong

I've been having fun taking part in this quiltalong designed and organised by Amanda at Material Girl Quilts. Every Friday Amanda has been releasing two new blocks and we've just passed the halfway point.

 

All you need to make the quilt is a layer cake of forty 10" squares and background fabric. This is what the finished quilt will look like

 

 

I decided to use a Splash Cracker pack which is Hoffman's version of a Layer Cake. However, I couldn't decide which background fabric to use; light or dark. So I decided to be a bit different and use both

 

I like to be a bit different every now and then. I'm a kind of 'What if.........' quilter.

So here are my blocks up to block 12, in sets of four. The finished size of the blocks are 16" square and I don't have a design wall or space big enough for all of them at once!

Blocks 1 to 4

Blocks 5 to 8

 

 

Blocks 9 to 12

I'm loving how my points are meeting nicely, I think because you trim the HST units before joining them. And I'm quite pleased with how using two fabrics for the background is working. It is meaning that I'm needing to think about the best arrangement for the blocks each time. Amanda gives you a couple of alternative layouts for each block too.

So only eight more blocks to go!

And finally..........you know I said I was a 'What if' kind of quilter? I thought I would make some more blocks using one of the Hoffman 1895 pre cut packs which are plainer fabrics and use a patterned batik for the background......and here are blocks 1 and 2 using Taffy

 Oh...........and I'm using a 5" charm pack instead of a layer cake so the HSTs are trimmed to 2" square making the finished blocks 6" instead of 16". I think they will all be quite cute!

Linking up with Amanda's halfway blog post and giveaway
 

What I've been up to - March

This month seems to have flown by and yet by birthday seems ages ago now! You will be glad to hear we managed to fit the tap to the water butt.........

 

So what have I been up to this month? With spring finally on its way I've finally managed to sow some seeds indoors. Some summer cabbages - Bourbon - germinated within a week

 

 

They are much bigger than this now and starting to get their next set of leaves. I'll need to re-pot them soon I think.

 

We also sowed some tomatoes and leeks which took a little longer to germinate but they are coming along nicely too now.

Added to these were sweet peas this week. So the conservatory is looking a bit like a greenhouse at the moment.

 

The potatoes are chitting nicely and we're hoping to get at least the earlies in this weekend as the weather is looking very mild

 

 

I've been busy digging over the potato bed in readiness for planting them out but there has been a frost this week.

 

Cooking-wise I made a delicious cream of leek soup this week after a fellow plot holder gave me a few leeks and we harvested the first of the rhubarb a couple of days ago (which the cat promptly sat on)

 

 

and we turned it into rhubarb and custard cake (without cat)

 

 

It took forever to cook because I made it in a loaf tin but it tastes pretty yummy!

 

My sewing has consisted mainly of making blocks for a layercakesampler quiltalong which is great fun

 

 

And I have also gone back to making my City Sampler blocks. I thought I would try something different and use a striped fabric in each block together with some Kona solids which my parents bought me for me birthday

 

 

And while its working quite well

 

 

These are blocks 1 to 6, I'm not 100% sure about it. Mainly I think because I thought I would arrange the blocks in a barn raising style........which means most of the blocks are green ones.....

 

So I've also added to the taupe ones I started.......

 

 

I'm making these blocks as a quiltalong with a couple of quilting friends as it does help to keep you going with them

 

So quite a lot done in March....and its not quite over yet!

 

 

Jigsaw Stars - the whole story

I decided last night that if this blog is going to be an online record of my quilts and my quilting, I really ought to do a blog post for each quilt when its finished recording everything that went into making it.

 

So this is the whole story post for Jigsaw Stars, the quilt I finished last week.

 

 

A lot of my quilting is of course tied up with my business; to some extent the two are inseparable. Jigsaw Stars was made with one of the new Hoffman Bali Crackers; a 10" square charm pack. These are Hoffman's version of a layer cake which I have just started stocking. Quite often with new products you need to make something up to inspire people. This particular colour pack, Parfait, was actually my favourite in their 5th collection of pre-cuts but it wasn't very popular among my customers. And so it fell victim to being used by me.........

I spent quite a while playing around with designs, working out how much could be cut from a 10" square. I finally settled on the design and added a dull pink Hoffman batik as a background fabric which went well with all the colours in the pack.

 

The piecing went together quite quickly. I cut the squares up in a methodical manner as I worked as it was important to keep the squares in the right order. I think it was about then I decided the design was good enough to be made into a pattern that I could sell.

I always take work in progress shots of my quilts. Often they are just to post on twitter etc but they are then useful for adding to pattern instructions.

 

 

I used a new wadding for this quilt, a bolt of polyester wadding from Legacy by Pellon. I've wondered about using this for some time. Just thought it was cool to have it on the shelf!

However......

I was disappointed with it. It did say to pre-test with dark fabrics but this quilt has a variety of tones in it. It didn't beard where I was quilting but I just had a layer of fluff on the surface of the quilt which then collected in little balls of fibre like this.

 

 

 However, I have to say now that the quilt is finished and bound, it is behaving better!

 

This quilt was a first for me...........the first quilt I have free motion quilted. The stars in the centre were echo quilted using my walking foot but the pink background was stipple quilted. I'm quite pleased with my first effort!

 

 

I used King Tut 925 - Caravan in the top and a blue Masterpiece 138 in the bobbin as the quilt has blue backing.

The binding was put together with leftover bits from the Cracker pack...........and another first........I double bound the edges and used Wonder Clips for the first time!

 

Quilt summary - Jigsaw Stars

Top - Parfait Bali Cracker + Hoffman 1895 Orchid

Wadding - Legacy by Pellon Polyester

Thread - King Tut 925 + Masterpiece

Backing - Hoffman 1895 Swordfish

 

And that is the story of Jigsaw Stars

 

I Made a Quilt!

When I say I made a quilt, I mean I have actually finished one; quilting, binding, hanging sleeve. The lot. Well apart from a label, which I will add shortly.

This is a rare occurrence for me.

I do actually make a lot of quilts.........well quilt tops. I'm designing and creating all the time, especially now that I have developed this addiction for pre-cuts. I have a further three pre-cut quilt tops to quilt and started another one over the weekend using the new Hoffman Bali collection pre-cuts.

And not meaning to boast, but I finished quilting quilt #2 on Saturday so that just needs the binding and hanging sleeve added and then that is done too!

 

So where is this new found explosion of getting things done come from? It's because I am combining my learning to machine quilt with making all these quilt tops. It's just so quick to whizz around with the machine. It doesn't need to be perfect, its not for a competition. It just needs to be good enough to make the quilt look good and I think so far I have achieved this.

 

Everything has just come together nicely as this first completed quilt is going to be a pattern that I will be launching it Quilts UK this coming week. Wanting to make it into a pattern made me realise that I really needed to learn machine quilting for me to do this. I love hand quilting but its just not practical if I want to make something as a display model.

 

So this is the start of something new!

 

And as for the quilt itself............here it is! It's made from a Bali Cracker plus background fabric so its layer cake friendly.

 

 

Quilt #2 is possibly more suitable to teach in a class as its simpler........this is something else I think I need to start doing! 

It may be cold outside.......

............but it's warm indoors, especially if you have a quilt you are working on!

I should have been doing some more quilting on my Kaleidoscope quilt this week as it is lovely and warm with a wool wadding, but I haven't even got it out! It's been a busy week with a trip to Worcestershire for some photography and of course the snow which has meant son's school has closed early twice this week.

We had snow in the east on Monday. It wasn't too bad, but it has been really cold all week. However the frost on the trees and bushes in the garden has been wonderful

(For some reason wherever I post the last image.....it never gets shown the right way round, even though I have rotated and saved it the right way up!)

Then there was more snow yesterday but worse in the west this time. We maybe got about an inch of snow. It was enough to bring all the birds in the garden, which is pretty cool seeing as we never get birds in our little garden. An especially new visitor was this cute wagtail, who was obviously cold as he kept on lifting one foot off the ground

So what sewing have I done this week? Mainly I've been putting together a sashing row and been joining row C onto my SBS quilt. I really need to find a virtual design wall so that I can insert the images of each block in it. Maybe that will be my task today?!

I have also been sidetracked a little with the scrappy tripalong that is doing the rounds in Blogland, thanks mainly due to Katy at I'm a Ginger Monkey. Katy has a serious addiction to this! The original tutorial is at Quiltville. I have been fairly restrained so far and only made two blocks, but I can hear it calling to me!

The trouble is, I'm also thinking how cool it would look if I cut a strip from each of my red and white prints.........

My plan this weekend is to add the borders to the new layer cake quilt I have been working on........assuming I can resist the lure of the scrappy tripalong.......

Humble

I've been trying to find the time to sit and write a 2012 review for the last few days, having read Lily's Quilts post on 1 January. But so far all I have done is feel very humble and almost inadequate compared to all the other bloggers who have linked their blogs to the post, either for Fresh Sewing Day or the Small Blog Meet.

I only have one FINISHED quilt to show for 2012!

This is it!

My layer cake quilt that I made for British Patchwork & Quilting.

Otherwise all I have made is quilt tops..........plenty of them! And all of them tops to display fabrics, so I'm not particularly attached to any of them.

 

And then I become addicted to pre-cuts using Hoffman Bali Pops, Snaps and Crackers. This one is a really quick one using a pack of 5" squares (Snaps) and a strip pack (Pops), both in Tiramisu. I think I will actually quilt this one!

I have made a couple of other quilt tops using pre-cuts, but they are kind of secret at the moment as I'm thinking about turning them into patterns..............once I have quilted them!!

And that's about it!

As I said........humble is the word x

Here we go again......

Wow! How can it be that over two months have gone by since I last wrote a blog post? I really am going to have to try harder! It's not like they have to be long mega essays after all is it?

I have actually done very little sewing recently. I do actually intend to do some hand sewing every evening but somehow I manage to fritter away what free time I have without even holding a needle. Even if I try not to touch that big time sucker, aka my computer, I seem to be catching up on twitter on my phone instead.
I do like twitter at the moment though!

I have been playing with the new Bali Pops, Crackers and Snaps that I had in stock. One quilt top I want to keep under wraps a little as I might turn it into a pattern, I made that from an old Pop pack.

The other quilt I have created is so basic and likely already to have been made before so I don't mind sharing that, although most of the images for it are on my phone, so I have pinched one from there for now.

 

It's made with one Tiramisu Pop and one Tiramisu Snap which is a 5" square pack. When I made the quilt I used the left over Pop strips in the borders and thought I had enough bits left to mitre the corners......... but I didn't so I had to unpick one mega long seam and insert a couple more border bits and redo the border.
I was right to do so though and it would have bugged me if I had done straight border corners!

 

Ages ago I promised a picture of my completed layer cake quilt that I was making for the magazine. It was featured in the Sept 2012 issue and was also on the front cover. So here it is!

 

 

And I'm really excited to see it's being used in the publicity for the new Uttoxeter quilt show, the British Quilt & Stitch Village!

 

I have done some sewing................honest!

It's been an incredibly busy couple of months. If I thought I was busy before, that was nothing compared to the last six weeks or so!
I have been wanting to post something for ages, but then life gets in the way and the moment has gone.

So not a lot of sewing has gone on.

I have made some quilt samples though! The first I am really pleased with and which uses fabrics from the Magic Garden collection from Blend Fabrics.

 

It went together really quickly, in a matter of hours!

Then I made what I feel is my first modern quilt! It uses the stripe from the Retro Mix collection from Robert Kaufman. It just needs some great straight line quilting...........

Next up was a delft inspired quilt featuring fabrics from the Dutch Cottage collection from Robert Kaufman. I'm really pleased with this one too. I love using stripes as sashings and bindings.

 

Wow! Looking at those quilts I feel like I have actually been quite productive! Maybe it's because I haven't done much hand sewing recently. I've just finished blocks C9 of our SBS quilts this evening so will post some pics soon.

Oh and I can now post a pic of the layer cake quilt I was working on seeing as it's on the front cover of P&Q magazine!

Confession Time

I have a terrible thing to confess!

I have hardly done any sewing for several weeks now, possibly not since my son went on his school residential trip in mid June.
That really is terrible isn't it?
I have no idea why.
I did have a quilt show a couple of weeks ago but that's no excuse.

Actually, come to think of it I did put a binding and hanging sleeve on my layer cake quilt a week or so ago. Ferret quilted it for me as I just wouldn't have been able to quilt it in time for it to go into the September issue of British Patchwork & Quilting which is being worked on now.

And that's about it.

I think I have a creative block at the moment, kind of. That and not getting around to thinking about doing some sewing until its late in the evening. And then I am too tired to start anything new (thanks to the cat waking me up before 5am most days).

I want to teach myself to machine quilt and thought I would have a go at following the Free Motion Quilting Quilt Along except I can't really get started as I don't have a darning foot for my machine yet.
#doh!

I have a couple of display quilts I want to get started on. One of them needs a bit of thought still so maybe that's why I am stalling?

And then I have a modern quilt I want to make......

And there's my red and white quilt.........

And I have my kaleidoscope quilt to quilt.......

So I have no idea what I am waiting for!