Story of a Quilt - Ripples in the Sand

This quilt has been in the making for quite some time. The fabrics arrived in stock in my quilt shop in July 2017. I even started making the quilt that same month and had the finished quilt top on display on my stand at the Festival of Quilts last year.

But for some reason, I didn't get around to quilting it. Until a couple of months ago.

I think the impetus to finish came about because I decided to use it as a filler project for the magazine. And I'm so glad I have finished it as I love it. I haven't quilted it as densely as I usually do, with the result that it's a lot softer and snugglier than some of my other recent quilts. A lesson to self there maybe? It's still quilted enough to create dimension and interest though.

The fabrics are from a collection called Sand in my Shoes designed by McKenna Ryan for Robert Kaufman. I love how they seem to blend with each other so I wanted to create a block that would reflect that and allow the colours to flow.

A mixture of different sized HSTs and I had the design I wanted. Something fairly simple but looked a lot more interesting once the fabrics played their part, which is my raison d'etre when it comes to designing quilts for my shop.

Mirror image blocks in alternate rows helped create that flow.

I like to use most of the fabrics from a collection if I can as hopefully that will mean they sell more evenly so this quilt used 17 of the 27 fabrics in the collection. The ones I didn't use were the ombres and a couple of other scene-type fabrics.

I auditioned several of the ombre prints for the inner border in a post you can read about here, and plumped for the bright green ombre which is the Meadow colour.

To echo the flow of the quilt, I quilted it in freehand wavy parallel lines, like ripples in the water. This may end up being the last quilt I quilt on my trusty old New Home Janome. It's served me well over the years, but thanks to a recent big birthday, I've upgraded to a Janome Atelier 3 which has a much bigger throat.

I backed the quilt with one of the fabrics from the collection. Quilting thread was King Tut #905, Baby Blankets and the wadding, Hobbs Heirloom 80/20. The binding is the same green (Meadow) ombre used in the inner border.

The quilt was featured in the April 2018 issue of P&Q.

2017 - A Review in Quilts

So, as the year draws to a close, did I stick to those New Year's Resolutions?

When you set yourself goals in a specific area, such as your hobby, it's probably easier to stick to them. So taking a quick peak at my review of 2016 (which you can read here), it looks like my aim as usual was to be more prolific and make more quilts. I feel like I have been more productive this year but looking back to last year, I've completed the same number of quilts (five) which is funny! Although all of these quilts have been made for the magazine when a deadline is a keen incentive to finish something on time! If you scroll back through my posts you can read my 'Story of a Quilt' series of posts where I've written about each quilt as I've finished it.

My last finish of the year is this quick pieced quilt using the Chroma collection of fabrics from Alison Glass.

Chroma Quilt

I think my main goal from a year ago was to do more quilting for me and that's the main area I have fallen down. I don't think I have even touched my long term projects of Tula Pink's City Sampler, or my Splendid Sampler blocks. I might have done a little bit of sewing on my Sylvia's Bridal Sampler quilt which is a hand sewing project and I think I got my longest WIP out once a month or so ago when I did a bit of hand quilting one evening.

I participated in a hexie sewalong this year making one, yes just one, hexagon a day for 100 days and believe it or not I managed not to stay completely up to date with this! Although I did finish all 100 hexies and have been sewing them into flowers as I go. I used fabrics dyed by Heidi Stoll Weber and have just started making a scrappy low volume background to applique them onto. I'd really like to make progress  on that over the winter.

A pile o' hexies

I'm going to be 50 next year which is a scary prospect. It suddenly feels like half my life is over and yet you feel the same inside as you did twenty, thirty years ago. I think I need to make it my main New Year's resolution for 2018 to finish my longest WIP which is a kaleidoscope-style quilt inspired by the work of Paula Nadelstern. I think I probably started it over a decade ago having been inspired by an annual quilt competition at the Quilt Museum in Paducah, Kentucky 'New Quilts from Old Favourites'. Whichever year was the year for using the Kaleidoscope block was probably the year I started this quilt! I think it would be fitting if I managed to finish this quilt during my 50th year, don't you?

Check back with me in a year's time to see if I managed it!

Joanna

Full of the Joys of Spring part 2 - and a tutorial!

So the rest of my day yesterday was spent sewing.

 

And yesterday I made a quilt top! It was so quick and easy I've put a quick tutorial together as I'm thinking it has the possibilities to be as good as the #scrappytripalong that is all the rage online.

 

One of the marketing girls at the offices gave me a charm pack of thirty two 5" squares that are subscription gifts for a Sewing for Pleasure show the magazine is attending in a couple of weeks.

 

'What can you do with this?' she asked.

 

I wasn't immediately struck with inspiration but as usual the creative juices starting flowing and I have come up with this. It measures 38" square but if you kept adding blocks you could make a bed-sized quilt really quickly.........and use up a lot of scraps. You don't have to use one background colour either like I have done here, which would use even more scraps up!

 

 

I'm calling it a #scrappychurndash and here's how you make it.

 

What you need:

Assorted 5" square scraps or a charm pack

Matching background or assorted light or dark scraps. I used calico.

 

Cutting:

1. Cut 5" strips from your background and sub cut these into 5" squares.

 

Method:

1. Take one, 5" background square and cut it in half to make two, 2.5" x 5" rectangles.

2. Join these rectangles to opposite sides of one, 5" scrappy square. Press seams towards scrappy square.

 

 

3. Take one, 5" scrappy square and cut it in half to make two rectangles as before and join them to opposites sides of one, 5" background square. Press seams towards scrappy rectangles.

 

 

4. Cut this second pieced strip in half to make two, 2.5" x 9" rectangles.

 

 

5. Place these pieced rectangles on opposite sides of the first pieced strip.

 

 

6. Join the strips together to complete the block. It should measure 9" square (finished size 8.5" square) and the seams should nestle nicely because you have pressed them in opposite directions.

 

And hey presto one very quick and easy block!

 

 

What do you think? Want to play along too? If you do, tag your images #scrappychurndash

 

Joanna

Where have you been?

Months have gone by again without me managing to write a post. I'm actually getting quite good at not writing them now!

I seem to be consumed by work these days and all work and no play has made me a dull girl. The editing work, ie the work that pays the bills, has been so manic the last few months as we have had to fit putting together an annual special magazine on top of the regular monthly issues.

And then there is my quilting and a lot of my recent quilting is so tied up with my fabric business (the work that doesn't pay the bills), that I don't like to post pictures of them here first.

 

But hey ho

 

I have been quite productive over the last few months and have finished quite a few of the quilts I've made from Hoffman pre-cuts; I really love working with them now!

Here's a few pics of them........

 

 

This was made from a Cherry Bali Pop

 

A Tiramisu Bali Pop and Snap

 

This quick quilt was made using a Tonga Treat Mini pack from Timeless Treasures

 

And this final quilt was my first attempt at free motion quilting, which was a little silly as its straight lines and would have been better quilted with my walking foot!

 

So a lot of quilting has been going on but very little quilting for me.......



 

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!