Around the World Blog Hop

Welcome to my blog as the Around the World Blog Hop finally reaches my little corner of blogland! Thank you to Nina at BossyOz for nominating me. Nina and I met on instagram when we both joined the first UK ModernInstabee that I set up earlier this year. We're a group of twelve ladies making blocks from the Modern Bee book by Linsday Conner. We met for real at this year's Festival of Quilts at the NEC in Birmingham.

 

A little bit about myself for any new visitors to my blog. I'm a single mum (by choice having divorced my husband a few years ago). I have a teenage son who is now taller than me and have lived most of my life in East Anglia. I run my own online quilt shop, The Crafty Quilter, and I am also the editor of British Patchwork & Quilting, which is the job that pays the bills! In between my sewing and work I have an allotment which is my new love and somewhere for me to escape to, and enjoy the fruits of my labours a few months later!

 

I made my first quilt when I was 18 for my now ex husband ( I got to keep the quilt in the divorce) and really haven't looked back since then.

 

And so onto the blog hop questions........

 

What are you currently working on?

Obviously as a true quilter, I have more than one project on the go! I'm just trying to finish quilting a little quilt for someone who had a baby recently. It's a plus quilt and backed with cuddle but I'm not enjoying quilting it as I've managed to get a fold in the backing and haven't got the time to redo it.

My latest bee blocks for this month are done; Trellis Crossroads for the ModernInstabee and a scrappy Trip Around the World for the LBQB.

 

 

I have several long term projects that I am working on - a City Sampler designed by Tula Pink. I'm using a Robert Kaufman Remix stripe in every block together with matching solids.

 

 

And the other long term project is Sylvia's Bridal Sampler that I am making by hand. My mum and sister are also making their own versions of this, as is my son.

 

How does your work differ from others?

I'm not sure that it does that much. I am very much a traditional quilter at heart but have modern quilter leanings. I like using batiks but also like using fabrics where I can make them do the hard work for me and make a design look more complicated than it is. A lot of my quilts reflect this. I haven't got many recent finishes to show you but this is one I finished this year called The Red Cross.

 

 

Why do you write/create what you do?

A lot of what I do in my quilting recently has been to do with making quilt samples for my business. A few years ago I realised that in order to sell fabrics in my business, I needed to be more productive making quilts using those fabrics. And then that I need to actually quilt them, so I taught myself to machine quilt, kind of. However now that I have gone down that route, I have struggled a little with finding the time and inspiration to make quilts for myself and have lost my quilting mojo a little; something I need to try and rediscover next year I think!

 

 

How does your creative process work?

Like many quilters, I find inspiration wherever I go. I don't usually have the time to sit down and let these creative juices flow though so quite often I'll get a simple idea in my head and work with that. I can also get inspired by a fabric which will lead me to trying out a design. I will usually just do a rough sketch on paper or draw something in my quilt design programme, but often I'll just dive in having worked out some rough cutting instructions!

 

 

 

Next stop on the blog hop.........

Thanks for taking the time to read my blog. I hope you'll maybe stay a bit longer and continue to read my somewhat sporadic posts! In the meantime please take a look at my fellow LBQB bee member, Alison's blog at Patchwork Alley as the next stop on this Around the World Blog Hop.

 

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

What I am doing now - Feb

I had a free weekend last weekend..........and used it wisely; well it was Groundhog Day and I was kind of hoping that would mean I would be very productive if I spent the day sewing and had to relive the day over and over again!

 

I managed to make a few more scrappytripalong blocks in my red and white fabrics. I'm just making them as and when. Here are the first four

 

 

 

As I make more I am realising that whilst I thought it would be quite clever to restrict my fabric palette to red and white fabrics, it is also quite limiting and a little bit of me wishes I had continued with making a totally scrappy one like this.

 
I'll keep persevering with the red and whities for now though.

I've been doing a bit of quilting this week on my Kaleidoscope quilt. As this isn't a traditional quilt, each stage of the quilting needs a bit of thinking and every now and then I hit a bit of a brick wall, but then it's a fantastic feeling when I break through that wall. I'm quilting some parallel lines for some background quilting at the moment.

 

The other thing I have been working on the last week or so is a red and white challenge quilt that my mother has issued to my sister and me: to make a quilt 1m square using a bag of red and white fabrics she gave us at Christmas. My first reaction was "oh". I was already making a New York Beauty style red and white quilt, had started the red and white scrappytripalong and really didn't want to make another red and white quilt. Plus I don't have much time for making quilts for me so any time taken out making this challenge quilt was going to be time taken away from my own quilting. So I have compromised, kind of. I've made something quickly by machine but will probably hand quilt it.

It echoes a modern minimalist phase that I am going through at the moment.

 

 

I foundation pieced the fabric strips to ensure they were accurate and straight. Each one is 3/4" wide. They would have been all over the place if I had just pieced them by machine!
I'm thinking about quilting it with cross hatching, possibly in red and white threads. Might experiment with doing the cross hatching vertically in one colour and horizontally in the other.

Seeing as I was working with my red and white prints I made a start on the next block for my NYB quilt, really want to crack on with this now!

 
Linking up with Lily's Quilts Fresh Sewing Day post and Small Blog Meet