Stash Note 43

Aren't they handsome.....
I mean who can say no to such gorgeous man folk ?

 

Any suggestions to what use I could put those ? 

I was thinking a pillow maybe to put my weary head on, or a cover for my quilt scrap book.

I bought those two pieces of lushness from Alexander Henry's collection  'Heavy Equipment' (aptly named don't you think) from Fabric Inspirations here in the UK. 

Go and check them out they have a great selection of fabric and good choice of Sevenberry dots and stripes.

Holiday sewing

No not the type in the American sense of Christmas but the type where one goes in an actual holiday. I am off to a sunny place this week to freshen up that all important tan and to top up the rather low Vitamin D deposit. And because I want to go in style I engaged in some fun holiday sewing.

Over the next couple of weeks I will feature a few items I have sewn so you have something to read while I am counting sand grains at the beach (sorry !!).

First off my new bag. This is a bag I mirrored on this beautiful hand embroidered shoulder bag that I  bought some years ago in Vietnam. This is the perfect holiday bag because it weighs next to nothing (unlike a leather bag) and has enough space for the important bits (wallet, sunglasses, book, suntan lotion). As you can see it has this clever drawstring unit at the top that helps to keep longfingers out of the bags.

The arrival of 'Ruby Star Shining' inspired bag sewing action my house so I copied my Vietnam bag for which I used one of the panels of the new Melody Miller fabric collections. I think the fabric panels lend themselves ideally to bag making and I used them on most of my previous bags.
The bag is approximately 13 x 12 inches and has a long strap so the bag sits on the hips.

Front

Back

On the Vietnam bag the drawstring unit was simply attached to the top but I wanted a fully lined bag this time and I also wanted the right sight of the lining to show inside the bag AND outside on the drawstring unit. The only way to achieve this is by producing two lining units whereby the top (drawstring) unit has to have a French seam as the seam will be visible on the inside of the unit. French seams are nothing else but a double seam resulting in a clean seam that doesn't fray. You first sew a very narrow seam where the two fabric pieces face wrong sides together and then fold the pieces right sights together and stitch  a normal quarter inch seam over the first seam. There are plenty of tutorials around, a good one is on Sew Mama Sew. You can see my french seam here in this image.

And here you see how the two lining pieces look when sewn together and attached to the bag.

 

 For the straps I used a newspaper print I had in my stash.

  

This images shows the drawstrings pulled together.

Stash Note 42

There are a lot of fabric lines that catch my eye, some delight me but there are few that utterly thrill me. Malka Dubrawsky's new line 'A stich in colour' for Moda is just one of those. Of course the line isn't really new as Malka has been screen printing her fabric for quite a while now and in fact I bought a selection of her pints last year that you can see here. I am so pleased that Malka used her prodigious design skills to produce a fabric collection that mirrors her own screen printed fabrics. I love hand printed fabrics but they are expensive and by having Moda produce a collection all of us fabric addicts have a more affordable way to buy these wonderfully colourful designs.

I procured a fat eights set from a shop called countrystitches  via e-bay of all places and can't wait to get stuck into it.

Look at those colours, isn't it amazing.

The collection isn't as wildly available as other Moda collection but Marmelade fabric and Moona fabric also sell the collection. None so far in the UK though (as far as I know).

Ruby Star Spring framed in linen

What does one do when a quilt is finished ? Start a new one of course.........its that easy.


The inspiration for this new project comes from three sources. The first is the arrival of the new collection 'Ruby Star Shining' from Melody Miller that I featured in my last stash note. I can't really start working with this before I have done something with Melody's last collection, Ruby Star Spring. This is a lighter version of the Kokka typical cotton linen blend and thus has a wonderful drape. It doesn't really lent itself well to bag making but very good to attire and of course quilts, always quilts. This is the collection that features those wonderful pixelated large bees. 

The second source of  inspiration was the wonderful bag quilt that Siobhan made during the Auriful challenge and that I spotted on the Fat quarterly blog.

And the third source of inspiration came from a fantastic linen remnant find at the Cloth House in Soho for a bargain of GBP 8. It is the piece at the bottom of the pile in the picture below. It is so gorgeous and with 1.50 x 1.10 the perfect size for the back of a quick blanket/throw/bag quilt or whatever you want to call it.

So I added another half meter of lighter linen for some sashing and some silk remnants I found in another shop in Soho and started piecing. After a while I decided to leave some of the brighter silks out of the equation in favour of the natural linen with the exception of one stripe of dark aubergine coloured silk in the lower half of the piece

 

My original plan was to then just sew the front to the linen back in a bag style fashion (right sides together, sew all around, leave a whole to turn the hole thing, close hole, done) without any wadding or quilting. I just want a light blanket of this gorgeous cotton/linen/silk blend that I can use when it gets just that little bit cool in the evening during the summer months (damm.... I just thought I lived somewhere where there is actually a long hot sweaty summer....). But then the lovely Corinne from Tikki Ltd made a comment that one could embroider the bees and that caught my attention and the thought did not want to go away anymore.

So I found myself sitting on my sofa last Sunday evening with an array for No 8 Perle cotton, my embroidery hoop doing some long long forgotten cross stitching. And I found I really enjoy it..... so I guess this isn't the quick project I imagined it to be after all.

 I used the following Finca Perle Cotton for Cross Stitching: No 2711 (lilac), 1485 (pale orange), 3670 (petrol), 2615 (pale lilac), 1742 (Pink), 8080 (dark brown) and DMC Mouline stranded cotton in 902 (Aubergine).

Stash Note 41

Ruby Star Shining !
I don't think much needs to be said about my utter devotion to Meldoy Miller's fabric design other than that the new collection is just perfect and to me the best of the three so far.

Look for yourself.

This fat quarter bundle was bought at Fabricworm.

This is again the slightly heavier cotton linen fabric that has a 15 % Linen content.

Typewriters with love letters !

Vintage clocks !

 Flowers !

 And again fantastic panels that of course lend themselves to clothes and bags.

A finished 'Story in red and white'

Last Sunday I finally finished my 'A story in red and white' quilt and it is quite hard to find the right words to express how enormously happy I am with this quilt.

Last year July when I ordered my favorite 'Cranberry' red and 'White Sand' from Oakshotts I had a vague idea that I wanted to have a red and white sampler quilt. So I though the best method to go about it is to send each of the Brit Bee Ladies a fat quarter of each colour and ask them to make me two different blocks each. At that point we were only in the third or fourth months and I know that some weren't happy with the surplus of creative freedom I gave them but each and every fantastic Brit Bee Lady rose magnificently to the challenge and produced outstanding blocks.

The quilt albeit being 70 inch square in size feels is incredibly light as the shot cotton is so much lighter than normal quilting cotton; yet the quilt is very snuggly and is already on my bed. I figure that a Sampler quilt for adults is exactly what an "I spy" quilt is for children. I will never tire to look at this quilt and always spot a little new detail I admire.

Have a look at this beauty !

I contemplated forever about the quilting and  for a long time I was convinced that this quilt would be the first one I wanted free motion quilted by an expert but then a few weeks ago I grew uneasy with that idea as I really wanted to finish the quilt myself. And then all of a sudden the idea struck to quilt in straight lines beginning in the middle and fanning out to all four corners. This quilt lends itself ideally to this method as it it has a distinct centre with its 25 blocks.

I have never quilted this pattern before and was a bit apprehensive but all that vanished after the first  couple of "rows" - I knew this was perfect for the quilt and is so me. The back is a giant lock cabin that has as its centre all the signature blocks. The idea of the lock cabin came from Katy and I am ever so grateful for this as it fits the design and mood of the front perfectly.

And here it is already being used....

The binding was an easy choice this time. Because I sashed the blocks in 'White Sand' I wanted the binding to be in 'Cranberry' to offset all the white. Isn't the red lush ?

 

And now that you have seen this beauty I am sure you will want exactly one like it. So I give you the links to all the fabulous Ladies that helped me produce this. I am sure if you pay them well they will oblige :-) 

• 4 and 7 are from the wonderful Hadley who apparently looks like Lady Gaga .... (blocks are contemporary to the bone, right up my street)
• 5 and 15 are from the lovely Fiona (I love the tiny little white stars in the mass of red, so intricate !)
• 9 and 18 are from our resident Canadian Susan (Look at the Canadian flag, isn't that fab !)
• 13 and 14 are from the fantastic Ceri (look at optical illusion of block 13 I put right in the center of the quilt;  how clever and beautiful)
• 2 and 11 are from our Brit Bee organiser herself the great Laura and she went through the trouble of making me a circular flying gees block (and that fulfilled one of my secret wishes for this quilt) !!
• 6 and 10 are from the hilariously funny Sarah who lives up North on the windy Shetland Islands (look at the Japanese Taube Quilt block No 10 !) 
• 19 and 24 are from the superbly talented Trudi who produced such a great wonky strip block
• 8 and 23 are from Jo who blew me away with a Hexagon block (just like that !)
• 1and 16 are from  Terri who has the best sense of humor ever and she made me the cutest little Smurvette block  No 16
• 12 and 20 are from the lovely Judith from Belfast and she made a gorgeous Nautilus block . 
• 25 and 22 are from the super talented Jennie who actually made me a redwork embroidery block from a picture I sent her from my front door.
• 3, 17 and 21 are from me

Previous posts can be found here and here.

Red Hot, Sunshine Melody and Caribbean Dreams

Caught your attention ?

This post is featured today on the Fat Quarterly blog - how exciting is that !
Recently the Fat Quarter Team entrusted me with some Aurifil Thread in a Designer Challenge. The brief was to create something using either one or all of the provided gorgeous Aurifil threads.

 

I have become aware of Aurifil thread sometime last year or even the year before and I believe it was first at the Birmingham quilt festival. It has become increasingly popular and many quilters are praising its qualities in the highest tones. I have already worked with Aurifil threads before but mainly for piecing purposes for which I very much love it as it produces less lint than my usual Guetermann 50 thread. 

 

The threads I was given were a selection of 50, 40, 28 and 12 weight. The 12 weight thread was wool in a rich matt yellow that immediately caught my eye.
I pondered for a few weeks about which projects would be good to showcase the threads best apart from using decorative stitches (which I did as well with the light green but I get to that in a later post) and finally decided on making myself some new cushions for my living room sofa.

The three pillows I produced are all made in the same pattern; the front a lock cabin pattern and the back a simple 9 patch. The quilting is also the same in all three. The fronts are done in a concentric circle and the backs in a diagonal crosshatch pattern.

This little number here is called "Red Hot" and is made of 6 different shades of red.  I quilted and pieced this pillow with the 40 weight thread in red and loved working with it though I do prefer a thicker thread for quilting normally. All reds are Kona Cotton and are from existing stock.

 

"Caribbean Dreams" was pieced with the 50 weight Aurifil thread in green but I used a thicker No 16 Perle thread for quilting as the quilting with the 50 weight fibre would have been to subtle on the pillow and would have missed the effect I wanted to achieve. 

The colours of this pillow are so rich and really transport me to my next holiday destination in my dreams and brings visions of warm days, the beach and turquoise blue waters..... all a far cry from typical UK winter weather. The fabric used for "Caribbean Dreams" consists of a selection of Kona solids and Freespirit Designer Solids from my existing stock.

 

I titled pillow number three "Summer Melody" with its six different shades of summer yellows. It is such a warm and inviting pillow. I pieced this pillow with a normal Aurifil 50 weight thread (not from above selection) but quilted it with the wool weight 12 in yellow on my machine ! At first I thought the thread would not be able to withstand the strain of machine stitching but it was no problem with two little adjustments to the settings; one was to use a top stitch needle because of the thickness of the thread and two was to reduce stitching speed somwhat. The thread worked fantastically and really gives the pillow a beautiful texture. All fabric used for this pillow are again Kona solids and Freespirit Designer solids from existing stock.

The verdict is that I loved working with the threads and I was impressed with all of them but perhaps mostly with the woollen one though admittedly one would not use it for larger quilting projects. I will  try in the  future some of the 28 weight colours for quilting purposes in addition to the 50 weight Aurifil I already use for piecing.

And here they are all three together:

Front

Back

Stash Note 40 and plenty of news

My last Stash Note was on the 11th December which is quite a while ago and in the meantime rather a lot of new gorgeous stash has built up I'd like to start sharing with you but first a few news.

• Firstly on Sunday I will have a post over at Fat Quarterly (Yes me !!) and I am rather overexcited about it.  Please, please have a look over there on Sunday and let me know what you think about my project.

• Then the other day I had a look at the Modern Quilt Guilt blog to check out their "100 days of Quilts" they are featuring at the moment. This week is all about shapes and there are some seriously fantastic quilts to be seen. Whilst there I spotted on the side bar that apparently London now also has a Modern Quilt Guilt. That got me also rather overexcited again as I have been looking for a MQG in London for a while. So I hopped over and found out that it is being organised right this very moment by Annie Barker of the Village Harberdashery who incidentally is also in the progress of opening her online fabric store. And guess what she is going to stock soon ????? It is the new and most gorgeous and I believe so far best Melody Miller collection 'Ruby Star Shining'. My fat quarter set has already arrived two days ago and I will photograph it propperly for the next stash note. The London MQG can be found here and if you are in London or nearby and interested in joining then leave Annie a comment on the London MQG blog.
• And thirdly Annie also informed me that a new quilt magazine called "Modern Quilting" is being launched at the end of February by the people behind 'Sew Hep' . It is going to be a print magazine.

And after all that excitement to the stash note which is no less exciting. I finally after a lot dithering ordered myself from the Eternal Maker a selection of Echino fabrics. I have always admired the fabric but for some reason held back on it but after browsing the excellent selection at the Eternal Maker once again I hit the buy button and got myself a selection of the last couple of Etsuko Furuya collections. Oh it's gorgeous stuff.

Aren't the scooters and camera print just wonderful ? 

A story in red and white - on the finishing line

Never content with doing nothing (except at the beach with a  book in my hands...) I went about working on my red and white quilt over the past days. For those who don't know the quilt I am talking about, this is my Brit Bee quilt from when I was Queen Bee back in July (gosh this one has almost turned into a UFO). The last post I wrote about it was in August where I added my blocks to the other Bee blocks and contemplated on the sashing and quilt back. I took up all your advice and sashed in white and also made a giant lock cabin back.

It has  been such a pleasure sewing all the blocks together because they are all so amazing.

Today I will start quilting but I'm not telling you how just yet....