A very merry Christmas

I wish you all a very merry Christmas and happy New Year and like to take the opportunity to thank you for the support and interest you have shown in my crafty endeavors this past year.

  There wouldn't be a needlesandlemons blog without you and your comments and I am very much looking forward to share lots and lots of new projects with you in 2014.

Churn Dash Quilt class

You might remember that when I was working on this Churn Dash Quilt for my client that I hinted I would like to teach this wonderful pattern in a class at the Village Haberdashery.

Over the past couple of weeks Annie from the Village Haberdashery and myself have worked out the details  and the announcement has finally gone up on the Class section on Annie's shop.

The class will run over six evenings and will include a lesson on fabric, colour and of course on how to construct the block, piece, quilt and bind the quilt. Students can make the quilt in any size they wish and will receive a guide booklet at the end. So why not give yourself an early Christmas present or give somebody a hint that.....

The class is for intermediate sewists and quilters and will require students to do homework.

Stash Note 87

Although I haven't bought much fabric this past year a few bits and bops do flatter into my house occasionally. And looking back at what I bought this year it strikes me that I bought mostly stash builders and fabric with text patterns. I suppose it signals that I love those most.

So this last stash note of the year is no exception. I added these wonderful prints in blue, white and red to my stash.

This collection is from Windham and is called 'A is for'. It really is beautiful and has also some floral patterns. 

I bought these at the Fat Quartershop. I also bought as you can see in the next image a flying gees ruler and half square triangle rulers from 'Bloc Loc'. They are nothing short of fantastic and make squaring up those HSTs a real joy (and it can be a right pain if you are making for several hundreds). I used them on my churn dash quilt and found that they are not only accurate but make also for a faster process. They are available from the manufacturer directly but I bought them at the Fat Quartershop as I found the shipping cost from Bloc-Loc much to high for overseas customers.

Snowy days - a work in progress-

There are angels, old linen and new linen

...and music chords

...and roses and scribbles

...and comic figures

...and much, much more

Royal covers

Every i-pad needs a good scratch cover and making these is one of my favorite things to do. They are fun, you can be creative with embellishments if you want to and above all they are practical.

You might think these ones here are simple but I dare you to say that. They are royal covers adorned with HRH.

It can't get anymore posh than that !

So if you fancy some royal covers then hop over to the shop where they are listed here.

Snowy days - a new low volume quilt

A while back when I finished my first 'On my travels' quilt I felt a real loss when I finished it because I loved the process but above all I loved the low volume fabrics so much. So I went straight into planning the next quilt but this time in a much larger size and not hand stitched.

I cut up all the remaining low volume fabric I had and whilst I had every intention of piecing it right away a few things came in between and I only managed to do a quick cushion. But this week I finally found some time to start piecing and I can't wait to have it on my bed.

Shopping totes

The other day I looked at a few of my fabric panels I bought ages and ages ago and thought something ought to be done with them.

So I made a few rather lovely shopping totes that are completely lined. 

And I even dived into my 'Hope Valley' stash for the coffee themed bag to find a matching print for the lining.

The bread themed bag is really large so that a few dozen baguettes will fit in nicely..... that is if you have to buy that many or feeling rather French......

 

This one is lined with a bright 'Pezze' print. All are available in the shop here and here.

The double frame purse

It took me a little while to work out how to make a double pouch but after quite a bit of trial and error I managed it. The challenge was to use the same technique as with the normal pouches (i.e. to sew outer and inner(s) together by turning them inside out in an effort to keep a clean edge near the hinges).

I used the wonderful transistor radio print fabric from Melody Millers Ruby Star collection with a colour coordinated lining.

 This purse is fairly large with 4.5" length and 6" width and makes a really good money purse and can be found in the shop here.

Patchwork Tsushin -London feature-

Remember  back in the summer when Naomi Ichikawa from the Japanese magazine 'Patchwork Tsushin' was in London? She came over here for a K. Fassett exhibitions and sought out a few quilters she came across on the London Modern Quilt webpage.

It ended up being a two hour photoshop at my just finished house and the images plus a story was published in October.

Sadly I can't read the story as I don't speak Japanese but it is such a good feeling to see the images. Do you see there in the background is my Lady's bike ? On on the small photo in the top right you can see that I painted one of the walls summer grass green....

 Collette Moscrop is also featured who is a member of the LMQ too. She not only makes beautiful quilts but is also a talented fabric designer and screen prints her own fabric.

The shocking pink bespectacled make-up pouch

And another pouch (and plenty more to come as I am on a role)....

This one is made from lovely Echino linen and shocking pink with a bespectacled deer.  Another cuty in my opinion. This one is even larger than the 'ouch pouch' from a few days ago as the frame is slighter longer on the side. So even more space for make-up or sewing equipment or.....

In the shop under this listing.

Sold.

The ouch pouch

Recently I have started to make a few frame purses again and a few other beautiful yet practical small craft items that are ideal gifts for the upcoming Christmas season. You know the sort of stuff I did for the craft fair that I attended in 2012. I was going to be at the Kew Christmas fair but had to pull out due some family related issues.

But that isn't going to stop me producing a few things that I will be putting into my Etsy shop bit by bit.

So meet the 'ouch pouch'.  This has got to be one of the cutest things I ever made and it is not only lovely and funny but also practical. The idea though isn't entirely mine but stems from Nova from 'a cuppa and a catchup who a while ago made a draw-string bag embroidered with 'ouch-pouch' for one of her relatives who went of to university.

For my 'ouch pouch' I used really strong vintage linen that I have still from my grandmother and appliqued a red cross on one side and embroidered 'ouch pouch' on the other side. 

This purse is made using one of my larger frames (6" by 2.5") and is just perfect for a small travel medic kit because you can put quite a bit in there due to its wide opening. 

And I thought a cotton lining with a scissors pattern would work well with the 'ouch' theme.
You can buy the 'ouch pouch' in the shop under this listing.

Published in Love Patchwork & Quilting !

This is terribly exciting... I have been published. Yep. And actually twice in one month but this post is for the piece I did for the new Love Patchwork & Quilting Magazine that debuted last months. Do you see the image of me in this photo on the right side..... it's ME...

I made a log cabin cushion with step-by-step instructions based on my 'Mod Century Quilt' I finished last year in November.

This was so much fun and it is a great cushion for which I used bright and fun fabrics. It is a great feeling to see my work in such a wonderful magazine. It is from the same people as Molly Makes and I think it is fair to say that most of us really like Molly Makes. The new magazine has plenty of patterns and info in to keep you busy for a long time.

And watch out for one of the next editions because you might see a tutorial for a certain quilt that many of you asked for this year. Can't say more I'm afraid. You can subscribe here...go on.. I know you want to.

Field Study Churn Dash - a finished single quilt

A few days ago I finished this quilt and it is already on its way to my customer in Germany.  This was fun and I love how the quilt came together. There were a few design considerations because initially I thought to use the text fabric for the inside of the blocks until I realized that it would have made the quilt way to busy.

This is a single quilt (2m x 1m) which is an usual size for me and not that easy to photograph as I don't have walls around me that are over two 2 meter high and on which I could hang the quilt.

I quilted in double lines along the seams of each square to achieve a nice cross hatch. I think this quilt would have benefited also from in-the-ditch quilting as the front is fairly busy and it would have achieved a single crosshatch on the back too.

The back is 'Pretty Bird' in spice from the  'Pretty Bird by Pillow and Maxfield Spice Group' collection for Michael Miller (here). I don't think this print is available anymore. I used it once before as a quilt back and love how striking it is.

The churn dash blocks were arrange so that a darker and a lighter block are placed consecutively and from each fabric combination I made four blocks but with interchanging fill of the half square triangles and rectangles. This stops the quilt from being to riotous in its colour combinations.

This is such a great block and I love that the half square triangles give it a spiky look. This should make for a great quilt class too in the new year.

Field Study churn dash - a work in progress

All pieced together and waiting to be basted.
Love it.

Happy stitching !

Stash Note 86

There are some fabric collections I really get excited about and one of those is the recently released 'Minimalista' by Art House Gallery fabrics. It is full of striking patterns in four great colours; black, a deep yellow called Honeycomb, turquoise and and watermelon red.

It is a great geometrical collection and I picked two prints that I particularly like and that make great stash additions.

I bought the Prisma and Optical in each of the four available colours. There are several more prints in the collection so go and check them out on the AGF webside here

 One is striking the other a little more subtle and I think they make a good pair.

I bought my set at Fatquatershop but other on-line stores have it. I don't think anybody in the UK has it yet though. 

Field Study quilt - a new project

I have long been wanting to make a quilt with the traditional churn dash block. I had the pleasure to sew the block once or twice before when I was in the Brit Bee but never in a larger project. It is such an effective quilt block and makes me rather happy every time I see one.

This new project serves two purposes. It is actually a quilt commissioned by a client in Germany and  it will also be the preparation for a new class at the Village Haberdashery that I intend to teach in January or February (date not set yet). It will be a class that spans over 6 weeks or so where we will design a churn dash quilt together, learn about quilt math, half square triangles, rectangles, how to layout blocks and sew the top together and finally quilt and bind. It should be great fun and is a class designed for everybody who already dipped their toes into quilting and who wants more !

I chose Anna-Maria Horner's Field Study for this project that I purchased back in September 2012. This is a really beautiful collection full of life and the patterns and colours are stunning. It is bright yet coherent and a little adventurous with the animal prints in between.

As background fabric I decided to choose a warm print rather than a harsh white and went for the text print of the Crabtastic collection  by the designer Maude Asbury for Blend fabric ( I did a project for Annie a while back with this collection, see here). It adds a modern touch to the traditional block.

The blocks are all 9" finished size and the quilt will be a single which is a size I actually haven't done before.

Happy sewing.

Stash Note 85

It is Sunday, the clock has turned to Winter time, it is raining and a storm is brewing over the British Isles..... so how about some fabric to cheer us all up ?

This fabric collection is 'Sun Print' by Alison Glass for Andover and is widely available now. What I love about this text print is that it comes in a variety of colours and not just black on white. There is also one print that has white text on white text. I saw this the last time on Annie's Seed Catalogue from Lake House Dry Goods. Oddly enough I bought this particular print by accident and at the time really did not know what to do with it. But since then I have used it liberally in my low volume projects (here ) as an alternative to a solid and that print actually has become one of my most precious ones.  (You can see the print I am talking about in this link but it is not available anymore and the post written about it in the link is regarding fabric dying).

Alison's collection feature many other great prints that are ideal stash builder. You can see the whole collection on Alison's blog here

The fabric will be available here in the UK at the Village Haberdashery soon. On-line it is available in many shops in the US such as Hawthorn Threads, Pink Castle Fabric, fabricworm etc.