Camera bags

I bought my nephew for Christmas a small point-and shoot camera because he developed an interest in photography and that obviously pleases me no end. When we were in holiday in October he kept using my sister's SLR but most images he took look rather out-of-focus and cropped at odd angels because the camera is just to heavy for a six year old to hold steady !

To go along with the camera I thought I use my Echino camera print to make him a padded drawstring bag. And while I was at it I made myself one to for my smaller camera. I use 'needlefelt' for padding and whilst it certainly doesn't prevent damage from a fall, it still provides better cushioning than any of the Veline fleece products.


And with that I wish all my wonderful followers and readers a very merry Christmas and New Year. I will be back in January for a sneak peak but then in holiday for a couple of weeks.

Red and White projects

I thought I share a few more of my own photos of the red and white quilt projects with you that I made for issue of 16 of Love Patchwork & Quilting. They feel so christmassy and are just right for now.

The front in all its glory. The continuous circle starts in the middle of this square quilt.

And I couldn't just put on a normal back but had to make something pieced too and as so soften I am tempted to say I like the back even better than the front.

The binding is white and red and adds a little fun to it all.

I also have new labels I now sew into the binding. These are stitched and have writing on both sides.

I love how it folds and drapes.

And a little sausage roll to finish up.

Logcabin variations in Love Patchwok & Quilting issue 16

For issue 16 of Love Patchwork & Quilting I made three red and white projects; a courthouse step quilt, a half log-cabin cushion and a mini log-cabin pincushion.

The log-cabin quilt block is a wonderful pattern with almost infinite possibilities and the projects I have made are only a few examples. Red and white together are always spectacular because of the crisp contrast. I quilted in red and white thread in a continuous circle.

The cushion features a half log cabin block and is also quilted with two different thread colours and finally a pin cushion is the most popular log-cabin variation.

Other projects in this issue that I have caught my eye are Lynn's striking hexagon quilt that features the front page.

I just love that she uses a really dark colour for sashing - blacks or almost blacks are not used enough in quilting. And another red and white project with a Scandinavian feel to it from Jo Avery which is just define and would work so well together with my quilt.

Twin quilts - a pair of finished quilts

The twin quilts my neighbors commissioned from me are finished and I think might already be on the way to their new owners.

The brief was to make twin quilts that are the same but different. So I used the same fabric (almost all from the 1st Cotton & Steel collection) but arranged them a little different for each quilt and my customer wanted the name of each of the girls embroidered on them. I think this is a really nice touch and will make them special for the little girls.

I quite enjoyed making these two little beauties and quilted with variegated threads  along the seam lines and added a few in between.

I love this colour combination with the pinks and yellows/mustard thrown in between. The dark blues add contrast and focus.

I added a spotty binding to each of them but again differentiated here and chose a yellow and a turquoise one.

The backs are solids with a little pieced strip of left over fabric to compliment the fronts.

So cute....

Winter Carnival is here

Issue 15 of Love Patchwork & Quilting signals the start of a series of three solids only quilts made by me. The first one is a Kaleidoscope quilt for which I used the new Kona Cotton colours and plenty of older ones.

The quilt is paper pieced and suitable for beginners and is a great opportunity to use your fabric scraps.

Those new Kona Colours are wonderful and I had a lot of fun pairing them with other contrasting colours to produce a real carnival of colours.

This quilt features about 80 different colours of which most are bright and a few more sedate that make the riotous ones pop out even more.
 

I quilted in my customary continuous circle quilting technique that I have sewn a lot again lately. It really is a never ending love affaire.

Next week I will show you a few more quilts from other designers (I don't have a copy of the mag yet as I managed to let my own subscription run out....great, isn't it)

And another Shearwater Kaftan

Only this time it isn't for me but for David, no that is actually not quite right, it is for Dashwood Studios. David asked me a few months back whether I would like to make something with their new collection "September Blue" that debuted in July.

I was delighted to be asked but didn't fancy making a quilt and suggested an item of clothing. And that is how the second Shearwater Kaftan came about. The first one was made from a gorgeous double gauze.

The fabric was wonderful to work with and I loved sewing it (again !). Admittedly it has been ready some months and I don't know how it happened but I forgot to blog about it (shame on me). I sent it off and forgot all about it until had a look through some pictures.

This is such a lovely and easy pattern and I am sure it won't be the last kaftan I have made.

Twin quilts - a work in progress -

My lovely neighbours commissioned me a while back to make a set of quilts for twin babies recently born in the family. The quilts are supposed to be the same but different and should have each girl's name embroidered onto the quilt. I think that is a lovely touch indeed.

We worked the colour scheme out together. They wanted pinks of course, and some purples but also yellows and some contrasting colours that produce impact. That's when it hit me that my recently purchased bundles from Cotton & Steel were perfect in that I could literally choose from all three bundles as they are all colour coordinated.

I only added two other prints from stock, a dotty number from K. Fassett and the measuring tape fabric. I was able to include the lovely cats from the Hatbox collection and also the horses from the Mustang collection and they do look as if they are galloping through the quilt.

One down one more to go and then comes my favourite part which is quilting of course.

Christmas tree skirt

Christmas is coming ever nearer and whilst none of us (including me) want to be reminded of it, it is unavoidable. In this month Quilt Now magazine I have another Christmas project for you to try out and that is a Christmas tree skirt.

I really loved making this tree skirt because although it looks complicated it is actually quite easy. I used a fat eights bundle from Kate Spatin's new Christmas collection 'Solstice' which was perfect for the job. Christmassy, yet bright and light.

I quilted in dense lines along the shape of the wedges and added bias binding in a rich green to give the skirt the right frame.

I am also teaching this tree skirt at the Village Haberdashery in November ! So check it out if you want to learn how to make it.

Stash Note 94

Freshly back from a much needed holiday in Sicily I thought it might be a nice idea to share with you some newish fabric I have added to my stash. Newish because I have had the fabric a while and because everybody has been talking about them for months now, I thought I leave the blogging about it for a bit.

Mustang

I am of course talking about the new fabric designer "shop" of Cotton & Steel. The designers debuted their first collection at Spring Market and I believe their second is a major magnet at the fall market.

Moonlit

I ordered three of the collections and whilst I am obviously impressed with each of them I was particularly taken by the fact that they are all coordinated.

Hatbox

This fact only hit me when I was asked by my lovely neighbour to make twin baby quilts for her to gift to a relative. The twins are girls and she requested colours of pink, purple, yellow and whatever else I thought would work with it.

I had my package of Cotton & Steel lovelies sitting on a shelf and wasn't really sure what to do with them to be honest...that is until this commission came in. So I grabbed the entire stash and sorted out all the relevant colours and that is when it hit me how wonderfully colour coordinated they are. It was a breeze to put something pleasing together.

The fabric is cut and ready to be sewn into two quilt tops that are the same but different. Watch the space....

Only 11 more Sundays until

...Christmas. Yes I know this is not what anybody wants  to hear including me ! But it's a fact and I have had to think about it much earlier than most of you for my latest quilt I created for Love Patchwork & Quilting. It is strictly speaking not a Christmas quilt but a Winter quilt that with its red, greens, pinks and greys will brighten up any dreary winter's day.

 The background colour for the trees is a light grey which makes all the other colours stand out really well. Issue 14 is out now for subscribers and out next week in the shops.

My contribution to the magazine is a quilt that is paper pieced and a cushion. The paper piecing is really easy and it is most suitable for any paper piecing novice !

 The fabric for this wonderful quilt was sponsored by the Village Haberdashery in West Hampstead.

A quilt for Esther

Friends of mine have had their 2nd child on exactly the same day my lovely niece Sophia was borne. And of course a quilt is the MUST make gift for me. Currently I am working in New York and because my friends live here, I quickly finished the quilt last week and took it along with me to hand over tonight.

I loved making this one. It was something that was easy, yet very pretty and above all a relieve and welcome change from all the big quilts I have been making over the past months.

I have used a charm pack I had from one of the last Sweetwater collections called 'Noteworthy' and I love the way it combines, pinks, sharp reds, greens and darker yellows.  I have worked with Sweetwater several times before and do love their approach to design. Always coherent and always great text fabrics included. I made a quilt for my godmother using "Hometown", one for my mother using "Pure" and a strip quilt that I sold via my Etsy shop using the wonderful "Lucy's crab shack"

The quilt is densely quilted every half inch along the vertical and I have thrown in a few lines on the horizontal. I used a 28 w off-white Aurifil cotton thread.

For once I chose a solid colored binding; it sort of happened and I am really happy how well it offsets the colors on the front and how much it packs a punch in comparison to the red/white text fabric on the back.

The quilt drapes wonderfully and I was very lucky to have found the text fabric from the "Sun print" print collection by Alison Glass for Andover at the Village Haberdashery. I think it fits wonderfully, both in color and style.

The length we go to

The length we quilters go to find the right fabric or thread can be...well...long. Or is this just me ?

I am working on a quilt for LP&Q for the solids series I announced a while back and decided on a very particular thread for the quilt I am working on at the moment .

When it comes to choosing the right thread for my quilts two things are important to me; the quality and the colour. What isn't so important is the brand, although given that I only use top quality thread, the brands I use for piecing are somewhat limited to Gueterman, Aurifil and Superior.

My preferred quilting thread thickness ranges from 40w to 28w and is only driven by colour (and availability). If for example I want to quilt in a steal grey, it matters little to my if I use Gueterman Sulky in 30w or a similar colour in the 28w from Aurifil. They are both equally good although the Aurifil is better value for money and I am lucky that Tina at Tikki stocks both.

But sometimes I venture out of the normal range of colours I tend to use and go for a variegated thread. Mostly I use Gueterman Sulky then but on occasion something with a bit more punch is required. And then I need (yes need) Valdani hand deyed thread.

I have used Valdani once before on my Comet quilt and love the boldness of the colour distribution on the variegated spools. Valdani isn't that easy to come by in the UK and whilst I managed to get the above two I used for the Comet quilt fairly easily from Germany, this time around it was quite a challenge to get the red/white M41 I chose for my new quilt (there is a hint somewhere there as to the colour of the quilt).

My first google search let me to Germany but I had to find out that the shop I previously bought didn't stock them anymore. My next stops were a variety of shops all over the place that all wanted to sell me M41 in 8w or similar. 
Then I found an on-line shop in Norway whose website was only in Norwegian but had a picture of my thread ! Yes I punched a fist in the air. Using google translator I managed to find out that the shop wasn't yet set up properly but because they had the thread on their web page I anyway sent a mail to the owner asking for help.
Not wanting to wait for an answer I googled a bit more and found ecrater but they only had the required colour in the required strength "on hold". Still I sent a mail because you never know but got a negative answer back. Then I found DS9 but their shipping costs were a little extravagant. Meanwhile a few days had past and as I am on a deadline got a little desperate.
So I went onto the Valadni web page itself, set-up an account, ordered the thread for what seemed a reasonable shipping fees only to find out after a few days  that payment processes were being revamped and the charge would have been huge. Admittedly Dana made every effort to get the thread to me for the best price she could get and even asked the plant in Romania to send them to me directly.
Whilst this conversation was going on I received a response from the lady in Norway who sadly had to tell me that she did not have the thread in stock (deep breath at this point)  but that maybe her friend who is also Norwegian but lives in Bosten may have (sitting up a little straighter again). 2 hours later, the lovely Ase who is from netquilter and who turns out to be the Valdani distributor in the US had put one spool in the post for me for a very reasonable fee and best of all it arrived on my door step within 3 days. 

I sure I got a few more grey hair over this but am happy to report that I have the thread in my hands !!

Has any of you gone through crazy length to get a particular thread or fabric ?