Fancy Moon - teaching in South London

I have been teaching for a good three years now at the Village Haberdashery in North London and have had many students in my quilting beginner and advanced multi-session classes, cushion, gift and Christmas themed classes. What I enjoy most about teaching sewing is how my students learn a new skill and in some cases turn into what I lovingly call "quilt monsters" (i.e. obsessed with quilting).

I am pleased to announce that in addition to my North London teaching location, I am expanding my regional reach to South London (no East and West yet, but who knows, anything is possible). 

A few months back I received an e-mail from Nancy, the owner of Fancy Moon, asking me if I was interested in teaching in her new Brick and Mortar shop in Crystal Palace. Did I say yes? Of course I did.

Fancy Moon as been around for quite some time as an on-line fabric store. Nancy stocks a great selection of Alexander Henry prints for example (no less than 27 currently !) and these are usually hard to come by in the UK. She is extending her selection to K.Fasset prints and solids and also has a selection of Kona Cottons and obviously other printed cotton fabric that are suitable for quilting and clothes making.

I went to the see the new shop when it was just set up and was very impressed. There is a spacious teaching area on the back of the shop floor where students are basically surrounded by all the wonderful fabric (which should be a great source for inspiration). There is a big cutting table, Janome sewing machines, ironing boards and everything else that is required. In short, what is stopping you ?

Nancy and I have prepared several exiting classes for the upcoming months:



           

14th of May: Introduction to quilting by means of making a patchwork cushion with zip
















 

19th of May for 4 weeks: Beginners patchwork quilt class
















23rd of June: Make a lined tote bag (which is ideal for anybody sewing beginner)


















7th of July:  Handmade gifts (frame purses, drawstring bags, media device coves, fabric baskets) 



























I am looking forward to meeting many new students at Fancy Moon.

Painted Hexagons - a finished quilt-

A finished quilt ! In the end, the quilting and binding came together very quickly. I spend a few days agonising if I should quilt a crosshatch but in the end decided on simple diagonal lines.

And looking at the quilt in the picture confirms that this was the right decision. The single diagonals work well with the shape of the hexagons.

Although I took great care to reduce bulk when I pieces the hexagons by ironing most seams open, there was still a lot of fabric in the hexagon centres. My machine manages this well but ditch quilting which I briefly contemplated would have provided quite a challenge nonetheless.

I quilted with a 28w Aurifill thread in beige which blends in with the newspaper fabric and with the overall tone of the quilt.

When I started this quilt I (thought) I knew that I wanted to choose as backing the same newspaper print I used as background on the quilt top and also the same as binding. Well, I changed my mind and had to laugh at myself for being surprised about it. I always tell my students when they want to choose backing and binding on the first day of a quilt making class, that they should wait because they'd change their minds about a half dozen times at least. It appears that happens to the teacher too....

The backing fabric I finally settled on is "Spotted Owl" by Alexandre Henry in grey. It works perfectly for this quilt because the grey has a tinge of purple in it that blends with the purple on the front. I have had this print for so long and only used some of it on a smaller quilt ages ago. It's a tricky colour and never seemed to work with anything but finally found its match.

Once I had settled on the back, the choice of binding was an easy one. Of course purple and of course dots (K. Fassett).

The quilt is smaller than I had envisioned it when I started with 57" by 54" inches but I used 90% of the fabric I had and that was my aim. When the top was finished I however added a small border in newspaper print around it to make it a little bigger.

I hope you enjoyed my frequent updates on how this quilt came together and my aim is to keep doing this rather than just showing one or two updates. After all it's all about the process, isn't it ?

 This quilt is for sale in my Etsy shop.

Love and Kisses - a finished quilt

A picture post of my finished quilt is about to unfold here. It was so, so much fun to make this quilt and I can't wait to see my little niece playing on it.

The finished quilt is 48in  x 54in which is a little larger than crib size so it will last her beyond that age.

It's odensely quilted with on a 1 inch wide grid using mostly ice grey on the top and off-white on the back.

I chose the pezzy print from American Jane for the binding to contrast in style but with the same colour palette as the back print

The back print is an Alexander Henry print that I also had in turquoise and I think those butterflies are equally as striking on a cream background.

All fabric was from my own stash and it felt really great having to hunt for those perfect prints for the heart shapes.

All my quilts are labelled whether they are for sale or are gifted.

And a sausage role for last....

Previous posts can be found here and here.  If there is enough interest, I will publish a pattern/tutorial here on the post - just let me know.

New i-pad cover for me

I went to see my sister in Germany a few weekends ago and realized just before I flew out that my i-pad and kindle were in desperate need of new covers.

I prefer this format for i-pad covers best as they are well protected and they look smart. I use needlefelt for the padding and I use it on the outer fabric and lining. It has just the right thickness for this without making the whole thing to bulky. I buy the needlefelt at Macculloch & Wallis. It is in my opinion the best fleece padding there is as it is actually made from fabric rather than the papery stuff Veline 707 is made of. It is also cheaper and if you are still not convinced then it might convince that Mulberry buys exactly that stuff in large quantities from Macculloch & Wallis for their bags. If it is good enough for them then it is sure good enough for me.....

Front

Back

And the delicious inside ! The lining fabric is from Alexander Henry and is called "Heavy Equipment".

And here one together with the new kindle cover which is a simple slip cover without Velcro or button.

A few presents

A few presents were delivered by me this Christmas. Amongst the family adults we stopped buying presents for each other years ago when we decided we had everything. A good decision on the whole. But of course my nephew still receives his presents but his year he didn't get a quilt but a fantastic go-card from us all.
But there were two other people that got presents from me and those were homemade ones that I can share with you now that Christmas is over.

One was a Secret Santa for one of the Brit Bee Ladies. Although I am not part of the Bee anymore the Ladies still asked me to participate in a Secret Santa swap and I was delighted to take part.

My secret Partner was Laura and it was an easy decision what to make for her because I knew she loved this fabric ('home sewing is easy' from Alexander Henry) from when I made the i-pad covers for my craft fair. So I made here a fabric bucket and stuck some more fabric in it. I hope she liked it but I have a funny feeling that she did. I used this tutorial from Film in the Fridge.

 

The second present was for my best friend Leigh. Again the decision was an easy one - for two reasons. Firstly they are in desperate need for some new cushions and secondly Leigh loved the Rumba cushion I made from the 'A stitch in colour' collection from Malka Dubrawasky.

 For the back I chose a great animal print from the 2012 Echino collection because Leigh's husband is a very good wildlife photographer and loves to spend time in Africa photographing all the wild things that are running around there.

More craft fair preparations

This week saw a lot of sewing in the evening and early morning in preparation for the Thames Festival on the 8th to 9th September. I have finished quite a few things from my list and am happy with the progress so far. Though there will be litte sewing over the next five days as my lovely sister and nephew will be here. Which then leaves me with a little less than 10 days until the fair.

I am fairly confident I will manage but nothing is allowed to go wrong in my grant plan.....

So today I'd like to share with you my i-pad covers and pencil cases. I have also finished more frame purse, larger ones this time, some more flex frames and also a couple of kindle covers but I'll show you these next week.

So what do you think ? Are these sell-able ? 

I used a mixture of two tutorials for these cute pencil cases that you can find here and here . I'm afraid one of them is in Dutch but I managed with google translater and just the pictures to be honest and a few of the Dutch words are similar to German.

The fabric is all from stash and those of you who went to the Fat quarterly retreat will remember the London fabric which is from Robert Kaufmann and was in our goody bags. The dog fabric is from Alexander Henry.

Next is my eclectic mix of i-pad covers. I used two diffrent tutorial for these, one is from one shabby chick and the other one from Jen Carlton Balily on Sew Mama Sew. I made small alterations to both of them.

These two each have a small pocket on the front and are landscape. They look a bit more formal I guess and love that it shows of the lining.

I think the one with the comic strip ('home sewing is easy' from Alexander Henry) is possibly my favorite one and I used the same fabric already for a frame purse which is just fabulous. 

Meet 'Lucky Summer'

It was such a pleasure working with 'Summersville' that I couldn't stop myself sewing. So I not only had the quilt finished by last Saturday but also a couple of matching cushions (..... one can never have enough cushions).

Shall we have a look then ?

I almost used the entire layer cake in this postage stamp pattern. The individual squares are 2 inches in size and I used 480 pieces in this quilt.

I placed 4 different layer cake pieces on top of each other and cut four 2 1/2 inch strips from them (totaling to 16 individual strips), then I mixed the strips up and sewed these together to 4 blocks again which I subsequently cut into 4 individual strips again (totaling to 16 strips altogether but this time each has 4 different 2 inch squares).

I then laid out all the strips until I was happy with the look and started piecing them in blocks of four. It sounds a lot more work then it was in the end.

I quilted in straight lines outside the ditch which emphasis the individual squares. Quilting thread was Gueterman Sulky 1072 for the front and a variegated one for the back (the same I am using for my Greek Cross quilt, more on that next week).

 

For the back I used this absolutely fantastic colourful butterfly print from Alexander Henry (featured in this stash Note). It actually mirrors a lot of the colours from the front but adds vibrance and buzz to it.
Look at this print, isn't it amazing ?

The quilt measures 41 by 48 inches (1,01 x 1.22 m)  and I used a Michael Miller print from the 'Pretty Bird' collection called 'Bloomies' for the binding which is the same I already used in another quilt last year. Because the print fabric of the front has a lot of white in it I felt that it needed a strong frame. I think the colours really work well both with the front and back. It is a beautiful tangerine.

And as already mentioned in the beginning I couldn't stop myself sewing so I added a couple of cushions that feature on one side a double pinwheels ( I might just have to make a quilt featuring double pinwheels when I get my hands on more of this fabric !) and on the other a large square in a square.

 

And because I can  here another shot of the whole lot together.
The quilt and pillows are all listed in my Etsy shop !   Sold

Stash Note 52

Happy Easter everybody first of all. 

Well these aren't obviously very Easterly fabrics (although you could toy with the Easter bunny theme if you were so inclined)  but you may remember my Stash Note 43 where I showed you a gorgeous piece of Alexander Henry fabric called 'Heavy Equipment' that I subsequently made into this bag. Well, I could not help myself but add a few more as you can see below. 'Aloha Girls' and 'Wranglers Brights' were also bought a the fantastic 'Fabric Inspirations' on-line shop.

 

Stash Note 48

I spend sometime in the last days changing the appearance of my blog mainly because the images were showing to small. Now with the new layout I can show them in all their glory and I hope you like it.

So today's stash note is a mixed bunch of glorious fabric that are all ordered from Fabricworm.

First of some dotty numbers that were on sale; Kokka Japan Polka Dots in Espresso and Grey and underneath this Michael Miller 'French Roast' in Grey.

And those three fantastic prints are also from Michael Miller and belong to the collection called 'The British are coming'. Now, what the British have got to do with Vespas is rather beyond me. But I love the print all the same and not least because I ride a Vespa to work most days.

And this fabulous number is from Alexander Henry (of course it is) and is called 'Wheres my Stache tea'. Isn't this fab ?