Rumba II

Recently a customer bought my 'Rumba' cushion I made of Malka Dubrawsky's collection 'A stitch in colour'. A few weeks later I got a mail asking if I could make another just like this. After a little chat we decided that I would use the same fabric but a different patchwork pattern to add some interest to the couch on which the cushion will be sitting (and for me the maker !).

So last Saturday I made Rumba II.

I have had it in my mind to make a string quilt for quite some time and thought this was a good opportunity to try it out on a smaller scale.... it is a lot (LOT) of work if you want the strips to be exact like above but I do love it. I paper pieced the four quaters and drew strips varying in lenght between 3/4 and 1 1/4". Still I need to rethink the quilt idea a bit.... maybe go for improv strips which would be a breeze...

The back is again an Echino print, in fact the same pattern as the original cushion had but his time on a turquoise background. Both cushions should sit lovely together on the sofa. I had to add a little solids strip to the bottom as the cushion is slightly larger than a fat quarter (21") and I chose it in the same turquoise as the some of the leaves in the print.



I quilted in circular lines in 50w Aurifill as I wanted the quilting to basically disappear as the prints themselves are interesting enough and I thought a third dimension in addition to the bright fabrics and patchwork design might be a bit to much.

I am happy, let's hope my customer is too !

You can never have enough

.... cushions that is. Do you agree ? You may remember that  I made a series of pillows in the Aurifill challenge for 'Fat Quarterly' . They were in shades of yellow like the sunshine, in red like hot spices and in turquoise like the Caribbean sea.

But I always thought that at least one shade was missing and that kind of nagged me. So I made a fourth addition that is called 'Berrylishes' as it reminds me of Summer berries (if they aren't going to be drowned in the wettest drought ever).

Berrylishes front

Berrylishes back

You know and whilst I was at it I also made a pillow with the 'Stitched in colour' collection from Malka Dubrawsky that I bought a while ago and absolutely adore.
I used a template I made from cardboard to cut the tumblers (no need for Go Baby !).

The back features a great print from Echino with a black background.

And here a little stack for good measure...
All pillows can be found in my Etsy Shop

A stitch in colour i-pad cover

The second piece of holiday sewing was my new i-pad cover and what better to use for this then Malka Dubrawsky's new fabric collection I featured in my last stash note.

This took a while to make but it was well worth it. I so love this cover. It is bright, cheerful and really stands out.

 For the front I made an improve log cabin block. Can you see how I included the selvedge with the fabric name ?

 

The back shows more improve piecing where I pieced 4 rectangular blocks first before piecing them together. I quilted in circular motion using my 50 weight Aurifil thread for the first time for quilting. I normally prefer a weightier thread for quilting such as my favourite Gueterman Sulky 30 but I think for smaller pieces like this a thinner thread might actually be better.

Back

The lining is a lovely spotted red and white number left over from sewing my newphew's Advent Calender.  To close I simply used a hair elastic and a nice button.

 

 And here you see how nicely the i-pad fits.

 

I used the excellent tutorial from 'One Shabby Chick' though I somewhat reduced the measurement as I found the dimension a bit on the roomy side.

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).