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.

Hometown - finally a finished quilt

I say finally because to me it seems that I have been working on this quilt forever. But in actual fact it only appears that way. It took me a month which is long for me but then again I made a few other things in between, such as my Tova and a laptop cover and I went on holiday for a week too.

Anyway the quilt is finished and I am mightily pleased with it and am fairly certain that my godmother will love it.

Just to recap, the quilt pattern is 'Botanical Gardens' from Sarah Fieldke's book 'Quilting from little things' . The blocks are set on point and use basically always two contrasting fabrics which was perfect for my stash of Hometown.

I kept the quilting simple because although this is a quilt of subtle colours it is nonetheless a busy one. So I quilted in straight lines right and left of the seam lines. Originally I had in mind to add a diagonal along the individual blocks but eventually abandoned this idea and I think that was the right decision.

The entire quilt is made of the Hometown collection. I used every last scrap of it. The quilt measures around 65 to 75" which makes it a perfect sofa quilt. The original quilt in the book was square and had a border.

The back is just a more or less random selection of leftover fabric pieced together.

As mentioned in my earlier posts I did not follow the piecing instructions from the book which suggested to piece in rows. I think this is not very wise and will lead to countless errors in my opinion. What I did is piece large sections; i.e. constructed myself "blocks" that I transferred to a piece of carton carton approximately A3 size and then sewed the pieces togheter. This worked very well and I only made one error in the whole process.

Earlier posts regarding this quilt can be found here and here.

Hometown progress

The top is finally pieced. I won't lie. It wasn't enjoyable piecing. This quilt pattern is by no means difficult, complex yes but not difficult but I found the whole experience somehow tedious although the finished top looks fantastic.

I have a nagging feeling that my not so enjoyable quilting time may not be entirely down to the quilt pattern but more down to a massive quilt hangover from sewing frantically between October and December. So I have been gentle with myself and only pieced when I really felt up to it which is why the whole top took more than two weeks (and yes my upstairs studio was not cleaned the entire time...)

And here a glimpse of the quilt back. Although I absolutely love the Hometown collection and I would have easily had enough for another quilt I am determined to use it all on this quilt. So the quilt back will be pieced from Hometown too.

Previous posts regarding this quilt can be found here

Hometown

First of all 'Happy New Year' to everybody. I hope you all managed to celebrate, sleep or rave well into 2013. I was going to do a recap of the old year but then thought better of it and instead I am marching full swing into the new one with a new quilt - of course a new quilt. What else.

One person in my family who hasn't been given a quilt and is long overdue one is my godmother Sanni. Earmarked for her has been my 'Hometown' fat quarter pack from the fabulous Sweetwater designers.

When this collection came out in Autumn of 2011 I couldn't help myself to buy an entire fat quarter set. On hindsight a mistake as any of the Sweetwater collection have to many prints. Since I have started to use jelly roles and layer cakes when it comes to Sweetwater collections. Fat eighths are also available to buy which is another more cost effective purchase if I feel I have to have all prints.

I have been looking a long time for a suitable pattern for this fabric and finally settled on 'Botanical Gardens' from Sarah Fieldke's book 'Quilting from little things' .
It's a wonderful pattern that is perfect as it contrasts for each block 2 fabrics.

 So I cut and cut and did a bit more of the same and then laid it all out on my floor. The trouble with this pattern is that you can't sew it in blocks due to the intersecting squares which also means it has to be laid out in its entirety. So for the past week or so the floor in my sewing room has been covered with hundreds of squares and tringles....

The pattern calls to sew in rows but I honestly think that is a bit ludicrous and is prone to lead to errors and misplaced pieces. Instead I am using an A2 sized piece of cardboard onto which I transfer larger sections, i.e. artificial blocks that I then sew together. This works really well.

When Lucy met Daisy - a finished quilt

Two evenings of intense quilting and this summery quilt is finished. And I can't tell you how pleased I am with this quilt. I love the subtle warm colours of this collection and the fabric was a dream to work with (although this was a jelly role !).

Like many of you I adore almost every collection Sweetwater produces but what annoys me a little is that they always have so many patterns in every collection. This inevitably results in me either having to restrict myself  to a few prints or bite the bullet and get a fat quarter set. I did this with Hometown and although I have cut the fabric from the set for an entire quilt I still have tons left. You just simply can't do this for two collections a year. So I resorted to buying a jelly role of the 'Lucy's crab shack' collection instead and I am super happy with this decision despite the mess a jelly role creates. 

I think I am entering a little "striped phase" with my quilt. This is probably one of the simplest pattern you can chose (indeed if you really can call it a pattern) but I love those simple stripes so much. There is just something about them that draws my eye and makes me smile. So be warned there is more of this to come !

I chose a very summary fabric for the back that I bought recently in the sale at the fatquatershop (stash note here). I just think this daisy print is the perfect addition to the quilt and that's why I named it 'When Lucy met Daisy' . As you can see I quilted in diagonal double straight lines across the entire quilt.

The quilting did swallow almost 6 bobbin wheels which is approximately as much as I used for the Comet quilt !

I quilted with Aurifil colour 2000 in 30 w.

And I had in my stash the perfect print for the binding. Don't you just love when that happens. This is a stripy number in orange on a light green background that fits absolutely perfect to the front and back of the quilt. The print is 'Skinny stripe orange' from the Hello Pilgrim collection and was bought at 'Sew Mama Sew' in the sale but I'm afraid I got the last bit. I will feature it in my next stash note.

And last but not least a lovely role as I haven't featured one in a while.

The quilt is for sale and can be purchase in my Etsy store here. Sold

When Lucy met Daisy

I fancied something simple and easy, much in the way Summer should be...but let's not dwell about the state of Summer here in the UK. Talking about it will just depress me even more.

So I just crabbed the jelly role of 'Lucy's Crab Shack'  I bought the other day and simply started sewing strips together.

Love it, simple yet effective. Off to do some quilting then....

Giveaway !

I realised the other day that  it has been far to long since I did a giveaway ! Shame on me.
The best method to remedy this is to actually do one immediately.  I would like to thank all of you lovely readers for your support and your lovely comments. I cherish each and everyone and without you I wouldn't have this blog.

So without further ado I am giving away two charm packs of the wonderful new line of Sweetwater called 'Lucy's crab shack'. It has all the usual hallmarks of Sweetwater with their amazing attention to detail and colour coordination.

I you fancy to get hold of those two packs then leave me a comment.

Rules of engagement:

• leave one comment only if you wish to participate in the give-away
• everybody is welcome including internationals and aliens
• giveaway open until Thursday 21st June
• no e-mail address = no participation (no-repy-bloggers please pay attention)

Stash Note 49

Today's Stash Note is curtsey of the wonderful on-line store Delray Fabrics. I wanted to top up my stash with a few blenders and some text prints.

I am sure some of you already know the prints in the top row of the fist picture. They are a selection of Pezze Prints from American Jane for Moda. The prints in the second row are from the Sunkissed range from Sweetwater.

  And I could not resist these cuties here from Cosmo Cricket from the 1934 collection. Do you see the typewriters with the love messages ? So cute. 

Countdown to Christmas - final part incl. template -

Well the official countdown to Christmas started in earnest last week but my 'Countdown to x-mas' quilt is already (or finally) finished.
First things first; as promised I created a template for the blocks and if you wish to use it you can download it from here. I squared the blocks down to 8 inches.

In my last post about this quilt I asked for advice on how to quilt it and got a lot of very good suggestions from you (thank you). For a while I was very partial to Laura's suggestion to use a cross-hatch pattern. I also liked Fiona's suggestion of loopy stars that Katy's trusted longarmer Chris used on Katy's constellation quilt but dismissed it as I didn't want to use a longarmer.

After some more pondering I had this revelation a few weeks back while running that I would make a Christmas Star pattern starting in the middle and then gradually increasing its dimension towards the outside of the quilt. I chose a star that was suitable for the rectangle shape of the quilt.

I made a template from carton and drew with an hera marker the first star in the middle and then machine stitched along the outline with a double line. My plan was to then slowly increase the star using the guide on the machine.
But that didn't work as the star I chose, albeit really beautiful, wasn't easily expandable without making new templates.
So I changed my plan rather to undo the quilting and machine stitched many stars which in effect brings me close to the quilting of the Constellation Star quilt after all !

 

When I had covered the quilt sufficiently with machine stitched large stars I moved on to hand quilting smaller stars. I used three different colours for hand quilting, a cream, dark red and dark green that are all in the same tones as the fabric but increase the contrast on the front of the quilt a little bit more. The machine stitched stars are all held in cream.

I am happy with the outcome and in particular because I really enjoyed hand quilting again but I must admit that I am disappointed that my original plan didn't work out and therefore this isn't a quilt I am madly in love with (sorry my dear quilt..) but maybe this is one where love will grow over time.
What I am very satisfied with is the way I made good use of almost all of the jelly role strips by incorporating them in the back. All solids used on the back are also from my stash of red fabrics I built originally up for the Very Berry quilt. It is a good feeling to be able to just pull fabric from stash (and to see said stash reducing somewhat !).

I am really pleased with my choice of binding as it frames both the top and the back nicely. The binding is a dark green cotton with red dots which I believe is from the same collection but I am not sure (stats below).

And here the usual quilt statistics:

• Size: 57 x 66 inches (1.45 x 1.57 cm)
• Blocks: Template to download here, block size after squaring up should be 8 inches (7 1/2 finished block size)
• Fabric used for the front: One Jelly role of Countdown to x-mas from Sweetwater and several yards of background and sashing fabric of the same collection bought at Delray Fabric and Hulu Crafts. 
• Fabric used for the back: leftovers from the Jelly role and leftovers of Kona in shades of red
• Binding: bought at my local quilt shop Tikki
• Quilting thread: Guetermann Sulky 30 in 1071 for the machine quilting part and No 8 Perle for hand quilting in colours 3000 (cream), 1667 (red) and 4565 (green)
• Wadding: Hobbs Heirloom in 100 % cotton

 

Lotta fly away and other updates

I  wanted to thank everybody who so kindly helped with quilting suggestions of my  'Countdown to x-mas' quilt. I pondered each and every one for days on end until I had a revelation last Sunday while running (and I would not have had that without your help !). I finished the machine quilting part yesterday and moved on to some hand quilting which I really enjoy. Since I have my Janome Horzion I have done very little hand quilting but I guess this has more to do with the fact that before I had the Horizon I hand quilted each and every one of my very large quilts.  I think I was done with hand quilting for a while and I am rather delighted that I find pleasure in it again. But the big reveal of the finished quilt and the quilting pattern will have to wait a little while.

I hand quilt normally in front of the TV which means I need a project in parallel for the machine (as there is only so much TV watching one can do....). What better to do then to start a new quilt (what else really ..). I have been itching to cut into my stash of 'Echo' by Lotta Jansdotter.

Can you guess what it's gonna  be ?

Of now to another lap of Sunday morning running and then back to the sewing machine...bliss.

Countdown to Christmas - part 3 -

42 trees and whole lot of sashing later and the top of my 'Countdown to Christmas' quilt is finished !
I can't get enough of this fabric as it is so darn cute !
The big question is now what to do with the back and how to quilt it. I am adamant to use the entire jelly role plus all the left overs from the background fabric on this quilt which proofs a bit of a challenge.

Originally I was thinking to quilt in the  same manner as the little mini quilts were done emphasising the trees but this will be to much work when it comes to burying the quilting threads. I don't think I can face hundreds upon hundreds of threads to bury. It did cross my mind to QAG this one but then again that would have presented a much bigger challenge as to the quilt back. I think for the method I am keen to try out the squares are to small.

So I am thinking something along the lines of crosses or stars which is sort of festive too isn't it ?
Any suggestion are more than welcome.

 

Previous post on this quilt can be found here and here.

Countdown to Christmas - part 2 -

Hello there, it is Wednesday and that means half way through the working week......what a relieve.
Sunday night I made quite a bit of progress on my 'Countdown to Christmas' quilt for which I use the equally named Christmas collection from Sweetwater.

I cut templates for these blocks and will scan them today and post a link to them over the weekend in case anybody would like to use this pattern too. This was inspired by one of the Sweetwater quilts for their current 'Hometown' collection.

 

All of the trees are cut and sewn (I used a Jelly role) and most of the background fabric is attached. But I ran out and ordered some more from Hulu Craft which hopefully arrives today.

 

 

Previous post on this can be found here
Ho ho

Stash Note 33

Today's stash note is the 'Hometown' collection by Sweetwater. I was resisting this for a while but finally caved in. I love the mix of warm autumnal colours and the diverse pattern. Sweetwater always have a text print in their collection which I find very appealing. I used their line 'Pure' previously on my 'Laugh and Happiness' quilt which now resides happily on my mother's sofa.

Sweetwater are introducing a new line at quilt market in Houston which is called 'Reunion' and that I feel is an absolute winner and I can't wait for it to be released early next year.