A Field Study summer top

My third piece of wardrobe for the Summer was again a shirred number but this time a little one.
You see, I still had one piece of 'Field Study' linen/cotton left which was the 'Flower Circuit in Guava'.

It was just a half meter so not much really but just enough for a shirred top.

I used the same method as with my summer dress of course and this came together in an hour and really looks great worn with denim shorts. 

This shirring business is great fun and in particular when you iron over it and the shirring contracts like magic.....I think there is that inner child in me poking out a bit....

My new Study Hall Skirt

My second piece of Summer wardrobe is the 'Study Hall Skirt' by Anna-Maria Horner. I have had the pattern for a long time now but never really found the right fabric combination to match its fabulousness. That was until the 'Field Study' collection came out with it's cotton/linen mix that is slightly heavier than quilting cotton and is ideal for this type of skirt. The pleats sit better with a stiffer fabric.

For this skirt I used the 'Ghost Wing in Aqua' and 'Domestic Cat in Aqua' fabric. I had plenty of fabric and spend a lot of time cutting to make sure I had the best parts of the fabric. The back of the skirt has some pretty accurate pattern matching going on (you hear how proud I am ?) and I made sure that all inset pleats had a row of roses in the middle. These become visible during movement and are a really nice feature.

This skirt is not thrown together in 90 minutes but even though it is a lot of work, it really was very enjoyable to sew together and I can't wait to make the next one.

The skirt came together much easier than I thought and the pattern is explained well. The only thing I was unsure about right from the beginning was if the seam allowance was included and after some help from friends on Instagram I was assured that it was.

There are just a few things I made differently from the original pattern. While researching the skirt on the Internet I came across this  blogpost by 'Resore your House'. The Lady lined the skirt which is something I really missed on the pattern. There are very few skirts that sit well without lining (for example a denim skirt) but most would ride up without it and if you spend a lot of time and money creating something then I think it deserves to look at its best. I also top-stitched the pleats but not all the way as she did.

I so love how this skirt turned out and have been wearing it all summer gathering many compliments on the way. This is very much me as I not only love colour in my quilts but am also not afraid of wearing it.

A shirred summer dress

Hello everybody! I hope you have had a good Summer with a lot of sun and fun. I certainly did and although my intention was to sew very little, I actually ended up creating a bit of a Summer wardrobe at the beginning of July and thought I share this with you now even though Summer is drawing to a close.

I made three items and will post about these over the coming weeks.

In June 2013 I bought this set of Anna-Maria Horner 'Field Study' when I was holidaying in New York.

These are gorgeous cotton/linen blends that lend themselves ideally to dresses, tops and skirts. All I knew when I bought it was to make a 'Study Hall skirt' but I had no definite plans for the rest. So inspiration struck at last and I had used up this fabric in no time.

I love shirred summer dresses, they are flattering and easy to wear and if you are not too busty, you get away wearing them without a bra. They are my go-to summer dresses for at home and when I holiday in the Caribbean in the winter. The one dress I have been wearing for the past 5 years or so is finally losing shape. It was store bought and was great but the shirring is slackening and overall it's a bit tired now.

So I took out the wonderfully named 'Parenthetical in Deep' from my stash and set out making a new summer dress.

I used this tutorial for the dress which is fantastic. Shirred dresses are basically two big rectangular pieces stitched together with some straps. Shape comes through the shirring and this dress came together in less than 2 hours.

I love the way the pattern is squished together through the shirring and so much liked it that I made also a shirred top but more of that in another post.

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 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 81

Gosh has it really  be that long that I shared some new fabric with you ! Well although I did not have the opportunity to sew during much of the renovation in my house I did have opportunity to purchase fabric ! And in fact I had that opportunity in New York. I had the most wonderful 5 days in early May there with my sister. Proper sister time that we much enjoyed. We shopped, sat in cafes, went to restaurants and galleries and cycled almost the entire length of Manhattan. Before I flew out I purchased fabric at some of the online stores and had it all sent to the hotel. That way I saved quite a bit on postage and of course the nasty tax.

So without further ado. My I introduce Field Study in Linen by Anna-Maria Horner that I bought at Fabricworm.

In the top image from left to right we have Flower Circuit in Guava, Ghost Wing in Aqua, the most sumptuous and wonderfully named 'Parenthetical in Deep' and last the 'Domestic Cat in Aqua' - isn't that one a riot !

For some of these I had  planned to make the Study Hall Skirt which is also by Anna-Maria Horner.  I have had the pattern for ages but so far haven't found the energy to make a skirt although I absolutely love the pattern.
But I am not so sure now as they would also make a gorgeous quilt back and I have just the quilt top lying around here that is clamoring for something glamorous.

Have a lovely Sunday

Stash Note 66

This past week was a busy one. After I recovered from the craft fair which took until Tuesday (went to bed Monday night after work at 8 pm !) I had rather a lot to do at work and there was little time to craft never mind re-photographing my unsold makes from the fair I want to put in the shop.I will do it in the next week in case you were wondering.

But today is time to quilt and more over time for a little stash note. This is all about Anna-Maria Horner's new collection 'Field' Study'. Now I have a somewhat difficult relationship with AMH collections. When I started quilting I bought the then new 'Innocent Crush' and was really disappointed when it arrived. Trouble was I bought a half yard set and felt that it was forever in my stash. Still I made a wonderful quilt from selected prints of the collection that I really love but there were a lot of prints that were not my cup of tea. 

When Loulouthi came out, I stayed well away from the quilting cotton although I really like the collection. In the end I did buy several of the voile prints and really loved those.

Then Field Study came out a few weeks ago and I was really taken by it and took advantage of the liquidation sale at Whipstitch to order a fat quarter set. And I am pleased to say that I really, really love this collection. It has lots of interesting prints, fresh bright colors and is to me a very coherent collection.

The collection comes in three  colour ways of which I have the Moonlit and Patina pallette. I particular love the latter as it has wonderful bright greens.

Patina

Moonlit

And my favorite print is Raindrops Poppies in Candy. Isn't that just the best name for this great print ? 

The entire collection is available in the UK from the lovely Annie at Village Haberdashery