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.

Merry Christmas

Let's pretend for a moment that I am not living on the northern hemisphere of our planet (did you notice that the world actually hasn't come to end over night !) but somewhere in the south where summer is in full swing. If you do that then I hope you appreciate my not so Christmas inspired images but I couldn't help myself and show you the cushion I made this week.

The fabric is from Laura Gunn's new Cosmos range. The panel is called 'Cosmos Suite' in Aqua and I bought one panel from Hawthorn Threads a while ago. Each panel has two images and it was just the perfect size for a 20 " cushion that desperately needed a new cover.

And with that I want to wish all of you lovely followers, regular commentators, occasional visitors, flickr, facebook and twitter followers  a very merry x-mas and happy new Year ! I have had a lot of fun with you this year and am very grateful for each comment and advice I received from you.

I might pop in here "between the years" for a little statistical update of 2012.
See and hear from you soon.

Judith

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 !

Oxford border wtih hidden zip - a tutorial

First of all thank you for everybody's kind comments on my linen oxford pillow or as Hadley called them "big comfy tea bags"....

So here is the promised tutorial and you will see that it really isn't difficult at all. After I finished my first I had a bit of an aha moment indeed.

Let's say you want to make a bordered cushion for a cushion pad of 14"/35 cm then you will end up with a cushion cover of 18"/45 cm. Of course if you wish you can make the border even wider but I think it should always we proportional to the size of the cushion itself and I found these measurements perfect.

Cutting instruction:

1 square  19" x 19" linen
1 square  19" x 21" linen
1 zip 12 "

Optional:
1 sq  19" x 19" interfacing ( I prefer the woven kine, Vilene G-700)
1 sq  19" x 21" interfacing


I like to use Vilene G-700 interfacing as it is woven and gives the fabric both stability while retaining flexibility. If you use a heavier home decor fabric you may not need or want interfacing. Although the linen I use here is fairly heavy it needed a little bit of stability for the oxford border to stand properly.

Step 1: If you are using interfacing then iron it onto the wrong side of the fabric (WOF) of both squares.

Step 2: Then take the larger of the two squares and cut it in half across the width of the fabric giving you two panels of 19" x 10.5".

Step 3: Optionally overlock or zickzack stitch the edge before folding it over by about 0.5 ". Press to the WOF. Do this for both pieces.

That's how it looks from the front.

Step 4: Now join both pieces.

Put both pieces right side of fabric (ROF) together. Pin along the length of the fold for about 3 1/4" from the side edge on either side as demonstrated in the images. Mark the 3 1/4" point with a needle so you don't sew over it in the next step.

Step 5: Sew along the pinned seam from the side edge to the marker pin on either side. Secure the end with a few backward stitches. You are left with an opening in the middle into which you are now inserting the zip.













 Step 6: The zip

Take your zip and start pinning it into the opening from the ROF.
Start at one end by inserting the end of the zip through the opening just under the sewn seam. Place the fabric so that the edge of the fabric is level with the teeth. You can actually place the fabric just a smidgen beyond the edge of the teeth towards the other side of the zip. 

Do this on both sides. The zip should be completely hidden once it is pinned in place on both sides.  The fabric edges should be very close together. In fact they should nudge each other a little bit (see image below). When the cushion is inserted, the fabric will open a little bit and if you pin the zip snug between the two fabric pieces you will keep it well hidden even with the cushion pad inserted.

The inserted zip should look like this from the WOF.

Step 7: Sewing of the zip


Sewing in the zip works best with a zipper foot but you can also use a normal foot. Start in the middle of one side and do a few back stitches to secure the stitch. Sew close along the zipper teeth using the zipper foot as your guide. You can pull the other side of the fabric slightly open if you want to see the zipper while sewing.

Keep sewing until you get to the end and stitch one or two stitches past the opening. Keep needle in the down potion, turn the fabric around, sew a few stitches back and forth and then sew along the other side. When you reach the zipper, pull it out the way so you can sew evenly and easier.

The finished cushion panel should look like in this image:

Step 8: Finish
The rest is fairly easy and pretty much the same as with any other cushion.
Open the zip (very important !) Put both cushion panels right sides together and make sure they are still the same size. If not then square them off. Then sew all around with a good 1/4" seam allowance.

Back with hidden zipper

Turn the cushion inside out through the open zip, pull out the corners with your favorite pointy tool (chop sticks, Hera marker are mine). Now press the cushion well and then sew all around with a 3" seam allowance (or border), insert cushion pad and you are done !

P.S I like a double seam here and go around a second time leaving an 1/8 " gap between the two seams.















One could argue that it would look better if the zipper wasn't on the horizontal (or vertical) in the middle of the back panel. I did argue that point with myself (!) but ended up putting it in the middle after all. If you are making an oxford border cushion then you are very likely to use the same fabric for both sides and in that case it really doesn't matter. Besides one can always only look at one side of a cushion. However if you wanted to move the zipper further towards the bottom then that is of course possible and the technique remains the same just the measurements for the back panels change.

Front without zipper

I hope this helps and please let me know if you have any questions or don't understand something.

Cushions - bordered

...or as they are called correctly, cushions with an Oxford border. Sounds all rather posh, don't you think ?
You may remember that I bought some months ago this fabulous home decor linen at the Cloth House in Soho.

It was always my intention to make cushions with this fabric but I hadn't gotten around to do so over the past months. I also wanted to make them double sided using the same cloth and also knew right away I wanted an Oxford border.

I think the Oxford border gives the cushion that little something, given that it is not quilted. So it really should shine through the use of its fabric alone. I had been looking all over flickr to find a tutorial or some instructions on how to make the borders incorporating an invisible zip but didn't find much. Somehow they don't seem to be fashionable in the quilting world.

But I like 'em and think they work a treat here. So in the end I managed to work out how to make them curtsey of several tips and hints and thought I write up a little tutorial on how to make Oxford borders with a hidden zip if anybody is interested. I took the images and if enough people would like a tut then I am happy to write it up.

And here is a little stack of vintage inspired cushions made from gorgeous linen, available in my shop.

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

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

Red Hot, Sunshine Melody and Caribbean Dreams

Caught your attention ?

This post is featured today on the Fat Quarterly blog - how exciting is that !
Recently the Fat Quarter Team entrusted me with some Aurifil Thread in a Designer Challenge. The brief was to create something using either one or all of the provided gorgeous Aurifil threads.

 

I have become aware of Aurifil thread sometime last year or even the year before and I believe it was first at the Birmingham quilt festival. It has become increasingly popular and many quilters are praising its qualities in the highest tones. I have already worked with Aurifil threads before but mainly for piecing purposes for which I very much love it as it produces less lint than my usual Guetermann 50 thread. 

 

The threads I was given were a selection of 50, 40, 28 and 12 weight. The 12 weight thread was wool in a rich matt yellow that immediately caught my eye.
I pondered for a few weeks about which projects would be good to showcase the threads best apart from using decorative stitches (which I did as well with the light green but I get to that in a later post) and finally decided on making myself some new cushions for my living room sofa.

The three pillows I produced are all made in the same pattern; the front a lock cabin pattern and the back a simple 9 patch. The quilting is also the same in all three. The fronts are done in a concentric circle and the backs in a diagonal crosshatch pattern.

This little number here is called "Red Hot" and is made of 6 different shades of red.  I quilted and pieced this pillow with the 40 weight thread in red and loved working with it though I do prefer a thicker thread for quilting normally. All reds are Kona Cotton and are from existing stock.

 

"Caribbean Dreams" was pieced with the 50 weight Aurifil thread in green but I used a thicker No 16 Perle thread for quilting as the quilting with the 50 weight fibre would have been to subtle on the pillow and would have missed the effect I wanted to achieve. 

The colours of this pillow are so rich and really transport me to my next holiday destination in my dreams and brings visions of warm days, the beach and turquoise blue waters..... all a far cry from typical UK winter weather. The fabric used for "Caribbean Dreams" consists of a selection of Kona solids and Freespirit Designer Solids from my existing stock.

 

I titled pillow number three "Summer Melody" with its six different shades of summer yellows. It is such a warm and inviting pillow. I pieced this pillow with a normal Aurifil 50 weight thread (not from above selection) but quilted it with the wool weight 12 in yellow on my machine ! At first I thought the thread would not be able to withstand the strain of machine stitching but it was no problem with two little adjustments to the settings; one was to use a top stitch needle because of the thickness of the thread and two was to reduce stitching speed somwhat. The thread worked fantastically and really gives the pillow a beautiful texture. All fabric used for this pillow are again Kona solids and Freespirit Designer solids from existing stock.

The verdict is that I loved working with the threads and I was impressed with all of them but perhaps mostly with the woollen one though admittedly one would not use it for larger quilting projects. I will  try in the  future some of the 28 weight colours for quilting purposes in addition to the 50 weight Aurifil I already use for piecing.

And here they are all three together:

Front

Back