Siblings Together VI

It is the weekend and I am again reporting on the blocks I have received for the 'Siblings Together' log cabing project. This will be the second last post on received blocks as I am starting to piece the quilt tops next weekend. 

I know some blocks are still in transit and I will of course wait for those but if you still wish to participate please ensure that the blocks reach me no later then the 15th of May.

If you haven't heard anything about it yet and wish to join in this great cause then you can read up on it in the flickr group, the charity itself, Lynn's blog or on my first and second post.

Over the past week I received four sets of great blocks; let's have a look then.
Thank you to all of you for your generosity.

These wonderful six blocks came all the way from Canada and are from Janet .

Janet's blocks

Those next four blocks are from Cherie who I believe lives in the UK (but I am not sure). Don't you just love the gingham !

Cherie's blocks

Set No 3 is from Sarah who evidently was inspired by a zoo and airplanes. Just fantastic !

Sarah's blocks

And set No 4 is from Nicolette who sent us a whole host of blocks in gorgeous warm colors. Lots of Hope Valley in there which always makes my heart go faster. 

Nicolette's blocks

I have also received the labels for the quilts (kindly sponsored by Spoonflower and organized by Laura)  and would like to pick your brains on what to write on the section "made by". I don't think "Log cabin group" or something along those lines is suitable and for practical reason I can't put all our names on the label.

I am actually thinking of using cartoon names, such as "Miss Piggy' or "Kermit". Something that is fun has a personal touch and is recognizable to kits.

What do you think ? Do you have any other suggestions ? 

 

The red diamond

I have been contemplating a new minimalist quilt for weeks now, in fact I started thinking about it right when I finished 'Tuscan Hills'. I had in mind to make a quilt that uses only whites and creams in all sorts of shades and textures. Right at the beginning of my quilting I made 'Double Cream' which is still one of my favorite quilts (sorry for the bad quality images) and ever since I wanted to make another quilt with a similar colour palette.

Then came along our LMQG challenge for May and an exhibition. John Lewis have offered us to exhibit 12" mini quilts in their Bistro at their flagship store on Oxford Street. How cool is that !

And that got me thinking that I could make a mini quilt in creams as a little study to the actual bigger quilt I am planning to do.

So I started thinking what modern or contemporary quilting actually  means to me. I think in the main it means a total freedom of colour, fabric, form and texture and with that in mind I started planning for which I used for a change EQ7. I bought the software several months ago but it took me rather a long, no actually a very long time to get used to it. But I will write about my EQ7 experience another time in more detail.

And while I was planning my favorite red fabric ('Cranberry' Oakshott used here and here) caught my eye and I thought I could use a splash of it in this little quilt. And so came about this mini quilt 'The Red Diamond'. I created a paper piecing template for the 3 inch squares with the red corner and went about cutting and piecing.

A few hours later my entry to the first LMQG exhibition at John Lewis London was done ! I can't tell you how happy I am about it and of course it got my little brain into overdrive about the bigger version of it.

Let's hope it will be in the selection.

Screen Printing with Lucie

Regular readers of my blog will know that I am a member of the LMQG (London Modern Quilt Guilt) that was founded in January this year. We meet once a months and show and tell, talk, eat, learn and plan events. One of the events that was organized by our fabulous president Amie was a Screen Printing workshop with Lucie Summers. I may have mentioned this over the past week a couple of times on the blog.....

Now I didn't have to think long about whether to join; in fact I thought about it a millisecond only. I have been wanting to learn how to screen print for a long time and being able to learn it from the super talented Mrs Summers is just the best.

So off we girls went last Sunday to Lucie's home. I always thought screen printing is hugely complicated and incredibly messy but it is neither. Although I was temporarily banned from using one particular ink because of an attack of the clumsiness !

We created in preparation designs for our own fabric labels that Lucie then transferred onto screen. She showed us how she made the screens using Thermofax mesh and then taught us how to screen print those onto fabric. And as soon as we mastered those Lucie generously let us loose on some of her larger screens to let us on the secret of double printing. Lu refers to her screens and inks in loving detail such as friendly, naughty or obnoxious.

One can tell that this girl lives and breathes her craft. !!

And now a few images of the wonderful day we had.

Lucie showing us how to apply ink

Ruth, Collette and Atia admiring Atia's fabric

Did I mention that we took over the entire house ?

Some of the larger prints from Lucie's sceens

My label

More output selected from the mountain I printed

stash Note 55

Happy Sunday everybody. It rained all day yesterday here (literally) and it looks like it is not going to be any different today. Normally that would make me rather furious but I will be spending most of today with the lovely Lucie Summers and members of the LMQG in a screen fabric workshop, so you can imagine I am not angry but rather overexcited like a toddler today. Still will it ever stop raining ?(oh yeah I forgot apparently we have a drought....).

 Today's stash note is a mixed bag of re-stash and new addition. These wonderful circles on linen are the re-stash and were bought from Stefanie Xu via Etsy.

And this utterly gorgeous pile of gingham was bought in Bremen in a shop near where my sisters lives and where I always pop in when I visit her. Sadly though they don't have an on-line facility.

Siblings Together V

It's Friday  Saturday and until the deadline of 15th May I will report every week on the progress of Log cabin quilt project for the 'Siblings Together' Project. If you haven't heard anything about it yet and wish to join in this great cause then you can read up on it in the flickr group, the charity itself, Lynn's blog or on my first and second post.

Over the past week I received two sets blocks; one from Colette and one from Jennie.
Thank you to all of you for your generosity.

The first set is from Colette who is also a fellow member of the London Modern Quilt guilt and the two of us with a few others are of to Lucie Summers tomorrow for a screen printing workshop (just to get  you all jealous.....) Anyway back to 'Siblings Together', Collette made these great striking blocks for the cause.

Colette's blocks

The second equally striking and colourful  set is from Jennie and if I wouldn't know it any better I'd say they have been working together on these as they are quiet similar in colour choices. These will work great together.

Jennie's blocks

Girls at Play

Just a quick note on this rainy (again) Friday morning. I started a new quilt using my newly acquired stash of Children at Play fabric.

A few weeks ago I spotted this quilt on 'crazy mum quilts' using the traditional Rolling Stone block. I was really inspired by the square block giving a sense of circular movement and resolved to use this block in one of my next quilts.
Fast forward a couple of weeks and here are already the first blocks of a new quilt adventure. I figured that this block also shows of singular fussy cut elements really well and in particular if you surround them with vavawoom colours.

I like how this is coming along. My plan is to make a Girls and Boys version of the quilt.

P.S. I will post an update on 'Siblings Together' tomorrow.

Meet Botanica

...or formerly known as Greek Cross. I decided to rename the quilt to 'Botanica' after a comment from my fellow Brit Bee and name companion Judith who said said that it was a 'fabulous botanic quilt top'. I thought this was such a good description and promptly decided to adopt the name as it is a much better name for the quilt. Thank you Jude.

So I guess you can gather that the quilt is done. It took me a little longer because I could not help myself and stitch up 'Lucky Summer' in between but it was worth it. This quilt includes a lot of fabric that are rather precious to me and I finally really love it after some initial hick ups.

So here it is in all its glory.

For about two years now I had in my stash this wonderful bright Philip Jacobs print 'Geranium' in duck egg which I saved for something special. I always wanted to use it as a quilt back on a quilt that would feature mostly green floral prints but when I was working on the top of 'Botanica' it became quickly clear that 'Geranium' was made for this so I decided to cut into it.

For this quilt I made big strides into two of my most favourite floral prints and whilst I was agonising over it while I was cutting, I am now really glad that I did it and the fabric looks so much better in use rather than sitting on the shelf and gathering dust.
 

I quilted in a petal pattern/orange peel pattern because I wanted to emphasis the floral feel of it. This I did with my walking  foot and not free motion and it really was very easy to do.

 

I used two different variegated Gueterman Sulky thread, the greenish one (no 4125) for the back and the greyish (no 4028) for the front.

I wanted something really bright and cheerful for the binding that complements both the front and the back and found this Kaffe Fasset Fuchsia Dot in my stash and luckily my local quilt shop Tikki had still some in stock as I would not have had enough otherwise.

The quilt measures 60 by 72 inches (1.52 x 1.82 m) and the perfect sofa size. Well, I better get on that sofa with it then.....