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.

Stash Note 30

Not just a Stash Note today but already a work in progress.
I came across DelRay fabrics a few weeks ago thanks to the suggestion of  Fiona. They had free shipping for a while which of course is a massive bonus when one orders from the US. Browsing around I found that they stocked a jelly role and yardage of the new x-mas collection "Countdown to Christmas"  from the fantastic people of Sweetwater. I do love their collections and used the Pure collection recently to make my 'Laugh and Happiness.

So I bought my first ever Jelly role (they are messy things I can already say that much)

and some wonderful yardage.

I think this is one of the cutest Christmas fabric collections around at the moment and I immediatly resovled to use it for a quilt with Christmas trees. I did a few test blocks to find the best size and came up with these two. They were all slightly to small (truth be told I messed up the mesurements of boths) so I made them into mini-mini quilts. The instpiration came actually from a Sweetwater quilt for their new collection 'Hometown'  which is meant to inspire a nautical theme but I kind of thought immideatly of Christmas trees.

 Isn't the background fabric the cutest ever ?

Backside of the mini-mini quilts.

I have already cut all the pieces for the tree and started on the background fabric. The measurements are now for a 8 1/2 inch finished block to which I will add sashing in the red fabric.   If anyone is intersted then I will post a pattern link for this block  I am also almost tempted to propose an x-mas quilt along if people were interested but I am a little bit reluctant as there are so many quilt alongs around anyway and I have very little time at the moment. I would have time in the second half of October though.

Gifts galore

Back in May when I rounded off my US trip in New York I bought this fantastic wool at Purl Soho. I decided to knit a baby blanket for the arrival of my best friends first baby this month. The wool is from Madeline Tosh (first post here) and is an incredible soft Superwash 100 % Merino that comes in the most delicious colours. My friend Leigh, like me, isn't afraid of colour so I thought I choose a variety of turquoise/green and blend them one into the other while knitting. I wanted to make something gender neutral as I don't really believe in the the girl/boy colour division but also because Leigh and Drew didn't want to know the baby's gender until birth. Leigh is incidentally also the person who found the name for my blog but since hasn't really bothered visiting the blog much (grrrhhhhh.....), she is a busy bird and will be even busier now I guess.

The baby blanket was indeed finished some two weeks ago but the baby only arrived this week. So here is my "Oceanside' baby blanket for Anya Louise who I will meet next weekend for the first time. I can hardly wait.

But I kinda thought I can't rock up there without anything quilted so I made a little something that I am actually really proud of and most probably will produce a lot more of in the future for the on-line shop as I think they are so, so practical.
I made a mini quilt that combines as a handy changing mat or baby quilt for all occasion. Perhaps I should call it the 'all-occasion-baby-quilt'.

I used fabric from my stash and a block I made ages ago but didn't really like. I took the block and boldly cut the pieces off I disliked (God that was liberating !) and added new strips to a kind of wonky log cabin until I was happy. Then I embedded the whole thing into some bride summery orange.

 

I have a rather large amount of Kokka cotton/linen meter pieces in my stash I bought last year at Eternal Maker at the Birmingham Quiltshow but so far haven't really done much with them. I always felt they were to precious but when I was looking through my stash for something appropiate for a quilt back I thought these were ideal because they are little sturdier due to their linen/cotton combination. And that is what I want for a small quilt that should be thrown about and used for anything and everything.

 

The binding is a yellow Polka dot also from my stash. The quilt is approximately 22 x 20 inches and I was originally inspired by these quilts here from Fresh Lemons quilt.

 

I quilted it in random straight lines with a wonderful Perle Orange thread. I did this on the machine and was surprise that my Janome took it without to much moaning as it is a rather thicker thread compared to my usual Gueterman Sulky 30. 

As you can see from the Image of the quilt back I added a closing strip with Velcro to the quilt so it can be folded up small to become a portable changing mat or indeed a quilt-for-all-occasions. With this composite below I try to demonstrate how to fold it up. 

Pretty neat don't you think ?

 

I got a new quilt, I got a new quilt.....

Here it is my new quilt gifted to me by Reene from Nellies's Niceties.

And I couldn't me more happy about it. The posti arrived on Saturday morning at my doorstep and 5 min later I sent Reene a big thank you mail as I was and am so happy with my 'Colour Maze' quilt. It is obvious that Renee put in a lot of thought and research around my likes and dislikes and this has paid off a 100 %. The quilt has solids, bags of colour and straight line quilting, in short everything I love. And to top it she made me a little pincusion in a fantstic long shape that is so much more practical than the ones I usually make.

Great job Reene and thank you again.
I also would like to take the opportunity to thank the BRIT SWAP organisers, individual Mamas and of course the UeberMama. These things can be hit and miss but you Ladies ensured that participants had every opportunity to make a quilt for their secret partner that works and is loved. You made us do a mosaic with our favourite handmade things and fill us in a form with more information. That was really well organised.

Thank you.
P.S. What about a fancy zipper pouch swap next ?  I volunteer to help organising it.

One Brit Swap mini quilt done

So here is my finished Burgoyne Surround (aka 'Charlotte Sometimes') mini quilt all ready to be sent out to my swap partner at the end of the month. I hand quilted it and used the Echino print as a back fabric instead of the Lecien vinatge print. I think (hope) my Swap partner likes this better because there is a colour in their that is one of her favourites. I really enjoyed working with the old linen from my Grandmother. With every touch it gets softer though that does have its drawbacks as it stretches considerably while being worked on. Normally I don't pre-wash any fabric since the invention of colour catcher with the exception of linen. Linen has the naughty habit of shrinking unreasonably .

Gosh I do hope my Partner likes it but if not I don't mind if she sends it back :-). 

Anyway here are the pics

And no my friends the cherries are not included in the swap !! Just didn't have anything else handy to cover the name quickly.

Brit Swap - front finished

Hello there on this rainy Sunday morning. I was all ready to go for my weekly 10 k run when the heavens opened........ so I thought I wait a little and use the time to appliqué a few more circles on my Brit Swap mini quilt and as it so happens a couple of hours later it was still raining but all circles were attached.
Not good for the body and that very much needed run but good for the mini quilt. ( I could go in the rain but it is just to awful today......and that is a feeble excuse).

So have a look and let me know what you think. I am very pleased with how it turned out and I could easily keep this quilt to myself if my Swap partner doesn't like it. But I think we share a similar taste as there is nothing in my partner's mosaic that I don't like so I am quietly confident that the mini quilt will have a reasonable reception. You may remember that I somewhat adapted the 'Charlotte Sometimes' quilt pattern (read here ).

I am also auditioning for quilt back options and would very much love to hear your opinion and advice.
To the left of the image below is a wonderful Echino print and to the right a fantastic Lecien vintage inspired print.  What do you think ? Or something else altogether ?

Brit Swap - first steps

I have joined in the Brit Swap organized by Lynn and a few other "Mamas". This came about through the newly set-up Brit Quilt flickr group that you can find by clicking on the button to the right of my blog or simply by clicking here.

For this swap we are making a mini quilt for a secret partner somewhere in the range of 12 x 12 to 24 x 24 inches. What is great and thanks goes to the organizers is that everybody had to fill in a questionnaire with likes and dislikes and in addition each participant had to make a flickr mosaic showcasing their favourite and inspirational crafty things. Of course all in aid for the secret partner to get it right because there is nothing worse than receiving a gift that one really doesn't like. Everybody is putting in a lot of work and I think if you do that then you want to try and get it as right as possible and all the preparation of making mosaics and questionnaires really helps. Still a lot of pressure.......

After having brewed on my secret partners likes and dislikes for the best part of two weeks I came up with this design. This is inspired by the "Charlotte Sometimes" quilt from Sarah Fielke which is a quilt I will do one day as it has just the right amount of appliqué for my liking and it is pretty contemporary.  The "Charlotte Sometimes" quilt itself is inspired by a Burgoyne Surrounded quilt which is quite an old traditional quilt pattern but used in a modern way here.

This here is the fabric I am using. Yes you see right there is some batic in it but I think used sparingly it can be rather nice. I am planning to use it for the greenish/blueish circle in the drawing.
The other patterned fabric are all Kaffe Fassett and the base will be this gorgeous, gorgeous piece of rough old linen.

And this here is already the centre piece.

What do you think ?