Free to Quilt: Bug's Life

Free to Quilt: Bug's Life: Handle With Care! Stasha came over this week with a  quilt top for me to finish for her  friend Elizabeth, whom I've not met. I...

Bug's Life

Handle With Care!

Stasha came over this week with a quilt top for me to finish for her friend Elizabeth, whom I've not met. I must say that Mead Quilters (Stasha's group) certainly excel at hand piecing! This beautiful English paper pieced top in Liberty fabrics (fussy cut to perfection), is absolutely immaculately pieced. I had FOUR daylight bulbs on in my sewing room today and I still couldn't see her stitches!

However - it must be a common dilemma with hexagon shaped edges - how do you achieve a straight edged border. Elizabeth's daughter had top stitched the border on by machine. Although it had preserved the points on the edge of the design, I felt it didn't do justice to the whole piece, so I asked her permission to remove it and sew it back on with a traditional seam.

It has literally taken me all day until 11pm to do it. I took great care to fold out the irregular edges and line them up against the straight border, without losing the integrity of the edge design. Look at how many pins I used! Not like me - I'm a 'non-pinner' by nature.

But I think it was worth it. When someone has put such effort in to their work, I am determined to do my best for them. It has improved it, somewhat, before I start to add my own contribution. Pictures of the finished piece to follow.







And just by way of light relief this week; I have added this cute little bug to my growing Tilda family. 

She has settled on the flowery china in my kitchen!

Happy Quilting Everyone!

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www.englishquilter.co.uk

Free to Quilt: Custom Creams!

Free to Quilt: Custom Creams!: This one takes the Biscuit! Hot off the frame is the outcome of last year's challenge for Studio Quilters.  You've already...

Custom Creams!

This one takes the Biscuit!

Hot off the frame is the outcome of last year's challenge for Studio Quilters. 

You've already seen my 3 cream on cream squares made into this little wall hanging. 

Meanwhile everyone else held theirs back to go into a quilt. Now Susan has put them all together and I've just quilted it. We all thought it would be nice to present it to Pat Hawkes, as it was her idea for the challenge. 

There was such a variety of techniques; some were pieced, some appliquèd and some embroidered (by hand and machine). 

I wanted to accentuate rather than overwhelm the different pieces. 

So I framed them all with ribbon candy in the sashing. 

I still find this quite tricky and it takes real concentration, but I'm getting better at it. 

Then I custom quilted each block individually.

 All it needs now is trimming up and binding.

Since finishing my Log Cabin quilt with the hearts, last week, I have ticked off the first resolution on my Connecting Threads challenge list. Here is my Tilda Angel, made from a kit I bought last year. She is the first of many Tilda projects I want to make this year. So I forced myself to follow the instructions exactly, to decide whether I should adapt some of the techniques in future. I certainly learned a lot. This doll had painted on sleeves and bodice which made it very difficult to sew through when attaching the arms. I don't think I'd do it that way again. Also, I'm not so keen on the painted on hair. I was watching YouTube videos as I was making her and found many useful tips on hairstyles. 

And I found out about 'hemostats', which I ordered straight away - now my favourite tool for stuffing!

I put them to good use filling these sweet little 'Bunny' hanging hearts that I made for my Folksy shop. 

Now I have just restocked my plain black fabric in anticipation of a run on this for backing the incubator quilts. It arrived today and somehow an additional 50 metres of other new fabrics found its way into the box! 

How did that happen? 😏

Happy Quilting Everyone!

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www.englishquilter.co.uk

Free to Quilt: Heart to Heart

Free to Quilt: Heart to Heart: First off the frame Well it didn't take long before I was back in the loft after the Christmas break. I was on a mission to fin...

Heart to Heart

First off the frame

Well it didn't take long before I was back in the loft after the Christmas break. I was on a mission to finish piecing my version of Lynne Goldsworthy's lovely log cabin design, having been so inspired by Jean's when I quilted it for her last month. Here it is on the frame, ready to start quilting. 
As I mentioned, I didn't use such a variety of fabrics for mine. It's unusual for me, I know, but I was just so keen to dive straight in without sorting through lots of scraps.
The finished result was very pleasing (to me at least), as it seems to define the layout so well. 

Of course I got to use some of my lovely Edyta Sitar prints from her 'Blue Sky', 'Sequoia', 'Something Borrowed, Something Blue', 'Little Sweethearts', 'Bed of Roses' and 'Sonoma' ranges, with a little bit of French General 'La Vie en Rouge' thrown in!

It took a good deal of concentration to get the blocks right and I had to label them all as I went along. All the hearts had to be the same way up, which meant that the orientation of the logs was different for each block. Even so, I used the wrong fabric in one and didn't see it until the whole top was assembled and I stood back to admire it! Fortunately, it was near the edge so I was able to unpick just enough to replace it without disturbing the other blocks too much. 

I did a full feather job on Jean's quilt but went for a looser effect on this one, with trailing hearts and flowers to pick up on the fabric motifs.
 












I still have to bind it, but that won't take long once I put my mind to it.



Meanwhile, I have new inspiration after last night's Connecting Threads meeting. 
We handed in our new year's resolution for the challenge and will be called to account for that in November! (Under wraps for now, but I have some work cut out for myself!)
Then we heard from Jenny Strong about the wonderful work being done by Dulwich Quilters to produce incubator covers for the Kings College Hospital neonatal unit. Our group has chosen to support this effort this year and we are all inspired to get started on these bespoke quilts. They need to be made exactly as Jenny explained to us and will eventually be taken home by the parents when the premature babies are well enough to leave the unit. 
I anticipate a wonderful response from our group, like our 'Sew a Row' Linus quilts in 2018.

Happy Quilting Everyone!

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www.englishquilter.co.uk