Free to Quilt: The Big Purple One!

Free to Quilt: The Big Purple One!: Suffragette city! Just off the frame; Another big, bold and beautiful quilt from Jackie! This one is a tribute to the Suffragette ...

The Big Purple One!

Suffragette city!

Just off the frame; Another big, bold and beautiful quilt from Jackie! This one is a tribute to the Suffragette movement in its vivid palette of purple, green and white, and is to be a present for her granddaughter, I believe. 











It is a medallion style quilt, like Jackie's last one. 


They can be fun because you get to play with different designs in each 'frame'. 











I often only decide what I'm going to do on a quilt like this as I start to work on it. I began by stitching in the ditch all the way down, to stabilise it. 

Then I worked one frame at a time, choosing the most appropriate design for each one as I went along. 



So I did a combination of flower motifs, continuous curves with swirls, hooked paisleys, 

and finished up with rotating  feathers in the central star block.








Last night I added the final floating border to my Treasure quilt and really must get on with placing the appliqué pieces for hand stitching. 
I keep getting side tracked!

Happy Quilting Everyone - Stay safe and keep cheerful!

Thank you for visiting my blog and for leaving your comments. Please share on Facebook, Pinterest  etc.

www.englishquilter.co.uk

Free to Quilt: Kiwi Quilt

Free to Quilt: Kiwi Quilt: Ferntastic! Boy I've been busy in my loft!  Lockdown is a bit of a boon to us crafters and my friends have been busy in their...

Kiwi Quilt

Ferntastic!

Boy I've been busy in my loft! 

Lockdown is a bit of a boon to us crafters and my friends have been busy in their sewing rooms and sending me their lovely quilts to finish off. 

Here is the latest masterpiece from Val.

The pattern is called 'Beads' and was a free download from Jordan Fabrics.

It features a collection of  New Zealand ethnic prints which looked so striking against this crisp white background.

I wanted an appropriate quilting design to compliment the theme and found this 'plume feather' design by Angela Walters.

After studying the video for a while, I decided to give it a go. I needed to bend it a bit to fit in between the blocks. The blocks didn't need quilting, being fairly small with the fabrics standing by themselves.

For the border, I got a bit creative, with these hooked curves and inward facing fronds (specifically designed so that the points would not be lost in the binding). 

Val agreed to this green backing fabric which I felt set it off really nicely.

Now I am working on the latest mammoth quilt from Jackie, which I will show you soon. At the same time I'm making progress with some projects of my own. My 'Treasure' quilt is growing and is nearly ready for the appliqué. A bit of 'mindless piecing' the other week led to this little scrappy piece which I have since modified to make an incubator quilt, when I get chance to quilt for myself! 

Happy Quilting Everyone - Stay safe and keep cheerful!

Thank you for visiting my blog and for leaving your comments. Please share on Facebook, Pinterest  etc.

www.englishquilter.co.uk

Free to Quilt: Pretty Perfect!

Free to Quilt: Pretty Perfect!: A Pleasure and a Privilege! It is no small thing to be entrusted to finish off someone else's prized work, that they have put...

Pretty Perfect!

A Pleasure and a Privilege!

It is no small thing to be entrusted to finish off someone else's prized work, that they have put their heart and soul into. We quilters understand that so well, even though some of our non-quilting friends might not quite get it. Not every piece I have worked on has been to my own personal taste, but I have enjoyed them all and done the best work I can on each one. They have played such an important part in my long arm journey and I am thankful for the faith people have had in me. 

Then you get asked to finish a piece like this -WOW!

A set of 6 inch blocks each worked to perfection with immaculate appliqué and fussy cutting technique.

I have or have had at least 70 percent of these gorgeous fabrics in my own stash, which made it even more of a joy to look at as I worked.

So pretty!

There was little open space to fill in, apart from a narrow border, so each block needed individual treatment.

This beautiful piece was made by another of my friend Stasha's incredibly talented friends. 

You will appreciate how many hours I put in when I tell you that I got through Seasons  1 - 5 of Downton Abbey whilst working! 

It has inspired me to try harder on my own appliqué skills, although I still find it hard to cut up my own precious fabrics! Now I have this pile of shapes made with my Apliquick tools and I can get on with my own 'Treasures' project.

Happy Quilting Everyone - Stay safe and keep cheerful!

Thank you for visiting my blog and for leaving your comments. Please share on Facebook, Pinterest  etc.

www.englishquilter.co.uk

Free to Quilt: New Skills

Free to Quilt: New Skills: What Day Is It? I have lost track of the days this week, having only just emerged from the loft where I have completed anot...

New Skills

What Day Is It?

I have lost track of the days this week, having only just emerged from the loft where I have completed another 2 quilts for friends in a mammoth stint! They were both so different  - so plenty to challenge me. 

The first was this perfectly pieced modern design by Janet S, a big one, as hers usually are. It needed something to add movement to the straight lines and solid colours and I used this all over hook paisley design. 

The first time I tried it (also on a quilt pieced by Janet) I found it very hard to see where I was going on the busy floral prints with matching threads. This one was easier, in so far as the contrasting thread on plain fabrics was easier to see. But at the same it was totally unforgiving and took a good deal of concentration. But I achieved what I wanted and Janet was pleased with it. 

The second was a vintage printed linen  table cloth and damask napkins pieced with some red borders and corners by Val, for a friend, whose mother they had belonged to. This was certainly a challenge, both in terms of design and practicality. I have been wanting to work on a vintage piece and was keen to take it on, but I imagined it would be a traditional embroidered tablecloth, rather than a large scale print. On seeing it, I wanted to work with the design rather than go over it with an edge to edge pattern. 

After painstakingly outlining the red flowers, my eye was drawn to the centre area where there was at least some open space and I decided to fill that with one formal square design on point. Then I added large freehand flowers to mimic the printed design. 

The hardest part was the border. The damask behaves so differently (as I discovered when I tried to make napkins out of a tablecloth myself a while back). There seems to be no straight grain and it shifts and stretches all over the place. The top and bottom borders were not so bad because they were pinned to the leaders, but the side borders had a lot of fullness to be managed. I tamed them eventually with only one creative 'pleat'.

Meanwhile, during the evenings, I have applied myself to one of my ongoing projects (not quite a UFO!) and have made significant progress. I call it my 'Treasure' Quilt because it features some of my most cherished fabrics from my treasure basket. Some of them are pristine fat quarters and others are the most minute scraps. Why is it so hard to cut into this piece?!

The centre of the quilt will be made of log cabin blocks in a 'barn raising' layout. I have been making these for some time and have now pieced them together, after unpicking and rearranging them three times. Now I am preparing to add a significant amount of appliqué, whilst leaving plenty of open space for some self indulgent quilting. I have at last taken the time to really try out my Apliquick tools properly. 

I spent all Friday evening just tracing and cutting out the shapes from the special stabiliser and much of yesterday fusing them to the fabric and cutting them out. 

My struggle with appliqué and fussy cutting is that it is inherently wasteful. It would be a lot quicker and more accurate to use a Sissix machine , but I just can't bring myself to do it!

Instead, I have carefully placed the shapes to minimise the waste and even spaced them apart so that I can make use of the leftovers. 

Let's see how many half square triangles I will be able to salvage from this piece!!!

Today, I have started to turn the fabric on the shapes. It takes a bit of practice, but I am getting the hang of it. I am about half way through and have already had to order more glue pen refills.

But tomorrow I will be back in the loft to start on a top, I received through the post this week, from another one of Stasha's talented friends. It is the most exquisitely executed appliqué sampler, featuring many of the exact same fabrics that I have in my own collection. So it will be a joy to look at as I work on it, as well as an inspiration to improve my own work. 

How perfect is this ?!!

Happy Quilting Everyone - Stay safe and keep cheerful!

Thank you for visiting my blog and for leaving your comments. Please share on Facebook, Pinterest  etc.

www.englishquilter.co.uk