WEEKEND REVIEW

Quilting in the Surrey Hills

Saturday was a great day, so hot and sunny, the birds were really chirpy, the flowers looked so lovely in the sunshine and best of all a whole 4 hours dedicated to quilting with some wonderful friends!!

Val started some gorgeous Log Cabin, Caroline was working on a bag project and Kerry Q is adding the finishing touches to a lovely sea creature themed baby quilt. 

I however took the plunge and make a tentative start on the wonderful Green Tea and Sweet Beans by Jen Kingwell. As usual it took me the best part of 3 days to decide which fabrics to use, I was trying very hard to be brave and not go for my usual 'perfectly matched and newly bought specifically for' fabrics and instead pick things out of my stash. Feeling very pleased with my bravery I thought why not keep going and lets the ladies make the final choices.......

All the blocks for this quilt are soooo gorgeous I really didn't know where to start, eventually I settled on the clam shells, a shape I  have no experience with but have always wanted to try out!!

So far so good, I will keep you posted.

Kerry xx

WIP WEDNESDAY

GREEN TEA AND SWEETBEANS

Just a quick one today, I have had such a crazy week and not really much time to get my quilt on....sigh!! So I had to do the next best thing and buy some fabric...yaaaaaaaaay! Here we go

Alphabet by Windham Fabrics

Newspaper Collage by Windham Fabrics

Britten Nummer Fabric at Ikea

I have decided.....eventually after much deliberation, that I will tackle the amazing Green Tea and Sweetbeans quilt by Jen Kingwell

With my background fabrics bought and selected I really have no excuse now not to get started, bring on Saturday when I will be meeting my fellow quilters in the Surrey Hills for a fabulous morning of stitchin' and bitchin'.

Kerry xx

OFFICIAL SHOP LAUNCH!!

Welcome to Etsy

It's official, That's Sew Kerry is now fully open and trading online! I'm so excited about this new adventure, thank you to everyone who has helped to make this a reality. 

You can find us on Etsy as ThatsSewKerry or through the shop tab at the top of the blog. There is a great selection of yardage and a variety of scrap bags ideal for Log Cabin, Crazy Patchwork, Foundation Piecing etc

Finishing Off

I have been working on one of my many many UFOs this week, a lovely lap quilt I called 'Winter Stars', largely due to the shades of icy blue that are in it but also because of the wintery weather going on outside when I started it.

More on this later! For now though happy quilting and happy shopping!!

Kerry xx

ONE HAPPY GRANNY!!

FINISHED AT LAST....

Well after a few all-nighters and one small disaster I did in fact manage to meet my deadline of Wednesday and have the quilt finished for Granny's birthday. She was pleased as punch, although very biased and has paraded it around to all of her friends. I really enjoyed making it, I learnt many new techniques and also that I can actually function rather well with only 3 hours of sleep!

It was always my intention to do this as a 'quilt as you go', due to the intricacy of some of the blocks, I picked out various fabrics I had used on the front for the backings and am really pleased with the result....

WHAT TO DO NEXT...

The trouble with me is I find so many blocks and patterns that I simply 'have to do', start them and then something else catches my eye and I can't live without it so I abandon my current project in favor of doing that. My current conundrum is the following...

Do I start with this gorgeous Hatched and Patched pattern called Gossip in the Garden by Anni Downs

Or this darling quilt called Tail Feathers by Cinderberry Stitches

Or the gorgeous Green Tea and Sweet Beans by Jen Kingwell

I love them all and just don't know where to begin, if you have any thoughts I love to hear them, especially if you have already completed one of them or are currently making one of them. Or perhaps you know of some other patterns I simply can not live without.

Happy Quilting

Kerry xx

BUILDING BLOCKS

Monday Madness

With the deadline for this quilt rapidly approaching, I just couldn't sleep so I got up with the sparrows and made 2 more foundation pieced stars.

I love these! The points worked out really well, which for me is always a bonus as I struggle sometimes to get them lined up and still end up with a square!

Both these star blocks are from the Solstice Star Series over on Fresh Lemon Quilts the instructions are really clear and the step by step photos really help if you are new to foundation piecing. The PDF sheets are exactly the right size to print off and use on a home printer....fabulous!!

I have been playing around with potential layouts for purple fairy quilt...

I think I am settled on this one, there is a good balance between the stars and the fairies mixed up with the other blocks as well. Some of them need borders in order to even out the sizes but overall I am happy with it so far. If you have any suggestions or thoughts on the layout or even if you thin there is a block that it needs, I would love to hear from you! 

Kerry xx

DRESDEN PLATES AND HOLLYHOCKS

Sunday Shinanigans

This week seems to have just flown by, I have been making slow progress largely due to the fact that I am trying to many new things at once and there isn't a pattern I am following. I am really just making blocks that I find interesting or challenging, roughly the same size so I can smush them together with my eyes closed tightly, hoping it will magically look like a quilt when I open them!!!

So this weeks challenge was machine based applique, using the blanket stitch button on my machine...I think it will take a while yet for us to become friends but I am pleased with the result for a first attempt!

There are loads of flowers in the fairy fabric and I have used lots of floral fabrics already as my Granny loves them, so I thought I would keep up with the theme and make a block with Hollyhocks on it. I started by cutting out rough shapes that could be appliqued onto a stem like shape, in a variety of the fabrics I had already used.

I cut 21 squares using my main background fabric and mixed in one of my favorites- Moda French General, Feather- just for variety, it is such a lovely off white and blended in wonderfully. All squares measured 2 1/2 inches and were sewn together in 3 rows. 

All the 'flowers' were then placed along the stem getting smaller towards the top. I used Bondaweb to keep them from moving, as some of the pieces were very small I thought this would work better than pins!! It was very tricky trying to get the blanket stitch evenly around the smaller sections and admittedly I had to cheat in a few places but overall it turned out ok. Added on a quick border and that was another one done!!

I spend a great deal of time researching and 'just looking', I spend hours and hours on Pinterest, so much so that I am nearing 800 pins on my Quilty Pleasures board.......yikes!! One of the great finds I have had on there was a link to the Makeower website, where they have an abundance of free quilt patterns. I fell in love with one in particular- Dresden Plates and Downton Abbey- who wouldn't??

I started by cutting out all the pieces needed, this time I decided to use some of the lovely batiks I have collected for the fans and one of the large florals for the center quarters.

As I had 24 units to sew in half, the quickest and most efficient way was to chain piece them. A method I was taught that revolutionized my block making!! A great tutorial by Melissa Burt can be found over on Connecting Threads.

I followed the steps for construction as they were written and Voila! A twist on the Dresden.

I still have some places open in the Quilting Bee so let me know if you are interested and as always if you have any thoughts, suggestions or opinions about the post I'd love to hear from you.

Happy quilting!!

Kerry xx

SMALL BLOG MEET

Thank you to Lynne over on Lily's Quilts for this wonderful way to meet other small bloggers! As a newbie and a self taught one at that, I need all the help I can get. I would love to start/join a Quilting Bee...who wouldn't?? so if that's your bag, leave a comment below this post and lets get creating! I believe the desired number is 12, one for each month of the year and then the magic happens, in the interest of postage and time as I am UK based ideally you would be to.

Kerry xx

FOUNDATION PIECED STARS

Making Progress!!

Thank you to everyone who has viewed my blog so far... 74 hits for my first post, I'm pleased as punch!! I hope you enjoy the next installment - Foundation Pieced Stars, something I love doing, but still manage to sew upside down and back to front!!

I have made 2 blocks so far this week, not bad really that's a block a day although my initial target was 2...dreaming abit there me thinks! One called Kansas and the other Kaleidoscope both from an amazing site called Wombat Quilts that have an abundance of free quilt block patterns. 

I started with my fabric selection for each one and then cut all the pieces I needed, 152 altogether!!! 

Next comes the fun part, putting all the pieces together. The first piece is of course number 1, which needs to be placed right side up. Everything else is then stitched in sequence, 2 then 3 then 4 etc but the trick here is that these are done right sides together, something I still forget to do on occasion resulting in a very good relationship with my unpicker!!

Once all the sections have been stitched - there should be 4 left and 4 right - they should all be trimmed down to have a 1/4 inch seam around them and then stitched together, ultimately resulting in a square. 

There is no "correct" way to do this as far as I am concerned, find a method that suits you and go with it. For example I don't remove the paper from mine until the very end, I keep it on right up until the whole square is done.

If you try out any of these blocks or have any tips and tricks on foundation piecing please feel free to email me, I would love to hear from you and see what you have accomplished, what ever level you feel you are at. 

Happy Quilting

Kerry xx