BLOG HOPPING!!

Hello From Kerry Q

This week on the blog a post from the lovely Kerry Q about her Quilting Bee shinanigans!! She is such a talented little monkey, I can't tell you how lucky I feel to have found such a wonderful friend who is as loony and addicted to fabric as I am!! Enjoy.........

All of Kerry-Leigh's quilting bee adventures have inspired me to get involved as well, so in May I joined a 'Modern Bee', UK Hive 2! My group of ladies are spread across the UK from Wales to Leeds, and we kicked off our Bee in June with 'Mosaic Tiles' for Amie.

This was a lovely easy block to start with, it went together in about an hour and a half despite me making a few mistakes (mental note to self to read instructions more carefully in future!). Amie chose midnight blue for her background which she supplied and asked for aqua, yellow and red for the squares. As you can see Amie is going to have a very striking quilt!

This month was Carol's turn, who chose 'Bluebell's Cabin' and had no specific requirements beyond a 'scrappy look'. Eeeeek! As anyone who knows me will tell you, I am pretty obsessed with colour co-ordination so 'scrappy' was quite a challenge for me!

After much searching through my stash I managed to narrow it down to two focus fabrics -the liberty style purple flowers and the blue thistle print. Partly because I wasn't sure how to go about creating a 'scrappy' effect, and partly because I just couldn't help myself (!) I then picked out other toning scraps from my stash, trying to include light, medium and dark shades to balance the block.

Now I am slightly obsessed with log cabin, so I was really looking forward to making these blocks - and they didn't disappoint! They went together so quickly, perfect, if like me you're all about instant gratification when quilting!

Below are the finished results. I'm not sure how 'scrappy' the overall effect is, but I am pleased with them, so hopefully Carol will like them too!

Thanks for stopping by and reading my post. I'd love to know how you go about creating a scrappy effect, so please share any hints and tips you have!

Kerry Q xx

QUILTING BLUES

Quilty Numbers

I feel like I have stalled a bit at the moment, not just with this quilt but with sewing and creativeness in general!! I have so much going on that I just can't find the time to sit down and make some progress and then when I do have some time I simply don't have the will! Do you think it is possible to have 'sewing' depression?? I am no doctor but I would wager that it could be an actual thing!!

Anyway sewing depression aside I have made a small amount of progress on Dad's Quilt....SURPRISE quilt I should say in case any of you bump into him..... oh bugger it and Dad if you have happened to remember the blog address don't scroll down any further!!
I wanted to make this quilt for my Dad as a present because he is turning 50 in a few weeks, the idea was to make it nautical related because he was in the Navy and loves all thing boat! But I also wanted it to mark the occasion it is intended to be a celebration of....50 years of Dad. So in between all the nautical and seafaring quilt blocks, I decided to put in some 'dates of remembrance' blocks in the mix.

Step 1 find a font you like, enlarge your chosen letters/numbers to the size you want, trace off onto Bondaweb. Remember they will need to be backwards so when placed onto the wrong side of the fabric they will be facing the right way around on the right side of the fabric?! Still with me? Make sense?

Cut out and iron into place, remember to leave seam allowance and space for borders etc

I prefer to use a simple zig-zag stich set close together much the same as satin stitch, whilst I know blanket stitch is very popular for machine applique, I just can not get on with it!!

I decided to throw in some hand embroidery for the story telling......

No Nautical/Sea themed quilt is complete without a few beach huts so feeling thoroughly inspired by Sue's work for our last meet up (previous post) I set to work on my own

The best part is.....it's paper pieced!! my bestest thing ever!! These little beach huts really were a joy to make, so easy construct and they come together really quickly. I went for various shades of red for the 'painted' wooden panels and picked out the deep blue that I have used throughout the other quilt blocks in order to tie them together.

This is where the pattern came from if you feel the notion to make your own.

Happy Quilting

Kerry xx

BEE-UTIFUL STACKED WINDMILLS

Tricky Business....

This block is fast becoming a favourite in the Quilting Bee community, so far it is the most popular block to be chosen in both of my current Quilting Bees, bringing my total made to 4!! I do love making this block and each time seeing the differences that fabric choices and placements can make.

First up was "Radiant Orchid", Pantone's colour of the year and Rachel's colour choice of the month, the rest was completely up to our own imagination and creativity....pink, grey and floral what's not to love??

I had a few hiccups with the centre of this one, trying to get those blessed points to match up, hence the unpicked stitches....grrrrrrrrr

But I got there in the end. So feeling confident and some what pleased with myself I thought well why not crack on with the other one?? If I had known how much this second one was going to misbehave I would have invested in a good bottle (or 3) of Rose before I started. 

The recipient of this block sent across her own instructions and asked that we use those instead of the book, she sent very clear links to various websites, which were easy to navigate, but for some reason I just could not get on with this one.

A square within a square...simple enough concept, cut a big square, cut four smaller squares, sew them in the corners cut off the excess leaving 1/4 seam allowance. I could get this far then all sense appeared to leave me....

I managed to do this 3 times!!!! Before sense found me again

A multitude of half square triangles, colourful language, blue smoke and wasted fabric later things were starting to take shape

I played around with a couple of colours for the 'center ring', originally I had florals but it was just to much, a darker blue really changed the whole look of the block and wasn't what Isobel was after so in the end I decided on the very pale green with a subtle leaf design. This is the end result an English Summer Garden for a very worthy cause, the intended friend this quilt is going to recently lost her husband to tragic circumstance, hopefully this quilt that Isobel is putting together will go a little way to making her feel better.

Something else I really enjoy about creating the same block is fabric choice and placements, in both blocks I used Robert Kaufman Modern Bliss in grey you can buy yours here, it really is such a great fabric to work with and so very versatile as well. It lifted up the pale florals in the English Garden block, yet made the bright pink pop in Radiant Orchid! You may have noticed that I have also been using it in some of the blocks I have done for the Nautical Quilt.

As always we love to hear from you, please leave us comments or email us with your thoughts, feedback and guidance.

Happy Quilting

Kerry xx