X MARKS THE SPOT

Treasure Hunt 

Treasure Hunt Block Tutorial

12.5" finished block

This block is part of the great series by Blossom Hearts Quilts called The Bee Hive there are 12 blocks in the series, all completely free. The template for this block can be found here.

Cutting:

A1 and A4 2 1/4" x 9 1/2" 
A2 and A5 2 1/4" x 7"      
A3 and A6 2 1/4" x 4"

4 of each is needed to make one complete 12.5" block.

Assembly:

This block is put together in 4 units very simply by foundation paper piecing.

I found it easier to write on each section the colour/fabric I wanted to use there, as all quadrants were a different colour. This was so I could get the effect I wanted for my X to repeat making a secondary square design across the intended quilt.

The assembly process is the same for all 4 units.

Unit 1

1. Place one A1 rectangle right side up on the back of the paper template (you will be sewing along the printed lines so need to see these at all times), place one A2 rectangle on top of it so that the right sides, or patterned/coloured sides are facing each other.

2. Turn the template over so the guidelines are now facing you and sew down the line joining A1 to A2.

3. Carry on in this way until all strips have been sewn together.

You will then have a unit that looks like this.

4. Repeat for the remaining 3 units and then trim down any excess so that all units measure 6.5" square.

Putting The Block Together:

1. Place the units into pairs and attached together, then sew the two rows together to form one finished block. Simply remove the paper on completion of sewing.

Finished block will measure 12.5" square which includes a 1/4" seam on each side.

SCRAP BUSTING

No Scrap Left Behind

This is something I actually started quite a while ago, the center or main body of the quilt is a simple Jelly Roll quilt but is a very effective and rather quick way to rustle up a fairly decent sized quilt in a couple of hours.

You will need a full Jelly Roll, unroll it and layout all the pairs of colours/prints so you can easily see what you've got to work with. Then sew every strip end to end so you have one extremely long, continuous length of fabric measuring 2.5" wide. Fold in half along the 'short' edge and sew all the way down one long(very long) side. Cut the short edge open along the fold so you can now open out your sewn jelly roll and lay it flat - it should now measure 4.5" wide. Repeat until your have reached your desired quilt top size/width.

It's dawned on me as I'm writing this that more pictures probably would have been useful - so I'll try to get a tutorial up here soon.

But back to Scrappy business and those border blocks. They are based on the concept of 15 Minutes of Play a brilliant idea by the fabulous Victoria Findlay Wolfe, she actually has an entire blog dedicated to it. 

It really is a great concept that is quick an easy, the results are practically instantaneous - something I particularly like! The idea is you start with a 5 sided shape, the wonkier the better, and then you add to each side almost in a Log Cabin style, growing your block one scrap at a time.

The starting shape doesn't always have to have 5 sides, as you can see from mine they all varied and each one took on a life of its own. 

No scrap was left behind, no matter how small! I found that this made the shapes, fabrics and colours far more interesting and really highlighted the 'scrappiness' of them.

I made 44 blocks in total all measuring 6.5" square for the borders of this quilt, then sewed them together in strips - 2 with 10 blocks each and 2 with 12 blocks each and attached them to each side making a happy scrappy border.

I then had the monstrous task of attaching the binding and finishing it off by hand, I wouldn't go as far as saying I enjoyed it but there does reach a point with sewing binding that becomes quite therapeutic.

This quilt was a present for my Gramps who turned 80 on Sunday, the scrappy blocks were made from fabric used in every quilt I've ever made for our family members, so he always has a piece of us with him.

If you follow me on Instagram you'll see a few more pictures of this quilt, along with all the other things I'm currently working on.

Feel free to get in touch, it's always lovely to hear from you all.

Happy Quilting
Kerry xx

TIME FLIES

12 Months On

I can't believe it's been over a year since I last wrote a blog post! I was walking around Festival of Quilts a little over a week ago thinking it's been a good few months since I've blogged and I quite miss it, only to log on and realize it's actually been more than a year  - how time flies!

So much has happened since my last post it'll take all day to catch you up but in brief we got the dream house and said room is filled to bursting with fabric, we got married 6 weeks ago - can't say it's quite sunk in yet but I'm loving wife life,we've got 2 little fur babies keeping us very busy and 30 sleeps until honeymoon! And in between all of that I've been quilting up a storm.

There were so many gorgeous quilts on display at FOQ this year I couldn't possibly pick 1 favourite but this one really was so beautiful to see in real life  - it was huge! I don't do a great deal in solids, I'd really like to get better at that and actually have a few things in the pipeline that are going to be predominantly solid based, but I am such a sucker for a good print, especially if it can be fussy cut!

Everything about this quilt was just gorgeous, the actual quilting of it was breath taking and certainly something to aspire to. It's one of the many things on my list to practice and improve on, I'm good at free motion embroidery and have got years of experience in doing that, I just need to get my act together and modify those skills to use in a quilting capacity - she says.

There were as always far to many quilts to take photos of and inspect as closely as I would have liked - I'm seriously considering going for 2 days next year, but here are a few that caught my eye.

A whole range of styles and techniques, some of which I have tried and continue to use and some that I've only admired from a far but are definitely on my wish 'to do' list. I liked all of these for different reasons, colours, shapes, design they all offered something unique and were all so very different. I'm considering entering something in next years show, I might start smaller though with a more local show maybe to build up my confidence as this would be completely new to me.

When the Aves Quilt was all the rage I signed up to that and have all the patterns for it, they are all beautifully saved in a folder on my computer and that's as far as i got with it. I've followed a few people on Instagram who have been religiously sticking to the block a week program and some of them are really good, but this one at festival was on a whole other level! Not only is the quilt gorgeous as it is, but the secondary pattern of the kingfisher is just something else.

Breathtaking right? 

Those of you who are familiar with my work and me will know that I have a serious problem when it comes to fabric, I didn't disappoint at Festival and my usual trick of saving from the very next day in my special Festival only pot worked a treat again! I bought far to much to list in this post but will definitely be referring to those purchases in future posts - and yes I'm going to work really hard to make sure there are more frequent posts - this year!  

I hope you've enjoyed hearing from me again and if you're new thank you for stopping by, I hope you will do so again.

Happy Quilting
Kerry xx