UK TRAVELLING QUILT BEE Part 1

An Epic Adventure!

If you are an avid Instagram fan/stalker like me you may have seen several amazing pictures and posts about Travelling Quilt Bees under #travellingquiltbee #travellingquilts and about 100 variations! These are just a few of my favorites....

The idea is not to dissimilar to a traditional bee but instead of having one month where you are the queen and everyone makes 1 block each for you and you receive them that month, you make a starter block send it off and don't see your quilt for a whole year!! Scary right??!  

You pick a theme, color palette, fabric choices or ideas, create a mood board or add any details you think will help the rest of the group understand your vision and put it all in a journal of some kind for each member to add to each month. Make your starter block or blocks and send it to the first person on the list - they are always the person you send to every month so you know who you are getting from and where it is going. In July of last year I joined a fab group of ladies on Instagram and we started our very own UK Travelling Quilt Bee.

I found this picture, it is Melissa from My Fabric Relish, version of the feathers from the beautiful Dream Catcher Quilt in Love Patchwork and Quilting issue 32, I fell in love with it immediately and just knew that my quilt would be centered around this image. I did some research, made some mood boards, started sourcing fabrics and got on my merry way....

As usual with me deciding which fabrics I wanted to start with took an absolute age to work out, eventually I settled on the below, a mixture of April Rhodes for Art Gallery, Moda and Kona Solids for my first feather and got to work.

I hadn't quite decided if I wanted to make the full Dream Catcher Quilt, just the feather section or just 1 or 2 feathers for the final quilt but decided that in the interest of time and getting my starter blocks ready to send I would just make a little bit of everything that I was thinking of and work out the actual layout/design at a later stage.

I added borders to the feather block in a solid burnt orange because I wanted to emphasize and enhance the prints I had used as well as making it clear to the other Bee members the color palette I was after. By this time I was strongly leaning towards an Atec/Tribal vibe for this quilt so expanded my research into these areas and added some Flying Geese blocks.

Love Patchwork and Quilting (I swear I am not being paid to advertise) had a freebie  last year called 50 Block Designs for 5" Charm Squares, I went through that and found this fab block made up of staggered Flying Geese which I added to the side. They sort of made me think of a row of a little tribal tepee village or maybe mountains and sunsets, either way I think they were a great addition and I was really happy with the outcome.

With both the blocks and the journal complete I said goodbye to my little quilt for a whole year and posted it on to the lovely Karen and eagerly stalked the postman until Abigail from Cut and Alter's quilt arrived as she was my first that I would be adding to. There is lot of ground to cover with this Travelling Quilt so I will be splitting it in to a couple of posts and I really hope you will come back to join me and read about the rest of the journey.

If you have been involved in a Travelling Quilt Bee, are currently in one or are looking to start/join one I would love to hear from you please feel free to leave a comment or email me.

Happy Quilting 

Kerry xx

PAT BRAVO "THE MINIS" TOUR

Bravo!

As many of you know I spend hours of my life on Instagram, it's literally the best invention after chocolate, and quilt fabric, ooooooo and David Beckham! It was on one such "research" mission that I came across a post from the super fab Pat Bravo, (if you don't know who she is, Pat design delicious fabrics for Art Gallery Fabrics ) where she basically said 'I have designed two new lines of fabric, I want to give them to you and let you make pretty things, who wants to play?' Uuuuuuuumm me! So I put myself forward along with a large amount of others and kept my fingers crossed.

And as I'm sure you've guessed by the title of this post I was chosen, whoop whoop! In total there are 30 people from around the world who were sent a selection of fat eighths from Dare to be Bold predominantly navy and shades of blue the designs to me look like a modern take on the theme of geometric electro pop, whilst Essenials II  in Blush has a much more feminine, soft vibe to it. You can read all about Pat's idea behind The Mini Tour here.

I practically pounced on the poor Postman every day until my fabrics arrived and I was thrilled to ribbons when I opened the wrapping and found these....

I have to admit that for the first few days I just wandered in an out of my studio stroking them, well come on look how pretty they are!! I wanted to make something that showed off the various designs of the fabric, which in itself was a challenge for me as "modern" is very outside of my comfort zone, I had look in several of the quilt books I have and picked out a few blocks that I thought could work with what I had in mind. I started with the blues and geometrics of Dare but it wasn't going well and just didn't work at all!! I had had an idea for a repeat block that I'd been doodling, so I thought why not try and make this happen?? I got out my graph paper and set about drawing it out, I am a bit old school that way I can't just go straight to the computer but I get there in the end and a few hours later I had Bravo!

I'm not sure if I've mentioned that paper piecing/ foundation piecing is my most favourite thing, bit it is and that was the method I chose to create this mini quilt in. 

There are a couple of points that don't quite match exactly and a few other little niggles I need to work on, but overall I really pleased with how my first ever original block design has worked out.

There are endless possibilities with this block depending on fabric choices and placement, the size of them and the repeat options that can be created, I am really excited about trying these out but for now I am very happy with my little Bravo! who measures 12" square when finished. I added on a border, log cabin style just to finish it off and the backing is simply three panels of prettiness.

I have had such a wonderful time being a part of this Mini Blog Tour, there have been so many talented people involved and such gorgeous things made. If you have missed any of it the full line up is listed at the end of this post, be sure to check them all out and prepared to be inspired. 

Happy Quilting 

Kerry xx

Monday April 25

Laura Piland

Slice of Pi Quilts

Courtney Zadik

The Wholesome Mama

Tuesday April 26

Katie Skoog

The Simple Life Company

Stacey Gibson

Edens Accessories

Wednesday April 27

Amanda Woodruff

A Crafty Fox

Jessica Stewart

Snicker Doodle Stew

Wednesday April 28

 Erin Cox

Why Not Sew

Anjeanette Klinder

Anjeanette K

Friday April 29

Aimee Leptick

The Little Bird Designs

 Sharla Krenzel

Thistle Thicket Studio

Monday May 2

Christine Blessing

Cblessing0

Cat Noonan

Tincat13

Tuesday May 3

Sarah Overton

My Crowded Nest

Jyoti Haeusler
Sewn Modern Crafts

Wednesday May 4

Faith Essenburg

Sarana Ave

Lesley Storts

Storts Market

Thursday May 5

Ellen Ault

Hand Made 3d

Michelle Bartholomew 
Michelle Bartholomew 

Friday May 6

Kate Basti

Katebasti

Kate Lyons

Modern Makerie

Monday May 9

Cindy Guch

Raspberry Sunshine

Name: Lucy

Skinny Malinky Quilts

Tuesday May 10

Marija Vujcic

Marijas Fabricreations

Isabel Kelly

Lamb and Wolfie

Wednesday May 11

Samantha Green

For The Love of Fabric

Tara J Curtis

Tjaye

Thursday May 12

Samantha Dorn

Aqua Paisley Studio

Maja Wlusek

Betyipiernaty

Friday May 13

Jemima Flendt

Tied With a Ribbon

Kerry Smith

Thats Sew Kerry

STARTS AND FINISHES

Weekend Round-Up

It seems like only last week we had our monthly quilty catch up, but in reality I haven't seen my ladies in 2 months!! I can't believe how quickly that has gone and whilst I haven't been idol they have been stitching up a storm and I am in absolute awe of their talents.

Val has been working on her gorgeous version of Beside The Sea by Lesley Brankin for a little while now and today was the big reveal of the finished piece!

It is absolutely beautiful in the flesh, the amount of thought and detail Val put into her fabric choices really has paid off as has her patience at putting the whole thing together.

Regular readers may have noticed the beach huts! 

They are the same ones that I used in the quilt I made for my dad 2 years ago and the same pattern was used by Sue in a sampler she was making out of Salt Water by Tula Pink.

Speaking of Sue her efforts this week were focused on hand sewing the back binding strips of the gorgeous shabby chic style BOM she has been working on over the last couple of months based on Stonefields by Susan Smith. You can see the start of her journey here but for now lets just soak up the loveliness of all those hours of work.

And just a few more because I really couldn't resist this darling little Owl and The Pussy Cat block

Never one for making things easy Caroline was sewing the binding on her 'simple square' quilt, unfortunately it wasn't a simple square binding and caused all manner of blue smoke to emerge from Caroline's corner. 

That being said, she drafted the pattern herself and the outcome is lovely, looking like an English country garden in purples, blues and greens. 

Which just leaves me..... 

I have made a start on something new, it is in the beginning stages and at the moment is a load of drawings, scribbles and sellotaped pieces of paper but with any luck it is going to end up being a fabulous mini quilt for 1 of the 5 swaps I've got myself into.... oooops!!!

Happy Quilting

Kerry xx

A JOURNEYS END

Signed, Sealed, Delivered

Almost a year ago I started out on an epic journey, the journey of my first commission!!(whhaaatt?? someone wants me to make them a quilt, for money??) I was rather apprehensive as up until now I had only ever made things that I wanted to, blocks or patterns that appealed to me in colours and fabrics that called to me. Most of them end up as presents for other people, but still if you're going to spend hours on something its got to spark your interest right?

Suddenly to be faced with a very specific criteria put me in a flat spin, it wasn't a style I would naturally be drawn to, nor was the colour palette something I had worked in before but you know me, I love a good challenge!! You can read about the start of my African Adventure here.

Having made a sprinting start with lots of ideas and creativity flowing it got to around August/September time and I totally stalled, it was so sunny and bright, love was blooming (swoon Mr Keeble) and I just had no motivation to sit in doors sewing bits of fabric in brown and muted shades together. The more I knew I had to do it and was running out of time, the less I seemed able to motivate myself to do. I got a bit tangled up with it all, tried out a few experimental blocks that really really didn't work, so with my motivation and now my confidence totally down the pan I stopped altogether. I had a month off where I didn't even look at it, and then started doing lots of research into all the other projects I had seen being done by the wonderful people I follow on Instagram (you can find me on there as thatssewkerry) and that 1 month suddenly became 3 months - more on that later. Now it's January and I've got less than 7 weeks to get this monster done and dusted....panic mode!! 

Having spent a huge amount of time researching all sorts of blocks, designs, quilts you name it really over the last few months I went back through it all and found this particular block called 'Capital T'. 

Originally 6" I scaled it up to be the 18" I needed and set to work finishing off the African Star. You can find out how I made this block by having a look at my new Tutorials button at the top of the home page or by clicking here. 

Originally I made 4 of these blocks, 1 cream, 1 tan and 2 red with the intention of having them alternating along the bottom row, rather irritatingly 4 turned out to be to wide and would have resulted in me having to cut them in a funny position in order to get them to fit and as such the repeat pattern would have been lost, but of course 3 wasn't wide enough to complete the row ggrrrrrr!!! So back to the old faithful 2.5" strips to fill up the extra space, not a total loss as it reflects the top row where a similar totally planned design feature had happened!! 

Due to the size of these blocks there were several large areas of empty space so I tried to be more adventurous with my quilting, mostly just echoing the shapes being quilted such as squares and triangles but still and adventurous step for me. 

One of my New years quilting resolutions was/is to be braver when quilting my blocks and to try to add in more quilting opportunities to the blocks or quilts I am choosing to make. It's a baby step I'll grant you but I'm proud all the same.

The next stage is slightly less exciting but with all the blocks now done they had to be joined together, I opted for my old favourite quilt-as-you-go method, although I do now have the machine space and the table space to attempt whole quilting projects it's still not something I feel brave enough to attempt. Plus I really like the idea of working on smaller bits and then suddenly having a huge quilt to put together, there's a real sense of achievement in that somewhere for me - usually mixed in with a whole lot of madness.

Blocks become rows and then rows become quilts, soon there after there is a flourish of furious hand stitching to get all the back bindings attached and all those raw edges covered, all the while a lot of swearing and stabbed fingers is going on - I've never been able to get on with a thimble! Finally arriving at that very satisfying moment when that last stitch goes in and months and months of work turn into this......

Thank you to everyone who has offered me there thoughts, opinions, ideas and just general support throughout this epic adventure, it really means very much to me and I don't think I would have believed in myself enough to get it done without you all. Lets start the next one......

Happy Quilting

Kerry xx