SEW THE RAINBOW!

Travelling Quilt Bee 2019

A couple of years ago I was lucky enough to be part of a Travelling Quilt Bee it was an amazing experience for me, I made some great 'virtual' quilt friends many of whom I am still in regular quilty contact with, as well as being a great opportunity to try new things and develop my skills. This was largely due to the fact that back then I wasn't overly brave when it came to fabric choices, colour palettes or block/pattern choices and had a real tendency to stick to what I knew and whilst I still do that to a large degree, I've found that being part of something like this where you're making part of a quilt for someone else to their specific requirements, is actually rather liberating!

There are so many gorgeous quilts that come up on my Instagram feed (@thatssewkerry if you are interested) that have been made as part of Quilt Bees, a Round Robin and Travelling Quilt Bees, such as these below: 

#fantasticquiltvoyage 

#roundrobinquilt

Round Robin Quilt

I really started to feel the calling again, having looked for inspiration and a group of like-minded people to join me, I set off on an adventure to create my own Travelling Quilt Bee - a daunting task as I've never been a quilt mama before or set up my own bee, but thankfully a well received plea meant that by the end of August I had 11 wonderful ladies set to join me for the next 12 months on a epic quilting adventure.

I wanted to try something completely different to the last one and to push myself out of my comfort zone, with this in mind I settled on 'Modern Rainbow' I wasn't sure what form this would take, but that's what I was aiming for. I'm not really modern when it comes to fabric choices or block choices so both of these together was definitely a challenge! I had bought the Aquamarina pattern quite a while ago, I take it out every now and again to look at and then put it away for 'oneday' so I decided this was the time. I had previously seen this version by Quiltmekiwi and just fell in love with everything about it, mostly because it is nothing like anything I've attempted before but also because it looks so clean, fresh and well modern!

With this as my inspiration I set off on my most favourite part of quilting - fabric buying! My intention was to source modern fabrics across the rainbow avoiding anything I would usually be drawn towards, I am very pleased with the end result although the same cannot be said for the bank balance or the husband.

One of the things I loved the most about this pattern was the fact that it is 90% foundation/paper pieced, which those of you who regularly follow my adventures on here will know is my most favourite type of quilt pattern, the other thing I loved about it is the giant New York Beauty element. With my rainbow set out and ready to go I had to decide on background fabrics, I knew I really wanted to include some kind of 'text print' - having said I'm not really modern in my fabric choices, I do have a slight obsession with low volume and text print in particular, but as for the rest I had no idea.

The rainbow fabrics are a mix of Alison Glass (all collections), Guicy Guice, Karen K Lewis and some Art Gallery thrown in for good measure and the background is More Paper by Zen Chic for Moda - one of my all time favourites that I really wished I'd bought several yards of instead of just the one (rookie mistake always buy at least 3 of the good ones!)I tested quite a few fabrics to use for the main background, again I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do with it, I had accidentally tried out Fairy Dust by Tula Pink from her Pinkerville range (another one I have several yards of) and as much as I didn't want to cut up my precious Tula, I couldn't seem to move away from it, so had to give in and take the plunge.

I really love the way the birds subtly pick out the colours around my rainbow and blend in rather than overpower it, I also fussy cut the same birds for the arrow heads trying to match each sections colour way so it all tied together - I really love the detail you can get in a quilt from fussy cutting.

A bazillion flying geese later I had the borders almost ready and set about fussy cutting some corner squares, again with the Fairy Dust birds to finish off the first border section.

It was then a super quick run to the finish with the outer border and my giant centre block/starting block was done and ready to travel for the next 12 months!

I am really pleased with how it turned out, there are a couple of mistakes that hopefully you won't notice (but I really do!) but I challenged myself and stuck to the original plan of trying something new and modern. It was very daunting and I can't say that I enjoyed the whole process but I did learn a great deal and I am happy with the progress I made in my own quilting journey. 

The hard part now is waiting to see what all the other lovely ladies make to go along with it and having to wait a whole year to get it back. The blocks went travelling on October 1st so we've already made one lot of blocks for the next person in our chain, but that is a tale for another day.

Happy Quilting

Kerry xx

QUILT CLUB CATCH UP!

New York Beauties and Flying Geese

I've not really had the time to blog as much as I wanted to lately, but I've not been idol and now have a que of things just waiting to be shared, having recently been told off by Carrie for not blogging daily, I'm sure she'll be pleased!

I'm going to start with Saturday just gone and my monthly meet up with my favorite quilting gal pals! They never fail to amaze me with their creations and inspire me every month to want to do at least 4 more projects than I actually have time for!

First up Caroline, who we all agreed has totally gone mad, she recently tackled the 365 block a day challenge and has now got herself tangled up in the weekly block challenge of the gorgeous Etoiles Rouge put on by Green Avenue Quilts, featuring 49 variations of the traditional Ohio Star block.

Putting her own slant on it and making all her blocks in varying shades of blue and creams in a mix of great patterns.

Val was busy quilting the main panel of a bag she's been working on, she has been very brave with her color choices lately favoring bright and striking colors with more modern prints than she's usually drawn to.

Kerry has been working very hard on a baby quilt with a modern twist and finally was able to add the finishing touches! I love her choice of fabrics, not something I would initially go to for a baby quilt but so modern and fresh I think I'm a convert to purple, mustard and grey! We originally found the adorable print of hedgehogs and forestry at Sandown (I think?!) and then went on a mission to add to the selection! The pattern very simply strip quilting - jelly rolls are perfect for such a thing, or you can cut your own if you need them wider than 2.5", sew them end to end and a couple of times side to side and presto one fab quilt top in an afternoon! I think I need to pop up a tutorial on this, you won't believe how effective they are!

For the back Kerry stuck with a plain grey whole cloth approach but added some buzzy bees and a few letters from Spell It with Moda by using the applique method.

Carrie was adding the sashing to a special project we were all involved in making, she wanted to make a quilt for her mom it had to be relatively quick and straight forward to put together and ideally layer cake friendly as she had a stack of Blue Barn by Moda that was her inspiration. Enter the Layer Cake Sampler - a series of eye catching blocks that have a multitude of variations, and can be purchased from Material Girl Quilts.

We all made 4 blocks each, choosing which variations we wanted to use in order to help her get the quilt finished on time. She continued her efforts at home and the quilt top is looking lovely.

We started and finished our blocks for this quilt when we went on our first quilt retreat over the Summer, Kerry did a bang up job of finding us an amazing house with huge rooms, large tables for lots of quilting and a plethora of pubs! As well as these blocks, I was also working on my contribution for the UK Travelling Quilt Bee that month, if you haven't already you can read about the start of that journey here.

I had recently purchased New York Beauties and Flying Geese, published by C&T Publishing and written by the wonderfully inspiring Carl Hentsch from 3 Dog Design Co, described by Tula Pink as a book that 'asks the maker to see more than boundaries and categories, to think beyond the usual choices and to make something exceptional' and the author himself as a book that will allow you to 'create quilts that have standard building blocks of pieced arcs, plain arcs and fans that could be mixed and matched in a variety of ways' I was hooked from the very first page!

Although I really wanted to make every block and quilt in this book, I decided to start with Rust, 

I loved the size of the blocks and really thought they would lend themselves well to all the other blocks in the Bee I had to work with. Along with all the inspirational photos of the finished blocks and quilts in the book, there are fab 'drawings' of placements and how each one goes together, which make the whole process so clear and easy to follow.

Another one I love is Sorbet,

At the back of the book is the block index and all the templates you need to make everything in it, one of the reasons that this book is so amazing for me is the unlimited options there are for creating your own blocks as all the arcs etc fit together so you literally can mix and match to your hearts content.

If you are new to foundation/paper piecing don't be put off, there are very helpful and easy to follow instructions at the start of the book to get you on your way!

I chose to make my blocks for this Bee in bright yellows, oranges and reds - here they are sitting proudly at the top of this gorgeous quilt

If you have this book and have been working on some adventures of your own, I'd love to hear about them - get in touch in the usual way!

Happy Quilting

Kerry xx

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