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

FESTIVAL 2017

A Brilliant Day Out.....

Did you go to Festival? This year was my 6th year! It's better than Christmas I swear it, I've started saving for next year already. We had the usual cohort of myself, Kerry Q and Aunty Gail but also the added bonus of Carrie...a festival virgin if you can believe it! We set off (not so) bright and early at our usual time of 6:30am arriving just before 9 for breakfast and a planning session of where to go and when.

Our first stop is always Alice Caroline for the £1 a piece Liberty bins, but I have to say this year despite leap frogging of a sea of grannies to get to the front of the table, we left empty handed! A first in 6 years! There just wasn't the variety or the quality this year, most of them were very dull colors and none of the traditional 'Liberty' prints that we love so much, a very disappointing start!

That's not to say we didn't shop til we dropped!

The top photo are just some pretty bits I couldn't leave behind when I visited Purple Stitches (the second time!) the second are some with a tribal vibe that I am going be mixing in with my Travelling Quilt Bee blocks. If you missed the first installment of that adventure, you can find it here.

Next up an array of bright and bold Kona Solids sourced from the wonderfully helpful and exceptionally patient ladies at Simply Solids, teamed with a handful of fat quarters I picked up at The Cotton Patch from a variety of designers including Kaffe Fasset and Tula Pink. They are going to be used for a custom order I have had for something fit for an Indian Princess, who will be celebrating 70 years of wonderful life! I've got a couple of ideas but can't wait to get started on this one!

The second photo is a selection of fat quarters I bought simply because I loved the cool and calming mint and grey combo as they sat there calling to me in the boxes. I added the right hand side collection to them as I was walking around because I thought they complimented it well. I didn't have an original plan or use for them to start with, they just called my name! However I stock piled my good old favorites Kona Snow and Shadow and am now thinking that these will be used for my version of Summer Sampler 2017.

Of course it wouldn't be a successful festival trip if I didn't add to my collection of "One days", so above is my haul. You may have spied the brilliant new book by Stuart Hillard,it is fab there are so many gorgeous blocks in there that can be used literally in 100 quilts. He could not have been nicer to meet, we spent several minutes talking weddings, as he very recently tied the knot and just look at this little love note I got.....

There so many beautiful quilts on display, I always feel very inspired when I go to festival, I took as many picture as I could of the ones that spoke to me, enjoy!

There were a couple of real howlers as well some of which were judges choices, I know everyone has a difference in opinion of what makes something good and I really can appreciate all the work that goes in to making these quilts, but I did have several "Really??" moments. Makes me hopeful for one day when I am feeling brave enough to enter something into one of these shows!

Let me know what you thought if you went along, I always love to hear from my quilty pals!

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

CATCHING UP

Saturday Inspirations

I can't believe that we are into the third full week of the year already, and that I'm failing miserably with at least half of my New Year resolutions (sigh). We only have 23 sleeps until our first holiday, instead of losing 2 lbs a week I'm fairly sure I've put them on, I wasn't even looking at anything new until I had finished all my UFOs and existing commitments yet it would appear that I've accidentally on purpose signed up for 2 BOMs, but so far so good with updating the blog once a week so not a total loss.

This Saturday saw our first group meet up of the year, it was jam packed full of exciting news, lots of show and tell, oooohs and aaaahs over all our new purchases and of course an abundance of wonderful quilting.

First up is Val with this gorgeous quilt in a selection of Lynette Anderson fabrics, the design itself is very simple in its layout but works really well at showcasing the beautiful fabrics.

There were mixed feelings as to whether or not the pattern Val chose to have quilted, got lost in the overall design of the quilt and the fabric placement. We all thought it looked lovely, but I do understand that the idea or picture you have in your head of something doesn't always reflect the finished product in its physical form.

Caroline is still working on her amazing Bargello Quilt, you can find all the details about it here in one of my previous posts. 

Carrie has developed a taste for Pin Wheels and can knock them out at lightening speed, something I am very jealous of because they appear to be a process I just can not get my head around. Try as I might they never turn out right, my points get lost, they aren't matching in size honestly I give up with them, but Carrie has it mastered and they are gorgeous.

Although she is working on building up her stash of Pin Wheels it wasn't her task on Saturday. This week saw the return of one of our old favourites Saturday Stars, a class we all took together and where we all became friends, although most of us are nowhere near finished the mammoth quilt itself. It is a class that was put on at the Quilt Room in Dorking, although no longer running you can find the details of all their other workshops here. Like many people Carrie has a particular fondness for Moda fabrics which is reflected throughout this quilt.

Next up we've got Sue, who has been working on this amazing quilt called Stonefields by Susan Smith, originally a commission for a film it is made up of 121 different 6 inch blocks finishing 96" x 96" with a flying geese and hexagon border.

As far as I am aware this quilt is only available as BOM, if anyone knows if it can be purchased as a whole I'd love to know!! Sue purchased hers through The Running Chicken however it is no longer running. Sue has put some serious hours into this quilt so far and it really is a sight to behold....

 

Finally we turn to the efforts of Kerry Q, who has multiple projects on the go, as well as all her wedding planning (whoop whoop) I'm amazed she has the time to fit it all in. Kerry is working on a secret project for someone special using a mix of Cycles of Life by Maywood Studio and a selection of old shirts, so far her efforts look like this 

Kerry has also been working on restoring some little hexies she found with some things that belonged to her Nana, she's also been adding new bits to them and is thinking about making a cushion or two.

I have been working on some English Paper Piecing and hopefully I can share that with you later this week. 

Happy Quilting

Kerry xx