It's been all go!!

Well, it has been a while since my last blog, but I do have a very good excuse... we have moved house!! What's more I have also moved Sewmotion into a nearby unit - though it's only 4mins walk away, so not too far :)

We have moved to the beautiful seaside town of Marske-by-the-Sea on the Northeast coast. We have lived near the sea before in nearby Redcar, but 10 years on I think we're now more likely to appreciate being so close to the beach for long evening walks and strolls to nearby Saltburn. This was the first move (and we've done a few) when we have used a removal firm, and my word, what a difference that made! 

Mind you, we still moved all my fabric and 'stuff' the week before into my new workshop - so exciting. As you can see, I've just about got all the fabric off the floor and onto shelves, I just need some more shelving for the kits and stash, hopefully a trip to Ikea this weekend should sort that out, and then I can get back to doing some sewing...

Last Sunday I was also on Sewing Quarter again - I had to be ultra organised to get these quilts prepped before moving! This was also the first time I have worked with presenter Natasha, who was very lovely indeed. In my first show I made the Stonehenge quilt using gorgeous Anna Maria Horner fabrics - this quilt was a joy to make, once you have labelled all the cut pieces, the blocks come together really quickly, and even better, there were very few seams to match up. In my second show, I demoed Lynne Goldsworthy's Patriotic Log Cabin quilt, as featured in the current issue of Today's Quilter. This was another quilt that came together really quickly thanks to good sized pieces and liberal labelling. If you missed these shows, or would like to see them again, you can catch them on Sewing Quarter's YouTube channel here - the Stonehenge quilt is in the second hour, and the log cabin in the fourth.

Right, I'm off to unpack some more boxes... wishing you all a lovely and creative week, linking up with Midweek Makers and Needle & Thread Thursday.

Quilting Concentric Circles Tutorial

As many of you know, I send out free monthly patterns to my Newsletter subscribers, and for the last few months we have been working on a mystery block-of-the-month, the Birds of a Feather quilt. 

Well, last month saw the grand reveal, and then I thought I would add a bonus email with instructions for a pieced backing, and then ideas for quilting. 

I then one step further and made up a quick video on how quilted my own version in a concentric circles design using my walking foot on my home machine.

Even though this design does take a while, especially on a domestic sewing machine, it is still possible (though I strongly recommend an extension table and quilting gloves) and the time and patience is well worth the effort! I love the texture this design creates and I think it accentuates the idea of the birds flying out of the centre nest. I'm hoping to put this quilt together as a kit soon, so watch this space!

Elsewhere at Sewmotion, I'm in the middle of Festival of Quilt prep madness, surrounded by kits, papers and patterns that all need sorting into boxes! I also came across some tickets for this year's show, so I'm holding a little competition on my Instagram page for a chance to win not only two show tickets, but also one of my new Hoop Art kits - visit my page for more details here.

Wishing you all a fun and creative week, linking up with Midweek Makers and Needle & Thread Thursday

2018 Online Quilters Meet & Greet

Benita Skinner of Victoriana Quilt Designs is running the 2018 Online Quilters Meet & Greet during the month of September, and asked if I would like to join in. Of course I said yes, I love any opportunity to meet fellow quilt addicts from around the world!

Throughout September you can visit Benita's page where you will find links to lots of wonderful quilt bloggers, some you may already know, others will be completely new - what a great chance to make new friends and be inspired!! Benita is also running an amazing competition open to all who take part - you can learn more and enter by clicking below.

So let me introduce myself, I am Louisa Goult, I live in Middlesbrough in the Northeast of England, though I am originally from London, and I run my own quilt business, Sewmotion. I have always been fascinated by colour and geometry, particularly symmetry in design, and what better way to express this than through designing quilts! I started quilting in my teens, then had a break in my 20s where work/career took over. Then when I and my husband were both made redundant, we decided to embark on a round-the-world trip which included the US, New Zealand and Australia. It was on a rainy day in Australia, hunkered down in our campervan where my love of quilting was reignited thanks to some wonderful Aussie quilting mags.

When we eventually got back from our travels, I had a couple of jobs in craft retail to learn the ropes as it were, then in 2014 I decided to take the plunge and set up on my own (eek!) Having worked in a quilt shop for four years, I knew how the craft was growing in popularity, I had so many people come in looking for classes where they could learn this great skill, and this is where the idea for my first quilt kit, the Beginner's Quilt kit came from. I also provide free tutorials on the website, including how to make your first quilt which can work in conjunction with the kit if people prefer to follow photographic instruction.

From that first kit, I now offer around 50 kits which include quilts, cushions, runners, purses and hoop art projects, as well as a growing collection of patterns. I have also developed a curved English paper-piecing technique, which seems to be taking over my life at the moment. This method is used in my block of the month quilt, Curve Motion Medallion, which is also a quilt-as-you-go project. You can learn more about this 16-months of hand sewing joy here. I have also made my first YouTube film, a four part tutorial on how to make my EPP Flower Cushion, hopefully there will be more of these in the future!

Having just exhibited at the Festival of Quilts in the UK, I also entered a quilt for the first time, another curved EPP creation, using scraps from my stash. I then big-stitched quilted around the rings in the grey background space.

I also send out a Sewmotion Newsletter, which includes a free pattern every month based on my love of quilting pre-cuts, though it does seem to be whatever inspires me at the time! You can learn more about that here.

Well, I think that more or less covers me and Sewmotion. Working on my own from home everyday, I love meeting fellow quilters online and sharing experiences and ideas, thank you so much Benita for running this great event, hopefully this will be the first of many! Don't forget to enter the competition - the more blogs you visit the greater the chance of winning those amazing goodies!

April's Free Pattern and Part 3 of My Video Curved EPP Tutorial

After a lovely long Easter weekend that included our 14th wedding anniversary,  I seem to have hit the ground running with so much to get done! As today is the first Thursday of the month, it must be Pre-Cut Party Time! For the uninitiated, my Pre-Cut Party involves my Newsletter subscribers receiving a free pattern every month, based on the treasured quilting pre-cut.

This month I have returned to a fave, the 2.5" fabric strip, otherwise known as the jelly roll. I actually came across an old quilt top I made years ago and remember having so much trouble with working out the layout, though I really don't know why, the blocks are just offset in vertical rows... I have a feeling I designed the original going horizontally - haha! The things you learn!

This bright quilt reminds me of the summer (which seems so far off looking at my rain-drenched window) and is made in Michael Miller's Flora Pop fabrics together with a lovely white-on-white print. If you would like this free pattern, and many more in the future you can subscribe here. You will also hear about latest products and subscriber-only offers.

I decided to have this quilt longarm quilted again by the wonderful North Star Quilting who are only up the road in Hartlepool, so if you're local to the northeast why not check out their website, they currently have 10% off edge-to-edge quilting!

Alongside this pattern, I also have the kit in Flora Pop in which I have kindly cut all the 2.5" strips for you so you can get sewing straight away! The kit also includes borders, binding, thread and full instructions. What's more if you subscribe to my Newsletter, you can get 20% off the kit.

This week also sees the third instalment of my video  tutorial series on how to make this pretty curved English paper-pieced cushion. In Part Three I show you how to appliqué the flower ring onto the background fabric.

If you have missed Parts 1 and 2 covering the fussy-cutting, glue-basting and piecing, click here to go to Sewmotion's YouTube channel. I will have kits for this cushion soon, but if you have some gorgeous fabric in your stash just begging to be fussy-cut, click here for the templates.

Linking up with Let's Bee Social, Midweek Makers & Needle & Thread Thursday

Part 2 of my Curved EPP Tutorial - the Piecing - & an Easter Sale

Well, it's the Thursday before the Easter weekend and the sun is shining... fingers crossed it will continue to do so, I really fancy getting out into the countryside this weekend. That said, this is England, and no doubt the rain will appear at some point, which means another weekend of staying indoors with some sewing on the go... shame... ;)

I am working on so many EPP projects at the moment, including a long list of magazine commissions which I can't show off quite yet. However, I can share the second instalment of my series of YouTube videos on curved English paper-piecing and how to make this beautiful cushion. 

Part 2 shows you how to hand-piece your shapes together using a flat back stitch, before gently removing the papers. If you missed Part 1 covering fussy-cutting and blue-basting, click here to see last week's post.

If you're feeling inspired to get sewing, then why not have a browse in the Sewmotion shop's Easter Sale?!

Linking up with Let's Bee Social, Midweek Makers and Needle & Thread Thursday

Craft is good for the soul

Following on from last week’s post, I thought I would look deeper into why learning something new makes me feel so happy, and why it’s essential to make time in our busy lives to discover something we didn’t know before, or to try something way out of our comfort zone. And I’m not talking about bungee jumping or cave diving here, but something a lot more accessible to us all – craft.

Whether it’s knitting, crochet, dress-making or like me, ‘cutting up fabric to sew it back together again’, creative hobbies give you so much more than just a finished object.

Recent medical research has found that not only do creative activities such as crafts relieve stress, anxiety and even depression, but they can also improve happiness and a sense of wellbeing. The activity of sitting still for a couple of hours and concentrating on just one thing can do wonders for your mental state. Just being able to shut out life’s problems for a little while can bring a great sense of peace and mindfulness which let’s face it, we could all do with a little of these days.

I know the same can be said for doing the daily crossword or Sudoku puzzle, but there seems to be more to actually creating something - be it a handmade quilt, a knitted scarf or a crocheted egg cosy - working with colour and different textures, having to make creative decisions, or even mathematical ones – and then at the end, to have a finished item made by yourself, that sense of accomplishment when you can say proudly “I made that” – can surely only be a good thing, right?!

These kind of crafts that stretch your knowledge are also said to be great for maintaining your brain’s cognitive skills, after all, your brain is a muscle that needs to be used constantly to keep it in good condition. We have got to keep learning and pushing our boundaries, our comfort zones, after all, isn’t that is what life’s about? For living? What a waste it would be to just stop – no new experiences, no great accomplishments, no understanding of new ideas. Crafts can give you all of this, and so much more, I haven’t even touched on the community and sense of inclusion that these activities can evoke.

With so many online resources at our fingertips these days, it's so easy to have a taster of a new hobby before devling into a local class or workshop. YouTube is a great place to start – if you would like to learn more about quilting I strongly recommend the Missouri Star Quilt Company and the Fat Quarter Shop for some great free tutorials.

And of course, you could always start with my Quick & Easy/Beginner’s Quilt tutorial and pre-cut Kits. For more about the basics of quilting, from the equipment you need, to which fabric and waddings to use, check out my free tutorials.

And if you're already quilting/knitting/crocheting, here's to a long, creative and very happy life... but don't forget, there's always something new to learn just around the corner.

This week I'm linking up with these great parties:

Let's Bee Social at Sew Fresh Quilts

Midweek Makers at Quilt Fabrication

Needle & Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation

 

 

A Much Needed Upgrade!

This week has seen some radical decisions… we’ve upgraded the operating system on our poor over-used MacBook Pro! I have to admit, we’re quite lazy and sometimes daunted when it comes to updating software and the like, also a little scared of things going wrong. However, after struggling along with a very old version of iMovie, I decided it was time to move on… I found the Mac OS upgrade and pressed the button, three hours later and we are now running the rather impressive sounding El Capitan and I have a brand new iMovie to play with!! Yeah!

So the next logical step was to have a play and make a new movie… and voilà, we have the next episode in our English Paper Piecing tutorial series. 

My philosophy behind these mini movies is for the viewer to be able to watch a short film and grasp the technique pretty quickly. I have watched many films on YouTube, and while so many are amazing and very educational, there are others that I find quite laboursome to watch, and a little boring. So in making my own I wanted them to be snappy, jolly and straight to the point, hence the music and the subtitles. If the music annoys you, (and I wouldn’t blame you after hours of listening to the same track myself) you can turn the sound off and still get what’s going on – perfect for viewing in public!

If you’re inspired by these movies and want to try EPP for yourself, or maybe you’re looking for a portable holiday project, these lovely cushion kits are available to buy in our shop. Each kit includes all the fabric, papers, glue pen and thread to make the top, plus full written instructions.

In other news… I’ve just had a delivery of these gorgeous prints from Michael Miller’s Sea Holly collection by Sarah Campbell, don’t you just love that teal and grey! I plan to mix these with a couple of Kona Solids for some new pre-cut kits, so watch this space!

Finally, just a gentle reminder for us all, Mother’s Day is just around the corner (Sunday 6^th March) so why not treat your dear mum to a gift as unique and special as she is with a handmade gift from Sewmotion! We have purses, pouches, make-up cases and cushions in the Sewmotion Shop, our Folksy shop and of course on Etsy. My latest additions are these cute polka dot cases and pouches made is a gorgeously soft linen, and I’m just finishing these glasses cases now and will be available at the weekend.  

Don’t forget if you would like to follow my weekly updates and ramblings you can follow me by email or Bloglovin in the column on the right. We also publish a monthly Newsletter which not only tells you about our latest, news products and pattern releases, but also has some great discounts and offers only available to subscribers. To subscribe click here.

This week I'm linking up with Sew Fresh Quilt's Let's Bee Social and Needle And Thread Thursday over at My Quilt Infatuation - come and be inspired!

My first movie!

I must have a hundred different ideas floating around my head at the moment, what with more samples for John Louden (more about that next week), my new Hexy Cushion Kits to get into the world, and the patterns, kits and designs begging to be put to paper, my brain can get pretty overwhelmed! So this week, as it was my birthday, I decided to learn something new just to add to the madness!

Here is my first attempt at filmmaking! Haha! Not the best quality I know – I used an old digi-camera I’d forgotten we owned, and an even older version of iMovie. Still, I’m quite pleased with how it turned out, though that tune now drives me insane after hearing it so many times!

In my first film venture, I wanted to share my favourite technique for glue-basting shapes for English paper-piecing, a method that features in our new Hexy Cushion Kits – great gifts for Mother’s Day (6^th March) – click below for more details.

There’s still time to enter our free GIVEAWAY – for a chance to win a Hexy Cushion Kit of your very own – you’ll be addicted to EPP in no time – leave a comment below telling me which craft you find the most addictive – entries close at midnight, Friday 5^th March, and a winner will be chosen at random.

Quilting by YouTube

Like many quilters, I’m often asked “where did you learn to quilt?” Unlike many quilters, I wasn’t taught by a wise matriarch in the family. My nan knitted a lot, and sometimes embroidered, while my mum made clothes for me and my sister when we were young, and then later on knocked up the odd pair of curtains… both miles away from quilting! They did however teach me the basics in sewing, from hand-embroidered tapestries to sewing dolls clothes on mum’s old and extremely heavy Jones sewing machine.

I was introduced to quilting in my teens by a friend, but it wasn’t until a few years ago that this new addiction took hold, the more fabric I saw, the more I wanted for my stash, the more techniques I heard about, the more I wanted to learn – hence the size of my book collection! 

However, after all a while, buying a book for every new idea soon becomes expensive, so where else could I go? Then I discovered YouTube!

Now for the uninitiated, rest assured YouTube is not just videos of kids being drunk, or nutters doing strange stunts of their bikes, or weird music videos by performing arts students. Yes, there are plenty of those, but YouTube really has developed into an amazing teaching vehicle, and what’s more, it’s totally free! So these days you can learn anything, from how to apply your make-up, and get into (and out of) a million yoga poses, to how to play a musical instrument - and even how to make enough handmade quilts to keep you stitching for a lifetime.

If you visit YouTube.com and enter ‘quilting’ into the search box, you will come up with nearly 200,000 videos - that should keep you busy! Let’s face it, no quilter has the time to trawl through all these, so try entering ‘quilting tutorials’, or ‘quilting for beginners’. With still so many to choose from, I thought I would share some of my favourites, starting with the Missouri Quilt Company.

Those of you familiar with Twitter or Facebook may have come across these short and concise films already, click here to view their YouTube home page. Owner and master quilter Jenny takes us through all kinds of quilting projects, including beginners’ classes, simple quilt blocks, tutorials on different skills and techniques, and features on the latest tools and gadgets. These mini-lessons are well filmed, easy to hear and understand, and are the perfect length for a coffee break!

Another company that produces similar film tutorials is the Fat Quarter Shop.

Again, there are so many tutorials to choose from, including using short-cuts to create beautiful quilt blocks, and how to use new notions on the market. Quilting expert and presenter Kimberly is often joined by guests from the quilting world to show off their patterns, techniques or to just chat about their creative lives, so if you’re looking for some inspiration from the experts, this is the place.

Another of my favourites is Cozy Quilt Designs, in particular their monthly ‘Strip Club’ . Addicted quilter Daniela Stout owns the Cozy Quilt Shop in San Diego (where I plan to visit one day) where she developed this great idea of making up strip packs from her bolts, and then designing patterns to go with them. Once a month she presents her latest pattern to her group and films the demonstration. Not only is Daniela pretty inspiring, but she’s also entertaining to watch!

So if you have exhausted your book collection, and that of the local library, why not have a browse on YouTube, you may be pleasantly surprised at what you find!

As well as these weekly blogs, we also issue a monthly newsletter full of news of our latest products, special offers and new pattern realeases. Click below to subscribe. 

If you're up for even more quilt inspiration pop over to Sew Fresh Quilt's Let's Be Social and Linky Tuesday over on Freemotion by the River and say hello.