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

 

 

Never Stop Learning

I am a great believer in the adage that you should never stop learning. Not only do new experiences keep your brain working, but it also helps build confidence and provides a great feeling of wellbeing, which can only make you happy, right!?

So having spent far too much time lately staring at the Mac screen or cutting up fabric for kits, I decided to take a whole day to myself to learn something new. I actually ended up trying a couple of new things – foundation piecing using freezer paper, and sewing curves!

Inspired by Jo Avery’s New York Beauty pattern in last month’s Today’s Quilter, I thought it was time to try these curves I’ve been seeing all over Instagram. I then remembered that one of the classes I have on Craftsy was Playing with Curves with Ann Petersen - a class by a very talented lady who takes you through everything slowly and methodically – highly recommended. 

Anyway, I thought I’d just refresh my memory on foundation piecing, and found that Ann's method uses freezer paper and that she doesn’t actually sew through the paper at all… this I had to see!

 

I got stuck in and soon found my rhythm, so much so that I forgot to take any photos of my process! Next time… I think I do prefer this method and it was a joy to just peel back the papers at the end rather than all that ripping. I will do a tutorial on this method for a future project, but for now, why not pop over to Craftsy and have a browse through their classes, they really are worth every penny!

Back to the block... so once the pieced arcs were complete, next came the curves, and they weren’t actually as bad as I thought… I have made some Drunkards Path blocks before, and these were just the same. A few pins and a very slow pace at the machine, and they came out ok. Phew!

 

Unfortunately I only have fat quarters of these bluey greens, my mum who claims she ‘doesn’t do colour’ bought them for me, and I think she did pretty well! So I think this may be a cushion, and I will try my hardest to not lose it in a box and to actually get it quilted!

So do you feel inspired to learn something new? Why not have a look through my free tutorials and see if something catches your eye? 
Even better, you could subscribe to my Newsletter to recieve a free pattern based on pre-cuts, every month straight to your inbox? Click below to subscribe.

For even more inspiration, pop along and visit these great Linky parties;

Let's Bee Social at Sew Fresh Quilts

Midweek Makers at Quilt Fabrication

Needle & Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation 
Building Blocks Tuesday at Quilter In The Closet 

Something To Replace The Missing Sun

Where did the sunshine go?!?! Just when I thought it was springtime… ah well, maybe another dose of colourful butterflies and cute daisies will cheer us up. As you can see below, I’ve been busy playing with my Sea Holly and Kona fabrics – I do love how these blend with my greys and yellow.

My first project with these gorgeous fabrics is a new Beginner’s Quilt to add to the collection, I’m just waiting on a bright day to take some decent shots for the kit, but this will be available soon.

Then I made a jelly roll or two, you know how I love a stream of colour, and these are no exceptions - the Sea Holly Strip Set includes four prints from this Michael Miller range, which blend so well with Kona’s Graphite, Tomato and Banana. 

And I just had to play with some of my new Kona Solids to create this gorgeous Purple Haze Strip Set, for true lovers of ‘the purple’! And doesn’t that graphite work so well again?

Both of these stripper sets contain twenty 2½” x 44” cotton strips, which together with a base colour such as white or a pale cream, you could come up with so many designs. Why not start with our free All Squared Up pattern? I've worked out some layout possibilities below... With this simple piecing, and then maybe some straight-line quilting, you could make a gorgeous modern and fresh quilt, ideal for a wedding gift, or a treat for yourself.

 

Just a little note about these variations: as you have seven different designs in these fabric rolls and not eight as in the pattern, your cutting will be slightly different. As in the pattern, take two strips of each colour, and make eight blocks from each - you will get 56 blocks in all. To make up the remaining eight blocks, take two extra strips from the strip set and make 4 blocks in each design, two positive, two negative to make up to 64 blocks.

I hope I have inspired you to indulge in some fun with colour, as always, I'm linking up with Lorna's Let's Bee Social over at Sew Fresh Quilts, and Needle And Thread Thursday over on My Quilt Infatuation - come and say hello!

The Hexy Cushion Kit

I am happy to finally introduce the newest additions to Sewmotion’s collection of pre-cut kits – the Hexy Cushion Kit. There have been glimpses of these two cushions on Twitter and Instagram over the last month, but I now have the kit together and available to buy. Yay!

These craft kits are a great introduction to the wonderful world of hand-sewn patchwork. English paper-piecing is a traditional skill that harks back to the very beginning of the history of quilting, where quilters would sit for hours cutting out their shapes, then thread basting them onto papers before sewing them together. They would then unpick all that basting before the quilting even began! Phew!

Thankfully, these days new techniques and clever short cuts make this method a lot quicker than it used to be... not that you have to rush it of course, this is a project you can take with you wherever you go - a long car journey, to your quilt group, or even on holiday, anywhere where you can relax and enjoy this slow(ish) and therapeutic craft.

Each of these kits are £20 with (with free UK postage!) and include:
* 10 fabric strips - four in Robert Kaufman's Essex Linen, four in Kona Pomegranate & two in Kona Heliotrope (this includes two binding strips)
* 80 paper hexagons
* one Sewline Glue Pen
* one grey Aurifil 50wt thread for piecing
* one 20" square of wadding
* full, easy-to-follow instructions.

I have included the square of wadding in these kits for those who haven’t yet got a stash of wadding off-cuts, and would need to buy a ridiculous amount just for one cushion. 

However, I haven’t included the panel backing that you need when you come to quilt it as it depends on which method you use. If you choose to machine quilt, I suggest using a square of calico as your backing, however if you choose to hand-quilt, I would use a square of butter muslin or something equally as thin so you can stitch easily without putting too much pressure on the needle, or your fingers!

I have also left it up to you as to which backing you would like, though I do have a tutorial on inserting a zip here. For the invisible zip method I used one piece 7” x 16½” and one piece 14” x 16½”, with a 18” zip. I trimmed any excess fabric before attaching the binding which I did in exactly the same way as I would on a quilt, you can learn more about this in my Beginner’s Quilt – The Binding tutorial.    

I'm really excited about these new kits, and what better way to spread my excitement than to host a Giveaway! So if you would like to delve into the joyful and highly addictive world of English paper-piecing, or if you're like me and just can't get enough, simply enter by leaving a comment below telling me which craft you find the most addictive.
For an extra chance to win, you can subscribe to our newsletter to hear all about our latest products and special offers. 
As it's my birthday week, I've decided to extend this Giveaway offer - a winner will now be picked at random at midnight on Friday 5th February!

This week I'm linking up with Lorna's Let's Bee Social over at Sew Fresh Quilts, and Crazy Mom's Quilt's Finish It Up Friday


If for any reason you are unable to comment on here, you can leave a comment and enter on my Facebook page.

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.

 

A Finished Quilt = A New Quilt Kit

Are you allowed to fall in love with one of your own quilts?? I had an inkling in the back of my mind to make my All Squared Up quilt into a kit, just as I’ve done with my Beginner’s Quilt. So when I came across this gorgeous Riley Blake range called Fancy Free at Doughty’s, I knew they would look great in this quilt.
I hope you agree, I think I was spot on! How cute is this quilt?! I can just imagine it on a little girl’s bed in a bright sun-lit room, or snuggled up around her on a wintery afternoon.

So this is my next pre-cut quilting kit, which will be available in my shop soon, as well as on Folksy and Etsy – once I get a bright enough day to take some decent pics! Why is it only sunny when I’ve got nothing finished to photograph!

This kit will include all the pre-cut 2½” strips in both pattern and white fabrics, plus the borders and binding strips, that you need to complete the top. There is also thread for piecing and full instructions. If you need a little more help, there are links to my free online tutorials that will help you with cutting and sewing, and also take you through making this quilt with plenty of photos.

Today I am linking up with FinishIt Up Friday over at Crazy Mom Quilts – come and say hello.

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New Beginner's Quilt Kits

Would you like to learn to quilt? Or do you know someone who has always wanted to make a patchwork quilt? My Beginner’s Quilt is a free online class that takes you through the three stages of making a quilt – the piecing, the quilting and finally the binding.

The Piecing chapter tells you what you will need, with links to other tutorials that explain what it all means – what on earth is a Fat Quarter? How do I use a rotary cutter? Once you have your squares cut, I explain how to chain-piece (speedy sewing) these together, and then how to match up your seams when sewing the rows to each other. Add some borders, and you will have completed your first quilt top.

The Quilting chapter takes you through the special equipment that I find useful when quilting – the walking foot, and some very strange looking gloves! I then show you how to baste your quilt sandwich, and then how to stitch-in-the-ditch – a quilting technique that will hold your backing, wadding and top all together.

The Binding chapter is the final stage of any quilt, and I show you how to cut and sew your binding strips, and then how to attach them to your quilt top. This is the best bit as when you’re done, you will have completed your first handmade quilt! Time to sit back and look very happy with yourself!

To accompany this free series, I have designed two pre-cut quilt kits, ideal if you haven’t as yet bought the rotary cutter, ruler and mat. 

The 6½” squares, border and binding strips are all cut for you, so you can jump straight onto your sewing machine and get started. The kits also include full instructions and thread for piecing.

Both kits are based on two gorgeous Riley Blake ranges, the first one is very pink and features the Fancy Free range with an added pink and blue Kona Solid.

The second kit features the Giraffe Crossing range, again with a couple of Kona Solids – this quilt would make a great baby play mat or a child’s cuddle blanket, with a colourway suiting both girls and boys – a great gift for a mum-to-be don’t you think.

These would be a great gift for yourself or a loved one who has always wanted to learn about this wonderfully creative and highly addictive craft.

Both kits are available in my shop at sewmotion which I am adding stock to all the time. My full collection of handmade homewares and gifts can be seen in my Folksy shop.

For more quilting fun and inspiration pop over to Sew Fresh Quilt's Let's Bee Social and say hello.