Blogger's Quilt Festival

It's that time of year again when the lovely Amy Ellis of Amy's Creative Side hosts this wonderful quilt party where we can share and be inspired by fellow quilters around the world. Click here to find out more and to see all the truly stunning quilts.

My entry has to be my Rainbow Rings I entered into the Festival of Quilts earlier this year.

Having totally fallen for curved English paper-piecing in a big way, I thought I should really create a show quilt using this technique and decided to raid my stash and make a scrappy rainbow design. Having planned out the shapes on the computer and worked out how many of each colour I needed, I dragged out my many, many boxes of scraps and got pulling - this is how the quilt started...

I then worked on the rings making sure the colours were in sink as they went round.

Then I had a problem - what to back it onto? Originally I had planned to go with the cream as I had used grey in a previous project. But as much as I looked at each version, the dark grey kept calling to me, the colours seemed to really zing against such a dark background - so dark grey it was.

I wanted to make this a totally hand sewing project so decided to big-stitch hand quilt the entire thing... during the hottest summer the UK has known for years! Haha! I echo quilted within each of the EPP shapes and then around the rings, and then added some replica motifs in the negative spaces which I left unquilted.

I was very chuffed to see the quilt on display at Festival and had some really wonderful comments from the judges and visitors, thank you!

I can't wait to see all the other wonderful quilts on display, though it may take me a while, please be patient with me!

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

The Festival of Quilts 2018

What a week!!! The Festival of Quilts, Europe's largest quilt show, never fails to deliver and this year was no exception! Having worked with Doughty's for the last eight years, building, working and then breaking down their five stands, I thought nothing could be harder...! Well, it was just as hard and I feel as completely shattered as ever! Even more annoying, I've come away realising I hadn't seen half of the show, sadly including the Jane Austen Coverlet, so sad!

Anyway, as my first FoQ for Sewmotion, it was a great show, I met so many lovely existing customers, and those who know me from Instagram, so nice to put faces to names! And I also met lots of new customers who had such nice things to say about my products. Here is my stand...

This was also the first time I entered a quilt of my own into the show, Rainbow Rings. I've been showing sneaky peeks of this hand quilted EPP quilt for a while now, here is the grand reveal...

I had some lovely comments from the judges about my use of colour and design, though I definitely think next time I'll make sure I block it properly so it hangs better, oops!

There have been so many pictures on FB and Instagram from the show, half of which I didn't even see, if it's not on the way to the loo, I tend to miss it - in a quiet moment I'll remember to go and have a look at something, then I'll get busy again and forget, I blame my addled brain! However, I did spot a few eye-catching beauties, including this miniature masterpiece from the amazing Phillippa Naylor, always to be found in the Winners Gallery! Circuit Training is machine and hand pieced, hand appliquéd and hand guided free-motion quilted - isn't it stunning!

Alexandra Kingswell had her Creations collection on show, in which she uses mathematical ratios found in nature and bright colour to create these very striking pieces, Let the Waters Teem! (left) and Let the Rainforest Sing! I love using geometry and bright colours in my own work which is probably why I was drawn to this wonderful wall of joy!

One quilt that caught my eye on the very first day, and many others by the sounds of it as it won Visitor's Choice, was Starburst by Elizabeth Wife - machine pieced and hand appliquéd, Elizabeth has then added hot fix crystals to the background to make the star really shine - I loved this so much!

Finally, a few more that took my fancy... Sue Faulkner's Sailing Home and Anna Orduna's 1977,

while this quilt by Ann Pill is a fantastic lesson in thrifty quilting, aptly named Hundred & Thousands of Scraps, Ann has hand sewn 9216 1.5" squares from her scraps alone to make this truly stunning quilt!

So back to normal life.. well until the Great Northern Quilt Show in Harrogate in a couple of weeks' time. Back at Sewmotion HQ, I've finally had time to upload the two Christmas Table runner kits into the shop. This beautiful runner features partial seams and HSTs and comes in two variations - Makower's Silent Night and their Scandi Christmas - you can find out more here. I also plan to get all the patterns seen at the show up online soon, both printed and in PDF form.

Wishing you all a very happy week of sewing!

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

New Jelly Roll sets and Rainbow Rings progress

In more preparations for this year's Festival of Quilts in August, I've been creating some gorgeous new fabric strip sets, and have even managed to upload them into the Sewmotion online shop! I am feeling pretty productive this week haha!

These collections are all from Makower and include Sky Blue and Sequoia, both designed by Edyta Sitar, Sundance by Beth Studley and finally Makower's brand new collection, Bloom, which I have to say is my new favourite - those teeny weeny florals are so cute!

These sets contain forty 2.5" strips, four in each of the ten fabrics included in each set.  I think these are my favourite pre-cut as they are so versatile, if you need inspiration, why not check out my Pre-Cut Party PDF patterns. What's more, if you subscribe to the Sewmotion Newsletter, you can get 10% off these sets over the next week.

Meanwhile, when not cutting I've been working hard on my Rainbow Rings quilt, my latest mammoth curved EPP, hand appliqué and quilting project, and it's coming along nicely - although this weather isn't the best to be sat under a full size quilt! Now I've hand sewn the four rings onto the dark grey background, I'm now hand quilting around each of the segments using an Aurifil 12wt cotton.

Wishing everyone and happy sewing week!

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