Some Louden magic

I can't believe it's been a month since blogging, disgusting I know, but I have a good excuse! I am very pleased to spread the word that I am now working with John Louden & Co fabric company, designing and making fabric goodies to highlight their gorgeous fabrics, as well as providing full illustrated instructions to help you lovely crafty people bring these creations to life.
Those of you who know me will know that I have always been a fan of Louden's fabrics and have made many a quilt for my old employer Doughty's to display in the shop. In fact one of my favourites, the Chanteille Beauty, came from Louden's!
So, the first project made using Louden's Christmas Scandi range...

I do like the idea of a Christmas wall hanging, and I think the shape of the branches in the tree makes the most out of the linear design in these fabrics. I particularly love the rows of cute snowmen and penguins! I also fussy cut around these images to make up the four-patch border. I used Aurifil threads to have some fun with parallel lines, echoing the tree's branches, horizontal on the background, and then cross hatch on the border. In fact I used Aurifil on all these projects, it is lovely to use and the colours are perfect!
This Scandi range also comes in red, which would make these Dresden placemats very eye-catching on any Christmas table. In the first placemat, I echo quilted the Dresdens, and have more horizontal lines across the background. In the second placemat, I echoed the centre circle to quilt lines 1/2" apart out towards to edge, I do love this effect!

I was also asked to make a non Christmassy quilt out of these gorgeous fabrics, and I decided to stick with the Scandinavian feel and use a simple heart block with an hourglass block to create this quilt that could be used all year round. This one's a biggy, bare in mind that's a king size bed!

In my last project with these lush fabrics I decided to have a play with the Cathedral window block, and came up with this cushion. Quite cute isn't it.

I was also given one of Louden's new blender ranges to play with, and after some block browsing, I came across the whirlwind block, very easy to put together, and as you turn and twist the triangles as you sew, I thought the fabric's stripy design would add to the design.

I made so many blocks for this, I had enough for the back too...

The instructions for all of these projects, except the cushion, will soon be available to download on Louden's Facebook page, as well as their website through your local fabric shop.

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What a fortnight!

Just when I didn't think life could get any busier, the Festival of Quilts comes along. Because I love Doughty's so much, when I left the shop, I promised to come back to do the show with them, and I enjoyed every second, though my feet are still recovering.

As Doughty's have sooo many stands, we spent two days setting up four of them, then the next four days cutting and selling fabric to lots of lovely quilters and sewers. I must admit, I have missed talking to customers about their quilting projects, and it was especially nice to see customers from Hereford who came to say hello.

We decided to incorporate moving our worldly belongings from storage in Hereford to Middlesbrough with doing the NEC, so we had our own van, it was all very complicated in the end, but it worked! This is us building the cut pieces stand, just one of the four!

 

As you can imagine we don't really get much of a chance to walk around the show quilts, but I did manage to snap a few, probably on the way to the loo! I was very impressed with this beautiful pictorial quilt, if memory serves, I think it won the best in it's category. The quilting is sublime.

 

 

One of my favs, Phillippa Naylor, achieved another win with this beauty.

 

These are a few more that caught me eye...

The last one of Amsterdam is lovely!

Sunday was a very late night, unloading vans til after midnight, then on Monday we loaded our own van with the rest of our 'stuff' and headed back up north.

And now the next chapter of our lives begins, we got the keys to our new flat on the Thursday, which meant getting yet another van on Friday and moving all our stuff yet again, but this time, into our own place! And what's more, I have my own workroom!!!

 

While I have enjoyed unpacking everything out of storage boxes, and finding a place of it all, it has completely shocked me the amount of stuff I actually own! I really am going to have to use some of this stash, get the hang of scrappy quilts, and stop collecting every piece of spare wadding!

So workroom all set, bring on the quilting!

 

 

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When I'm not quilting....

 

I've just been to my very first music festival!

This weekend extravaganza is in it's fourth year and was packed with comedy and music talent, both international and local, and they all did the town of Stockton-On-Tees proud.

My weekend in the glorious sunshine, yes, even up north (!) started with Hyde and Beast, a band I wasn't familiar with, but I loved their soulful sounds with a 70s vibe. Next up was probably my favourite of the weekend, Motown icon Martha Reeves and the Vandellas - she was absolutely amazing, and worked the crowd like a true professional. You can't get much better than dancing to a legend, beer in hand in the heat of the afternoon sun!

 

Tracy Hyman Photgraphy

Saturday night's headliners were The Happy Mondays, who were as mad as ever, and as Jus dances like Bez on a normal day, he was in his element.

Our second day started off with Smoove and Turrell, a funk and soul duo from Newcastle, again, not a band I'd heard of, but will definitely be looking out for their album. The next legend up was former New Order and Joy Division bassist Peter Hook, who along with his band, that included his son, performed some old favourites. Now, I have to admit, this wasn't really my cup of tea. To me, he sounded like an angry old man... But I am reliably informed he fell out with his old band, so maybe he has reason to be so angsty! And he'd cut his finger... He son was also amazing on the bass guitar.

Another band I will be adding to my 'to buy' list is Reverand and the Makers, they were amazing, I loved their energy and the constant shout outs to Stockton and Teesside, awesome. The crowd's bouncing to Heavyweight Champion of the World must have been felt in the Boro!

 

Tracy Hyman Photography

 

And for the finale, and what absolutely made Jus's weekend, the one and only Public Enemy. Again, I wouldn't say hip hop is my favourite genre, even though Justin has tried to educate me over the years, but I have to say, I was well and truly impressed. Along with the multi-talented hype man of the band Flavor Flav, frontman Chuck D, DJ Lord, and the S1Ws were also joined by Khari Wynn, a truly awesome guitarist from Memphis. We were treated to lots of old tunes such as Don't Believe the Hype, Fight the Power and Bring the Noise, which they certainly did - the whole place was bouncing!

Tracy Hyman Photography

 

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