Sunday Stash #13 & Today's Quilter

Having just finished a big project, I thought it was about time I had a tidy of my messy stash... you know how it is, you get these flashes of inspiration or emergency gifts to make, and you end up pulling fabric and not putting it back... or maybe that's just me!

There are two issues with tidying a stash - 1) you scare yourself silly when you realise how much you have, and 2) ideas for new projects and patterns bombard you from all angles - I'm exhausted!

I did come across some gems though - at Christmas I treated myself to some fat quarters of Mini Pearl Bracelets by Lizzie House, I know it's a strange colour range, but I quite like it and can see maybe some four-pointed stars on a white background... I only have 6 FQs so this one will need some thinking about. These came from The Village Haberdashery who I've just noticed have a brand spanking new website, very nice indeed!

My other recent purchase were these gorgeous teals and orange from Doughty's Je Ne Sais Quoi range - I do love this whole collection, not only are they quality cottons, but they're a whole 65" wide and come in cute ditsy designs. I am planning some new patterns with these babies, and maybe a new kit or two... 

I also wanted to share some great Sewmotion news, we've been featured in this month's Today's Quilter magazine. I'm pretty sure I've raved about this mag before. Aimed at the modern quilter inspired by traditional fabrics, patterns and techniques, this monthly mag features great patterns - which tend to be at least eight pages long - a breakdown of new techniques harking back to the history of quilting, and to top all that, the truly inspiration Lynne Edwards runs a virtual workshop in which she breaks down the basics of quilting - superb for beginners! Lynne also features in this month's pullout in which she talks about her amazing life, her beautiful collection of quilts, and her love of teaching.

There is also a well researched round-up of quilting news and events - the piece on Sewmotion is spot on and very lovely (gush!), as well as features on world class quilters who provide even more inspiration - this month there's a great article on pre-cut queens the Lintotts. So I suggest you get to the shops asap, sit back with a cuppa and get inspired!

This week I'm linking up with Molli Sparkles' Sunday Stash - come and say hello.

Sunday Stash #12

It feels like I haven’t added to my stash for ages, so when I had a hit of inspiration for a new quilt kit, I just had to go on a fabric hunt… which of course ended at Doughty’s! I bought a some of these Riley Blake prints back at Festival in August, and found that a couple of my Konas matched perfectly with this Fancy Free range. 

One of my many grand plans has always been to bring out a collection of pre-cut fabric sets, with quilt kits to go with them. I decided to go back to my Beginner’s Quilt and made this cute and very girly version, and then developed a kit designed to encourage and help those new to quilting. 

Each kit will contain 36 6½” squares, the border and binding strips to make the top, plus grey Aurifil thread for the piecing, and full instructions with links to the photographic free tutorial on sewmotion.com. These will be available in my shops very soon.

My Stripper sets are now available to buy in my Folksy and Etsy shops, where you have a choice of Rainbow, Hot and Cool colourways. 

Each set contains twenty 2½” x 44” strips in Kona Solids. Add some white or a soft grey as a base colour and you can make so many different designs, including my All Squared Up and my Fox in the Nine Patch quilts.

I’m also very excited to announce that I will be at Stockton’s Sparkles Christmas Market this year. I’ve not attended this event before, but looking at pictures from last year, and talking to other local small business owners, it sounds like a great four-day market with 30 log cabins for us independent sellers, plus Christmas lights, carols and hopefully mulled wine to get us all in the Christmas spirit. This festive fun will be in Stockton’s lovely redeveloped town centre from 26^th to 29^th November.

As you can imagine, the next couple of months are going to be very busy building up stock for a four-day market… eek!! A couple of other new products I’ve been working on are these two cushions. Inspired by Sew Fresh Quilt’s Dog Gone Cute QAL, I designed these using the stitch & flip method. They take a while to make but I’m really pleased with them, Parmo (a Middlesbrough food ‘delicacy’) and the phrase T-T-Teessider are both unique to my local area, but I’m thinking I could adapt these to all manner of phrases… when I find the time.

  

Before the ‘mass production’ starts, I’m looking forward to running another workshop for Doughty’s next weekend. This time we’re doing my Snowballs in Spring quilt, can’t wait to meet my quilters and have some fun!

A friend is holding a Macmillan coffee morning next weekend, which I’m sad to be missing, but I have managed to make a quilt for her to auction off - sometimes I just love my stash! Hopefully she’ll be able to raise a bit for a very worthwhile cause, which let’s face it, most of us sadly have reason to know about these days.

For more quilting fun and inspiration from around the world, pop over to Molli Sparkles’ Sunday Stash – I’ll see you there.

Sunday Stash #11 – Cider & Fabric

This weekend Hereford held its annual Beer on the Wye Festival, and of course we just had to go, even though its now over 200miles away! As well as some gorgeous beers, particularly an American Pale Ale… there were over 100 ciders and Perrys, most of them made locally. I didn’t manage all of them, but I had a good try! My favourite had to be Weston’s Rhubarb cider, amazing!

Before all this drinking fun however, I indulged in a little fabric fun at Doughty’s – I’d seen these greys online a while ago, and managed to stop myself buying the lot from the website, but when I saw them in person the battle was lost and I gave in. These beauties are from the Flitsy range from John Louden (surprise surprise!) – there are more in the range which I’m sure I’ll end up buying at the Festival of Quilts next month. I’m sure Doughty’s only ask me to work for them knowing I’m going to spend most of my wages on their fabric! 

Mind you, they’re not wrong, and I have a feeling I will be adding to my next purchase quite soon. I have a new love… Riley Blake. These bicycles are so sweet, and with a whole range of co-ordinates and other super cute ranges, there’s no point in even trying to resist!

Now a quick shop update… I have released my sixth quilt pattern, Side to Side, a clever little pattern that will have your friends guessing for ages, it certainly took me a while to work it out! This design uses just two templates, a jewel and a triangle, which with clever placement, creates this zigzag pattern across the quilt. I used some fabrics in my stash from the Je Ne Sais Quoi range, but I think this quilt would also look equally as effective in solid colours.

This pattern, together with five more, is available in both PDF format (£5.95, Etsy) and in Paper format (£6.95, Folksy).

Thank you for stopping by, your comments are always welcome. If you're looking for more fun and inspiration, why not pop over to Molli Sparkles' Sunday Stash link-up? 

Sunday Stash #10 - Thread

I thought I’d talk about another kind of stash this week… thread. As sewers we all know how sometimes our collection of spools can get nearly as silly as our fabrics! But how should we store them? Like many I would love a wall of wooden pins sticking out for each reel to sit on, then I could easily find the right colour for my project. However, lack of space means I’ve had to find an alternative.

I used to have them in a wicker basket, which worked for a while, but I would have to turf them all out to find a colour, and then they soon became unwound and tied up with each other – a right mess!

On a recent visit to my mum’s, I ventured into the cellar, my late dad’s domain. Now, dad was a bit of a hoarder to say the least. Not like useless stuff no one would want, but intriguing stuff that made you wonder “where on earth did he find that?” Dad was amazing, he could turn his hand to anything, the ultimate DIYer, from re-wiring the whole house, to building a veranda, to keeping his trusty old Renault 12 going for 21 years – myth has it that there’s a ‘spare’ Renault engine in the cellar somewhere, just in case he needed it…

Anyway, I digress… on my rummaging, I came across these two large glass jars, and immediately thought “threads!!” Covered in dust and the odd spider, we gave them a good clean and they now sit on my windowsill full of my colourful gems, next to my button jars. They also remind me of my dad, which is nice… until I then remember he was a science teacher – and these large specimen jars may have held something altogether more yucky…  urgh!

How do you store your threads?

On another note, now my nephew has received his quilt (I think he liked it), I can release my latest pattern, Cross My Heart. I mentioned this quilt last week in my tutorial on speedy chain-piecing – this pattern includes fabric requirements, full colour cutting and piecing instructions and a colour layout plan. The PDF is available from my Etsy shop, while the Paper pattern is available in my Folksy shop.

For more quilting love and inspiration, pop over to Molli Sparkles’ Sunday Stash link-up. Or some mid-week fun, why not visit Let's Bee Social over at Sew Fresh Quilts.

Sunday Stash #9 and a Doughty’s Special

When I sorted out my fabric stash a few weeks ago - ironed and folded all my lovely fabrics, then stood them on my shelf, in colour order - I was very pleased with the outcome, and also a little scared by the amount of fabric I own! I do believe in the mantra “you’re not a proper fabric addict unless you have a ridiculous horde”, but this was just silly! So I did try and vow to only use my stash for upcoming projects… 

...until that was good old Doughty’s announced a new range to hit their shop… Je Ne Sais Quoi (or Menage a trois as I called it in my quilt group, oops!) 

These fabrics are designed and printed in France on good quality cotton and are 60” wide. AND… they’re only £4.99 p/m. Now I was a little sceptical… surely at this price, they couldn’t be that good quality… I just had to find out, which of course meant buying more fabric. Ahem…

 

As well as a couple of novelty designs, this collection also has a good range of ditsy and geometric basics, and these are what I went for, in these three colourways.

 I also ordered a few of their Ditsy Basics range to check the scale, I love the chevrons!

They are all great! I love the colour combinations, they feel nice and have a good weight. As usual I couldn’t wait to cut into them (stash? What stash??) They were delivered on Thursday and I’ve managed to design and make a quilt top in the blue/green range, as well as make a cute little turtle for a friend’s little girl, isn’t she sweet! I do love this colourway of orange and pink together, and the soft grey through all the colourways seems to bring them together.

On about a new quilt, I decided to dig out my Hex and More ruler that I bought at QuiltCon and have a go at half-hexagons. However, full hexagons and triangles took hold yet again, and after much muttering and tutting I came up with this design, which I think I’ll call From Side to Side. I’ll be working on the pattern next week, but I’m quite pleased with it in my new fabrics.

Finally, I’d just like to add my finished mini quilt from my last blog, I do like how the grey sets off the multi coloured diagonals. 

I hope you have like my ramblings, thank you for visiting. If you would like to leave a comment, please do, and if you would like more inspiration and ideas, why not pop over to Molli Sparkles’ Sunday Stash link-up, and Let's Bee Social over on Sew Fresh Quilts.

Sunday Stash #8, Boro and Two New Patterns

A couple of weeks ago we went to visit my mum in London, which just happened to be the same weekend Middlesbrough Football Club were playing at Wembley… we honestly didn’t plan it this way! As some of you may know, Justin is a Boro fan, and I myself have been known to go to the odd game. including Ostrava in the Czech Republic, and Eindhoven for the Uefa Cup final, I'll have you know! Me a glory seeker?? Never!

Anyway, Justin was lucky enough to get a ticket for the Monday, and after seeing a friend Sunday afternoon, we decided to wonder over to Trafalgar Square where we’d heard Boro fans were starting to congregate. Now, I don’t know if this is just with Boro fans, or it’s the same with other family clubs, but I can honestly say that I love being around these fans. Not only are they the most friendly of people, but they really will have a laugh with anyone! I especially found this on a 5hr journey on a Czech train going from Prague to Ostrava! But that was a lifetime ago!

I’ve heard there were approx. five thousand fans in Trafalgar Square that night, and yes, some were climbing on the statues, and there may have been the odd half naked body in the fountains, but there was also such a great atmosphere, loads of families with young kids, lads a little tipsy on London-priced beer, and just a great joy of being there and sharing the hope for the match the next day. Does this happen with other teams?? I really don’t know. There was no trouble all night, all weekend for that matter. The only dampner on the whole thing was that the actual team ‘failed to turn up’ as the pundits say, and lost 2-0.

As we were in London, I of course had to visit Liberty. So having sent Justin off to Wembley, me and mum went ‘up west’ where I had heard the landmark store had recently revamped their haberdashery dept. I was not disappointed, its beautiful and I strongly recommend a visit. Rather than having the tables of goodies around the balcony, there is now a separate room with even more kits and sets and general gorgeousness than ever! So inspiring! The scarf hall also looks amazing at the moment.

Unfortunately, as much as I love Liberty, working for myself at the moment means I can’t really justify buying their fabric. So how happy do you think I was when on Sunday morning, having walked around Spitalfields craft market, then Brick Lane to find The Rib Man, (best ribs ever!!!) we came across a back street fabric merchant, owned by a very smart older gentlemen. Sadly I can’t remember the name of the shop, or exactly where it was… hopefully I’ll find it again one day. Not only were there some beautiful dress fabrics, suitings, and heavier weight cottons, but I also found a horde of beautiful Liberty prints, for about half price! I recently bought this dressmaking book, with great intentions, so I treated myself to a couple of metres of each of these. I’m hoping to make a summer top or two… if not they’ll make lovely soft quilts!

Talking of quilts, I thought I’d just share my latest pattern releases with you. First we have Floating Lilies…

This bright and modern quilt is based on hexagons and 60degree triangles, which when used together, avoids having to tackle those tricky Y-seams. The pattern also features partially-seamed hexagons for which I have added a new free tutorial here to whet your appetite! I have also included suggestions for pieced backing and for quilting your finished top. I am particularly pleased with the back where I decided to do more partial hexies, but in the oppposite colourway.

My second pattern is Snowballs in Spring, based on the traditional and very simple snowball block.

I was amazed at how quickly this quilt came together, and plan to make more of them. I decided to sew the blocks in a wonky Trip Around the World pattern, but I became worried it wasn’t working, the fabrics seemed a little too busy to show off the design. However, after a ponder over how to quilt it, I thought concentric circles emanating from the design’s centre square may bring the pattern together, which I think it has, I’m now very happy!

Both of these patterns include fabric requirements, full colour cutting and sewing instructions and layout plans. There is advice and suggestions on backings and quilting and I have included Helping Hand hints and links to my free online tutorials to guide you along the way. These patterns are available from my Folksy shop, in both PDF format (£5.95) and paper format (£6.95).

I hope you have like my ramblings, thank you for visiting. If you would like to leave a comment, please do, and if you would like more inspiration and ideas, why not pop over to Molli Sparkles’ Sunday Stash link-up.

For a bit of mid-week socialising, why not pay a visit to Let's Bee Social over on Sew Fresh Quilts, I do love this lady's work!

Sunday Stash #7

On a recent visit back to Doughty’s in Hereford, I spotted these beauties and couldn’t resist a purchase or two! These retro floral prints are from John Louden, are 60” wide and 100% cotton – perfect for quilting, backings for small quilts, and for pretty little dresses. I know I’m a little biased, for Louden’s really are coming out with some lovely designs at the moment.

I’ve only bought half metres for now just to have a play with, but will definitely be back for more, the birdies are so cute!

For my first project, I went for my favourite colours – why am I always drawn to blue and red?? 

I wanted to make a simple quilt, (which will hopefully become a pattern available to buy soon,) and I’ve always loved the effect made by the Snowball block, and what’s more, its so simple to put together! So, this weekend, among many other projects, I intend to make up lots of these blocks, and then play around with the layout to see what happens. Don’t you just love how different placements can give you so many looks?! 

On about ‘other projects’, I thought I’d share a sneaky peak of another quilt I’ve been working on, and guess what… its hexies again!! This really is becoming an obsession, or maybe I just love to drive the maths side of my brain crazy! I can’t wait to quilt this…

Finally, just a reminder that I have a new pattern available to buy – Hazy Hexies – again this one taxed my brain with foundation piecing templates and layout diagrams. This is definitely one for the more accomplished quilter, but its so fun to make, and if you need a refresher, my online tutorials will help you along the way. I do think this quilt would look great in solid colours, why not give it a go? For full details, check out my Folksy shop.

Thank you for stopping by, your comments are always welcome. For even more inspiration, please go and have a peak at some great blogs over on Molli Sparkles’ Sunday Stash. Have a great quilty week everyone.