Splendid Sampler Experiments

Really enjoying the Splendid Sampler project and not really for the reason I thought I would. I made the knee jerk choice of using cotton and steel bluebird range as I had fallen in love with it and wanted an excuse to buy the fabric.
BUT this meant I have had a very limited colour palette to work with, mainly blues, a little cream and a little grey. I added a bright lipstick red solid to lift the project.

As we have gone on I find the challenge is to make this work for each block and I love the playing around. However I find the longer I think about it, the less likely it is to work. I think  the subconscious is my arty bit, and if I start thinking about it too much with my scientists brain, it all goes wrong. Guess it relates to ' let the fabric speak to you'.

This my favourite block so far, love the simplicity and the light/shade

This bunny block hard for me, I don't like cutesy applique, but it forced me to get slightly better at the technique. Yay!

Also the challenge of something small regularly suits me   nicely. I love making single blocks, but the idea of loads of blocks makes me feel tired just thinking about it. The latest block 29, was a pretty scrappy heart on a background, and I thought it would be interesting to reverse the idea, with solid scraps and a patterned background. I love paper piecing , the accuracy is fantastic with minimal effort, and I love sewing down marked straight lines.......

1718 coverlet love

I've realised that I find it hard to make multiple blocks that are the same......I get bored easily and my attention span is small.

So the answer for 2016 is to do BOMs, and sampler type quilts.

Splendid sampler is coming along, it is a challenge with a limited palette of cotton and steel's Bluebird....but fun trying to interpret each block in a style of my own

Today made March BOM for Pat Sloan's secret garden, I plan to use up my huge solid stash with only 2 prints/block

But my biggest challenge will be having a go at recreating the 1718 coverlet

isn't it adorable? its the earliest dated english patchwork surviving

made from silks , the silks of the day were hand woven and were in fact a tighter weave than today's silks which fray more.The blocks were paper pieced, mainly repurposed silks, with a little velvet and wool fabric. No batting, just backed...hence it is named ' coverlet'

The quilt guild made a lovely reproduction to show the original colours better

There is a wonderful book about this, and patterns to make the blocks, by Susan Briscoe

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-1718-Coverlet-patchwork-coverlet/dp/1446304434

So much to do........and I've got 4 days off, whoo hoo!!

the splendid sampler and more

Finished my foundation  pieced geese crossing block, cushionised it, love love love the accuracy I can get with foundation piecing.

Couple of ladies are leaving our guild so very happy to contribute a block for each leaving quilt

Aim for 2016 to improve my machine piecing.......have finally worked out I have to have my needle 2 mm to the right for use with my 1/4 foot to actually get 1/4 "seam.

Have signed up to a couple of year long quilt projects to practice my piecing and use up my scraps

Pat Sloan's 'my secret garden', here's January and February's blocks. I aim to use a couple of prints and mostly solids on these blocks, don't really plan them out before, so it  slightly improv as I'm putting it together.

Signed up for the Splendid Sampler, and made a little folding block thingy which has a pocket for your square ruler, and opens to reveal a mini design wall, and  pressing area, sweet.

Also found out how to trim my HSTs properly using a square ruler, zapped on the QR code on the ruler and taken to nice video tutorial on Creative Grids site, brill!. Love it when IT actually helps you, as opposed to work where its always going slow, breaking down or giving you security warnings as you are trying to access work systems!

Today, Ted my schnauzer is looking quite triangular I think.

quilt block clock time

A day off today after two very 'challenging' days in the ER. Woke up to rain and wind, grey.......

What to do?  A lovely little kit has arrived for me to experiment with; make your own fabric covered clock. 

Had been looking at this block I had made for Robert Kauffman rhoda ruth challenge last year, I love it, but not really doing anything  with it apart from smiling when it peeps out from the project pile.

Was not quite large enough, so bordered it with grey spottiness and followed the instructions. 

What I would say is.....try not to stick the supporting PVC to the right side of the fabric, a wrong sided fabric clock just isn't that attractive.

Using a block means you have to be pretty accurate in getting the clock mechanism to come though the middle of the block, and that was very fiddly, but just keep peeling back the PVC and starting again.

Here's the finished project, as you can see done by 0837!
Congratulated myself with a large bagel with jam and peanut butter and a small vat of coffee. Looking forward to daughter coming home from school and saying " Oh no, not not another quilt item in the living room, where's the old clock?"

36 kona colour scraps

Helloooooo
Can't believe its 6 months since last post...well, you've had a break from me.

Into a few things at the moment
Still plodding on doing the lovely ikea quilt from jelly quilts,
http://jeliquilts.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/postcard-from-sweden-aka-ikea-hst-quilt.html 
so got a load of lovely solids as scraps ( 36 colours of kona), so happy to enter Robert Kaufmann comp #rhodaruthblockchallenge
accurate piecing is not my thing, so had to steam and pull, but quite fun to make

Also been learning dressmaking over recent months, had a lovely evening course at the white room SE4 which gave me loads of confidence, although had to buy new non grotty bra so as not to scare tutor/pupils when I changed in and out of draft dress during class, ha ha.I can now alter shift dress pattern to fit my 14 top and 10 bottom, hurray. This is my first dress made from  JL fabric I had to buy in a hurry as got onto the course at the last minute
http://www.thewhiteroomse4.co.uk/

This is Merchant and Mills Panel Dress....a warning, no zip, so once I slimmed it down over the hips, could not get it over my chest without struggle, like a very unsexy strip tease

  Got some lovely natural fleece to make this hoodie ( first knitted garment)

  I asked my best friend to buy me some liberty lawn for my birthday to make this sheath dress which I lined with red satin, love love bright linings!

Also had a bash at embroidery, learning the stitches on you tube , and took a sweet sampler on holiday with me to Spain. This was just as well as it was too darn hot to do anything but sit in the shade and sew. I was sitting on the from of the plane, so as the queue for the loos  was next to me, got lots of  interested looks and comments from passengers as they spotted my little tin box of  pretty aurifil flosses

http://rebecca-ringquist-gpn8.squarespace.com/

 Been looking out for a good pattern for fabric slippers as commercial ones are so uninspiring, found a good one for kimono slippers https://www.ithinksew.com/Products/Details/158.......sizing is a bit out, but thats probably because of my enormous 1/4 inch seams which are  not 1/4 by any means

 Got requests to make them for a friend with teeny feet and my lovely aunt with longer feet to match her endless long legs

Also made a load of hexies on hols, tried the glue method, but the papers were really hard to remove, so will be returning to  basting .

quilt label

Been asked to make a 50th birthday quilt for a friend of a friend.
Friend chose Horizon by Kate Spain which I will use for a double wedding ring lap quilt for a bedroom

Spies have been sent to match the right neutral shade for her room, which turns out to be Kona Snow.
Friend wanted a label, so I found Margo Clabo's instructions for a fabric label printed on your own bubble jet at home. You simply back an A4 piece of fabric with freezer paper, and choose a black and white image and bold the font.

This is how it turned out. I machine washed it and it hasn't disappeared! As you can see I have a few months for this project....

chevrons and ragging

Whilst waiting in  for my wedding ring quilt to come back from basting  (trouble with living in a tiny flat with no floor space), decided to play around with this chevron foundation pieced block.

When I foundation piece, I always like to cut the fabric pieces a lot larger than needed , or else I always seem to run into problems. This creates even more scraps .

BUT, today a new gadget has arrived for me .. a ragger!
I do like a new gadget

So, with a metre of hessian, started to use up solids scraps from chevron block

only a little way to go now.........

shared @freshlypieced today  #wipwednesday
http://www.freshlypieced.com/