Tag Archives: patchwork

Emperor’s Jewels QAYG Block 7

13 Sunday Dec 2015

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I made this block using appliqué. If you would prefer to make it using foundation piecing, feel free. I’ll show you how to draw it up and then how I made it.

The block measures 28.5″ X 4.5″. I printed a few sheets of the 1/2″ graph paper I gave the link for in Block 6 and taped them together. Then I drew the pattern as below.

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I drew a rectangle 28″ x 4″ (no seam allowance on the pattern, I added that later) I marked every inch with a dotted line to make it easier to work. Then I drew a line from the bottom corner to the 2″ mark on the top level and from there down to the 4″ mark on the bottom, and so on till I got to the other end. Then I went back to the beginning at the left and drew a line from 1″ up from the bottom left corner to 1″ down from the 2″ mark and so on all the way across. I shaded in the areas as shown.

Now, you can have the zig zag part all one colour but I wanted it to look like a ribbon that twisted so I chose two colours, a pink and a purple. I realise now that I did this the hard way. I cut the pink and purple fabrics into 2.5″ x 4.5″ strips and sewed them alternately together. Then I added a 1.5′” x 4.5″ strip at each end. What I could have done is sewn a 28.5″ x 2.75″ pink strip to the same size purple strip and I would have got the same effect in the end without as much sewing. Oh well. That’s what trial and error is all about. This quilt is a voyage of discovery. 🙂

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Then I transferred the unshaded shapes from the drawing onto freezer paper.

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Then I cut around these shapes using the fabric that would look like the background, making sure to leave at least 1/2″ at the bottom edge to accommodate the seam allowance and wiggle room.

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I then put the shape, shiny side up, onto the wrong side of the fabric and ironed the edges over as shown.

I then placed the shape in position onto the fabric, ironed it to stick down and appliquéd it down and repeated along the row. I left the edges until last. Note that the bottom edges are not sewn and they get straightnened up when the block is completed.

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When you have done them all you can slide the freezer paper out from the unsewn edge, press and square up the block.

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Good luck!

Emperor’s Jewels Block 6 Part 2

04 Friday Dec 2015

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Part 2 is mainly appliqué. Here’s where we finished up last time.

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Now we are going to appliqué some strips down the centre of the middle blue strips. You will need four pieces of fabric 6.5″ X 1.25″. Take each strip and press it in half. Then open it out.

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Then press one edge into the centre.

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And then repeat with other edge.

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When you have done that for all four strips, get your block and mark (I used pencil) the centre line.

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Then line up the fold in your strip with that line and pin it to the block.

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As you can see you don’t want it to go all the way into the centre and you can let it hang over the edge of the block. Then appliqué the strip and repeat with the others.

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Now we are going to make the diamonds for corners. To make your template, draw a square 4″ X 4″ and mark 1″ from each corner like so.

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Here is a link to the printable graph paper I used which is marked in half inch squares:

Then draw lines from the top left corner to the 1″ from the left mark on the bottom of the square, from the 1″ from the bottom on the left to the bottom right corner, from the bottom right corner to the 1″ from the right on the top of the square and from the 1″ below the top right corner to the top left corner. See below.

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Transfer this diamond by tracing onto freezer paper, four times and cut out.

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Take your chosen fabric and place the freezer paper on the wrong side of the fabric, shiny side up. Cut around the shape leaving around 1/4″ extra. Take your iron and press the seam allowance onto the freezer paper as we have done in previous blocks. Then position your diamonds, freezer paper side down onto the outer squares and press first from the front to stick them in place and then from the back to secure them. Then appliqué them to the background.

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Then do the same with the other three diamonds. Cut the background away and remove the freezer paper as we did for previous appliqué and press.

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Now we’re going to place a series of 5 circles down the vertical line. Four will be half and half, black and pink and one will be quartered.

We make the circles by sewing a strip of the black and a strip of the pink together then cutting it into a square of fabric big enough to cover a 1.5″ perfect circle template.

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Remember the centre of the joined fabric is the stitch mark NOT the edge of the seam. It may seem obvious but it’s an easy mistake to make.

Take some thread and sew a running stitch around the circle leaving the thread in the needle when you have completed the circle.

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Trim off the square edges then pull the thread tight around the circle.

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I sewed a couple of cross-circle stitches to hold it tightly in place and finished with a couple of backstitches.

This is what your circle should look like front he front.

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Measure your block so you can position your circles equidistant from one another and pin in place. Make sure you place the black fabric half on the side nearest to the pink square edge and vice versa.

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The appliqué the circles down and cut the background away to remove the Perfect Circle templates.

To make the central circle take two pieces of joined fabric and sew them together to form quadrants, then use the technique mentioned above to create the circle and appliqué it in place.

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Your finished block should look like this.

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My first 2014 project

04 Tuesday Feb 2014

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I’ve finished the coverlet I started in January. It’s all bound, washed, ironed and I’m using it and it feels so soft and lovely.

Here are a few photos.

P1070131 P1070132 P1070135Now I’m working on some foundation paper pieced stars from Don’t Call Me Betsy’s 2013 and 2014 Lucky Star Club. Here’s where I’m up to so far. I’ve done two quarters of the practice star.

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Fabric challenge update

All the fabric for the coverlet came from my stash and scraps and all the fabric for this first star also. I didn’t buy any fabric in January at all. So far in February I’ve bought 1.6m of an Echino extra wide bird print that was only $16.80 per metre. I’ll tally up at the end of the month and donate 50% of my spend to charity as I promised.

 

How to quilt this?

23 Thursday Jan 2014

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P1070124This is the first project that I’ve started this year and it uses scraps and other fabric from my stash, as per my fabric challenge here.

I’m making a coverlet, i.e. only two pieces of fabric with no batting in between. They are nice to use on hot nights when you want to be covered but a quilt is too thick.

I made one a while ago for my husband and this one is for me.

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I’ve spray basted it and now I can’t decide if I want to machine quilt it; hand quilt it with normal quilting thread; or hand quilt it with 12wt thread; or do a combination of the two/three.

Any suggestions?

The Modern Quilt Guild’s Riley Blake Challenge

10 Friday Jan 2014

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RB fabricsThe Modern Quilt Guild is hosting a Riley Blake quilt challenge. All members who applied were given 6 fat eighths of Riley Blake fabric and they could make whatever they liked as long as it was quilted.

The rules were that you didn’t have to use all the fabrics you were given, that you could use any solids with them and any other Riley Blake prints.

I didn’t use the blue gingham and the turquoise chevron in my quilt. This actually surprised me as these are my favourite colours. However the whole process was organic.

P1050616I began with the centre and I used my Andalusian tile templates with the dark grey and the grey and white stripe fabrics and hand-pieced them to make this.

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I had then intended to pair them with the blue and turquoise fabrics. I looked for a suitable background to put the central medallion on but none of the greys I had did anything at all for it. I didn’t have a suitable blue or turquoise solid so I opted for this really bright yellow.

I hand appliquéd the medallion to the background and then had to ponder my next move. I cut a star out of the white spot on yellow fabric using my templates and appliquéd it to the centre of the medallion.

bordersI bought some grey Riley Blake small chevron and used it for the first border and then decided to use the white spotted yellow fabric as cornerstones and make a Riley Blake white solid border with four hexagons from my tile templates made from the orange design fabric and hand appliquéd them on. 

I then added another grey chevron border. I almost finished at this stage but I really have no use for small quilts so I decided to keep going.

I sewed two fabrics together in strips to make a wide border – a Riley Blake white solid and a Riley Blake grey solid. This looked unfinished somehow so I decided to make a zigzag of the white spot on orange Riley Blake fabric I had bought. Here’s how I did it.

I had bought a large grey chevron but it’s size just didn’t fit this quilt so I used it as a template to make the zigzag. I ironed some freezer paper onto the large chevron and traced the zigzag through it with a small ruler and pencil.

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Then I peeled off the freezer paper and cut the zigzag out. Once this was done I ironed the freezer paper to the orange fabric, wrong side up.

I cut around the zigzag with the freezer paper still attached to the fabric, leaving a 1/4″ seam allowance. I then pressed the allowance down before removing the freezer paper. I removed a little at a time fabric glueing as I went.

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I hand appliquéd the zigzag at the join of the white and grey borders with Aurifil 50wt thread. The borders were all only as long as the square of the quilt as I was planning on cornerstones as I didn’t have enough fabric – oops! This meant leaving loose ends of zigzag at each edge to appliqué together once the corner stones were in place.

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The outermost border is a lovely grey and white Riley Blake fabric called Shuffle. I didn’t have enough of this and had to fiddle around but luckily you can’t tell. I added cornerstones of the yellow spotted fabric and then bound the whole thing with Riley Blake solid orange. Want to see the whole quilt?

Here it is…

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Hand quilting

I hand quilted the whole quilt and rather than describe it all I’ll show you some photos of the individual pieces, and the back. You might have to click on the photos to be able to see the details.

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A trip to the Fashion and Textile Museum

27 Friday Sep 2013

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While I was visiting the UK I took my 10 year old granddaughter and my daughter to the Fashion and Textile Museum in London. The Museum was started by Zandra Rhodes and she donated much of her collection of designer gowns and costumes to the Museum. It is now run under the auspices of Newham College.

My granddaughter loves art and fashion and really enjoyed the Zandra Rhodes exhibition that was on when we visited. It included a couple of video interviews with her which were very interesting and even our 10 year old sat mesmerised. Visitors were encouraged to draw a design and leave it on the table in the viewing room. DGD did just that and signed it and put a copyright symbol on it!! Wish I’d take a photo but she may not have given me permission to publish.

The F&TM itself was very generous and gave me permission to show you the photographs I took of the exhibition. Please bear in mind no flash was allowed and these were taken on a Samsung cellphone. They are nontheless gorgeous! If you click on them you’ll get a larger image. Enjoy!

20130823_120654 20130823_120704 20130823_120720 20130823_120736 20130823_120808 20130823_120836The F&TM is really worth a visit if you are in London. They currently have an exhibition which runs until January 2014 called the Glamour of Bellville Sassoon and you can take a sneak peek here. The Museum is located at 83 Bermondsey Street, London SE1 3XF and can be reached via a short walk from the London Bridge tube station.

The Museum also runs short courses and my DGD can’t wait until she’s 12 and can do the “Draw like Designer” workshop. I just ordered the accompanying book for her but don’t let on, it’s a surprise! 🙂

 

The Bed of Rose Quilt is finished, washed and hanging in the sunshine

01 Monday Jul 2013

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The Bed of Rose Quilt is finished, washed and hanging in the sunshine. You might think this unremarkable except that sunshine has been a rare commodity here as it has rained for 10 days straight! More like England than Australia.

Anyway today the sun was shining so I took the opportunity to wash the quilt and it looks so lovely hanging in the sunshine.

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That cat!!!

22 Saturday Jun 2013

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We have a new, white IKEA chair that Mr Tiggy isn’t allowed on. It has a matching footstool that is also out of bounds. I was sitting on the chair the other day with a quilt thrown over my knees. I got up and left the quilt on the footstool and when I came back…

P1060280 P1060281I shooed him off, folded up the quilt and then went off to do something. I had been handquilting my daughter’s Bed of Roses quilt and had left it on the portable table I was using to put my needles and thread etc. When I came back this is what I found…

P1060283 P1060282That cat!!!

 

 

Quilt Market in Sydney

17 Monday Jun 2013

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Yesterday I went to Quilt Market with Kate of Kate Quilts and Erica of Creative Dabbling. I’ve never been before and it was interesting to see the new fabric lines.

The threads at the Aurifil stand were luscious and very cutely and cleverly packaged to make you want them ALL! You can see photos of them on Eric’s blog  Creative Dabbling.

The Leutenegger stand was my very favourite. Remember all the trouble I had with quilting minky and how it came through to the front when I used it as a backing for The Gaz Quilt  Well this minky almost had me thinking that it might be worth another go. What do you think?

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But that’s not all they had. Take a look at these two stunning quilts and then I’ll show you the fabric line they’re made from.

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And look at the back of this one…

P1060272I did ask for, and received permission to take photos for my blog of these quilts but you can see much better photos on the maker and fabric designer, Carrie Bloomston’s, blog here. She also has a pattern available as a PDF download for the Nest quilt that you can purchase there too. What a talented lady! You can also see an online flip book of great projects to sew with this line here.

The fabric line is called Collage by Carrie Bloomston, Such Designs for Windham Fabrics and it consists of 20 fabrics. Here they are:

P1060267 P1060269 P1060271You can see better photos on Windham’s website here.

Just to be clear – I have no affiliation with any of the designers, manufacturers or distributors associated with this line. I just really liked it and I can’t wait till it arrives in the Kate Quilts shop.

 

 

Not airing my dirty laundry…

29 Wednesday May 2013

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I don’t know about you but when I travel I hate having dirty laundry floating around my suitcase. I usually put it in a plastic bag till I can find a washing machine. Anyway I decided to make a travelling laundry bag for my husband.

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I used self-binding seams as per this Craftsy tutorial, both for strength and for looks. I divided it so the laundry could be sorted into lights and darks and I added coloured tabs to denote which side was which. Then I cut some of my First of Infinity black and white print to make a cute label.

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