There was a wonderful display of beautiful quilts at Flowerpatch Quilters February meeting. The room was packed with members who knew that a real treat was in store. We were delighted to welcome local longarm quilter Sandy Chandler who brought along her own quilts and many that she has quilted for others.
I know that my photos can't possibly do her quilting justice, but hopefully you can get a taste of this talented lady's skills. Many photos are of the backs of quilts where you can really appreciate the quilting stitches and designs.
Sandy bought her longarm quilting machine in 2008 and practised on it daily for two years before she felt proficient enough to stitch a quilt belonging to someone else. Practise .... practise ..... practise was her motto and you will get better and better, and more and more confident in your abilities.
Sandy loves to do hand-guided quilting and rarely uses a pantograph pattern as she finds the designing challenging and fun, making the design suit the patchwork.Some of the quilts she showed us had taken as much as 100 hours to quilt and quite a few had won prizes at the Festival of Quilts.
Thank you, Sandy for such an inspiring and entertaining evening.
Flowerpatch's next meeting is on 8th March 2018. Jo Colwill of Cowslip Workshops will be there to do some sewing with us so please bring along your sewing kit.
Happy Quilting - Anita x
There were quite a few Twinchie blanks left over after Flowerpatch Quilters Christmas Twinchie Party and there they sat on my side table looking at me and demanding to be stitched ...... not that I needed much encouragement - I love sewing Twinchies.
I decided that I'd like to do a set of themed Twinchies to display as a group and here they are - Twinchie Art Class.
I was inspired by hearing about Derwent Inktense pencils (I had some for Christmas) from some fellow quilters from UKQU, so what better subject than the paintings of famous artists.
These were made using the Inktense pencils and stitching
These were made with applique and stitching
This one is simply threads oversewn with a grid of invisible thread stitches
and even the background represents yet another artist
I hope that you can recognise some of the artists or my idea could be a complete failure ...... :) - they look pretty cute anyway and were great fun to do.
I'm linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts - Finish it up Friday
Happy sewing - Anita x
My latest design with 6 minute circles is "Split Circles" and in some very cheery colours to brighten up those dark rainy days.
Split Circle Blocks
I started this mini quilt by making up 5" squares of strips of fabric and this time I pressed all my seams open. I make them at 5" which is larger than the finished circle block of 4½" as mine inevitably turn out a bit wonky and I have to trim them!
I cut the squares in half and then sewed a wedge shaped piece of my background fabric between the two halves. I hope you can see the measurements written on my pic - it is 5½" long, ½" wide at the narrow end and 1¼" wide at the other end. After sewing the seams are pressed away from the wedge fabric.
My post here shows how to do the circular hole in the background fabric. My circle this time is a little over 3" and when I place it over the stripey fabric I simply make sure that the edges of the stripey square are covered by background fabric and that the two halves of circle look about the same size. This way I can get good variation in the angle of the wedge.
Wonky Blocks
To make the wonky blocks I cut four coloured squares of fabric each measuring 2¾" x 2¾" and two strips of background fabric 1" x 5½", one of which I cut in half.
I sew the shorter pieces of background fabric between two pairs of coloured squares, pressing the seams away from the background fabric.
I check that I have a nice straight edge to sew the long strip to, trimming if necessary,
and I fold the long strip in half and make a crease mark which I position in the centre of the shorter strip. This crease helps me to get a nice + of background fabric in the centre of the block.
After sewing I press the seams away from the background fabric - sorry, I know I keep repeating this but it makes all the difference.
Now I do the wonky bit using a plastic ruler and rotary cutter. Because I want the + of my block to be in the centre, and the size of the block once cut to be 4½" square, I find the mark that is 2¼" from two adjacent sides. I've marked it with a black dot in my pic. I make sure that this is in the centre of the + and that I haven't rotated the ruler too much, before I cut with the rotary cutter.
I don't want all the blocks to rotate the same way so have to change the placement of the ruler for every other one.
All Put Together
This is my mini quilt after sewing the nine blocks together.
I'm pleased with how it looks, but my original intention was to use those little circles that I cut from the background fabric. Dither....dither....dither......... In for a penny, in for a pound! So I sewed them to the centre of the wonky blocks ....... I like!
I quilted around the half circles and the coloured shapes using the walking foot on my sewing machine
And then I free motion quilted in unevenly spaced, and a bit wonky, lines to add lots of texture to the background. For the binding I used one of the darker fabrics in the quilt.
With a bit of photo editing this pic gives an indication of how the two blocks would look in a larger quilt.
I think that this will be my last 6 minute circle design in this particular format, although definitely not the last time I sew some lovely circles - I can't quite believe how easy they have proved to be.
Here are the 3 previous designs with links to their posts
See-Through Circles
Keyhole Circles
and Moon Circles
I'm linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts - Finish it up Friday
Thank you for visiting and happy stitching - Anita x
