Sue Watters at Flowerpatch

I was so looking forward to the March meeting of Flowerpatch Quilters with Sue Watters giving a Quilt Talk, having seen some of Sue's quilts at the exhibition by Shipton Quilters at Cowslip Workshops in the autumn. The evening did not disappoint! 

Sue brought along as many of her quilts as she could fit into the car and as each was unfolded and displayed they were greeted by the members with smiles, murmurs of approval and even gasps of delight. It was so lovely to be able to inspect each one up close and to ask questions of the maker. Many had been beautifully longarm quilted by Sandy Chandler, amongst others, as Sue much prefers piecing to quilting.

These are some pics of sections of Sue's quilts that I took on the evening.
Most of the fabrics that she uses are subdued in tone

and these two are beautifully delicate in their colouring

As is this one - can you see the way that the fabric has been cut to make the interesting border strip?

This was a prominent feature in Sue's quilts as you can see in this pic

and this is the applique centre of the quilt above

again such careful and thoughtful use of pattern in the fabric with fussy cut petals and centres, etc.

We all really liked the cotton reels / spools - a great design for all those scraps. Each block is just 3" square.

Thank you Sue for a thought provoking and inspiring evening. We will all be looking at fabric through enlightened eyes.

The next meeting is on Thurs 14th April when we will be making a small fabric picture of a harbour. Please bring along your sewing kit (to include a needle and tacking thread, pins and scissors) and also some small scraps of fabric.

And a reminder about the exhibitions at Cowslip Workshops this Easter - not to be missed

 - Anita x

Making Donuts!!

Well! I never thought that I would ever be doing Hexagons and English Paper Piecing, but Karen H of Faeries and Fibres has me hooked. I always like to have some hand sewing on the go to keep me awake in the evenings when the TV is on and this fits the bill perfectly!
These are some "donuts" that I have made.

The sides of the paper hexagons I used are 1" making each hexagon 2" across. You can print off some templates with this link to Love Patchwork and Quilting.
I have fussy cut the hexagon fabric to make the patterns and this one is even more exciting as the design is foundation pieced onto the paper hexagon before the six are sewn together.

I have loads more to make for the chair throw that I hope they will become (and a big decision about the centres), but I think I've worked out how I will put them together. I have added small diamonds to the edges turning them into BIG hexagons

And they will fit together like this - hopefully you can see the three diamonds that make the hexagons where the donuts join.

I have had this edging piece of Moda fabric for ages and decided it would be perfect for some fussy cutting

But how to position my paper hexagon templates? My cardboard window template and two small mirrors taped together along an edge came to the rescue and gave me an idea of what they would look like when sewn together, but only an idea as just 5 hexagons appear in the mirrors!

So much choice!!

You can link to Karen H's fantastic tutorials here and a big thank you to Christine for the heads up about "Faeries and Fibres" blog.

Happy Stitching - Anita

40 Years Scrappy Quilt

Maybe it's because we've only recently had Valentine's Day - for some reason I'm feeling a little sentimental and want to show you the bed quilt that I made to celebrate our Ruby Wedding.

This design divides my quilt into 9 sections measuring 24" x 28" and each section, apart from the centre, is made up from the same 7 basic blocks.
All the measurements that I give do NOT include the seam allowance. So we have:

9 pieced blocks 14" x 14" like these

It always surprises me how the same block looks so different depending on placement of light and dark fabrics. In the centre square I wrote out some sayings using my fabric pen, and also added a little embroidery.

8 appliqued hearts blocks 12" x 10"

These hearts all have patches representing all the times my heart has been broken and mended ...... :)
Each heart is sewn onto a 4" x 6" rectangle and the top and bottom borders are 2" wide.

8 vase of flowers blocks 8" x 12" 

These show all the bunches of flowers that I have never received ..... :)
The flowers and vases are appliqued onto various sizes of calico and then random width borders are added to make the block the right size.

8 scrappy blocks 10" x 10" 

These are made up of two 6" x 4" scrappy rectangles, joined by a 6" x 2" strip and with a 10" x 2" strip sewn on both sides.

20 nine patch blocks 6" x 6" - 2 of these in each section and 4 in the centre

12 stripey blocks 12" x 4" like this with the stripes of random widths.

Finally there are 2 strips of fabric 2" x 12" and 2" x 8" in each section apart from the centre. Mostly I just cut these from my stash, but I also had some stripey bits leftover which I used.

All these blocks are put together in a different way for each section. This is one of them where I've drawn around the blocks in grey.

And these are all the sections:

Can you see that they're only slightly different - the hearts and stripes have changed places as have the flowers and the 2" x 12" strip
And similarly with the pairs below

.

and the 14" pieced block is in a different corner for each of the four pairs.

The centre section looks like this

This is a link to a printer friendly pic of the quilt with all the different blocks marked out on it and also measurements for the 14" pieced square.
40 years scrappy bed quilt

Originally I hadn't intended to put sashing between the sections and now rather regret that I did. This is what it would look like without them:

Much more interesting ..........or do I mean messy!!??

I finished the quilt with a 2" plain border and a 2" strippy border using some of the fabrics already in the quilt.

So after all these years of marriage - almost 45 now, how do I know that he still loves me? Well, sometimes he brings me breakfast in bed (far more often than I really care to admit to!) and he arranges my fruit in a pattern on top of the cereal just to make me smile.

Sew Happy - Anita

Wonky Stars and more at Flowerpatch

The February meeting at Flowerpatch Quilters was a Four Corners evening. Ellen, Dy, Dawn and I set ourselves up in different parts of the room to be visited in turn by members split into four groups.

Ellen showed us how to do partial seams. This is a link to Jinny Beyer where you can see how to do this. Such a handy technique to use in all sorts of situations and I can see that it might make calculating fabric requirements a lot simpler, too.

Dy encouraged us to think about the quilt we are going to make for a challenge organised by Jo at Cowslip Workshops. This is called "Through the Window" and lots of brilliant ideas were banded about and discussed. I do love talking quilts with friends because even if you have a pretty fixed idea of what you want to do, other people see things so differently and can improve or simplify your design or methods.

Dawn showed us how to make little folded Christmas trees. She brought along lots of 2" squares of fabric which were folded twice and then laid down in rows on a background fabric to make the tree shape. Each row is sewn down in turn, but at the meeting members assembled the whole tree on the glue sprayed background and this was then taken home by one lucky lady of each of the four groups, to finish off and decorate as she wished.

I introduced members to Wonky Star Blocks. These are some pincushions I made after seeing those on Crazy Mom Quilts. They are just under 4" square.

Such a simple nine patch block to make with no need for templates.
You begin by cutting 13 squares of fabric - 8 of background fabric, 4 of star points fabric and 1 for the star centre.

The star points squares are cut in half along the diagonal.

One star point is placed across the corner of a square and sewn down. 

When this is flipped over it needs to cover the corner of the square and you can see below that one of these is OK and one isn't. When you first do this it might be a good idea to pin the triangle at the points along the seam line and flip it over to check it's right before sewing. Saves on the hateful unpicking.

I could never decide whether to cut away the background fabric or leave it on so that the background is there to guide me when I trim up the square. Monica D came up with this brilliant solution. After sewing on the first triangle, turn it over and trim off any fabric sticking out beyond the background square. Turn it back up the right way, un-flip the star point fabric and trim off the excess background fabric. This way you don't lose your square shape to trim back to, and you can repeat the process after sewing on the next star triangle.

After sewing one star point to 4 background squares you sew on another triangle to each of these, sewing it onto either of the adjacent corners and you end up with four like this .......

These are all the squares laid out ready to sew into the Wonky Star block.

And this is a design using four wonky stars - suitable for a 15" cushion cover.

The squares for the larger stars are cut 3½" and for the smaller stars they are cut 2½".

Also here is a link to an instruction sheet for wonky stars if you'd like more info or something to print out.

We were delighted that Ellen brought along some of the quilts that she and friends had made over a weekend Quiltathon in January. She had been so upset by the plight of the people in Cumbria who had their homes flooded this winter, and wanted to express her sympathy for them in some way.......... and being quilters we make quilts in such situations! Ellen was really pleased with the response from her friends and Flowerpatch members with 20 people cutting, sewing, pressing, making tea, etc etc. The resulting quilts are beautiful - made with love.

Lots more going on during the evening with Joy organising fabric sales; Chrissie in charge of the raffle and library; Karen supplying us with refreshments and Dy keeping us on our toes!

Finally, I have a photo of the "Cornish Cottages" charity quilt that we started to sew together last month. It's now in its layers and quilting has begun.

The next meeting is on Thurs 10th March when we will be making a small fabric picture of a harbour. Please bring along your sewing kit (to include a needle and tacking thread, pins and scissors) and also some small scraps of fabric.

UPDATE: All change for the 10th March meeting as Sue Watters will be joining us for her "Quilt Talk". We are so lucky that Sue is teaching nearby at Cowslip and has made time to fit our meeting into her schedule as well Come along to see her quilts and hear all about them.

Happy Stitching - Anita x

It's a Hoot

Have you seen Sue Spargo's Chicks? Absolutely adorable. This is a link to beadlust blog where Robin has some lovely pics. I love all the embroidery. "Maybe I could have a go at something like that?".and so the idea for my owls was born.

Measures approx 20" wide x 22" high

Being me I had to use up some of my scraps and my son's old trousers for the black background fabric - I was far too keen to get going, I couldn't possibly have waited to go to the shops anyway!

I appliqued each owl (approx 5" high) on to it's own rectangle of fabric (approx 6½" x 7"). I did needle turned hand applique, 

• Trace design onto back of backing fabric using a light box or window if necessary.
• Place appliqué fabric on right side of backing fabric and pin (hold up to the light to see if your design is covered).
• Tack into position from the back along traced lines using a medium sized needle and small stitches.
• Trim appliqué fabric to about ⅛” from tacking.
• From the front undo a few tacking stitches and sew appliqué into position turning under a small hem with your needle as you go. Use thread that matches your appliqué fabric and a small needle.

but could equally well of used freezer paper applique, and I think they'd look good in raw edge applique with or without fusible web. I embroidered them fairly randomly, whatever took my fancy, using very basic stitches. When I had enough of them completely finished I trimmed the rectangles to 5¾" x 6½" and joined them together. I couched a wiggly line of wool between them - don't ask me why - it just seemed the right thing to do. I then randomly sewed some tiny simple stars. I finished them off with a pale cream inset folded strip, narrow black border, multicoloured border and finally black binding.

This is how I made the multicoloured border:

I cut strips of fabric as long as 4 times the width that I wanted the border, adding on 2" for all the seam allowances and another 1" just to be safe ( for a 1" border I would cut the strips 4" + 2" + 1" = 7"). They are just roughly all the same width. I laid them out until they looked OK.

I sewed them together and pressed all the seams in the same direction.

Then cut them into the desired width - not forgetting the seam allowance on each side.

I've named each owl and, rather lacking in inspiration, have used the same names as the storms that have hit the UK this winter. So we have:

Abigail, Barney and Clodagh

Desmond, Eva and Frank

Gertrude, Henry and Imogen

The pale "eye feathers" are appliqued on last except for Henry making him look rather cross!. All the eyeballs are old buttons.

This is a link to the owl drawings the actual size that I did them, showing the order of the applique, but it would have been a good idea to give them some feet/claws/talons first - I so wish I had!

I have really enjoyed making this wall hanging, in fact it's been a hoot! - Anita x

Cornish Cottages at Flowerpatch

Flowerpatch Quilters January meeting is always an exciting one as it's the evening for sewing together the blocks of our charity quilt. Each member makes up one or more blocks with some of the fabrics being provided. These are a few of those fabrics

Members use other fabrics from their stash to put with these to sew the blocks and it makes for a real diversity adding so much to the quilt design.

These are some of the blocks. The sizes are the finished size of the blocks once sewn into the quilt.

12" squares

8" squares

4" squares

and we included some 12" x 8" cottage blocks in 3 different designs

The blocks are put together in a random - looking way.

Much more about this "Cornish Cottages" quilt at a later date. It will be raffled at the Flowerpatch exhibition in August to raise money for the "Motor Neurone Disease" charity.

On 11th February we have a Four Corners evening. These will be Wonky Stars, a clever way with borders, origami Christmas trees and brainstorming the "Through the Window" quilt.

Happy Sewing - Anita x