A plan

I designed this sampler quilt on EQ7 for Festival of Quilts next year… It’s 73 blocks in total.

I thought I’d better make a start and casually do a block every so often- I’ve tacked down some pieces for applique , I just need to sort out the arrangement again slightly and needle turn them by hand. It’s nice to have a job I can do whilst watching the TV. I’ve actually never done an applique quilt block before. True story.

Don’t think that’s all I did last night, I’ve sewn four blocks for a secret project too. I will be able to reveal that at the New Year, but until then, you will have to wait…

Advertisement

Festival of Quilts 2012 piccys!

This is a very image heavy post- just so you know 😉 You might want to get a cup of tea before you continue… I hope you enjoy it, it’s taken well over an hour to put together!

Today I was up stupid early (before dawn during summer) to work on a little agency merchandising job to bring in some more cash. Then it was straight to pick up my friend Gina and onwards to the Festival of Quilts! I got home for 5pm and had a soak in the bath for half an hour with some magazines and I’m back after a lazy KFC dinner! I have about 50 more chocolates to make for my fair on Saturday and  a further 160 to put finishing touches to as well so I think I will finish putting faces on the trufflepiglets whilst sitting in a chair this evening and stress about the rest tomorrow!

Anyway you came for the pictures. There were lots of beautiful quilts that caught my eye and I also took some close-up details for reference later. Here are some of the non-blurry photos- there were SO many people about it was near impossible to get good pictures at times. If anyone gets a picture of the first prize winning mini quilt over the rest of the show please let me know!

And here are some I recognised from the Internet!
This one is by Lu Summers…

This one is by Dvine…

And this one is by Jo on Flickr…

And this Made in Cherry quilt is by Trudi…

And of course there’s the obligatory picture of me with mine. It’s blurry and I look a but dumpy but oh well. Someone did say “Doggies, how cute” and it wasn’t the worst quilt there so that’s pretty good for my first entry! I would have stood next to it seeing what people said for a while if my feet weren’t killing me!

This is the one that won the category I entered. Fair enough!

OK I know you want to see my haul too… This one is of the cutting mat I needed. A2 size and £12 which is bargainous from Creative Grids. I got “free” magazines too- I subscribed to Popular Patchwork which starts next month and I got this copy on the stand. Modern Quilting I picked up because it was out before my subscription but I have a feeling I will still get this issue in the post anyway. I thought I had better have it since my copies have a habit of not finding their way to me in the post. I also got some template plastic. Oh and Fletcher is picture bombing.

Yeah you want to see the fabric don’t you?! I got several metres of solids from Doughty’s and some Flea Market Fancy, the jelly roll was from Gina- I got a free Cabbages and Roses one with my Popular Patchwork subscription and so we swapped as I really wanted Tradewinds. I got a stack of Fat Quarters from Backstitch with my 10% off voucher for using at the show (the two on the left aren’t for me, they’re going to a FQ swap) and some awesome bear fabric which will be made into a certain something for a certain someone who I know checks by my blog so I shall say no more 😉

THEN when I got home my stack of fabrics from the Fat Quarter Shop had arrived that I bought with my $25 gift voucher I won on Svetlana’s blog… YEY!

Let me know if you go too, I’d love to see your favourite quilts!

Penny and Fletcher – all finished at last!

It’s finally done, the binding is on, the sleeve has been sewn onto the back, the paint has been set, my label is attached and it’s in the post…

I’ve pretty much dedicated my weekend to this quilt. Aside from housework, a jaunt to Morrisons, a nap, reading Giant George’s book, watching Snakes on a Plane again and cooking roast beef, this is what I’ve been doing.

Saturday saw me finish the quilting after finally getting to grips with the free motion pre-flight checks I had to run on the machine, then Sunday morning was the painting and doubt stage (thank you to everyone who gave me feedback on the painting!), by lunch time I had set the paint and by tea I had sewn on the binding, made the sleeve (using this tutorial) and sewn that on too. By bedtime the label was tacked to the back and the threads had been tidied up and lint rollered to remove real dog hairs. It’s being posted today!

I would probably make another one. I say that- I actually quite liked the process and WANT to make another one, I’m not yet sure of the subject matter though. I’m planning on selling the pattern from the next one I do so it will take a bit of thought. Maybe a puffin from my photos last week? Or the vintage HMV dog (if I don’t sell the pattern), or maybe even a landscape. I’m really not sure yet but if you have any ideas of something other people might want to make too, you know where the comments box is!

One month today and I will be seeing it on display at the Festival of Quilts! Are you going?

“Penny & Fletcher” Technical details:
Finished size 48.5″ x 30″
Technique: Machine Turned Edge Applique
Fabrics used: Mostly scraps from my box- I didn’t keep track of them all, but there is some Pezzy Print by American Jane, a scrap of my own fabric, some Meadow Friends by Deb Strain and a couple of grey fabrics from Ruby by Bonnie and Camille.
Paint: Pebeo Setacolor in transparent black (with lightener), transparent tan and transparent dark sienna.
Piecing: Madeira Monofilament
Quilting: Machine quilted in thread painting style on dogs, bubbles on noses, squiggles (and name) on white and straight line on blue. Gutermann thread, mostly 414 but some dark grey, tan, dark brown, black and a varigated Aurifil at one point.
Backing: Peach Klona cotton
Binding: White Klona cotton

If you want to follow some other people making their first ever quilts for the Festival, see Ali (though she’s not giving very much away 😉 ) and Dvine‘s blogs…

Want to enter a raffle to win your own custom pet quilt like this? Click HERE!

Did you get here from Lily Pad Quilting’s Pets on Quilt competition? Click here to go back!

Your thoughts please?

I have finished quilting Penny and Fletcher for the Festival of Quilts and I am going to bind it today- in white as that’s the only thing I can see working. I thought about black but I think that will show every little stitch gone wrong when it comes to the very top of the quilt.

So, this morning I fabric painted in a few details and the shadows to make it stand out from the blue background and add a bit of dimension. I am now wondering if I shouldn’t have and I should have left it as it was! I have a choice, take the iron to it and set the colours, or throw it back into the washing machine after I’ve bound it and wash it all out.

Here’s what it looked like before (and before quilting- I forgot to take an in between picture)…

Here’s the original photo…

And here it is now…

So, honestly, what do you think, have I made a mistake?

Oooh look, new fabric….

I am blogging a lot this week. I’m sorry for clogging up your blog readers 😉

Anyway I just wanted to show you some new samples that came from Spoonflower, which means I now have more fabrics up for sale in my Spoonflower shop– yey!

In real life I prefer the blue tinge background seagulls- it’s not as bright as it looked on my screen. The bluey one is also slightly smaller scale as default as I thought there may as well be another difference. I even don’t mind my windmill one so much now 😀

Still looking for people to join the UK borders quilting bee! Here’s the post all about that.

Also I’m at the quilting stage on my Festival of Quilts dog quilt. If you’re one of the people interested in my progress on that I have a Flickr set here that’s documenting it rather than possibly getting boring by posting about it here all the time. I will be adding at least one more quilting photo tonight.

Top dog…

The competition entry top is nearly finished…. all the dog sections are stitched together now. There’s a few bits left to sew that I added on afterwards when I found I left ridiculous gaps. That’s what you get when you’re trying to be thrifty and at the same time guess how something should look just by eyeballing it. Not clever. So I have a few bits I’m going to hand sew, then I’m going to sew the big applique on and then- hold your breath- I’m going to try and wash it on a gentle wash to get all that glue out, which will no doubt make it all fall apart.

In preparation for this (I struggle with monofilament to stop it coming unstitched- is that just me or everyone?) I have ironed some featherlight interfacing over the problem areas on the back. I should maybe handwash it but I’m not convinced it will get rid of the fabric glue- yes I didn’t use glue stick because I couldn’t find mine and I was being impatient!

So anyway, this took over an hour just to square the sides up and get the thing flat. It then took 15 minutes to stick it to the wall without it falling down. THEN when I came down this morning it had fallen off again so balls to it, it’s been folded with all the nasty pins sticking out of it, ready for when I confront it again. Fear not, it will be thread sketched as I quilt it to give it more detail where needed. Not sure about all of the patchwork at the bottom right now though, there’s almost not enough negative space. Any thoughts on this would be most welcome.

***

In other news, have you noticed my blog looks a lot different? It’s nowhere near finished, Matt is helping me sort out a much neater horizontal nav bar and I will be having links to my Etsy shops once I’ve actually put things in them, but what do you think so far? I think I will do a little fabric giveaway to celebrate “the new me” once it’s all done. And some more free tutorials. Cos I want bazillions more followers as a result of all my hard work messing with custom CSS templates without really knowing what I’m doing 😛

***

Dentist after work this evening and I feel like a zombie right now, plus work is painfully quiet and there’s only so many games you can play on your phone to pass eight hours.  In quilt wrestling last night I neglected ran out of time to clean out the hedgehog so I will have to do that when he wakes up tonight too. Not good things.  However I am going to Nandos tonight which sort of semi makes up for it.

OK so a bit more on my quilt…

Sorry, I couldn’t resist- the actual main applique is fully stuck together now for my FOQ entry 🙂

Dogs 🙂

 

I am REALLY enjoying cutting and sticking…

I decided at the end of last week to enter this year’s Festival of Quilts in the Pictorial category. I’ve never entered a quilt competition before (you could say I’ve never made a quilt without flaws too) and I’ve also never made a pictorial quilt which makes this decision slightly crackers, but nevertheless it gave me an excuse to start on an art quilt that I’ve wanted to do for a few weeks (see this post for when the urge started!). It will be amazing to see my work on display with all the other fantastic pieces!

Here’s what I’ve done so far… I made an image map from the photo on the wall and then made freezer paper templates over the top before pressing, cutting and sticking… (starting on Fletcher first):

HOWEVER I am going to be a bit short on tonal brown fabrics for Penny – though I have lots of fabrics that a re largely brown, they have too many other colours in with them- and being a bit strapped for cash I’m going to have to not buy new. The fabrics I have used so far are already in my stash or scrap box. So, this is where the second round of Lucy’s Fugly Fabric Party comes in (OK so it technically doesn’t start for another 4 days but I like being early to the party, and it will still continue over that time, so there :P)

So I propose a brown fugly fabric amnesty!

Have you got some browns that I can have? I don’t need a lot- up to a fat quarter size of a couple of different styles in a few shades is all- in fact charm squares are probably going to be just fine for some parts. Ugly is fine as long as they’re brown, so break out your icky batiks, solids, fossil ferns, marbles, etc and send me them! In return I can offer you an equal amount of colourful and pretty fabric scraps, charm squares (including spare Pezzy Print) and FQs, or a couple of pounds if you prefer, just drop me an e-mail (kerry_l_wilkinson(AT!)hotmail.com) and we’ll go from there.

If you want to see how I’m progressing with the doggy quilt, I will be uploading pictures to Flickr (little box over there –> ) rather than updating here all the time and boring people who aren’t actually interested…

Thanks for your help!

P.S. Would making a pictorial quilt in this way be of interest to you as a sewalong later in the year?