Wednesday, September 30, 2015

Quilting straight lines | Christine Baker - Fairfield Road Designs


Do you ever find yourself procrastinating with a project that you aren't sure how to finish? This happens to me too, and this month I had one that I've been postponing for WEEKS!! Sometimes with a customer quilt I have to look at it for a few days before I get inspired by an idea for the quilting. With THIS quilt the customer specified that she wanted straight lines quilted in two of the borders, so I just had to decide how to quilt the third border and the centre of the quilt.  I came up with some ideas, but even though I knew how I would quilt it, I STILL kept finding other things to do first. My customer went on vacation for 3 weeks and I knew she would be home soon, so this week I FINALLY got it loaded on the machine, took a deep breath and started to quilt!!

Tuesday, September 29, 2015

Autumn Inspiration: Helen Philipps


 We are having perfect autumn weather here at the moment...........golden days with chilly cosy nights........bright blue sky, sunshine, berries, fruits, butterflies (in autumn colours) and mushrooms and toadstools to discover on our woodland walks.....  .................and here are some of my autumn inspired makes......a pumpkin pillow......  ............and some fabric pumpkins.....these are projects from my new book *modern vintage gifts*..... ........i am pleased to tell you that all the templates in the book are the actual size for working from so no need to enlarge them in a photocopier :) ..................

Monday, September 28, 2015

Pink - Ta Da! - Machine Quilting With Style Blog Hop


Here is a new quilt finish, Pink. The pattern is called Lightning and it is from my friend Christa Watson's new book, Machine Quilting With Style. Today is my stop on the blog hop for this great new book. You can read the story behind this pattern over at Christa Quilts today - go here. I was very excited to be included in Christa's blog hop. Christa and I have become internet friends and we even got to meet in person at Quilt Market and at QuiltCon. She loves machine quilting, and you know I love machine quilting, she wants to encourage more people to show modern quilts at quilt shows, and so do I, well, you get the picture, she is a kindred quilty spirit.

Friday, September 11, 2015

Summer Fun of Quilts, Published and Tutorials! | Jackie's Art Quilts


Does the summer really translate to 'I am too busy quilting and enjoying family life to post?' Maybe this summer it did for me. I have had some fun though.   It is such a thrill to see my quilts in print.  Here is my 'Falling Leaves' in Quilter's World magazine.  I designed it on EQ7 and used Riley Blake Fabrics and WonderFil thread to create it. Then I got a little hooked on doing videos... but still have lots to learn, like turn the phone the other way!  The best part is my 2 sons, 10 and 11 years old were my camera men!

Thursday, September 10, 2015

Paper piecing - a mini tutorial | she can quilt


I don't have all my usual pincushions unpacked, but I did unpack this tiny one from Mad About Patchwork. They sent it to me for shopping at their sidewalk sale (I think it was a sidewalk sale, but I shopped on line) last summer. It is nice as it is filled with some kind of heavy sand item and stays put. So I loaded it with flat topped pins. I use these pins to position and hold the first piece of fabric when I paper piece, as one can fold over these pins and iron over them. Of course the ironing seems to contribute to the flowers falling off the pins so try to avoid that part.

Wednesday, September 9, 2015

A quilt of another colour | Christine Baker - Fairfield Designs


One of the BEST things about designing in quilt patterns is getting to see the quilt made in a different selection of fabrics! This pattern is called "Stella Violet", after Nellie's cute little grand daughter, and last week I got to quilt Donna Taylor's version of our pattern. Not for the faint of heart, this quilt pattern has blocks that have 49 pieces in them, but Donna likes a challenge, so not only did she make the quilt, but she made it twice as big!! And for her colour palette she used white as a background with dusty blue, rose, pink and grey fabrics. It turned out just beautiful!!

Tuesday, September 8, 2015

Harvest JOY Stars and Basket Block | Sew Joy Creations


#fullpost{display:inline;} Just in time for some long weekend sewing! The next block in the Harvet JOY wall hanging is ready. For the pattern this will be the block you see. Somehow I had missed finding this background fabric in my leftover stash from my Halloween 1904. It has tiny little stars on it! The fabric inspired me to play with the color of my stars and so now I have one grey basket with burgundy stars.  {which has inspired another project - for later!} Link to Stars and Basket Block instructions

Monday, September 7, 2015

Hexies On The Farm Tutorial | Jackie's Art Quilts


I am back!  I finished two quilts today, they are off to the publisher so am super excited about that. And breathing a little sigh of relief as well. My family has been heading up to my favourite place in the world each weekend - my grandparents farm. Last weekend, I decided that it would be fun to try a youtube video on my easy way to make hexies. My only problem is that I didn't have a camera man. In stepped my 10 year old son to do the job. We did 3 takes and I love the last one. We even have cows photo bombing it!  How cool is that.