Southern Jewels Cushions

 Happy Mothers' Day!

I decided to make my Mum a cushion to co-ordinate with the Southern Jewels Quilt I made for her hospital stay. Her little unit needed a spread of rich Australian colours.Unfortunately I didn't have any of the original Warratah Under the Australian Sun fabric left for the big panel, but I used some of the new range featuring Banksias. I did still have some of the light gold and green  gum blossoms, so that tied it all in.

I made a purple one for my ex-mother-in -law's birthday too!

Here they both are, sitting on top of the fabrics in the range.

I made the cushions by using Leesa Chandler's Southern Jewels pattern and adapting one corner. The back is just a simple envelope style - no zippers or even buttons but you could do whatever you wanted there. You can get the patterns from me, or Leesa's website.

Have a great weekend,

Ann ♥

Nippori Fabric Town

I had a customer in the shop a couple of days ago, and we got talking about Japan and fabric and where to go...

She told me about an amazing distric in/near Tokyo, called "Fabric Town". I googled it this morning and found this You Tube video. It looks amazing! Have a look at the photos on the Tokyo Fashion website link above - Wow!

There are so many amazing places to find fabric in the world. Africa, Indonesia and japan would have to be right up the top for me...

Have you got any other favourite shopping suggestions?

Have a good weekend,

Ann ♥

Hello Luscious Layer Cake Quilt Tutorial

On the design wall: blocks are placed in pairs as they are sewn, to be moved around later for the final layout.

Hello Luscious is the beautiful new collection by BasicGrey for moda Fabrics. There is something about their designs that just really appeals to me. I love their lush floral, slightly off key colour and pattern combinations and their delicious Grunge Basics. I used one of the Grunge blacks as the backing for  the Miscellany Quilt and I try to add a little to nearly everything.

hello luscious Layer Cake: 42 x 10 inch squares across the whole range of fabric!

One of my favourite things to do with a Layer Cake, is make a sort of stack and slash "Blocks in a Box" block quilt. There are lots of ways to do this, but this one is a straight-forward even cut one as opposed to wonky, or uneven ones.

Wonky Boxes

First you open your Layer Cake and look at the wonderful fabric selection contained within :)

Then you pair up squares to get 21 pairs. Mix and match patterns, colours and values. Don't be too predictable.

Next, take one pair of squares and place one exactly on top of the other. Cut a strip 2 1/4 inches wide on two sides. Separate them from the middle wide strip, like in the picture. (I find a rotating cutting mat extremely useful for this.)

Now, position the block pieces so the two cut strips are on top and bottom. Cut 2 more 2 1/4 inch strips on either side. You will now have two 2 1/4" x 10" strips, two 2 1/4" x 5 1/5" strips, with one 5 1/2 inch square in the centre.

 Swap the top and bottom fabrics around in the centre square. These are the fabrics which will compose the first block. You will discover that two 10 inch squares will make 2 blocks in your quilt and that a Layer Cake will make a nice sized throw quilt with 42 blocks.

 Start sewing! Use a 1/4 inch seam allowance and sew the two small rectangles to the sides of the centre square. Press. (I pressed the seams open for these blocks.)

Now, sew the two longer rectangles to the top and bottom of the pieced centre.

 Look at the picture below. You can see how I sewed the top and bottom pieces on, lining them up even on one side of the block. This makes it easier to trim the blocks at the end.

 Finally,  place the blocks exactly on top of each other again and trim the two excess ends from them. Your blocks should measure 9 inches square.

 You can now separate the blocks and see how nice they are, a positive and negative image in fabric, of each other 

I like to put them up on my design wall, in pairs, as I go to see how they look and build up a feeling of how the quilt might look, and where to move things later. You can see it growing in the top photo, as the pairs of blocks are added to the wall.

N.B. See how the blocks are placed so that the long and short seams are next to each other? This makes the quilt very easy to sew together as you're not having to match hundreds of seams. This is also one of the reasons I pressed the seams open.

 When the blocks are completed, move them around to create a pleasing arrangement, spreading lights, darks, colours and patterns across the surface. It's that easy to make a pretty quilt!

I challenge you to have a go at making a Boxes quilt... are you up for it?

Have fun with fabric,

Ann ♥

Southern Jewels Quilt for Mum

I made  a nap quilt for Mum. I finished it at the end of March, but truth be told, I started it well over 18 months ago for a house-warming present when she downsized and moved into a self contained unit in a retirement village.

Being a keen gardener and wild flower lover, she loved the Leesa Chandler Under the Australian Sun fabrics (also used in the Australasian Quilt) that came out a couple of years ago and I put aside some of my favourites to make her a new quilt for her new home. The Southern Jewels pattern is really easy to make and showcases amazing fabrics. (I made it here too, with Saffron Craig Tree Bird fabric.)

Anyway, You can see some of the process of the making here, and Dusty and I would like you to see some more of the details. He just loves to get in on the quilt shoots (and I couldn't move him!)

I ended up just quilting a large stipple all over the quilt, and I'm quite happy with it. It doesn't detract from the fabric and gives a lovely texture. I chose a variegated red quilting thread this time, although i would usually use a plain colour nowadays. I just have a lot of variegateds left and I figured Mum won't notice. It worked nicely this time.

The backing fabric is the gorgeous New South Wales floral emblem, flannel flower. I was born in NSW, the flannel flower is my favourite if the Australian flowers and red is my favourite colour.

I used a machined binding which i put on the same way as a regular hand finished one, but from the back, folded to the top and then sewn down close to the edge by machine. The trick here, is to cut the binding a little wider than usual (in this case 2 3/4 inches instead of 2 1/2 inch) so the seam line looks good on the back as well as the front.

Looks good?

Thanks Leesa, for a simple stylish pattern and some stunning fabrics!

 Contact me for the pattern, and fabrics can be sourced here.

Would you like to make one too?

Ann ♥

How to make an Australasian Quilt : Project in Quilters' Companion this March.

I know you're probably sick to death of hearing about the Australasian Quilt by now, but last story I promise ;)

Here it is again, finally, presented as a project for you to make in the March issue of Australian Quilters' Companion magazine.

I'm very happy with the photos (in the article - not my dodgy iPhone one above) and really wish that was my actual garden. The quilt does look nice, and hopefully there aren't any typos that escaped detection in the instructions ....

I don't  know how much I told you about the making of the Bali Sunset quilt? The original quilt was sold so I started the Bali one to have a quilt to work out the pattern instructions on. I've never made a quilt totally out of Bali batiks and I have to say it was a nice experience. I gathered a pile of sunset hued fat quarters and got started.

Bali Sunset fabrics

Then I started cutting and making notes, not necessarily in that order, to fine tune the pattern. I usually work in a plain notebook and just draw freehand any ideas I have. Then I flesh it out with the maths - measurements, quantities etc. 

Australasian working plan diagram.

The first block of Bali Sunset is complete

And here it is hanging in my shop. I like the way it turned out, a bit like a watercolour painting  with the different batik textures and surface designs.

I would really like to make another version using modern designer fabrics and perhaps a solid white for the sashing strips. It will happen one day, but for now I have a few other things in the pipeline.

A Walk in the Woods

Anyway, enough about me.

On the fabric scene....How beautiful is this?

Aneela Hoey's new collection for Moda, A Walk in the Woods. These two fabrics have just come into the shop and are available online, with some more and charm packs and jelly rolls arriving (again) next week. So if you missed out before, you have a second chance. There aren't many opportunities like that in life.

Have a good weekend,

Ann ♥

How to make an Easy Peasy Little Quilt out of Moda Charm Squares.

 I promised my Facebook page likers that I would write up a tutorial/pattern for this little quilt.

It only takes a few hours to make and is a great stand-by, go-to quick project for a gift for just about anyone.
I've made lots of these, and it's my favourite little starter quilt to teach.

Here it is in gorgeous  Australian designer fabrics: Saffron Craig on top  and a  Melanie Hurlston back.

It finishes up at about 1m - 1.2m square, so just big enough for a baby, child or lap. It's perfect for watching TV, babies to crawl on, decorating a spot that needs it or giving as a gift.

9 Squared Quilt

What you'll need

• 2 Moda Charm Packs with 42 squares each (I used Tend the Earth by Deb Strain in this quilt)

or

• 81 x 5 inch squares
• 1.2m, 115cm wide  fabric for backing something a bit different to the top is fun) 
• 30cm binding fabric cut into 4, 2 - 2 1/2 inch strips across the width of fabric.
• 1 x 1.2m square of natural wadding (I prefer bamboo)
• neutral cotton thread for piecing
• machine quilting thread (I used Wonderfil Confetti in a light grey)
• Sewing machine, rotary cutter, ruler, pins etc.

My lovely Janome 6500 is back from the sewing machine doctor.

This is the combination of Moda fabrics I used in the quilt : Tend the Earth charm squares, grey Sunkissed backing and  a graduated spot from Hoopla. (Could have probably gone for something a bit less of a statement for the binding...c'est la vie!)

How to Make it

• First, open your charm packs and sort through the colours and patterns. You will need to use 81 of the 84 squares in the two packs, so you can straight away put aside three of the squares you don't like.
• Next, lay the squares out on a design wall, floor, bed - somewhere you can see how the fabrics look together. Move them around till you're happy with the placement of colour and pattern.
•  Start by sewing across the rows. 
• Then sew the rows together, working down the quilt. To get the points exact, I prefer to press the seams in alternate directions. For a quilt like this, you can press all the seams in a row in the same direction. Then all the seams in the next row will be pressed in the opposite direction. Very easy.
• Once the top is all together, give it a good press and run a row of stitching about 1/8 inch all around the edge to stop keep it neat.
• Now baste the top, backing and wadding. 

•  Quilt "as desired". By machine, the easiest way is to sew a continuous cross hatch through all the squares using a walking foot and increased stitch length (about 3.5). I made this one a little bit different by using one of the sewing machine's inbuilt fancy stitches. Sometimes I stipple, use a free motion foot and do a curvy design. You could also quilt by hand. Whatever you choose, it won't be hard, or take long, because the quilt is so small.

The quilting stitch is a fancy stitch on the sewing machine.

• Run a line of stitching  around the outside, a bit less than 1/4 inch from the fabric edge.
• Square the quilt by trimming the edges using a rotary cutter and ruler.
• Make the binding and attach using your preferred method. For these quilts I usually do an all in one machine binding which I make by cutting 2 inch strips of fabric and turning them into binding with a one inch bias binding maker, then sewing onto the edge through all layers all in one go. 

*I saw a fabulous post about different machine binding methods on Kathy Mack's Pink Chalk Studio Blog, so have a look there at some other methods used by quilters.)

•  Your quilt is finished and you can throw it in the wash, gentle cycle, gentle low phosphate liquid detergent; tumble dry on synthetic cycle for about 90min. this will make your quilt soft, crinkly and fluffy

You can see the machine sewn binding and the "fancy" stitch quilting here.

Finished.

Of course, you can use any fabrics you like. Sometimes I combine two different charm packs. I've also used just fabric I like. But to keep the quilt and the requirements simple, the finished top has to be less than the width of a regular 115cm wide cotton fabric so you can easily cut the backing. If you're using 240cm wide batting, you can get 1.2m and you will get 2 quilts out of it.

Hope you get time to make a 9 Squared quilt, and I'd love to see it if you do. 

Have you got an easy peasy little quilt you like to whip up for all occasions?

Till next time -

Ann ♥

Miscellany : the Sequel

On the design wall with borders attached

Welcome to Miscellany : the Sequel. 

I realized at the end of the last post, that I had forgotten to upload any pics of the finished Miscellany Quilt.

Well, here they are...

The basting process; I used black quilt wadding for the first time and really liked the effect against the black solid fabric and it made the whites pop too.

You can see my original African Quilt in the background of this. There's a free pattern for it on my website.

I decided to quilt the whole thing in the ditch, which gave a very nice graphic look and didn't compete with the fabrics or block design. I discovered that the quilt fed through easier when I increased the stitch length to 3.5.

The quilt is backed with black Grunge Basics by Basic Grey for Moda - love these fabrics unashamedly ♥

Finally, the finished quilt on my bed.

Bound with the Candy Trees from the Miscellany fabrics.

Thanks for looking and see you soon,

Ann ♥