Anyone for chocolate cake?

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It was the Sewcial again last night.  The first one in the new Fabric HQ shop and Make HQ studio.  After all their cutting, stitching and sewing, the ladies deserved a treat.
And here it is.  Decadent chocolate cupcakes (yum) smothered in dark chocolate ganache (yum, yum) and topped with a chocolate flavoured fondant flower (yum, yum, YUM).

Teacher cupcakes

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These cute cupcakes were a gift for a lady who is beginning a new career as a primary school teacher.  I wish her good luck and every success in her new role.

Another Pretty Witty Cakes tutorial by Stephanie Janice was the inspiration for these cakes.  Stephanie has the most amazing attention to detail in her designs – the inset stars; the page effect and spine detail on the little books; the tiny rubber at the end of the pencil.  My favourite part?  Drawing the little cat.  Or is it a tiger?  

Jelly roll quilt

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I love this quilt.  It’s bright.  It’s colourful.  It’s cheerful.  Even the backing fabric, from the Happi range by Dena Designs, echoes the theme. 


The pattern is a traditional one called stacked coins but traditional doesn’t have to mean old fashioned.  It looks very modern when made up in these bright, bold fabrics.  

I used this Honey Honey jelly roll, another Moda pre-cut, to make the quilt.  Jelly rolls contain 40 or 42 fabric strips, each two and a half inches wide and cut across the width of the fabric.  As with layer cakes, they are a good way to play with a full fabric collection as there is a least one strip of each design in the roll.  

After cutting, the jelly roll strips were sewn into long columns and then set within a jewel purple sashing which shows the colours off beautifully.  To complement the bright, cheerfulness of the quilt, it was long-arm quilted in a giant daisy pattern using a variegated pink and mauve thread.


The quilt binding, using the green checked fabric from the Honey Honey collection, is a little deeper than I generally use but I think it suits the larger size of this quilt.  At 184cm by 169cm, it makes a perfect picnic blanket or would make a fabulous gift for a young woman off to university.  And of course, it would look great on a bed or sofa too.

New shop launch for Fabric HQ

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Congratulations to Fabric HQ on a great opening night for their new shop last Thursday.  Ok, so George Clooney wasn’t there but he sure missed a great party.    

Rae and Jacqui had kindly asked me to provide some cakes for the launch.  So here we have cake pops masquerading as pins in a pink flurry fabric pincushion.  The cake centres are a mix of crumbed cake and vanilla buttercream – dreadfully sweet but irresistible.
 

Plus sewing cupcakes in Fabric HQ corporate colours as a special gift for Rae and Jacqui, with heartfelt thanks for all their support and to wish them every success in their new location.        

I love the new shop space and Make HQ.   It is light, bright and airy.  A perfect place in which to create beautiful things.  

Bluebird Park quilt completed

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Here it is.  The quilt I made from the Moda Bluebird Park layer cake is now finished and I am so pleased with the final result.

Bluebird Park really is a most charming fabric collection  featuring  whimsical animals (I love the rabbits), balloons and bicycles.  And the colours are so pretty too with a lovely mix of teal, yellow, tangerine, grey and green.

The hydrangea fabric in teal from the same collection was used for the backing fabric and I chose the textured yellow for the binding.  Dancing hearts seemed the perfect choice for the long-arm quilting design and it shows up so well after washing – that little bit of shrinkage producing a lovely vintage puckered look.

The finished quilt measures 150cm by 130cm, the perfect size for a lap quilt or for throwing over a sofa.  It is currently on display at Fabric HQ in their fabulous new shop at Layby Farm, Stoke Mandeville, HP22 5XJ.  

Fabric HQ is moving….

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Fabric HQ is relocating to a new location.   Finally they will have all their lovely fabrics in one place with loads of space for workshops and classes.  
 
Where are they moving to?  These cakes I made for the Sewcial last night will give you a clue.
Yep, you guessed it.  They are moving to a farm – Layby Farm, Old Risborough Road, HP22 5XJ to be precise.  Grand opening is next Friday, 12 September, 10am to 2pm.  I can’t wait!

Kaffe 2014 – The Colourful World of Kaffe Fassett

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A visit to the American Museum in Britain was top of my list of things to do during a visit to Bath last week.  Kaffe Fassett, the world renowned knitwear and textile designer, has a wonderful exhibition there that showcases the importance that colour has had throughout his career.   I have been a fan of his for many years and in fact the first quilt that I made was a Kaffe Fassett design.
This mock up of his studio is a fabulous riot of colour and includes examples of Kaffe’s many skills, including painting, needlework, knitting and fabric design. 
Cabbages are everywhere is the display of some of his paintings, needlework and fabric designs in the green room.

The knitwear and needlework on display are beautiful however it was the quilts that really caught my attention.  They are often based on traditional block patterns, such as this mesmerising version of a log cabin design.  
Or this beautiful diamond quilt…
…with machine quilting used to highlight the flowers.
This fabulous hand quilted stripy quilt was one of my favourites. 
The designs may be based on traditional block patterns however there is nothing traditional about the colour combinations.  Kaffe’s designs are vibrant, bright and saturated with colour.  “If in doubt, add another twenty colours” is my favourite Kaffe motto and one that he clearly lives by.  This exhibition is truly inspirational and is a wonderful example of how we can all add more colour to our lives.


To find out more about the exhibition there is an excellent short video and additional information on the museum website.  The exhibition runs until 2 November.

Look what I won…

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Last week I received a wonderful surprise.  An email to say that I had won a fabulous Posie cushion kit from The Village Haberdashery!  

The kit was designed exclusively for them by Pat Bravo and features lovely fabrics from the Dreamin’ Vintage fabric range.   They have even cut the fabric into the correct sized strips so no need for rotary cutters or struggles with scissors.   Just the fun of sewing.

I am really looking forward to making up the cushion and have already picked out the perfect spot for it.  

Thanks so much to Annie, Caroline, Theresa and especially Harvey (what a star!) for picking my name out of the hat.  You really made my day.

Layer Cake quilt

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Recently I have been experimenting with some of the many pre-cut fabrics available.  Moda is the king of pre-cuts and my latest quilt is made from one of their layer cake fabric collections.  

Layer cakes comprise 10 inch squares of fabric cut from one fabric collection with 42 fabric squares in each pack.  They are a great way to try an overall collection as there is at least one square of each of the designs with multiple squares of many of the plain or small patterned fabrics.  I chose to use this one called Bluebird Park by Kate and Birdie Paper Co. which features whimsical designs of bicycles, rabbits and birds.

One downside with pre-cuts is that you may find that a favourite image on the larger designs has been cut through the middle.   I find this the most frustrating aspect as it is these designs that I find myself itching to fussy cut to pick out a particular part of the design.  However this is a minor quibble.

Before cutting, I squared up each fabric swatch to ensure that it was 10 inches square.  It is probably not really necessary to do this however I find it helps ensure accuracy when cutting and sewing the blocks.  Initially I had planned to use the layout for the Basic Math quilt on the Moda Bakeshop and cut my squares accordingly.

But then I changed my mind, mainly because I couldn’t decide which fabrics to leave out (the Basic Math quilt only uses 40 fabric squares), and decided on a variation of what I have since found out is called Disappearing Nine Patch.  Basically the original layer cake square is reassembled with different fabrics in each of the four positions and then neighbouring blocks are rotated.  

After much fiddling about with the layout, the quilt top is now finished and ready to go to the long arm quilter.  

Sew pretty

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Sewing themed cupcakes?  The perfect accompaniment for the Wendover Sewcial last night, of course.

Decked out with all the essentials, including pins, needles, ribbon, scissors and even hand-painted fabric. 

Based on a Pretty Witty Cakes tutorial by Stephanie Janice, these were great fun to make.  I particularly liked the use of the fondant plaques.  They are very easy to do and look fabulous perched on top of their buttercream swirls.