Category: patchwork

Improv patchwork

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Funny how things don’t turn out how you planned.  One of my New Year resolutions was to write a weekly blog post.  And we can all see how well that turned out!   Well, I am not giving up on my resolution just yet.  So on to my first post for the year.  Better late than never.

Two weeks ago I spent a fabulous day with amazing quilter Charlotte Newland at The Village Haberdashery learning the techniques of improvisational patchwork.

First up was making blocks from scraps chosen at random from plastic bags – with NO peeking!  Given that I have a thing about colours going together, I found the no peeking aspect particularly challenging.   And I was pleasantly surprised at how well my scrappy block turned out (ooh, the Liberty print!).  Doing this with your own scraps must bring back many happy memories of items you’d made earlier.

Improv patchwork block

Improvisational patchwork block

For our next block we were allowed to add in pieces of our chosen fabric (the orange butterflies) along with randomly chosen scraps.  I love the tiny pieces of text fabric in this block.

Improv patchwork block

Improvisational patchwork block

The main part of the day was spent making a piece of improvisational fabric from three fat quarters.   Below you can see what I made after a lot of cutting and sewing.  This was a lot of fun and very liberating.   Need to cut with a ruler?  Nah.  Your seams aren’t a perfect 1/4 inch?  Doesn’t matter.  Want to leave in the selvages?  Go ahead.  What bliss!

I’m not sure I like my final result but this isn’t a surprise as I did deliberately choose fabrics that weren’t my favourites.  I haven’t decided what to make with it yet.  A wall quilt, perhaps a mat for the cat…

Improv patchwork sample

Improvisational patchwork sample

 

Charlotte also showed us how to sew improvisational curves, snowball blocks and sticks.  Sorry, I don’t have photos of these as I was far to busy sewing.

Thanks, Charlotte for a great class and an opportunity to work outside my comfort zone.  I know that I’ll use what I have learnt in future quilts, particularly the improv log cabins and curves.

When it rains, look for rainbows

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Is there anyone who doesn’t love rainbows?  They are so beautiful; a symbol of hope and a promise of better things to come.
 
Rainbow over rooftops

Rainbow over rooftops

The beautiful colours of Fancy by Lily Ashbury simply lent themselves to a rainbow quilt.  Even the press information about this collection described it as being like “rays of sunshine on a cloudy day” and “gorgeous, lush, and drenched with colour”.  

 

The collection was missing a purple so I hunted though my fabrics to find something suitable.  This was harder than it might seem as purple, particularly a dark reddish purple, is not a common colour in quilting fabrics (they seem to tend toward lavender and bluish purples).  Thankfully I found two.  

Purple fabrics

Purple fabrics

The sharks tooth is a fabulous match as the pattern mimics others in the Fancy collection.  The second had little birds on it.  At first, I wasn’t sure if this would really work with the other fabrics.  But then I remembered that in the song, “happy little bluebirds fly beyond the rainbow” so it was obviously meant to be.  

 

The spectrum of colours made a coin quilt design an obvious choice for me.  I had so much fun making my last off-set coin quilt, I decided to use this as the basis for my rainbow quilt.  For this quilt, I used a jelly roll and simply removed any duplicate fabric strips.  The fabrics were used in the same order they were presented in the jelly roll and the same design was used across a row in each of the five columns.  A Flurry spot (Dashwood studios) in light teal was the perfect choice for the background.   

 

I had no dilemmas about what to use for the backing fabric.  It just had to be unicorns.  I mean, what else would you expect to find behind a rainbow?  Visitors to my Bucks Open Studios event were asked to help me choose which unicorn fabric to use.

 

Unicorn fabric from Far Far Away collection

Unicorn fabric by Heather Ross

It was an even split between the green and the purple colour ways of this lovely whimsical design by Heather Ross from her Far Far Away collection.

 

In the end, the decision was taken out of my hands as I could only source enough of the green colour way to complete the backing. Either one would have worked however the green is a beautiful, soothing colour that is the perfect counterfoil for the riot of colours on the front. 

 

The lovely, swirly Curlz (it’s my favourite) was used as the quilting design and a glorious sunshine yellow from the Linen Cupboard collection was chosen for the binding.

 

Off-set coin rainbow quilt

Off-set coin rainbow quilt

 

This cuddly, warm quilt in cheerful, sunny colours cannot fail to  banish dark days and rainy skies.  

Foundation piecing

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Triangles and me; we don’t get on.  I have tried but found them just so tricky.  My triangle blocks did not come out square and as for matching points – what a nightmare!  There had to be a better way.
 
Thankfully the fabulous Karen Chapman came to my rescue.  She has years of quilting experience and claimed that sewing triangles and matching points was as simple as sewing on a line.  She promised to reveal all at an introductory workshop on foundation piecing held recently at Fabric HQ.  I did not have to think twice before booking a place.
 
So what is foundation piecing?  It is a traditional technique where fabrics are sewn together through a foundation material (could be paper or fabric) that has the block pattern printed on it.  The fabrics are placed right sides together, pinned to the back of the paper and then you sew along the stitching line with the paper uppermost.  Easy peasy!  
 
Foundation piecing - materials

Foundation piecing – materials

Above are the materials that I used for the class, (plus an Add a Quarter ruler and an old postcard – not shown).  Notice how tiny those inner triangles are?  Thank goodness this class was a triangle-cutting-free-zone.  Instead we got to work with nice, well-behaved squares and rectangles.   Just in case you were wondering, the numbers on the foundation paper indicates the order in which the pieces are sewn together.   I neglected to take any photos as I was piecing the block however there are loads of tutorials on the internet if you want to find out more about the process of foundation piecing.
 
So is foundation piecing all that it claims?  Absolutely!  Check out the triangles on my finished pincushion and judge for yourself.  
Pincushion - foundation piecing
Pincushion – foundation piecing
 
Thanks to Karen I have now overcome my fear of triangles.  I can’t wait to use this technique to make stars and other more elaborate quilting blocks over the coming months.  Watch this space! 

My new favourite gadget

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I  popped this inexpensive little gadget into my shopping basket on a whim and it is just the best thing.

The corner trimmer was designed to simplify sewing right angled triangles, such as half square triangles or flying geese blocks.  The main reason I wanted to give it a try was because it also makes it easier to cut and sew the bias edges when piecing binding strips (one of my bugbears).    

Anyway, to use this little gadget for binding, I cut my strips and then simply lined up a straight edge of the trimmer exactly on the long edge of a binding strip.  I first cut the diagonal edge and then the 90 degree triangle.  Turning the strip around, I did the same at the other end.  

Cutting off the little triangle on the end made such a difference!  No more guesswork matching seams. Now they lined up perfectly.  


And there were no “dog ears” of fabric to cut off after the seams were pressed open.


When sewing the binding to the quilt, I prefer to use a diagonal seam for the final join.  The corner trimmer made this so simple to do.  It was small enough to manoeuvre on the binding strip ends and the clear cutting instructions made it easy to get the final length of the strip just right.

I love this corner trimmer and can see that I will be using it often.  Binding from now on will be a breeze!