Archive for the 'patchwork' Category

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365 : 116

Published on April 28, 2011 in 365, home, patchwork, stitchery and textiles. 4 Comments Tags: 365, Denyse Schmidt.

April 27, 2011 : vintage kimono patchwork table runner

I recently brought out one of my most favourite things I’ve ever made. It’s a table runner that I made in a class taught by Denyse Schmidt at Make in NYC. This was years and years ago, before the workroom was even a twinkle in my eye. Denyse supplied all the materials, so I ended up making something I never would have chosen for myself but I’m still (to this day) so in love with it. You can’t really see, but it is backed with a solid mustard fabric. Brilliant. I never would have created this on my own! It is such a gift to learn from others around you.

I think I also love that it reminds me to try something different.

SUNDAY PATCHWORK #5

Published on March 26, 2011 in patchwork. 3 Comments Tags: Liberty of London, mauvey, sunday patchwork, V&A Patchwork Pattern Maker.

Last Sunday, my patchwork was basically the opposite of improv. I’ve been wanting to make some progress on my ‘Mauvey Quilt’. This is a quilt design that was generated from the V&A Patchwork Pattern Maker last year when I uploaded a photo of one of my favourite Liberty of London prints, Mauvey.

I spent a couple weeks assigning colours & fabrics to the colour key, then cutting out squares for both the square pieces and the half square triangle components. Oh yes, this is going to be a Queen-sized quilt. So, that was a heck of a lot of cutting. The final square size is 4.25″. I’m working through the quilt in 36 square increments (6 squares x 6 squares). There are 24 sections. I have now completed 2 sections. Here is the first. This is the second section.

Piecing this pattern requires a lot of attention. I have everything marked out and I am constantly referring to the pattern at every stage, multiple times. This entire quilt is a precision moment.

Though slow going, I love working on it. I’m intrigued by the pixel-y look of it. It’s going to be so fun to watch the sections come together. Luckily I’m feeling very patient with this quilt.

SAMPLER QUILT 2

Published on March 25, 2011 in patchwork and the workroom. 12 Comments Tags: improv patchwork, quilt sampler 2.

Sampler Quilt 2 class finished two weeks ago. It was a glorious ten weeks putting together this beauty of a quilt top. I don’t think I’m the only one from the class suffering from a bit of withdrawal. Thursday nights just don’t feel the same.

Johanna designed this next Quilt Sampler version to be bigger and more challenging. I do feel like I underwent some quilt boot camp and learned so many valuable lessons that will make me a better quilter. Firstly, I never fully understood the value of finger pressing and careful ironing. The wonkiness in quilt blocks is often created afterwards when you are moving your iron back and forth over your fabric stretching the heck out of it. Secondly, the miracle of spray starch. Starching some of my wonky blocks made them MUCH less wonky. I imagine pre-starching fabrics before you sew with them would also be helpful. (FYI: you will see starch on our shop shelves in the next few weeks!)

Sampler quilts are tricky, since there are so may different elements going on. I found myself trying to choose very plain fabrics and somehow, I hardly put any mustard coloured fabrics into this quilt. I really wanted to, but it just didn’t seem right. My fellow students, on the other hand, chose brilliant, bold colours and fabrics that I am totally in awe of. Spend some time checking them out here. Also, check out Katherine’s quilt top that I didn’t get a chance to photograph myself. They are all wildly different!

I spent one long night working on the back of my quilt. I decided to use my improv techniques to make something on a larger scale that would fit across the back. I used scrap pieces from four different fabrics to create that pieced bar. I’ve started to pay more attention to my improv process since I know so many of you are interested in how I do it. Perhaps with a bit of nudging there will be an improv class on our schedule.

The quilt is now basted and ready for quilting. I am going to do my best to get going on this sooner than later. I’m thinking some simple machine quilting echoing the designs will do the trick.

SUNDAY PATCHWORK #4

Published on March 14, 2011 in colour, patchwork and scraps. 2 Comments Tags: scraps, sunday patchwork.

I’ve been patchworking every Sunday, but for the last ten weeks have been focusing on my Quilt Sampler 2 homework. The class just finished last Thursday, so I’ll post up photos of our finished quilt tops this week.

Yesterday, I spent a few hours ironing and organizing my fabric stash at home. It’s gotten a bit messy and also spread out over the house, so I wanted to wrangle it into one location. It’s so fun to re-discover forgotten fabrics and make things all tidy. Handling all my fabrics, really got me inspired to work with some with new colour palettes.

I’ve really been in the mood for some improv patchwork, so last night I started by using some scraps of purple nani IRO double gauze and threw in other scraps of dark grape-y purple, navy and light blues. I wanted to keep it fairly simple, but kept adding more and more scraps. It’s hard to stop, once you get going! I built two separate, but similar blocks so that they would be the right size for me to make myself a travel hoop bag.

Tonight I’m going to baste the two blocks and start doing some simple hand quilting on them. I’ve been missing having a little hand work project, so this is going to be perfect!

PATCHWORK PALETTES : ICELAND

Published on March 8, 2011 in colour, patchwork and scraps. 14 Comments Tags: iceland, mrsmcporkchop, patchwork, patchwork palettes.

I am so excited about this block! This is the second Patchwork Palettes block that I’ve done with Amanda. The concept of our project is that we draw colour inspiration from one of our Pinterest photos. The two of us each create a patchwork block that interprets the palette. One photo, two completely different blocks!

This time it was my turn to choose and I HAD to choose this incredible photo of Iceland. These colours are so ME. I loved looking through my scrap bin for these icy blues, smoky greys, bits of pink and black. You may recognize some scraps from my last Happy Homemade top. It was a ‘happy’ coincidence that I was working on both projects at the same time. That big gingham in aqua and white was a perfect fit for this.

This block is loosely based on a log cabin pattern with lots of scrappy strips and bits mixed in. Some things that I love about this block : where I’ve pieced the same fabric to itself, the repetition of fabrics throughout the block and the tiny scrap of persimmon plaid fabric near the top right corner.

Amanda also did an improv block this time and I absolutely love it! Take a look at her bold fabric choices and teeny tiny bits of piecing and stripes. So good. Also, my favourite detail is her little diagonal pieces.

This project is so good for me. These small blocks are incredibly satisfying to make and I’m learning all kinds of wonderful ways of improv piecing fabrics together. It is an inspiring way to sew. Plus, testing out colour palettes is so much fun.

I can’t wait to start on our next block. We’re off to choose our next photos!!

QUILT SAMPLER 2 : FLASH OF DIAMONDS

Published on February 28, 2011 in patchwork and the workroom. 7 Comments Tags: flash of diamonds, quilt sampler 2, star.

This week is week 9 (of 10!) of the Quilt Sampler 2 class. All our blocks should be done and this week we will attach our mitred corner borders. Marilou had all her homework done and assembled her quilt top in the last class. Inspiring! This week, I’m sewing like crazy to catch up and finish up my last blocks.

This particular block is special to my Quilt Sampler. It was meant to be a Carolina Lily block. As I was sewing up my lilies, I kept seeing half a star. I looked through the Quilter’s Album of Patchwork Patterns and in the section on eight pointed stars found the Flash of Diamonds.

The components for this block were so similar that I couldn’t resist trying it out. Star blocks are my absolute favourite! Sewing y-seams is a bit tricky, but there’s something about it that I really love. The more y-seams I sewed, the better I got. The other key thing that I’ve learned from making this sampler quilt is the importance of careful finger pressing and not overusing the iron. It is so easy to stretch out bias cuts on your fabric which results in wonky blocks.

When I sewed together the middle star, it came together perfectly. If you look at the centre, all the points meet precisely and not are cut off! My favourite thing about this block is actually the back of it. When you look at the back side of this block, you will see that all the intersections of seams fan out. It’s crazy how proud I am of something that will soon be on the inside of my quilt where no one can see it!

I have a dream of one day doing a lone star quilt. Having conquered the eight pointed star, I now feel that this is totally do-able! But first, I’ll be wrapping up the rest of my sampler homework…

STAR-Y LOG CABIN CENTRES

Published on February 23, 2011 in patchwork and textiles. 10 Comments Tags: city limits, Liberty of London, mauvey, mrsmcporkchop, sawtooth star, star, star-y log cabin.

I had a chance to start working on my sawtooth star centres for the Star-y Log Cabin e-course I’m taking on Sunday. I couldn’t be more excited with how these blocks turned out!

I’m in love with the contrasting and bold (for me) colour palette that I’ve chosen. Plus, I’m getting to use some of my favourite fabrics. The addition of the Liberty of London Mauvey print (leftovers from this dress) for the star points really brings together all the colours. I’ve been slipping Liberty of London into my patchwork recently and there’s something about it that really shines. The prints and colours are always just so perfect and striking and lovely. (hmm… time to order more Liberty for the shop!)

As I was working away, fussy cutting those cute buildings from City Limits, I kept thinking that this is a brilliant design for a quilt! The concept is so simple and classic, but Amanda‘s unique approach and execution are what totally makes it. Amanda has been encouraging all her students to tell their own story with their patchwork and I’m really feeling a little story of my own coming together. Her weekly pdfs have been so energetic and full of great information that I can’t wait for them to arrive in my inbox each Thursday.

This week I’ll be starting to add my logs!!

BRUNCH IN HAMILTON

Published on February 14, 2011 in delicious, local and patchwork. 9 Comments Tags: brunch, hamilton, jen hsieh, kyle reed, presto nine patch quilt.

What a great weekend! We were invited to brunch in Hamilton at Jen & Kyle‘s place on Saturday. This was an extra special treat for me, as I work every Saturday, so it felt like a mini vacation to steal off with Andrew for the morning to visit with friends.

The first thing I spotted when we entered their home was their Presto Nine Patch Quilt. What a thrill! I never get to see where all the quilts go to live when they leave the shop. It made me so happy to see it laid out over their couch.

We had the most delicious brunch that included amazing blueberry pancakes, egg strata, sausages, chocolate granola, mimosas, chai tea (thanks celine & jin) and SMORES (thanks roz)!

I had to get back to the workroom for the afternoon (to make moccasins), so we didn’t have a chance to explore Hamilton. But I’m crossing my fingers that we might get invited back for a second visit.

Thanks so much for a fun and delicious morning, guys!

p.s. Happy Valentines Day, friends. A big hug to all of you!!

STAR-Y LOG CABIN FABRICS

Published on February 13, 2011 in patchwork and stitchery. 11 Comments Tags: star-y log cabin.

Week one of my Star-y Log Cabin e-course with Amanda was choosing fabric. Best homework ever! There’s nothing like picking fabrics for a quilt. It’s so much fun. When else do you get to choose a few dozen fabrics for one project?

The inspiration for this colour palette came from Denyse Schmidt’s new Greenfield Hills collection. All the darks have really grown on me and the dark navy combined with black is my favourite colourway of the group. I started by going through my stash and found the darkest and blackest navy fabrics that I had. This includes some old favourites from Tula Pink’s Neptune collection. (which I also used in my Double Wedding Ring Quilt)

I wanted to have something super contrasting to my dark navys, so I’ve chosen some variations of off-whites. Somehow this also includes a lot of my Japanese text prints. These are going to be a lot of fun as logs in my log cabin.

The hard part was choosing a centre fabric for my sawtooth stars. I’ve realized recently that I tend to gravitate towards fairly plain, tonal fabrics. I’d love to do more fussy cutting, but I hardly ever pick large scale or novelty prints that show off this technique properly. I need to change this. I’m going to try to add more bold prints to my stash this year. At the bottom of one of my boxes of fabric, I found a piece of City Limits. I made a wrap dress from this fabric a while ago. I think these cute buildings will make the perfect star centres in this quilt.

P.S. Early this week I found out about an incredible creative retreat called ‘The Makerie‘ in Colorado in April. After reading through the program, I just had to register. Yoga in the morning, crafting all day long, outdoor hikes, sleeping in cottages and delicious local organic meals. I’m heading down to Boulder with Katherine for three fun days and I’m so excited! There’s still space in the program for anyone else wanting a little pre-spring getaway. It’s going to be crazy, crafty fun.

QUILT SAMPLER 2 : MAPLE STAR

Published on February 6, 2011 in patchwork and the workroom. 1 Comment Tags: maple star, quilt sampler 2.

Most of the past Sunday nights have been devoted to doing my Quilt Sampler 2 homework. As soon as I catch up with all that, I’ll be back with some new Sunday Patchworks.

In the meantime, here’s my Maple Star! This is probably one of the more simple blocks we’ve done in class, but I really love this one. Firstly, it’s a star. Secondly, I slipped in some scraps of Liberty of London ‘Fairford‘ and it goes perfectly. It’s magic when that happens.

Today is the Love & Rummage 3 Trunk Show!