Kimonos and Sashiko Stitcheries

This is Charlie's Kimono and Sashiko quilt....started very early in her quilting career, it must be fantastic to have it quilted at last after around ten years as a top.

We chose a sashiko or orange peel design for the setting triangles and radiating rays to simulate the land of the rising sun, the kimono blocks have a continuous curve design with a chrysanthemum type flower in the centre. All freehand freemotion quilting with just a little ruler work for stitch in the ditch (SID). After debating a little I decided I needed to pin down the outer border so added some quilting to the sashings too, I needed some curves to take up a little fullness so used an egg and dart type design.

I'm loving how this turned out and I think more importantly Charlie like it too!

Fabric....where does yours come from?

Thought some of my customers and friends might like to see this process, it's fascinating...... click on the link below to watch a short film.....

Robert Kaufman Fabric....the printing process.....

Here is another link to the dying of batik fabrics courtesy of Moda and my good friend Michelle

Printing batik fabrics...courtesy of Moda

Tutti Fruiti....

Tutti Fruiti, oh Rudy
A whop bop-a-lu a shop bam boo!

As I was working away quilting this quilt I kept singing this song....it was the colours that set me off singing, especially when I laid out some threads to quilt the geese, at the time I didn't know that was the name of the quilt.
Sometimes, a quilter receives a quilt that is special...this was one of them. The top was appliqued and pieced a few years ago as a sample in a class taught by pattern designer duo Mother and Daughter, Mary and Karen Milne of Patchwork Creations in Aberdeen. It's a stunning pattern and top, Karen made a wonderful job of the machine applique. The batik fabrics and colour choices add a sophisticated elegance to this modern design.
Karen gave me permission to quilt it as I thought fit, there was lots and lots of open space for quilting.  

White Glide thread on top and white Bottomline in the bobbin, the only place that I used coloured threads was in the flying geese......batting was my customers's own, measures 84x84....

I would class this as Full Custom or even Heirloom Quilting.

I think the photos speak for themselves......I wanted this quilt to shout out 'look at me!'

I didn't want to give this one back but I can hear it shouting 'look at me' all the way from Aberdeen.....Can You?

Quilted Zig Zags....

Now that the Ladies at the Abbey Quilters have seen it, it's time to gift the quilt to baby Ivan, he's two months old already so it's about time.

I thought you would like to see a few photos first .....
I decided to quilt only the Zigs and not the Zags.....lol.....
I quilted swirls and pebbles in the white background fabric, this pushed the blue fabrics forward and also leaves a lovely design on the back of the quilt.
Piano keys finished of the border, but also in the border I placed a name plate with date of birth..

You can find a little tutorial for cutting and piecing this quilt here

My first ever quilty presentation.....

Tuesday night saw me at my first ever presentation night at the Abbey Quilters of Kelso, I have been at this venue before to see Ricky Tims so I was following in hallowed footsteps.  I was a little anxious that my laptop would let me down as it's been a bit of a pain so at the last minute I borrowed my Grandsons laptop and all went well.
I was warmly welcomed by Sandra the Vice Chair of Abbey Quilters and the Local Linus Representative.  After an introduction on my part I played a couple of home videos showing a tour of my studio and myself working on a panto on my APQS Millennium longarm followed by a powerpoint presentation of slides along with the various quilts I had taken with me showing freemotion and pantograph techniques.

I was caught being very studious setting up the slideshow....lol....I'm loving the look of my new green specs.....

Photos thanks to Anne at Frayed at the edge my official photographer

More photographs can be seen on Anne's blog post.....here

I heard lots of 'ooohs' and 'argghs' so I'm guessing that they were loving my quilts, I took lots of quilts.

Thanks to the Abbey Quilters for making my inaugural presentation a very pleasant and successful evening!

The Backing Singers....

Before Festival of Quilts in Birmingham this year, I made up a quick quilt in the 'modern quilt' style, with minimal piecing made up all from left over backing fabrics with the intention of quilting it as a demo quilt on the APQS stand at quilt FoQ. As it happened we had lots of quilts, some are still waiting to be quilted but this one is now finished....I quilted swirls and Egyptian key type blocks as a nod to Angela Walters. Using a navy Metro thread top and bobbin so it matched the top fabric but contrasted against the backing fabric. I gave a little bit of definition to the pieced blocks with some of my favorite straight line quilting.

The 'Backing Singers' is a throw size quilt and would be a great Guy quilt or a throw for  a modern style home.

A Zig Zag Quilt for Ivan ....

Last weekend my Granddaughter Fieron and I had a 'girl's day in'.
We did 'whatever' we wanted to do.

That included a bit of piecing, a bit of eating, we watched Mama Mia twice through and made friendship bracelets.

We needed to make a quilt for Baby Ivan and had it nearly all pieced together on the day including our other activities so we didn't do too badly did we.

Fieron and I thought you may like to follow along or make a 'Zig Zag' quilt yourself so between us we had fun taking photos of the various steps so you can give it a try yourself, so here we go.

A Zig Zag Quilt for Ivan
Finished size 48 x 56 inches
Fabrics and cutting directions
1. From a variety of blue fabrics (we used 5 fat quarters) cut 60 X 5 inch squares, you could also use Charm packs.

From background fabric (we used 2 1/2 yards white) cut 4 x 2 1/4 strips for binding, cut 4 x 4 1/2 x 48 1/2 inches for added borders. Cut  60 X 5 inch squares.

2. With a ruler mark a diagonal line on all of the plain squares, we used Frixion pens but a pencil or biro also works as this will not be seen.

3. Place a blue square and white square right sides together using the 1/4 inch foot on your machine as a guide stitch a scant 1/4 inch either side of the drawn line.

4. Using a rotary cutter and ruler cut along the drawn line on all of the white squares. This gives you 2 sets of half square triangles (hst).

5. Press to set the stitches, then slide your iron between the fabrics , let the iron slowly do the work to open up the fabrics and press open the seam without any little folds, it needs to be smooth.

6. This step can be a little tedious, we need to square up or true the hst blocks. Use a square up ruler with a diagonal line to square up the blocks to 4 1/2 inches, this is an important step as it gives a more finished look to the rest of the piecing.

7. Now for the fun part, playing with your design....Fieron laid out the blocks on the design wall.

8.  Stitch two blocks together, press the seam allowance in opposing directions.  This will help your blocks 'marry together' in the next step.



9 . Stitch two columns together with the seams allowances in opposing direction marrying the seams together.
Continue to stitch side by side columns together in two's then into fours etc until all of your columns are added.

10. Using 2 x 4 1/2 x 48 1/2 borders, first add the side borders, use pins and ease in any fullness so both borders are the same length, then add the top and bottom borders.

A bigger quilt could be made starting with 60 x 6 1/2" squares in blues and 60 x 6 1/2 inch squares in white, without borders this would give a quilt measuring 60 x 72 inches.

11. Quilt as desired...lol....We need this quilt for a gift so will be quilting very soon, so watch this space!

You can see this quilt top finished and quilted here

Teasing again......

I know I haven't blogged very much just lately but I've been a bit busy for the past few weeks quilting....lots of quilting.
Here's a quick tease,

I'll do a proper post in a few days....

Blogger's Quilt Festival Fall 2012

Amy over at Amy's Creative Side is again hosting the Bloggers Quilt Festival....this is a twice annual event held to coincide with spring and autumn 'quilt market' to give those of us unable to attend a show all of our own. Thank you Amy for hosting this remarkable event, there is always so much eye candy, it makes your mouth water!

This year I am entering 'quilted cushions', yes cushions!

These were a birthday present for my Mother. 

Quilted Cushions 20"x 20"
Longarm Quilted by me

Small wholecloths


The cushions are around 20" square before binding with a 22" feather filler to make them nice and 'plumpsious'. The fabric is a shiny crinkled taffeta and is shot through with black, a bit difficult to photograph, the red tinged photos show the quilting a little better. I did draw in some diagonal guidelines to keep me on the straight and narrow and a few 'S' shapes on the one with the mini feathered wreath in the centre, but essentially these are freemotion hand guided by me, no computer, (maybe in the future). The blue cushion shows the difference if you spend more time and push back the background, then the feathers have more definition!

You can quilt anything on a 'longarm'!

Thanks for visiting my blog...come back often.

Thanks again Amy!

A bit of colour...

There's nothing like a bit of colour on a dull day.....

This tree is always stunning.....