Quiltography Tutorial: Medallion Quilts

I have been playing about with the design possibilities of Quiltography and have spent a little bit of time trying out a Medallion Quilt. I have never got around to making a real one, but a digital version seemed within my grasp.

This is my first Medallion Quilt and it was really easy to do on Quiltography the only thing you need to remember is that to start with you will need a square quilt with an EVEN number of blocks horizontally and vertically (mine is 10 blocks wide)

For the central medallion I chose a block from the templates that could be rotated about a central point to form another block- my favorites were on point blocks and I had already created this flower on an earlier quilt.

Make sure the set of 4 blocks that makes up your medallion, is in the centre of the quilt; then it is just a case of working your way around in concentric circles.

Round 1: I used a Jacob's Ladder style block, rotated and flipped to form a zig zag pattern around the centre.

Round 2: A nice, easy flying geese block with a 4 square to mark the corners.

Round 3: Bowtie blocks are also useful for making zig zags as the pattern goes from corner to corner on the block.

Round 4: Another simple block, this was is a 9 patch with 6 of the squares filled with white, to act as a border.

It is as simple as that; one medallion quilt, no waiting!

If you haven't already heard; you can now get Quiltography for iPad on the App Store

Come back tomorrow when I will be joining in with Sew Mama Sew's Big Giveaway Day!!!

Jennie x

Time to Swoon

So, I have had the fabric designated to be my Swoon quilt for months now and last week I finally decided that it was going to be my next quilt- I have been umm-ing and arr-ing for too long and decided that enough was enough and that it was time to just get on with it and make something; so Swoon it is!

This is probably the start of the girliest quilt I could have imagined and is definitely the girliest I have made, but Amy Butler was the first pattern writer/ fabric designer I heard of (back before I started quilting) and I love her, so it's time I used some of her fabric.

I have been cutting and piecing all weekend and I am very pleased to be able to show my first 2 Swoon blocks, the beginnings of my 3rd AND I have the rest all cut out and waiting (well not quite "all" as I ran out of patience cutting the white so I only have about half of that cut and ready, but at least that's enough to keep me going for a little while!)

I have been following the progress of the Swooning group on Flickr for a long time, but I haven't noticed anyone currently making a Swoon (I am a little slow, they have probably mostly moved on now) so imagine my surprise to read that 2 of my fellow Brit Bees are also in the midst of making some Swoons too. So, I am looking forward to following their progress to spur me on :)

I have been working from home this morning and there is no better place, for comfort, than the sofa with a cosy new quilt for doing some research.

It's also a great place for some paper piecing, and I now have a total of 2 blocks to show for it too!

Loving the progress, all around!

J x

Jennie's Crab Shack Charm

After designing the back of this quilt with Lucy's Crab Shack fat quarters in mind I had to give up on my design as I couldn't find the co-ordinating Kona solids on a single UK website, instead I took my finished quilt top to my LQS and dug out the best co-ordinating navy to finish the quilt top with a bold frame and I wanted a bright pattern for the back.

This is a simple and bold quilt that was really easy to put together; I especially enjoyed using whole charm squares as it helped me to make sure my seam allowance was accurate.

The finished quilt is around 60" square, perfect size for two to snuggle on the sofa!

J x

Porthole Windows

Woohoo; 100% complete!

I finally finished this ginormous quilt last week and it is so big I can't hold it up alone; even Chris struggled to hold it up for the photograph.

I am so happy to have this quilt sitting on my bed, as my first full size quilt, it has been really exciting!

J x

Fresh Sewing Day - September

I have been very lax about posting lately, and honestly I have kind of enjoyed the freedom it has afforded me, but at least it means I have plenty to share;

Jennie's Crab Shack Charm - (fabric won in a giveaway from Judith @ NeedlesandLemons) top done.

I love this fabric so much more than I ever expected to, I have ordered my batting, backing and sashing and may get a chance to quilt it this weekend. But we have a mad collie coming to stay with us for a few weeks and she arrives this weekend so I am expecting some crazy early days :)

Brit Quilt Swap - pieced, quilted, bound and posted.

It took me too long to get started on my swapping quilt, but

Portholes, portholes, everywhere - more blocks complete. (9 down, 5 to go)

I am still loving portholes, thank you Lucy, and am making some progress on my own porthole quilt, I changed my mind about how to finish of this top this week but I will share the details in a later post. I have a couple of blocks done and have the fabric selected for the rest, so now for the easy bit...

Brit Bee July - pieced and sent out
block 1

block 2

July's Brit Bee asked for some quiet, neutral tone-on-tone blocks with a small traditional zappy block to fit into it. For block 1 I kept it simple and I have long admired this block, but for block 2 I wanted something a little different, although this is not technically a traditional block (to the best of my knowledge) I wanted the zappy block to be a part of the larger neutral block; it turned out just as I had hoped.


Sizzix Workshop Pieces - pieced.

At the Festival of Quilts, I stopped by the Sizzix workshop, so I got to have a little play and cut these fabrics out; it was great to play with and I do love a drunkards path/ retro flowers pattern, but I am not really keen on this fabric so I don't know what to do with it? At least piecing these was great practice for this months Brit Bee, really helped me to get back into the swing of things.

Ok, so it's not really finished...

I still have all of these to put together; but it's a start :)

Brit Bee August - delayed, but pieced.

I got completely behind with this month's block as Chris and I had a holiday booked for the end of august to celebrate our birthdays but before we went I HAD to finish my Brit Quilt for the swap and it sucked up my Bee time, sorry Katy! But it is finished now and off to Katy, if she forgives me.

Brit Bee September - done, ahead of deadline.

Churn Dash blocks for Laura, I love these simple graphic designs that seem to be really popular at the moment but Laura's colour choices are always so exciting- these turned out really great!

So busy, busy, busy here, I am off to get on with my Portholes and order more yummy fabric!

J x

ps. in other news I have started playing foursquare, are there any other users out there?

Quilt in a Week

You may have noticed that I haven't checked in for a while... I have been busy sewing for a change! Ok, so it's not quite a "quilt in a day" but for evening sewing while working full time it's not too shabby.

I present to you, "Grandad's Quilt," sorry for the lack of a fancy pants name but I was exhausted by the time I finished the binding on this one (and apologies in advance for not taking any process pictures of this one as it was definitely dark by the time I finished each night!)

The story starts before Christmas, when my grandad was first diagnosed with stage iv lung cancer, and time seems to have whirlwind-ed since, but to cut a long story short; the various treatments he has tried have failed him and the inhibitor has made him really ill without really having much of a positive effect so the new course of medicines are designed simply to remove his pain.

With this in mind, he was informed that he was on a waiting list for a bed at the hospice so that they can observe him and prescribe his painkillers effectively and I decided to stop putting off making a quilt for him because I could not let him stay alone in a hospice without a quilt for company.

I thought I would share my week with you;
D-1 / Sunday: Figuring out fabric requirements, shopping at the Fabric Guild and cutting, lots of cutting.
I was supposed to get started straight away, so I got to cutting out all the pieces but it was a beautiful day and I got distracted by planting vegetable seeds in the garden. Ooops, I will regret this later!

Day One / Monday: Piecing blocks
I scheduled out my week, as I am a great list maker and planned to complete 6 blocks a night for the next 5 days as each of my cut fabric strips would make 3 blocks. First 6 blocks done!

Day Two /  Tuesday: Piecing blocks
I took Shep to his obedience class, which takes up most of my evening on a tuesday and then sat at the machine until I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer; 9 blocks done.

Day Three / Wednesday: Piecing blocks
While lying in bed last night (thinking about quilts, not sleeping) I decided that if I could get 9 blocks done on a tuesday of all days I should puch a little harder and be aiming for 12 blocks a night, that way I have a chance of finishing by the weekend, when I plan on going home for Mothers' Day - then I won't need to post the quilt and could hand deliver it. 15 blocks done.

Day Four / Thursday: Squaring all blocks and sashing to make up quilt top.
My grandad had an oncologist appointment today, as he does most thursdays it seems and was asked to go back in tomorrow for observation so now I really had a deadline as he was due to go in much sooner than I anticipated, but I am feeling in control of this monster with the quilt top now finished, although now the hard work starts.

Day Five / Friday: Quilting.
This is my first adult sized quilt and I had no idea how I was going to make the sandwich when I was drawing up my fabric requirements on saturday as I didn't think I had a table, or a floor or even a wall big enough, (to be honest I don't think I realised quite how big it was going to be either!) but I had decided to just get on with it and I would figure it out when I came to it. Luckily, it turned out that the finished quilt *just* fit on my living room floor for pinning- I knew it would turn out right! Quilting was fun with such a big quilt but I stuck to my tried and tested straight line quilting in the ditch around the blocks and I managed it... if you don't look to close :)

Day Six / Saturday: Binding, labelling and stray thread trimming.
I have always planned on labelling my quilts but never really know what to do and usually leave it so late that there really is no time left to figure it out, but this time it was important so I found some instructions online and printed my little message to add to the bottom of the quilt. Half an hour after finishing I packed up the car and headed for the m6 to stay with my nan as this was the first night she was going to be home alone as my other family members had all gone home.

Day Seven / Sunday: Wished my mum a Happy Mothers' Day and we all headed out to visit Grandad, quilt in tow, to find out that he had been given extra blankets as the room was too cold- how fortunate that we were bringing something to keep him cosy (and as an extra bonus the colour scheme even matches the room- although I think this may be a bad reflection on my colour choosing skills.)

I am so glad I pushed hard to get this quilt done so that I could hand deliver it, mostly for selfish reasons because I loved giving it to him and watching him glance down at it and smile while we were there, but I am also glad that he received it when he really needed it and I hope it can provide him some comfort, because it was a great comfort for me to know that I was doing something useful and productive and now I hope he realises how much I am thinking about him, everytime he sees it because even though I may be far away, I always am.

J x

Full of useful information

As you probably know, the Ellison Lane Modern Mini Challenge ended yesterday and after much deliberation the finalists are availble for us to vote on today. So head on over there to vote- but bear in mind that you WILL have your work cut out for you as there are some great contenders!

None of my favourite mug rugs made it to the voting stage, but 2 of my favourite mini quilts did and they both happen to be rainbow coloured;

From The Blue Chair's New York Beauty, the colour selection is perfect (I don't know how people manage this) and I love the accuracy in the details but I am partial to a NYB block;

and Jen Johnston's Rainbow Compass which I spotted on Flickr last week and imediately fell in love with!

Head on over to the competiton pages to check out the rest of the contenders and place your votes!

I also got an email this morning from Fat Quartley to remind me that the groups are closing today for the London Retreat sample swap and the name tag swap. I have been on these lists for months now and I am crazy excited about the quilty weekend, but I popped back on over just to double check. If you're coming along have a look at the discussion boards!

And to top it all off, I am avoiding flickr today as the lovely Susan of Canadian Abroad has told me that her Brit Bee block is done and in the post, so I am on the edge of my seat waiting for the surprise.

 I will have most of them back soon and will be showing a lovely group photo asap.

After my mini challenge weekend, I had a night off the Maple Leaf Rag last night while I took Shep to his obedience class but should be back on it tonight with pictures to share soon.

J x

Silver Lining - A Mini Quilt

About 4 weeks ago I was soooo excited about the Modern Mini Challenge at Ellison Lane Quilts, I was inspired by the daily blogs I was reading and I had roughly two tonnes of sketches of all these amazing mini quilts I could make... and then I forgot all about it, until saturday morning. When decided to forget about the scenic art quilts I had sketched (as I didnt have the scraps I needed) and I had instead narrowed it down to 2 blocks that I have been itching to try but when I was glancing through the link up I saw that both my blocks had already been done - and one had been done more than once. Not wanting to copy any one else's efforts I hatched a new plan to create a mug rug with a technique I haven't had the courage to try it; reverse applique.

My finished mug rug is 7" x 15" so I am not sure if it qualifies as a mug rug anymore, my smaller version did not have enough detail and although the technique of reverse quilting was ok, even I could not tell what the picture was supposed to be! Hopefully this one is a little more clear :)

I found a cute silhouette shape of a couple under an umbrella and go to work and at 9.30 tonight it is finally quilted, bound and photographed and soon to be entered into the competition! Woohoo!

Stupidly I have left it too late to get a daylight shot, but luckily the colours aren't far off.

For the quilting, I had hoped to use a raindrop pattern, but I chickened out as I haven't had time to practice with my free motion quilting needle at all and settled on a dense 1/4" straight line quilting for the ground, leaving the rest mostly unquilted which hopefully gives it a billowing cloudy feeling. The quilting is quite clear on the back, I had toyed with using blue to make sure it was visible but I am glad I didn't as the white is clear enough for my liking.

And as a bonus, it is the first itemI have made entirely of scraps, yey for finally having enough of a stash that I can do something with it... even if I can't do a street scene of my little town- yet! Maybe check back in a year or two to see if I manage that one :)

I know it is not a patch on a lot of the minis in the pool, some of which are amazing, but I am pleased to say that I decided early on that I wanted to be a part of the mini fun and for once I made sure I finished in time, now as for the swoon-a-long (I'm blaming my lack of stash and slow fabric ordering for loosing momentum on that one but at least I am fully equipped when I do have the time.)

Now back to the many pieces of curio quilting.

J x

EDIT: link 198, that's a lucky number, right?!

Curio is a go

First off, thank you to Laura for sending me the pattern pieces I needed to get started on my Curio quilt, I have been working on it for just over a week now and haven't made as much progress as I had hoped, but it is coming on and I am loving the accuracy of paper piecing!

My first job is to make the kite sections for the centre, in the pattern it calls for crazy piecing and then just cutting out all the kite shapes, but I wanted a bit more order than that so I have been strip piecing my kites.

So far I have 8 full sets, for the full 8x8 block quilt I will need 32 sets but as I am concerned about the amount of fabric I have, I have decided to start off making a 4x5 block quilt and then expand row by row until I run out.

I really like this layout and I am wondering if I should put a Rocky Road quilt on my Master List of quilts to make?

These are my 'leftovers' they were full sets of 4 kites, but I have used up pairs of them for the half Rocky Roads around the edges, these kites will be used for other edges of the quilt- but for now they are waiting patiently until I catch up.

Last night I laid out my current pieces in place on my suitable makeshift design wall and starting cutting my octagons. Hopefully, by keeping everything organised I won't run out of fabric but I think I am going to have to keep my eyes out for some more... really wish that I had bought a full fat quarter pack first time around, but lesson learned I guess!

I have chosen this set as my first octagon;

And these as my second;

As I have 5 full octagons, and a host of partial octagons to do just for my little 4x5 block baby I guess I had better get piecing.

J x

Block Conundrum

Ooooh, I HAVE been away a while! I have done practially no sewing at all since New Year (unless you imclude fixing the hanging hook on my coat!) but I have had great intentions to start on my next quilt.

Last night I found the pattern I had saved for my Curio quilt and was ready to start slicing fabric, but I'm just not keen on it any more. After much research, I decided that Curio looks best in really detailed quilts and I found one that I think I will end up copying, but I am not quite sure how to do it.

My inspiration is here at Bellet Blog and the following picture is her own quilt.

I love the concentric circle spiderweb with a string pieced diamond shape between. It looks like a mixture between a Spiderweb and a Rocky Road to Kansas quilt. But the bit I can't figure out is how to draw the pattern pieces.

I have been researching Spiderweb blocks and the best I have found is at A La Mode which was sent to me by Kris, but the problem I have is that at this step;

(photograph from A La Mode's tutorial)

I need to split it into 3 seperate blocks (the left and right hand triangles would form segments of 2 spiderwebs and the central kite would be a quarter of a rocky road) so that I can make strings for each segment.

but what do I do about seam allowances? The tutorial has already accounted for seam allowances around the outside of the complete triangle (I presume) so do I just add 1/4inch along each side of the 2 blue lines for each of the pieces?

Advice needed as I think I fried my brain trying to do this last night and I really want to get started!

J x

EDIT: thank you Laura, my package arrived last night and it looks perfect. I can't wait to get started now! X

Finished Christmas Quilts

I wanted to take some pretty photos of my all finished quilts today while I was off work (and had natural daylight for the first time this week) but the weather turned out to be absolutely terrible and it might as well have been night time it was so dark here, so I am so glad that Chris has been out earlier to buy a daylight bulb, this thing is awesome!

First up is Felicity's Big Sister 9-patch;

And then Baby Hannah's Not-So-Mystery Mix Tape;

Two partially matching quilt for two sisters, now just to wrap them up and let them finally go home!

J x