We're Getting Married - An Engagement Cushion

Back in January, we had the best phone call from our son, Joe and his partner, Katie, to tell us they'd got engaged.

Back To School 2017 Blog Hop For Windham Fabrics

I'm delighted to be joining Windham Fabrics today on Day 4 of their Back To School 2017 Blog Hop, sharing their brand new Aliens collection by Jan Avellana.

Christmas In July Blog Hop For Windham Fabrics

I'm delighted to be joining Windham Fabrics today on Day 1 of their Christmas in July 2017 Blog Hop, sharing their brand new Bread and Butter Joy holiday collection.

Curious Dream Blog Hop for Windham Fabrics

Hand Tied Snuggly Quilt Pattern - Curious Dream

35" Hand Tied Snuggly Quilt Pattern

September and October Progress & News

I travelled much of September - South Africa and more of the same coming up for the rest of October - Barcelona.  Not complaining but it is my excuse reason for not doing a progress report at the end of September.  Given that I'll be away now for the rest of October and won't be sewing during that (other than my usual travelling handwork) I thought I'd combine the two months.

First Blush Blog Hop for Windham Fabrics

 

Welcome to Day 1 on the Ruby Red Designs First Blush Blog Hop.  I'm so excited to be part of this 18-day blog hop celebrating this month's arrival of Ruby Red Designs' First Blush fabric collection online and in quilt stores.

Just One Block - FQ Friendly Free Quilt Pattern with Tute and Tips

Simple, Clean, Modern

Just One Block Quilt Pattern

(approx 71" x 71")

Just One Block is a large square quilt based on my original Kukulcan quilt block pattern. As the name suggests, the quilt comprises just one Block, with each block section mixed and matched to create 3 individual block patterns. You can style it up or down, adapting to suit adults or children, depending on your chosen fabrics. Adapting my original Kukulcan block' 12" finish, the Just One Block block 10-3/4" makes the quilt pattern Fat Quarter friendly. Simple techniques will appeal to beginner and more experienced quilters, and I'll walk you through each stage with diagrams, photo tutes and lots of mbCD tips.

A New Spin On Drunkard's Path Blog Tour for C&T Publishing

Have you heard the buzz about the new quilting book A New Spin On Drunkard's Path?

Maribel Bowties Quilt - Process + Finish

Super, super excited to finally share my Maribel Bowties Quilt with you.  I've been giving you glimpses as I've gone along via Instagram, Facebook and my Newsletter and I know from your responses that you love it as much as I do.  Today, I get to share the whole thing with you, start to finish and that feels really good :D

August Progress & News

How hot has your August been?  It's been pretty hot and humid here in NYC, don't know about you but I'm looking forward to cooler temps coming soon.

July Progress & News

What does July mean for quilters? - Christmas of course!

Quilt Market = Blogger's Quilt Festival Entry 1: Original Design Quilts

It's that time of year again and this is my first entry for the Blogger's Quilt Festival held twice a year over at Amy's Creative Side as a companion event to Quilt Market.  

My first entry is my Remains Of The Day quilt - made as a sample for Melanie Testa's booth at the last Quilt Market using her Meadowlark collection for Windham Fabrics.  It's the first, and to date, the only circular quilt I've made with a rolled self-bound edge and matchstick quilting.

Lots more photos and a full explanation of the quilt name, my process and pics from Quilt Market here in my original blog post.

REMAINS OF THE DAY QUILT

I really want to share with you this pic of me (on the left) with Meadowlark fabric designer Melanie at our July NYC MOD Quilt Guild meeting.  I loooove this pic so much.

I've entered Remains Of The Day in 

BQF - ORIGINAL QUILT DESIGN CATEGORY

From 1 November through to 7 November you can cast your votes and the winners are announced on 8 November.

Once voting opens to place a vote click through here to the category, locate the white heart in the top right corner of the pic of the quilt you want to vote for; click on it so it turns red; you've placed your vote.

I hope you'll drop by and cast your favourite quilt vote from the 1st :D

   

Remains Of The Day - The Meadowlark Collection Blog Hop

Back in May I teased you all with a post sharing a few close up pics of  my first project for Quilt Market but today I'm delighted to share with you, my Remains Of The Day quilt showcasing a new range of fabrics called 'Meadowlark' for Windham Fabrics by my fellow NYC Metro Mod Quilt Guild friend, Melanie Testa.  You can find out more about Melanie's process in my previous post.

Lots of you had questions about how I made a circular quilt, the quilting and especially the binding - here's my story:

What's In A Name?

So why is the quilt called Remains Of The Day?  Well, Melanie got together with lots of willing helpers at the quilt store where I work in Manhattan to make items for Quilt Market but I was busy working on the shop floor and by the time I nipped in to grab myself some fabric to make something with there was nothing left.  My friend, Emily Klainberg, came to the rescue and gave me her leftovers to work with hence the name Remains Of The Day because that's exactly what this quilt's made from.

Making The Quilt

Laying out the fabric remains on my dining table inspiration struck - I decided to piece them together exactly as they were - nothing trimmed or cut to size - even using raw edge applique to include some small squares and longer strips, again no trimming.

 I used the same technique to make the back

Once everything was pieced I taped the backing tightly to my table and created a quilt sandwich on top of it.

Quilting, Binding & Labelling

I marked one line vertically down the length of the quilt and quilted along it using a 3.2 stitch length.  I used a seam guide on my walking foot and added more quilting lines parallel to this about every 2" across the whole quilt to secure it.  Then I started filling in with straight'ish lines in between the ones I'd already quilted I didn't worry about being perfect and they're all about an 1/8" apart'ish!

I quilted from edge to edge knowing that such dense quilting would distort the circle so I worked larger than needed and was prepared to replot the circle once all the quilting was finished.

Once the quilting was complete I marked the circle out again and cut away the backing and batting to the circle's edge.  I left the quilt top about 1/2" larger so I could fold it over twice to the back and stitch it in place to create a rolled facing.

The finished quilt measures 53.5" diameter.

Quilt Market

So here's the pics I have from Melly's booth in the Windham section at Quilt Market.

In this pic my quilt's over the table on the left

And here it is again.

And this is my favourite pic of Melly holding my quilt :D

The Photoshoot

Obviously, all my quilts have to have my obligatory roof garden shot but this quilt looks so much better hanging against a wall so just the one this time.

 

The wind's picking up the bottom corner here - it is a perfect circle really.

And see the wind really did grab the quilt but for me, it's the best pic of all

I won't list which fabrics I've used from the collection, easier to give you this link to the full collection in Windham's Fabric Shop.

THE GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED

And now for the Meadowlark Blog Hop Giveaway:

The Meadowlark Blog Hop And Giveaway

Fancy winning a "fat stack" of 10" squares from each fabric in Melly's new Meadowlark line - and there are 26 fabrics in the collection?  Better still there's one fat stack available for each stop on the Blog Hop!

To enter leave a comment letting me know your favourite fabric in Melly's Meadowlark collection and let me know you've commented using the Rafflecopter below.  The closing time is 12:00 AM EST on Friday, 13 June 2014 and I'll notify the winner by email later that day.  If you're a no-reply blogger or using WordPress or Google+ please leave your email in your comment or your entry will be nullified.  All other terms and conditions are listed within the Rafflecopter.

Update at 11.35 am, Wednesday, 4 June 2014
If you haven't used Rafflecopter before you need to leave a comment as normal at the bottom of my blog post and then come back to the Rafflecopter and click the option saying "I've commented".  Please note 'Anonymous User' comments are disabled so if you don't have one of the accounts accepted by the blog platform 'Blogger', such as Google then, unfortunately, you won't be able to join in the giveaway.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Melly is also giving away three copies of her book Dreaming from the Journal Page - one copy on her own blog and the other winners will be chosen from the two blogs with the most comments at the end of the hop.  So get commenting, what's keeping you?!

GOOD LUCK EVERYONE

To see more fun Meadowlark projects and for extra chances to win visit the other blogs on the Blog Hop:

Melly Testa - 2 June

Vivien Zepf - 2 June

Chris Dodsley - 3 June (my turn!)

Sue Bleiweiss - 4 June

Leslie Tucker Jenison - 5 June

Jamie Fingal - 6 June

Lyric Kinard - 7 June

Jen Eskridge - 8 June

Jacqui Holmes Calhoun - 8 June (guest post)

Stephanie Forsyth - 9 June

Victoria Findlay Wolfe - 10 June

Teri Lucas - 11 June

Scott Hansen - 12 June

Helen Eckard - 12 June (guest post)

 

   

Top Secret, Ssshhhh - Quilt Market Sneak Peek

I'm thrilled to have worked on my first project for Quilt Market to showcase a new range of fabrics called 'Meadowlark' for Windham Fabrics by my fellow NYC Metro Mod Quilt Guild friend, Melanie Testa.

In her process, Melanie uses Procion MX dyes, stamps, stencils and thermofax screens and Windham Fabrics have captured all of this perfectly in Meadowlark, Melly's first fabric collection.  You can find out more here on Melly's blog and also in this short video:

I'll be taking part in Meadowlark blog hop soon too (see schedule at bottom of post) but until then here's a sneak peek of my finished project:

If you're going to Quilt Market you'll find Melanie busy printing at the Windham Fabrics booth 2034-2035 and, her fabrics/projects will be on display there too.  I can't be there myself so I'd love it if you'd take a photo of my quilt and send it to me - it's a circular quilt and I'm thinking there won't be too many of those in the booth so hopefully it'll be pretty obvious which one it is!!!  You can email pics to me via email, Facebook, Instagram or Twitter using the click through links below:

It's all very exciting and I can't wait to share it with you properly very soon  :D

Updated: Saturday, 14 June 2014

Here's a picture link for you to click through to see my Remains Of The Day quilt reveal:

MEADOWLARK BLOG HOP

Melly Testa - 2 June
Vivien Zepf - 2 June
Chris Dodsley - 3 June (my turn!)
Sue Bleiweiss - 4 June
Leslie Tucker Jenison - 5 June
Jamie Fingal - 6 June
Lyric Kinard - 7 June
Jen Eskridge - 8 June
Jacqui Holmes Calhoun - 8 June (guest post)
Stephanie Forsyth - 9 June
Victoria Findlay Wolfe - 10 June
Teri Lucas - 11 June
Scott Hansen - 12 June
Helen Eckard - 12 June (guest post)