comfortstitching

Fancy another?

This quilt was made a while ago, it was made before I made my 'Fancy' quilt - which uses the exact same pattern only this one was made with two charm packs instead of one layer cake (as 'Fancy' was).

There was something that just didn't ring with me about this finished quilt, the grey solid triangles were meant to stand out from the bright colours of the other fabrics but they decided not to. Instead it all just seemed to merge into one so you couldn't really see the  pattern thing going on. 

Still nice enough little quilt just wish my contrast fabric picking skills had been more switched on that day.

Fabric is  2 charm packs of 'Hoopla' by Moda and Bella Solid in Gray.

Finished size - 31" x 38"

A pattern for the 'Fancy' version ( made from a layer cake and measuring 53" x 62") is available here and here.

This quilt currently lives on a pile on top of my bookshelf.  Sad but true.


 

sweet

As you may know if you have been here before, I have a complete and utter devotion to embroidery.  I have stitched up a good number of pieces over the last couple of years but I have a confession.

Most of them are lying about here, there or somewhere else still waiting to be stitched up into a little something.  Stitched and then neglected.  Sad isn't it.

So, it's time for things to change, I'm going to start to give these stitchy bits homes to live in.  I've begun already with this cushion I stitched up for market which makes me so happy everytime I look at it because I get to SEE all the fun little details instead of them being hidden away.

I'd love to hear your idea's? what do you do with the embroideries you stitch up? I'd love a few suggestion's for things to make them into.  

In case you fancy stitching up a similar cushion, I wrote up a pattern whilst I stitched and finally managed to cook it up into a PDF.  The instructions can be used with any embroidery pattern and go through piecing the cushion front, quilting and assembly, you can find it here.

crazy scrappy block tutorial and a maybe quilt a long

Last week I decided I needed to start something new to keep my overflowing scrap box in order and there would no better way to do it than to start another crazy scrappy quilt.

I first started making these blocks here and here then wrote up a pattern for the first ever issue of Fat Quarterly - a version with a single gigantic block called the Bedtme story quilt.

The best thing about this quilt is it uses up all types of scrap shapes from squares to strips to triangles. No scrap is too scrappy for this quilt!

This time I'm hoping to make a much larger version with at least 20 - 30 blocks (that's how bad the scrap sitch is).

What I want to know is, do you want to join me????????

Below is the tute for making the basic block, along with a button if you care to wear it on your blog.  As an added incentive for you to get scrapping with me, I'll be holding a yummy-super-scraptastic giveaway!!!!!!!!! in a few weeks time open to all who are participating.

 

Crazy Scrappy block tute

 

For my quilt, I'll be making 11" blocks with each block using shades of one colour only, so if you want to do the same first sort your scraps according to colour.

To make your block, select a fabric for the centre, this piece needs to have 5 sides, so slice off a couple of corners if necessary.

Starting with any side you please, find a scrap that measures slightly longer than the side and stitch the two pieces together.  

We will be working around the block clockwise, so trim the excess from the next edge along in that direction, in the above case this is the bottom edge.

Continue working around clockwise in a log cabin kind of style, trimming and adding as you go.  I press my seams open after each addition to keep things as flat and neat as possible.

To stop your corners becoming too square as you go round, occasionally chop them off.  This keeps everything nice and vortex like which is what makes this block look different to the log cabin style.

It's also good to throw in pieced strips now and again, this will up the scrapilisciousness as well as bust down that scrap pile.

An 11" square ruler (if such a thing exists) would be great here but I don't have one, so I just keep going until my block is at least 11" square all around and then trim.

When you have finished your block, make another!

Then another!

I promise these are very addictive!

So the question is,

care to join me????

Button Code

<p><a style="display: inline;" href="http://comfortstitching.typepad.co.uk/comfortstitching/2011/04/crazy-scrappy-block-tutorial-and-a-maybe-quilt-a-long.html" target="_blank"><img style="width: 200px; display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Button" src="http://comfortstitching.typepad.co.uk/.a/6a010536fd6c85970c014e87663b14970d-200wi" alt="Button" /></a></p>

Sherbet pips is now shipping!!!!

Thank you so much for all the fabric love for the peek at my new line, I am honestly floored with the response :)

Meanwhile, the pips are now all on a ship coming to a store near you soon!!!

In a bid to free up my inbox from the deluge of requests on where to buy, I put out a call here on the blog a few days ago for store owners carrying the entire line to get in touch, as this is currently the most FAQ put to me.  Below, I have listed all the responses I got.  This is by no means a complete list!  

If you are a store owner not listed below, you are more than welcome to leave a comment below and I will add you to the list, please include your location and a direct link to the sherbet pips page on your site in your comment.

 

Where to buy Sherbet Pips

Fresh squeezed fabrics

Fat quarter shop

Wondrous wovens - Cathy is also selling a kit for the quilt below.

Strawberry patches 

The calico house - no website - email or phone for ordering details

Honey bee humble 

Sweet pea fabrics

Sew mama sew 

Pink chalk fabrics

The quilted castle - has yardage, precuts and the bella solids below

Crazy quilt girl fabric shop 

Fort worth fabric studio

Harts fabric

Kelani Fabrics - Melbourne, Australia

Web fabrics

wish upon a quilt 

Suppose quilt boutique

Olive juice quilts - no website but happy to ship

Greenwood quiltery - online shop based in Ontario, Canada

Ray-stitch - New Uk online store

The little fabric store - UK store, pips arrive in May

Sew me happy - UK shop, pips arrive in May

 

Bella solids that co-ordinate with Sherbet pips

bleached white (990097) - this is the solid I used in my pickledish quilt

white bleached (990098) - this one is a bright white

gray (99083) - this is the solid I used in my comic strip quilt

scarlet (990047)

30's pink (990027) - matches the darker pink in the line

baby pink (990030) - matches the light pink

 

You can find a free pattern download of the snowball stripe quilt I designed for market here.  You can also buy a kit for making this quilt at wondrous wovens.

I would love to see any finished versions of the above quilt in my flickr group!

I would also love to hear if you have ordered your pips yet and what you all plan to make?  From what I hear it is selling pretty quick so please don't delay.

Happy shopping!!!

a brief romance

I am briefly enjoying a short but starry eyed dalliance with making blocks for a festive Christmas quilt.  Odd behaivour, especially on a day as warm and sunkissed as this one but slightly necessary as I am in love with stitching up stars right now.  A habit hungover from last week, the one that felt like tumbleweed.

Normal spring like business will be returned to as soon possible.

Hopefully.

scrappy trees and houses quilt

Last week I sewed my heart out.

My hubby and daughters were in Ireland for the entire week and I was home alone with my doggie for company.  I had thought this would have been a fun week for me, no meals to prepare, no bedrooms to tidy, no 30 miles of walking to get my girls to school.  Sounds like bliss, was in fact one of the worst weeks of my life.

It felt like all of the life had been sucked out of my life, it was deafening in its silence.

So I did the only thing I could do, I sewed away my blues.  I sewed so much, I think I have about 3 weeks of blog posts ready and waiting.

I even started a Christmas quilt.

Correction - I started two Christmas quilts.

Today, I'm starting with showing you my Ten make two bee quilt top.  I had originally placed all the blocks together without sashing but I decided I just didn't need another lap quilt. I went completely bold and flew against the wind of all caution to go with red sashing and white posts.

I'm not sure if this was a brave move or an entirely stupid one but I do like the end result.

I'm a bit stuck with what to call this one?

Any suggestions??????

DIY fabric transfers tutorial

 
As requested, here is the tutorial if you fancy giving this technique a go.

To make your own fabric transfers, you will need some TAP paper.  TAP stands for Transfer Artist Paper, it comes in A4 sheets and allows you to transfer drawn or inkjet printed images onto fabric.  You can actually use it to transfer images to pretty much any surface including glass, metal or wood but here I am talking about what I know which is transferring to fabric.

This is what the paper looks like.  From left - back of TAP paper, Front of TAP paper, silicone release paper (this came with the paper and is used for protecting your fabric from the heat of the iron).

To make your own fabric transfers, just draw your images onto the white side of the paper.  Do not press down too hard with your colours or you will scratch into the coating.  

Here are the pens I used to make the images - ordinary kids felt pens (these are washable colours) and fine liners (which are permanant pigment ink markers).

I then cut out all the images I want to use with a thin border around the image (as above).

With a hot iron, place one of the cut out images drawn side down onto fabric, cover with the silicone release paper (to protect fabric from being scorched by the hot iron) and press down for about 10 - 20 seconds.  I find you can happily move your iron across the images as you press, the cut outs stay in position and do not move.

Carefully turn up the corner of the cut out and if it removes easily, it's done.  If it is still tacky and doesn't come away easily, press a little more.

After transferring, I washed the fabric in a bowl with a small amount of washing powder and hand hot water.  I squeezed and scrunched up the fabric as I washed for a couple of minutes.  I then rinsed it and ironed it with a hot iron.  I ironed right over the transfered images without the silicone paper.  The pictures above and below show the fabric after washing and ironing.  I am pretty impressed, particularly as the felt pens I used were washable!!

So, I can see lots of potential in this technique, particulary with decorating kids t-shirts and clothes, mixing the technique with embroidery and applique for fun little pieces and for making labels for quilts (any writing would need to be written back to front, so it appears the right way round after transferring).

What do you think?  Is this something you can see yourself trying?

Let me know if you have any questions, I can answer them in the comments below.

playing with new stuff

Yesterday I had a longlonglong list of things to do.

But I wasn't in the mood for half the stuff on it.

Instead, I decided to go with my need to do something fun and playful and ended up drawing my own fabric transfers and then ironing them on to fabric. fun. easy. playful and totally unecessary whilst being completely necessary in a creative kind of a way.  

The images I used were all my 'current' drawing obsessions - clothes, shoes and kiddy bits and bobs.  I drew them using a fine liner and my daughters' felt pens.

When I was at college (before the kids, the marraige and the rest) I studied design for printed textiles.  This kind of thing was what I did daily, found a fun little product and played around with it until I liked what I saw.  

To make these transfers I used something called TAP paper - it's so easy to do, just draw your image and iron it onto your fabric.  A fun way to indulge your inner fabric designer at home.

Today I plan to do a wash test and check out that crucial washability factor.

If anybody else is interested in trying this technique, I'd be happy to write up a quick tutorial. 

Just - you know - let me know - below ;)

 

geese in the middle quilt

A new Sherbet Pips quilt made for my littlest little lady just because I hadn't got around to making her a quilt from my fabric yet.

I am so glad I finally got around to stitching up this one as she spent her entire weekend dragging it around with her everywhere she went.

I think she likes it.

 
This one uses the pink, grey and red colours from the line to give a sweet as sugar mix perfect for little rosy cheeked sweeties everywhere.  It can be made in three sizes and the above one is a good child or lap size at 49 1/2" x 60 1/2" which I made using the leftover jelly strips from making the lap size version of the comic strip quilt plus yardage for sashing (2 from 1 is good going in my book)  I love how the two quilts look entirely different from one another.

This was my second go at writing up a pattern and uses both illustrator pics and photo's to explain all the steps.  Again lots and lots of maths was involved in making sure that all the workings out will work out for you.  You can see further details about the quilt in my shop.

I have also added brand new tutorials on 'Basting a quilt' and 'Making binding' to my blog to help you finish off the quilts.

Thank you all for your kind comments and emails about my appearance on Pat Sloans show yesterday!!  I was so nervous but Pat put me right at ease, I hope you all enjoyed listening in?

If you missed it, you can listen here by clicking the play button on the most recent show or you can download a podcast to listen to later from here.

round and round

This time last year you couldn't pop around to this blog without tripping over an embroidery or several, it was a full on stitchy embroiderfest for a couple of months.

And then, all my other hobbies got in the way of my floss, along with designing for Moda and the embroidering suffered a sad demise as a result.  So with enough being enough, I have dusted off my hoops and started on those little back stitches once more.  

The above little piece of stitchiness started as a series of doodles a few long months ago and shows a little quartet of young pips dancing round and round (and round and round....). My girls loved singing 'round and round the garden' and 'ring o'roses' when they were little.  Still do.

 
I am still a little unsure of my styling of the boys in the above, they are a little on the girly side aren't they? with their floppy fringed hair and silky lookin' scarves.  I dread to think how I would have dressed my daughters if they had in fact turned out to be sons...................(doesn't bear thinking about).

I've written up the pattern for the above embroidery and will be listing it any minute now.  You can find it by travelling by link and popping over to my shop. 

I am thinking of putting together a few posts on embroidery how to's and would love to know if there is anything in particular you would like to see in them?  If there is something you always wanted to know or something you just can't get the hang of.  Let me know!!!

Hope you are enjoying the Wednesdayness wherever you are!!!!!