Tickled pink....

...and...

Chuffed to bits

Over the moon

Pleased as punch

On cloud nine

I was all these and more when I heard (thanks Susan!) my Camelot Quilt came first in the 'Hand-quilted' section of Amy's Bloggers Quilt Festival.

I know it's a harmless bit of fun but it's also an unexpected affirmation that others like what you like. When you're quietly stitching away in your little corner of the world, you don't really think about what others will think but then you show it to Mr Internet and suddenly it goes on its own cyber journey.

So my thank you is three-fold: to the internet for connecting all of us far-flung quilters together, to Amy for taking the time and trouble to help with that connection and a very, very big thank you to everyone who voted for my quilt. I am seriously shocked.

Thank you.

Hitting the Pillow Talk Swap Jackpot

Participating in Round 9 of the Pillow Talk Swap on Flickr I really hit the jackpot this time with the most amazing cushion cover from Fiona at Poppy Makes.

How about this for happy scrappy perfection.

A beautiful cushion cover, a bonus beautiful quilted basket.

Fabulous backing fabric with a zipper enclosure and some spare Drunkards Path blocks which I will use.

I cannot thank Fiona enough for the love and detail that she has poured into this.

My whole family had a collective 'wow' when I opened the package and it will definitely be one of those 'what would you save if your house was on fire' items.

Thanks very much Fiona.
xx

I think I might have made a modern quilt

I have long been an admirer of really modern, clean, minimalist quilts. Coming from the school of more is more, cram as many different fabrics in as you can to a quilt, it has been quite the challenge to make one.

However, friends have just had their first baby and I kind of regard them and their penthouse flat as modern and minimalist and wanted to try and make a baby quilt that fitted the scheme.


For the first time ever, I sketched a rough design.

The design was scary for me as there wasn't much of it.
I think minimalist takes courage - there still has to be a balance between all the components for it to look right.
There is definitely an art to it.
My usual quilts are definitely not minimalist.
I wondered if I could pull it off.

There was loads of negative space. My previous inclination would have to been to do an all over cross-hatch design or some mindless meandering.

Not this time. I used it as an opportunity to try out lots of different quilting patterns.

I'm not sure there is necessarily a coherence to my willy-nilly approach to switching from one pattern to the next but I still think it kind of works.

This is a view of the back - I partly used Essex Linen

The back gives you a better idea of the randomness of the quilting.

The daddy is a pilot and the mummy used to be a flight attendant, so I though the addition of this piece of fabric was apt.

Most of the fabric in the front of the quilt is an Egyptian cotton bundle from Empress Mills. I have no idea how much is in a bundle but they are just £4.50 a bundle and I didn't use all of it in this quilt - there are still some bits left over. It is a brilliant, clean white (not sure it comes across in the photos) and it is like quilting through butter. I shall definitely be getting some more.

I'm still debating whether to quilt in the dark columns or leave as is.

But for the moment I am just going to enjoy the fact that I think I might just have made a modern quilt.

Blogger's Quilt Festival

My entrant this autumn to Amy's Blogger's Quilt Festival is my version of the Camelot quilt so look away now if I've bored the pants off you earlier with previous posts.

I wanted a hand-piecing quilt to take with me when I was out and about during the summer months and The Camelot Quilt seemed like a good idea.

Each block is different and each block requires you to trace the template on to plastic, cut out and then use the plastic templates to cut out your fabric pieces.

Although I thought the pattern was not the best value and the instructions were scant (and there was a mistake!) I really enjoyed the challenge hand-piecing each block.

You can see close-ups of all the blocks in my Flickrstream. I particularly liked this block as I managed to incorporate a piece of fabric with this year's date.

Once I'd done all 16 blocks it was square and I don't really like square quilts.
Square quilts don't invite you to snuggle under them the way rectangular ones do.

So with compass, pencil and paper I drafted four new blocks. This one is probably my favourite.

I then hand-pieced all 20 blocks together.

And then slowly began to hand-quilt it all.

Although it is now bound, I haven't totally finished hand-quilting it as you can see from the back.

I just pick it up every now and then and do a bit more.

So now the nights are chillier, it sits on me keeping me warm in the evening while I add a bit more hand-quilting to it.

The stats bit:  

Size: 65" x 80"

Hand-pieced and hand-quilted by me.

Best category: Hand-quilted quilt, bed quilt and scrap quilt

Click here to see lots of other gorgeous quilts in the Festival.

Mute Monday

, a photo by Little Island Quilting on Flickr.

This one is for you
Susan ;-)

PTS9

Otherwise known as Pillow Talk Swap (Round 9). Still one (if not) my favourite swap on Flickr at the moment.

My starting point was the hugely popular 'X and Y' block. Amy has a very good tutorial for it on her blog. I then substituted the four corners from each block with a Drunkards Path block and came up with this.

The back has a zip....

...which veers off slightly because I was multi-tasking and got distracted by the male presenter on "The Great British Bake Off."

I suspect I'm not the only one.

And as a little aside. My 'Absolutely NEVER EVER Again' quilt is hanging out in all it's Kristafied glory here, here and here.

I can't wait to see it in person.

Pattern Testing

Jenny, of the Quick Curve Ruler fame has a sister Helen who, like Jenny, is also a long-arm quilter.
She's also started designing quilt patterns using Jenny's ruler and when she put a shout out for pattern testers I stuck my hand up.

This is her Deco Zig Zag pattern.

It reminds me of a 'mermaids purse' but maybe that's just me.

Either way, it was extremely enjoyable to sew - the pattern is very well written.

It is fat quarter friendly (two blocks from each FQ) but I chose to make it from random scraps of turquoise blue, mainly because I had some light turquoise linen knocking around that I wanted to use for the background. It wasn't quite enough so I interspersed it with a Kona cotton in a similar colour.

The claret block I put in just because I thought it would add a bit more interest. I think I'll probably hand-quilt round each block with Perle cotton, machine quilt the rest of the negative space and bind it in a claret colour too.

Pssst..2nd row up from bottom, far left...that's a Batik with sparkly bits in it...reckless or what ;-)