Spicing Up The Kitchen Swap

I'm all done with the Spicing Up The Kitchen Swap on Flickr.
I loved my partner's likes as they are pretty similar to mine so it was a good excuse to break out the Loulouthi:

I can't give you explanations of use for any of these because her 'would like to have' suggestions were quite specific and I don't want to give the game away:

Hand quilted. All cups and subsequent tea pots have been quilted around to make them stand out

 My husband likes the next one.

Thinks we should keep it.

Doesn't quite get the old 'making something for a complete stranger that you are most probably never going to meet' scenario.

I am pondering that point.

This one is hand quilted in various perle cottons. 

I think it's kind of obvious what these are, especially if I tell you I used two layers of batting.

Think I like this one the best

All Anna Maria Horner fabrics seem to go together, no matter which collection they are from

This was a fun and quick collection to make.

Although not that quick partner -  I still ignored a fair few 'muuuuuum, I'm ready to come out of the bath now' yells.

Hope you like them.

 

PS. A heads up for the ladies from Fresh Modern II Bee. It's me next month and I've become obsessed with this particular fabric from Loulouthi so you'll all be getting to share in the love.

Out with the old and in with the new...

The old knackered ironing mat thingy I had on my sewing table...

...has been replaced with a rather nice (imo) ironing board:

Yes, that is a different iron in this image...dropped the one in the last photo, resulting in an untimely end.

I used this tutorial which was excellent. She calls it a 'pressing' board. I call it an 'iron the b*gger out of it board' but it fulfils the same purpose. The only thing I did differently was not using the canvas she used as the outer covering. I didn't have any, so instead I used a scrap of home decor weight and it seems to be holding up fine.

Then it was out with old childrens clothes...

Sold on Ebay = nice pot of money in Paypal account

 ...and in with Loulouthi, Anna Marie Horner's new line:

Bought with aforementioned pot of Paypal money. Guilt factor = big fat zero

I originally bought a couple of fat quarter sets from Hawthorne Threads but they are so gorgeous I needed wanted more. So I bought a half yard of the complete set from Fabric Palooza. I've never ordered from Karen before but she is to be recommended. It came in two parcels, both of which were tied with a long piece of fabric (since gone into a string quilt I am working on) and in each package she also included an extra surprise piece of fabric. A nice touch.

They didn't stay gathering dust for long:

And my cutting mat.

It lasted six years before it stopped being self- healing. I have no idea if that is good, bad or OK but I clearly had a penchant for 15 inches as that is where the first hole appeared.

This is completely off topic but we had computer problems this week. The man who came round to fix it wanted to check the sound was working properly so he went to his 'go to' video that he uses on Youtube. You know when you think something is so naff you actually start enjoying it. I think I've reached that moment, along with the other 30 million that have already watched it.

It's done!

(Welcome if you are coming over from Amy's June sew and tell)

I know it's not for everyone but I love hand quilting and with a quilt as small as a Brit Quilt Swap quilt, it really doesn't take that long to finish a quilt. Added to which I personally find it less fiddly hand quilting small areas than stopping and starting when doing it by machine.

To get the straight radiating lines 'marked' on to the quilt top without actually marking the top, I use a hera marker.

I've had mine a while and as you can see, it looks like a blunt, small rotary cutter. The links I've given above to current hera markers look different but they still do the same job; namely making a temporary crease along which you can quilt. I'm not sure they'd work for more complicated designs but for simple straight marking and then hand quilting I think they can't be beaten.

All in all, despite a few points not quite 100% matching up, I'm really pleased with how this quilt has turned out...

...and I hope...

...my partner...(!)

...likes it too.

Meanwhile, I just have to decide who's name to write on the label ;-)

The Brit Quilt Swap

For those of us living this side of the pond, Lynne set up the Brit Quilt Swap on Flickr.

I joined, I got a partner, I digested her likes and I came up with this:

I can't say what her likes are because that would give the game away:

Next stage is to hand-quilt it and then bind it in a lime green:

If you want to see what quilt envy looks like - take a peak at the Brit Quilt Swap group.

A post of two halves...

The first half is to announce the winner of my not-half-as-successful-as-I-had-been-hoping-attempt to raise funds for the relief effort in Japan. Mr Random Generator thingy said:

...who came out with the immortal words...

I sincerely thank those who were supportive enough to either donate or blog about it - I appreciate it but more importantly it has helped in its own extremely small way with the relief efforts in Japan.

I would like to say I was overwhelmed with the support I received from the online quilting community...

Thank you instead to:

Kristie

Lisa

Lisa

Leila

Sprouting flowers

Kelly

Kathy

Tiffany

Pat V

Johanne

Terri

Kirsten N

Annemarie

Lizzie

Leanne

Kate

Lynne

Leila

Yvonne

(If I have missed anyone off this list, please let me know and I will be more than happy to add you)

The second half of this post is to tell you about the first Leila mentioned in the list above, rather than the second Leila!

Leila will be starting a 

In her own words:

"On June 17^th I am going to be kicking off the “We Can Do It! Skill Builder Sampler.” You can just call it the Skill Builder Sampler or SBS if you want. :)  Some of the recent blogland talk got me thinking about things that I want to try out in my quilting. I realized I was just a bit scared and nervous about trying new things. It is always easier to try something new with a friend and so I hope we can all work through this sampler quilt together.  Each month I will focus on a different quilting skill and provide tutorials for three 12 inch quilt blocks using the month's skill.  Some of the skills you might already have – please, leave any advice or additional tips in the comments for us – but I know there will be something for everyone to learn.

I have designed this sampler so that a beginning quilter can easily move from block to block and build their quilting skills. The beginning blocks will review basic skills and concepts that can be applied to any quilt. I will liberally reference other blogs and tutorials which have already described and explained the techniques and skills we will be learning."

She's also doing a giveaway of the new Denise Schmidt line from Joanns  and some Japanese fabrics.

So get on over there!

The Bloggers Quilt Festival is here again

(Welcome if you are coming over from The Bloggers Quilt Festival).


Take one jelly-roll

OK, this one is for illustrative purposes only!

I am trying to work my way through my over-zealous jelly-roll purchasing period and so I started cutting up blocks into this shape:

Simple.

So I kept adding more and more:

Nice.

However, I think you can make nice even nicer when you turn a block on point and it just seems to come alive a bit more. Here is the same image but now on point:

Turning it on point though means there are four triangulated corners that need squaring off. I decided to use white at which point I discovered I had no white left in my stash.

So I used Kona Meringue with the random remaining jelly roll strips instead:

I started off hand-quilting the centre diamond shape before switching to the sewing machine to straight-line quilt the four cream triangles:

The back is a cream fabric I had had for a long time, spliced between some Kona Azure:

If you look closely you can see on the left where I haven't finished off the hand-quilting yet!

So this is my entry to the Bloggers Quilt Festival - make sure you go and see what everyone else is up to. I know I am!

And although one of Amy's rules is that you are not allowed to post giveaways in your blog post, can I just mention a quilt and jelly roll looking for a new home in my previous post to help the relief effort in Japan. Thank you!

If...

If you were to visit this website...(or one of your choice that is going to help the ongoing relief efforts in Japan and you visited it any time from today onwards - I've since been told this website only appears to be working within the UK)

...and if you happened to make a donation of any amount that you were already intending to...

...and if you then happened to leave a comment on this blog post ...

...and if I happened to mention in passing that if you'd done that you could decide to leave a comment and if you decided to blog about it that would get you THREE comments total...

...and if this jelly-roll got lonely and decided...

...it had found a friend it wanted to be with...

...and if they in turn decided they'd like to live in a new home...

...and then if a little while later that Mr Random Generator thingy did something and I happened to ask one of you about your 'transaction reference'...

What would you do?

You have until Friday 20 May to decide...