August Pin Cushion Club

Last week was Pin Cushion Club and the technique I wanted to teach this month was wool applique.  It has been a bit of fun, because you should have seen the first design I came up with - I think it has to be my worst ever. And the girls in the group agreed - they really wondered what had stuck them when I presented it at the end of last month's session - they burst into laughter and threatened not to come if that was what we were making - and rightly so!!!!!

But the poor little grotty pin cushion did manage to find one fan!

          

His name is Smudge and he is now confirmed as my biggest fan! Or is he just plain dumb! Anyhow he has a new toy to play with - everything has its purpose in life!

Anyhow this is the Pin Cushion that we made and I did learn a lot about working with

 wool in the process and I think this one is a success and the cat can't have it 

when he has ruined his one.

We ironed on a product that we call silk stabiliser because we first used it for backing

our kimono silks to give them more stability and because it comes from the supplier 

with just a code number! This stops the edges of the wool fraying or looking raggedy 

when you blanket stitch it on with raw edges.

I do like the little touch of Kaffe Fassett fabric in amongst the wools. 

Our wools are hand dyed by our local and in-house designer, Karen. She does do a

 stunning range of colours and is constantly designing new projects for us to use them in.

A Modern Quilt Being Planned

We had our local Modern Quilt Meeting the other night and now I am all inspired to get going 

on a project that one of the members alerted us to. I have promised my sister a cot quilt 

to give to a close friend's daughter and new baby daughter. These are the fabrics I am contemplating.

Maybe that is just too many to deal - how about this as a more realistic starting point. 

Or maybe I just one of these oranges added into the mix.

The block that I am planning to try is a Modern Block of the Month Sew Along with Alissa Haight Carlton. You can see it on her Blog via http://sewmamasew.com

I will post again once I have a block or two made. So back to sewing room, the cutting 

board and the machine. 

Next Japanese Quilt Block

The next block is made, but it is another applique block - I just keep putting off making those 

pieced ones!! What does that say about my quilting preferences!?!?!

I enjoyed doing some more embroidery on this one. I had looked at all the blocks that I had

made  and decided that I didn't have enough embroidery on them, so I chose a block 

that would suit some.

Silk Kimono Roll

The background fabric that I am using for my Japanese Quilt Blocks is from a roll of Kimono 

fabric that I picked up on one of my visits to Japan. It is 14.5" wide which is the traditional 

width of fabric made for kimono. The roll contains about 12 metres of fabric which is enough to make one kimono.

Don' t you just love the fringe end of the roll - I am sure it is going to make its way into a

project one day, that's if it doesn't go into the Block Quilt.

Japanese Quilt Block Number 7

I have finally got back to creating more blocks from Susan Briscoe's Block books. 

This is the 7th in the series of applique blocks and I am pleased with the addition of the 

striped kimono silk - must do that again in the next block!

I have one more applique block ready to stitch and then I think it must be time to decide what

I am going to do with them - maybe intermingle them with pieced blocks as I really 

didn't like the look of the sashiko block that I made (posted on 22 April).

Thanks for stopping by, Robyn

Amish Lone Star

Hi everyone - wow I am back again posting.

Last week I had my Amish Group in and we were talking about stars. I dug another 

quilt out from the stash to share - a Lone Star made in 1990.

We are enjoying working with solid fabrics - it makes such a change from what most of have 

been doing over the last few years - working in florals and various prints. The girls in group are making some great quilts - really inspirational.

And as a result of this group some of them are hand quilting for the first time or reviving 

their skills from yesteryear - how cool is that. In fact I am noticing a  swing back to hand quilting.

Next Pin Cushion in the Series

Hi there everyone - sorry I haven't had much to post over the last few weeks. I have been busy working on quilts for the Hamilton Craft and Quilt Fair in September and I really want to keep it all top secret so we can go public with it first at the Show. We are planning a totally new look, so hopefully you will find it worth waiting for!

But this week I had Pin Cushion Club and we made a little Paper Pieced Pin Cushion using solid (plain) fabrics.

One side

It was exciting to choose a new product that we found about at the Sydney Craft and Quilt Fair that we visited at the end of June. Instead if tacking the fabric onto the card templates we 

used a new glue stick - Sewline Fabric Glue Pen - and it was so much faster. 

The fabric seam allowances stuck on well and didn't come off as you sewed the little hexagons together. It pulled out easily when you wanted it to and the card wasn't all tacky so it could be used again.

The other side of the Pin Cushion

 I wish I had this product when I made my very first quilt way back in the early 1980s.This is it on our bed as I write, so we do even still use it!

I went shopping for fabric for this quilt in the middle of a Wellington winter - and there were no Quilt Shops, so I was having to try and buy cottons in dressmaking fabric shops - a bit of a mission. So most are not cotton and they were all very cheap - straight out of the sale bins as who wants summery fabric in the middle of a Wellington winter! I did find one charm pack of Laura Ashley fabrics and that and the calico is about all the cotton fabric that is in this quilt.

Once I had had enough of sewing hexagons I decided to finish it - it was going to the floor of the double bed! So there was a shoe box full of prepared hexagons left over.

I seem to remember wondering how on earth  I was going to finish the irregular 

shaped edges of this quilt. Finally the decision was made - the hexagons were simply appliqued onto border strips and it was hand quilted - well there wasn't a lot of quilting - we didn't seem to do much then!

But isn't it great to see that the hand piecing hexagon technique hasn't disappeared - in fact it seems to be staging a bit of a come back.

Thanks for visiting my Blog and I will try to keep posting more often again.