Vintage Rose Wallhanging

I've been  telling you in an earlier post that I am enjoying doing online video classes now that we have finally reached the online world via broadband and how I made a wallhanging for Lenna's birthday using the Step-Down Piecing method as explained by Sarah Fielke in her book Quilting from Little Things and shown in her Craftsy class Big Techniques from Small Scraps. It took me only a day or so to make a 21" wallhanging and it was freeing to just play with fabric without having to put my head in gear and design. So after I finished it I was quite keen to do it again. 

The opportunity arose when I was the happy (make that ecstatic) winner of one of the give aways on Terri Heinz's blog Artful Affirmations. The bracelet is beyond beautiful and on the theme of Joie de Vivre so that I can reaffirm that message to myself every time I wear it, which has been more or less non stop since it arrived. You can see the beautiful pictures Terri took of it on her blog giveaway here.

I was so overcome with Terri's generosity of spirit that I wanted to make her something. I know she shares my taste for vintage and also for tea, and more in particular teacups. She is always on the hunt for ever more beautiful examples and posts them on her blog on Tuesdays. I thought she might like something to tone in with that.

So I grabbed all my rose fabrics and started cutting and I combined them with that red striped vintage French ticking to make the above wall hanging. I'm so pleased to say that it arrived safely with Terri and she used it in the background of her very next Tuesday teacup show. You can see it there by clicking on this link.

Isn't it stunning to see how different this version looks to Lenna's one. This Step Down Piecing is a very versatile technique and once you've mastered it it opens a world of opportunities to play with fabric! My favourite occupation that.

Bradenton River Hanging

This little quilt (about 21" square) was a gift for my very good friend Lenna Andrews, who has recently moved to a new home alongside the Bradenton River. I wanted to make here something for her new place and this coincided with me doing a class on Craftsy. If you're not yet aware of this website (or iPad App) it's a wonderful place where you can follow online classes on a large variety of crafty subjects. Of course I was mainly interested in the quilting classes and as they had some fantastic Sales offers just before Xmas I signed up for a large variety. The classes will bethere  for all time to come so you can sign up and then take the class and watch the videos whenever the fancy takes you. Due to our slow broadband I have to let the videos buffer but that's okay. I do that while machine quilting or piecing and then when I want to take a break from sitting behind my sewing machine, I make myself a cup of tea and watch a video. One of the classes I signed up for was Big Techniques from Small Scraps by Sarah Fielke and one of the reasons I did so was because she sounded like a very fun person on her taster video and because I love the way her books are presented. So beautifully laid out and very colourful too. 

This gave me chance to realize that looking videos is a much better and more instructive way to learn things rather than from a book. One of the techniques she had mentioned in Sarah Fielke's  book Quilting from Little Things was stepped down piecing. I must have seen it as I leafed through the book when I got it, but it hadn't made any impression on me and by the time I looked at the video of this technique I was totally unaware that this was mentioned in the book too. 

It was not till I saw it on the video that the possibilities of this technique came home to me and it struck me that it would be a great technique to make small themed quilts depending on your fabric selection. No instructions here as you will have to either buy the book or buy the Craftsy Class (or both!) apart from mentioning that it involves partly pieced seams. 

For Lenna's quilt I chose from my collection of Fossil Fern fabrics those ones that reminded me of water and set to work piecing the piece together. That took half a day as the large squares I had of Fossil Fern were already the right size (don't you just love it when that happens). I layered with wadding and backing fabric and then proceeded to machine quilt the entire piece with wave patterns (I used a walking foot), as you can see above. I used a wide variety of machine sewing threads including various metallics.

Water always sparkles so of course I couldn't help myself and added beads to the equation too. The beading took most of the time but apart from that aspect I made this quilt in a day!

I can report (and you can see it also above)  that the quiltie has arrived safely in Florida and is already hanging in Lenna's home just in time for her house warming party. Talk about timing!

I really enjoyed doing some work that I just had to sew without having to design it first myself. So relaxing and it felt like a sewing holiday.