Fun With Fabric - "Enchanted" by Sarah Fielke

A few weeks ago, I answered a call from Windham Fabrics, who were looking for people to help out with items for their Spring Market booth and Catalogues.  Lucky for me, they chose to send me Sarah Fielke's new range "Enchanted" to make whatever I pleased!  I was a little excited and was thrilled when I opened the package to find some beautiful, bright and divine prints to work with!  It took me a couple of days to decide what I would make, but I think I chose wisely.....

"Peacock Garden in Spring" is perfect for the Boho bag, because of it's big bold print.  The colours really have to be seen to be appreciated.  I teamed it with "enchanting stripe in Autumn" for the top and handles, which is, to me, like a mix of love hearts and beanstalks!

The "enchanting stripe in Summer" is the most perfect shade of lime ever!  Given we are just heading in to our coldest months here in Australia, I think these bright colours are just what we need!

I also whipped up a cushion using the peacock print - which is absolutely perfect for fussy cutting!  The peacock centre block was cut precisely 6.5" square.  Nice one!  The pink solid was also supplied by Windham and is gorgeous quality.

I used my trusty Aurifil #2024 to piece and also quilt around the star.  Some echoing around the points and then free motion swirls for texture.

And a simple envelope enclosure on the back using "Enchanting Sprigs in Autumn".  Another gorgeous little print with the tiniest hint of pink.

Now - Sarah tells me the full range will be hitting patchwork and quilting stores from June/July!  So be sure to keep an eye out and get yourself some!  You can check out the full range HERE.

I'm linking up - You can too!

Baby Blue Quilt

Remember those Sphere charm packs I showed you on Sunday?  Well, don't say I don't work fast people!  This delightful little creation is for a new customer.  Emily messaged me a couple of weeks ago and enquired about ordering a cot quilt for a friend.  We went back and forth discussing colour options, and when I showed her the Sphere by Zen Chic range, she loved it!  We edited out the yellows and dark greens, and stuck mostly with the blues, greys and the multi-colour print with a splash of yellow.  I managed to whip this baby up in a couple of days - which is good seeing as though it has to be in the post by the end of this week to make it to its destination!

I've mixed in a little white Homespun and it's bound with a gorgeous blue Homespun also.

I've incorporated a couple of the fabulous Botanics prints by Carolyn Friedlander.  They blend in beautifully!  Aurifil #2810 - turquoise blue - was pulled out to straight line quilt 1/4" either sides of each square.

And the aptly names "baby blue" homespun was chosen for the backing.

I took a number of different photos of the quilt, and as I was walking back inside popped the quilt down on the steps whilst I grabbed something - and realised the the colours really popped against the ageing concrete!  Voila!

The Stats - 40" x 55"

Fabric - Sphere, Botanics & Homespun

Thread - Pieced with Aurifil #2024 50wt, Quilted with Aurifil #2810 50wt by Me

I am seriously in love with this one (what's new?) and will have trouble popping it in the post!  But I will!  Now - what's next on my project list.........

I'm linking up - You can too!

P.S. - Don't forget about my 500 Giveaway!  Check out the post HERE.

New York Beauty

The Wombat Stew paper piecing bee is rolling on for 2014.  February is Gemma's turn as Queen, and after much thought, she threw us a curly challenge!  A slightly open ended one at that.  Gemma asked us all very kindly if we would make her a New York Beauty block............. 

 **crickets** 

After the initial shock, horror and gasp - we all agreed.  Then hit Pinterest!  I found a multitude of amazing blocks, in all shapes, colours and sizes.  Then stepped away cross-eyed and anxious.  I mean, they're a pretty full on block to tackle!  Anyway, I took a deep breath and decided to choose THIS ONE.  But knew it would look completely different!  Gemma gave us a colour palette to work with, so I drew from that and spent over an hour pulling fabrics, putting fabrics back, re-visiting fabrics and then walking away.  Another deep breath and I jumped in!

And a few days later, this is the result.....

Isn't she lovely?  Now, it's not perfect, but damn I came close!  I basically managed to match all of the seams except one quite obvious one!  And I'm too scared to unpick it!  So I shall leave it for Gemma to ponder :)

I chose the orange, purple, pink and reddish floral first, then threw the yellow in for POW factor.  I think it worked?  The turquoise Art Gallery print was added after some consultation with Gemma.  Blue wasn't in her colour palette, but when i think of Gemma, the first colour that comes to mind is turquoise! I think it works perfectly.  The next stressful decision was the centre circle.  I spent a considerable amount of time auditioning fabric, before once again handing the choice over to Gem!  I think her choice is spot on.

After working myself up over how difficult this block was going to be, I have to be honest and say that it really wasn't bad at all!  In fact, it's all rather straight forward paper piecing.  The curves had me worried, but turned out to be not so bad after all!  The tricky(ish) part is putting your four quadrants together.  Matching the seams is daunting, and I had to make sure to use quite a few pins, which for someone who doesn't usually pin - was quite amusing!  The lining up of the text wasn't really a fluke, I made sure when cutting the wedge shaped pieces out, that I cut them around in a circle.  The part I am most proud of, is the matching up of seams on the "sun rays" at each quarter!  They are perfect-o!

Soooo, where to now?  Well, I must say I am keen to get my New York Beauty on again!  In fact, I'd LOVE to have a bit of a sew along.  Make sure you check back here in the very near future, and I will have some more info to share!

Have you ever wanted to tackle a New York Beauty?  Want to join me?

I'm linking up - You can too!

The Hard to Part with Gift!

Do you ever make something for someone, a gift, and once you've finished look at it and think "I can't give it away"?!?!!?  Yep, thought so.  I KNOW I'm not alone.  I KNOW that we've all done it.  Which makes me feel somewhat normal.

So yesterday I needed to make a gift for one of my nieces.  I stood in front of my fabric shelves and tried to decide which ones to use.  The gorgeous Ruby turned 10 yesterday!  10!!  It's that age where girls start moving towards being a little more grown up.  A little less cutesy.  A little more - well, older.  So I wanted to make something that would grow with her and she would still hopefully love in to her teens and twenties.  I spotted a little pile of charm size squares.  They had been sitting on said shelf for probably a good 12 months, waiting for the right project.  This was it!  I've been wracking my brain since then, trying to recall who gifted these beautiful squares to me, but still can't remember.

Anyway, they were perfect.  PERFECT.  There were 15 squares, so when I found the perfect print for the back, I cut out a square of that to add to the front.  This type of cushion is THE EASIEST kind.  Literally 16 x 5" squares, all sewn together with batting and some backing pinned together, and then quilted through.  Easy peasy.  The lovely Ros asked me a couple of weeks ago for some tips when it comes to lining up the seams on charm squares.  I can't remember exactly what I imparted, but here's what I do - I don't pin.  I sew with my needle down to stop and start.  When I start with two squares together, I sew about half an inch, then stop and match up my seams together just using my fingers, and with the seams going in opposite directions.  I hold the seams together until it goes under the needle.  The majority of the time, I end up with near perfect seam intersections :)

I adore this print.  The text is full of beautiful positive messages.

I think I need to head back to Spotlight where I bought it from and get me some more.  Don't you think it's perfect for a girl heading in to the double digits?

The colours burst from the fabric, so I chose the beautiful Aurifil #1100 hot pink to straight line quilt my way across the squares.

This delightful cushion took me just over an hour to make.  Another reason why it's so easy!  The difficult part came this morning when I had to wrap it up and send it off!  If anyone out there reading this recognises the fabric range/s, please feel free to share with me!  I think some of the prints look a little AMH, but I'm not sure!

I'm linking up - You can too!

A Pram Quilt

The end of 2013 heralded the arrival of a new baby boy!  My husband's cousin had her little man a few weeks early, a few days before Christmas.  So I pulled every single blue fabric I owned off the shelf and then edited myself.  I also grabbed a couple of divine Bella & Boo prints (the pirates, indians and cowboys), and made a very simple patchwork quilt.  This is pram/bassinet size, and I can't remember the dimensions!  I also forgot to take photos of it before I took it around to deliver to little Archie!  So I have to give cudos to his clever Mummy, Larissa, for these fabulous photos!

I backed it in these gorgeous little blue elephants.  They came all the way from Japan from my Tokyo BFF.

I kept with the simple look by quilting it 1/4" either side of the seams using Aurifil 50wt #2810 which is a divine bright turquoise/aqua.  And possibly my favourite part of this quilt is the binding and the few grey/white squares used.  I got out the scraps of Paloma from my Isosceles Triangle quilt - because this little man is the brother of Georgia, who sleeps under the triangle quilt!  Make sense?  Hahah....

So this was my final finish for 2013 - and today heralds the start of the school year - for 3 out of 4 kids anyway.  My littlest starts tomorrow - boohooo!  Which heralds the start of new quilts and the finishing of WIP's!  Hoorah!

I'm linking up wherever they will have me - You can too!

Fairytale Finish

Hoorah for a Fairytale Finish!  I've taken lots of pretty pictures for you all......

As you can see, I made my fairytale blocks in to a wall hanging.  I wanted to make something for my god daughter in Tokyo, and have already made her a quilt (only a rag quilt, she will get a "real" quilt very soon!) and cushion, so checked with her Mummy that she liked fairytales (she's 2.5 - OF COURSE she likes fairytales!), and was also told she had nothing on her walls yet.  Bingo!  

Now, I know the blue block stands out a lot more than the others, but I just couldn't come to terms with either omitting it or making another brighter hued block and omitting a different one.  So, it is what it is!

When it came to the quilting part, I thought quite a lot about how I was going to tackle it.  I knew I wanted to free motion myself silly, but how?  I started off with one design, and then unpicked.  Started another, unpicked again.  Then just sat.  And stared.  In the end, I picked it up and just went with the flow.  Each block is completely different.

I googled each fairytale individually, because we don't actually own any of them!  I free motioned a quote from each of them.  Once the quotes were done, I whacked in a different coloured thread and had fun.

"Happily Ever After" - The Cinderella block has an organic kind of baptist fan! And then on the doorway, some sharp lines.  I've just noticed she needs a bucket handle! I was very careful not to quilt over the faces of each Princess.

"She slept for one hundred years" - Sleeping beauty was already quite a busy block with the text print and different colour combinations.  So I stuck with some little flowers on the quilt and lots or organic lines throughout.

"Once upon a time, long long ago" - Snow White got some more organic straight lines.....

And was officially my first ever attempt at embroidering a face!  Oh, and an apple stalk.....  It's hard to tell, but there's also "love" free motioned on the text print.

"So they called her Thumbelina" - I don't even know what to call the pattern I quilted here!  But I like it!

 

Lots of diagonal lines across the castle, and the clouds have little curved arches, the same as the fabric print.

 

Which makes it all cushy and cloud like....

 

And the backing is my favourite Ikea print.  I did the hanging "pockets" the same as on my Refractatorium wall hanging.  Little triangles in the corners to slip the dowel in to, and then a 10" pocket in the middle so it doesn't sag.  More hand sewing on there - I seriously don't know what's wrong with me?!!?!

And this photo?  Well, I took it on my iPhone, and really just love the angle!  I adore this project, and I can't wait to give it to my little god daughter when we meet up on the Gold Coast the week before Christmas!

In the details:

Finished size - 46" x 24"

Fabrics - Too many to declare!  But a special mention to a bunch of Art Gallery prints that have been sitting in my stash awaiting their calling.  The white & pink fabric used for the clouds was from a fabulous low volume bundle I bought on special from Pink Castle Fabrics - meant to be really!  That fat quarter JUST scraped in being big enough for its purpose!  The sashing and binding is a Michael Miller Dumb Dot - not so dumb really....

Thread - I used a few different colours in this project!  Aurifil #2024 white, #2605 grey/silver, #2000 sand, Aurifil #2692 black for the writing and face embroidery and because I couldn't wait for my next Aurifil delivery to get this finished, I pulled out a beautiful baby pink Gutermann I had.

Patterns - The castle is a pattern by Alyce @ Blossom Heart Quilts (not for sale YET!) and the fairytales are by Kristy @ Quiet Play, which you can find HERE.

I'm linking up all over the place this week - because I can!  And You can too!