Raspberry Lemonade (Show Off Irish Chain) - a quilt pattern review

I've written before about Penny and Fenella Jameson, a mother/daughter team who own Stitch Playroom in Christchurch. I met them when they visited Wellington to teach their quilted hexagon ottoman class and then saw them again in Christchurch when I attended Sarah Fielke's class (which was organised by Fenella).

Last year, Fenella asked if I would be interested in reviewing one of their quilt patterns. Since I had so much fun making the ottoman, I jumped right on board. The pattern is for a modern variation on the traditional irish chain pattern, which is designed to show off fabulous large scale designs (hence the name Show Off Irish Chain). Penny's original quilt is made with lots of different coloured Kaffe Fassett fabrics set against a neutral linen background and is a lot of fun. I decided to go down a slightly different route, choosing to keep my feature fabrics in the same colour family (red, pink, purple) and set them against a bright and completely contrasting background (for a great explanation on why those red prints seem to be jumping right off the aqua background, check out Anne's great post on complementary colours).

 

I found this aqua fence to hang my quilt on - wasn't someone daring with their paint colour! The quilt top was a cinch to put together, and super speedy because of the large pieces. I think it would be great for a beginner, and actually, the first quilt I ever made was nine patches alternated with large squares - exactly like this quilt in construction, if not design.

 

Fenella picked out the Kaffe Fassett Collective fabrics that I used, and she did a fantastic job with my extremely vague instructions of "red, pink, purple, maybe a bit of orange"! I swapped out a couple of her picks for fabrics from my stash - partly because I wanted to keep this quilt very bright and there were a couple of darker purples that weren't quite working for me, and partly because I love to show how fabrics from different designers can work together. I've snuck in a bit of Jay McCaroll, Amy Butler, and one older Michael Miller fabric.

 

One of the things I look for in a pattern is room to put my own spin on it and to make tweaks. I like the way that this pattern has guidance on how you might like to lay out your blocks, but isn't overly prescriptive. Having a clear construction diagram also meant it was easy to make the borders a bit narrower than the original quilt. Of course, I had to pull out my quilt math, but I enjoy that part! I do really like the chunky borders on the original quilt, but I'm trying to get out of the habit of making enormous quilts, and reducing the size of the borders meant it was easier to baste and quilt (hooray!).

I love my finished quilt, and I would heartily recommend the pattern, especially for beginners.  If you are interested in getting your hands on a copy, email Fenella (fenella at stitchplayroom dot co dot nz) for all the details.

I'd love to know - do you find it hard to resist tweaking patterns too, or are you a strictly by the book kind of quilter?

Quilt Stats
Pattern: Show Off Irish Chain by Stitch Playroom
Finished Size: approx 66" by 75"

Fabric: assorted Kaffe Fassett collective prints, also prints from Amy Butler, Jay McCarroll and Michael Miller, Freespirit Designer Solid in Caribbean Sea.

Backing: Blockprint Blossom in Blush from Joel Dewberry's Heirloom collection

Binding: Michael Miller Ta Dot in Berry

Pieced and quilted by: me

Linking up with finish it up friday at crazy mom quilts.



Full disclosure - Fenella provided me with the prints I used on the front of the quilt in exchange for this review.  The rest of the fabric came from my stash.  The review is an honest reflection of my thoughts on the pattern.

Modernista Homemade Swap - Finished!

So I finished up my items for the Modernista Homemade Swap.  This is my first round in this swap, but it is the third round it has been running, and each time the participants make something for a specific room in the home, plus a little extra bonus item.  This round is for the living room, so I made a table runner for my main item, and a zipper pouch in co-ordinating fabrics for the bonus extra.

I had a request via flickr for details on the fabrics and patterns I used, so I thought I would share them here.  Starting with the pouch, I used my favourite pouch tutorial, the open wide zipper pouch from Noodlehead, with a couple of tweaks.

First, I pieced the body of the pouch using scraps from making the table runner.  The little blue and orange squares are 1 1/2" square (2" cut), with a solid grey strip 1/4" wide (3/4" cut) on either side.  Those pieced strips ended up a little longer than the 10" recommended for the open wide zipper pouch, but left it at that length, and  added the charcoal sketch fabric to either side to build the height up to around 7".

I pieced the lining of the pouch out of 4" squares, and then trimmed it down to the same size as the outer pieces.  From then, I followed the instructions in the open wide zipper pouch tutorial, except that I did not box the corners.  I like boxed corners on a pouch, but leaving it flat just felt like the right thing to do for this pouch.

I didn't use a pattern for the table runner, but it's pretty simple to put together.  I cut 4" squares of the solid grey (I think it's Freespirit Designer Solid in Slate Grey) and 4" squares of an assortment of blue and orange fabrics (mostly DS Quilts, with a couple of Denyse Schmidt fabrics thrown in there).  I used those to make half square triangles, which I trimmed down to 3 1/2" square - so that the finished half square triangles in the table runner are 3" square.

Creating the chevron design with the half square triangles is pretty simple, and you could definitely expand or reduce this design to fit whatever you're making, from a table runner, to a pillow, to a quilt.

I backed the table runner with a Denyse Schmidt fabric from the re-printed Flea Market Fancy collection.  And yes, that dense dense quilting (sometimes called matchstick quilting) did take ages (each 6" section took about an hour to quilt).  I did learn a couple of tricks while doing it, so will post a tutorial with my thoughts in the next couple of weeks.

So I hope that's helpful - feel free to ask questions in the comments if you have any!

Linking up with Finish it Up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts and TGIFF.

Handmade Christmas Revealed - Day 4

Happy New Year!

I had been thinking about making an oven mitt for a while, but hadn't really got round to it.  I wanted to make my Dad something for Christmas that he would actually use, and since he enjoys cooking (and, incidentally, is an excellent cook) I thought an oven mitt would be just the thing.

The process to make it was quite simple - I used freezer paper templates made from tracing around my own oven mitt.

The side that touches hot dishes is Essex Yarn Dyed Linen in black, and I filled it with a layer of Insulbright and a layer of cotton batting.  I am quite happy with the square based free motion quilting design I used to quilt the mitt.  Because of the sharper than normal angles, this required a little bit more concentration than other designs I have done, but once I got into the swing of things, it was quite quick and fun.

The trickiest part for me was the binding.  I initially bound it with store bought bias binding, but then I caught it with my iron, and because it was poly-cotton, it melted instantly.  Obviously, it wasn't suitable for an oven mitt in any event, so I pulled it off and made my own bias binding using my favourite crosshatch sketch in charcoal.  I'm much happier with this binding and know it will stand up for the heat of dishes straight out of the oven.

Have you even made an oven mitt, or had a small disaster with melting fabric?

Granny squares are go

I put the top for my granny squares quilt together last weekend, and put the backing together and basted it at the same time.  I really wanted to do a quilting pattern that would bring the sashing and borders together so that they appear to be a single solid piece of fabric, while making the granny squares really stand out.  Time for some free-motion quilting.

I had done a bit of free-motion quilting practice on scrap sandwiches before, with limited success.  This was my first "proper" FMQ project and I was quite nervous to start.  The quilting is definitely not perfect, but once I got my sewing machine set up on the dining room table and my quilting (aka light weight gardening) gloves on, it went quite well.  The fact that I used white thread on white fabric helps hide the wonky bits.

I used a large meander type pattern to fill in the negative space but didn't do any quilting on the coloured parts of the quilt (that is why there are still basting pins there).  I will stitch these in the ditch to give the quilt a bit more structural integrity.  I never realised how quick FMQ would be - it only took me a couple of hours to do the whole quilt.  I expect that the straight-line quilting will take me at least as long.

This is the backing fabric - I wanted to use something bright and cheerful that generally went with the fabrics on the front, but that wouldn't show through in the white negative space (for example, I have found that when backing a light coloured quilt with bright red backing fabric, the colour can make it look a bit pink on the front).  This is a large rose print fabric from Lecien's Flower Sugar range.

It has the Ivy seal of approval.

Nearly finished and some favourite fabrics

I am hand-stitching the binding to the back of this quilt, and it is very nearly finished.  You can catch a glimpse of the binding clip in this photo below.

This quilt is made from scraps and left-over blocks from a quilt that I made as a wedding present.  The fabric above (from Valori Wells' Nest line) was the inspiration for all the other fabrics and colours in the original quilt.

The wedding quilt was only the second quilt I made, but I ended up with some fabrics that I think will be long-term favourites - like the blue fabric from Anna Maria Horner's Good Folks line above.  If I could easily get more of this, I would.  As it is, I do still have some scraps left but mostly binding strips (2.25 inches wide) and squares for the nine patches used in the original quilt.

I also love this herringbone print from Joel Dewberry's Modern Meadow line.  I have it in a couple of other colours for other projects but I am tempted just to buy some in each colour just in case.  Will post pictures of the entire quilt when it is finished.

Modern meets traditional

This is the first quilt I pieced, basted, quilted and bound myself.

I had two charm packs of Oasis by 3 Sisters for Moda and combined them to make this quilt and a scrappy chevron quilt top using half-square triangles.

I do like the fabric, even though it is not terribly modern.  Although the top is simple patchwork, it is quite busy, so I wanted to keep the backing and binding simple.

To up the modern factor, I decided to use solids - the quilt is backed in a white cotton fabric that I bought on special at Spotlight and it is bound with FreeSpirit Designer Solid in Sand Dune which I bought online from Hawthorne Threads.

I stitched in the ditch and then diagonally in every second diagonal row.  I like the pattern it makes on the back.

This quilt does not have an intended home, so it will either be sold or wait until the right recipient comes along.