Tropical Storm

I said I'd be back with more info on the projects I've contributed to Issue 13 of Quilt Now so, here I am with the next update. Tropical Storm is my take on the traditional "Storm at sea". I used all solids to showcase the impression of curves that the design yields. This is the quilt top before I sent it off to Trudi to work her magic on it.

Trudi quilted an all-over circular pattern which really tied in beautifully!

One of the best parts of contributing to a publication is seeing how the artistic professionals style my work. This is pretty much perfect in my opinion :) You can just about see the Cotton and Steel backing I used.

There was a bit of a hitch with the editing of the pattern for the magazine and the block construction diagrams are missing, so I'm including pictures here for anyone who might fancy having a go.

Block 1 construction diagrams

Block 2 construction diagrams

I'll be back soon with the other two projects I contributed. Catch you soon x

Blogger's Quilt Festival Spring 2015 - Kaleidoscopic quilt

It's that time of year again folks, all the big boys and girls are off to Quilt Market to see all the fun new fabric that we'll all be coveting and the rest of us get to watch jealously from afar. Thank goodness for Amy and her twice yearly Blogger's Quilt  Festival to keep us all happy looking at the fantastic creations of our online community! It's always fun to find new inspiration and new blogs to read.
I usually have a tricky time deciding which quilt to enter but this year I knew straight away which one I wanted to submit. I designed this Kaleidoscopic quilt for Quilt Now magazine last year and was delighted when it made the front cover of Issue 5!

This lap sized quilt was a real labour of love, 64 foundation pieced blocks was no small task. It was totally worth it though, this is one of my all time favourites. I love all the secondary patterns that this block gives and the colours just make me feel happy. There are so many of my beloved/ hoarded fabrics in here, which I'm sure contributes to its favourite status.

After all the machine work of foundation piecing it was a pleasure to take my time over the hand quilting. I'm a huge fan of chunky hand quilting with Perle thread. I don't have the patience for tiny. neat hand stitches but neat chunky stitches are right up my street. The texture that this type of quilting provides is fantastic, really snuggly, which is just what you need for a lap quilt!

I used three neutral shades of Perle thread in the low volume areas of the quilt and a dusky pink Perle thread to echo quilt the pink kites.

I contained the kaleidoscopic blocks with a scrappy low volume border and finished off with a black and white pezzy binding. I can't resist showing you the professional photo on the cover of  the magazine; I will never tire of seeing my creation right there on the cover.

So there you have it, I'm entering this in the Modern Quilts category purely because I designed this quilt on the iPad. You must check out all the other quilts in the category (and the other categories of course) and if you like this quilt or indeed any of the other quilts you can nominate up to 3 quilts for a Viewer's choice award. Nominations are open until the 21st May and voting commences on the 22nd May. I recommend getting yourself a cuppa and a comfy seat to trawl through the fantastic inspiration over there!

Thanks for visiting, I hope you'll come back again sometime. Catch you soon x 

It's a family affair!

Today the postman brought great joy in the form of Issue 2 of Quilt Now! Along with the full size pattern sheet there's a square quilting ruler this month.

I've already given you a peek at the Block of the Month project so I won't bore you with that again, but I will show you the blocks for the quilt. Those Art Gallery Fabrics really sing in Dresden fans!

This month Yvonne puts in an appearance too as she has done a reader review!

I also came across this advertisement for the West Country Quilt Show which my sister-in-law is helping to organise. Definitely worth a look for anyone in the area or anyone that doesn't mind travelling to these events!

So, like I said, it's a family affair this month :) Most exciting to me though is that one of my favourite designs to date is featured! Regular visitors will be very familiar with my Sneaky Stars design that I created last year for Justine at Simply Solids to kit for Festival of Quilts. Now I'm delighted that anyone who buys Issue 2 will have access to the pattern too. There were quite a lot of lovely people interested in the pattern last year so I'm hoping that they will still love it and have a go!

It's great to see it photographed and styled by professionals!

For the benefit of those who didn't see my original posts it's works very well in different styles too. Here are 2 others I made last year - The Man Quilt and a quilt for James.

Now I'll leave you all to enjoy the weekend, although I may pop back tomorrow if I can summon the energy to show you a rather lovely charity shop find in the form of a hand-crank Singer! Catch you soon x

Whooping!

It's that time of the month again, where I get to be all excitable over the release of Quilt Now's next issue! The magazine is due to hit UK stores next week but you can get a sneaky preview of this month's Block of the Month, as my free project tutorial is now live on the Quilt Now website.

Catch you soon x

Quilt Now

I know I've mentioned Quilt Now magazine before but I don't think I actually showed you what I'd been secret sewing for it. This is the fantastic first issue, packed with gorgeous projects that you're going to want to sew!

As I've said before my contribution is a monthly quilt along. It's a skill-builder and will result in a rather fabulous medallion quilt (even if I do say so myself). Here's the first month's block- Curves and foundation piecing!

For those readers that like the block but don't fancy the quilt along I've designed a companion project for each month. This month it's a summery tote bag. The pattern for the tote is live on the Quilt Now website.

I've been so excited to see blocks appearing in the wild already! Our lovely friend Sarah has already shown her fab block to the world! I'm encouraging people to use the #quiltnowbom on Instagram so I can find them all :) I really can't wait to see the different versions of my blocks as time goes on.

Anyway, the point of this post, other than shameless self-promotion is that I have a spare copy of the magazine to give away!

The first issue comes with a full size template sheet, a strawberry pincushion project pack and a very detailed guide to quilting for those who may be new to it.

If you fancy the chance to win this copy of the first issue of Quilt Now just leave a comment - ME PLEASE and I'll include you in the draw. If there are more than a handful of you I'll use random number generator to decide the winner, otherwise it will be names out of a hat. The giveaway will close on Sunday 27th July at 11pm(BST). Please make sure I have a way of contacting you if you are the winner. Catch you soon x