Monday 25 November 2013

A quick wee swap

Last week the lovely Krista from Poppy Print put out a call on Instagram for a couple of people in the UK to help out with a needle case swap between the London Modern Quilt Guild and the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild and I jumped at the chance! I love swaps and it's been ages since I did one :)


A quick turnaround was needed so I decided to go with EPP which I could do on the move. Some tiny little half inch hexies were born in the car whilst my son warmed up for his football match on Saturday morning.


On Saturday afternoon they came to work with me and turned into a little hexie panel.


On Sunday they were hand quilted


And today they became a little needle book


Now they've started their big journey to Canada and I can get excited about a cute little needle book coming to me :)

Happy Monday!
Fiona x

Thursday 14 November 2013

A Finish! I actually finished a quilt!

I took all of your advice on my FAL post and decided to concentrate on just one quilt until it was finished and guess what? It worked!


I finished my St Louis 16 Patch quilt and I'm delighted with it :) The fabric is mostly Bari J's LillyBelle with some other bits and bobs mixed in. I had originally made it square but have discovered I don't really like square quilts so I added an extra row.


I decided to practice my FMQ and went for a large scroll pattern. The quilting is very wobbly and uneven in places but I'm fine with that. Hopefully with practice I will get better and it's soft and snuggly and that's what matters. The back is a Tanya Whelan print I've had for ages.


My oldest son has declared it his new favourite quilt and has asked for one in "boy colours" for his bed, but he's going to have to wait because I've got rather a large FAL list to get through. For now he can share this one with Murphy, who decided it was his new bed late last night when I pulled it out of the dryer. Here he is all snuggled up with his teddy :)


I'm getting close to another finish on my list too. It's a hand quilting one that I've been working on slowly but steadily in the evenings. Hopefully I'll be able to show that soon.

Fiona x


Friday 1 November 2013

Setting 16 patch blocks on a point - a tutorial

A while back I wrote a tutorial about how to make a 12" finished 16 patch block for the Together circle of do.Good Stitches. The lovely ladies in the circle sent me some gorgeous blocks and I've decided to set them on a point for a bit of a change.


This is what those beautiful blocks look like when they are laid out and turned on a point. Now I need some setting triangles to go around the edges to fill the gaps.


To make a setting triangle you will need the following:

Fabric A 
4 x 3.5" squares

Fabric B
2 x 3.5" squares
1 x 5 3/4" square cut twice on the diagonal



Lay out your fabrics in the order shown below and sew into rows, pressing to the darker fabric. Join the rows together to make a triangle.


Note. This block works best when you use a dark value fabric and a light value fabric. There needs to be a good contrast between the two.



I will need to make smaller triangles for the corners of the quilt and I will add a tutorial for doing that once I actually make them :)

This tutorial is for the Together Circle of do.Good Stitches, but if anybody else finds it useful I'd love to see what you make!

Fiona x