Tumbler I Spy

With the addition of a new child in the family, an I Spy quilt had to be made. I used the Accuquilt Go 6½ tumbler die to create this. I cut several shapes at once especially for the small print fabrics - which I tend to buy more of now for this purpose, and also they are more economical when fusing cutting. 

The Accuquilt Go handled the bulk of up to 5 fabrics no problem. 

I just had to be careful here to make sure the fabric did not budge. I think if I had precut the fabrics to roughly the size I needed this would have been eliminated.

I need to get better at measuring my finished quilts before I give them away. This has to be 44" wide by  54" long. I think!

He loved it, so did Mum and Dad

Let it Snow!

 This quilt panel is Winterberry Lane by Terri Degenkolb of Whimsical for Red Rooster Fabrics. I fell in love with the art work and loved this panel. I know some call its cheats quilting, but who cares I enjoyed making it. It measures approx 22 by 45"

 I have quilted all the panels to emphasise the main pictures. I have applied hotfix crystals to add sparkle, some glitter paint for the snow as well as lovely threads in the quilting. Simple but effective.

Made in 2012

Red, White and Black

I have been sent some fabrics to make a small quilt, The lovely thing about taking on commissions is that I work with fabrics I would not normally pick.  The selection I have is a range in red, white and black, with a tonal white as the contrast

I chose a design that would show off all the fabrics and I wanted a strong geometric design. 
Here are some of the blocks on the design wall, I added another row to this.

At first I was only going to add the red boarder, but decided the white was needed

From all the fabrics I cut strips the width of the fabric 2 ½ " wide. I then sewed each coloured strip to a strip of the white tonal fabric and pressed the seam to the dark fabric. I lay another unit on top, matching the sewn seam but alternating the coloured fabric and white, so coloured was on top of white and white on top of coloured. I then sewed along each seam making a tube. Using the Creative Grids 90* strip ruler I cut the strips into triangles. Once opened up these made stripy squares.

The red boarder and black binding were made of all the different fabrics I had used in the quilt. 

The backing is made from pieced left over fabric.

One of the hardest things was trying to photograph this quilt outside. I had two problems, one it was windy, the other, 3 very curious chickens.

This method is quick and easy. I have quilted in the ditch to emphasise the geometric pattern.

With the  helpful Mabel, Isabel and Daphne hens

Storm at Sea

Having bought the Lynne Edwards Storm at Sea ruler a few years ago I thought it about time I had a go. I started with something small, just to get to grips with the technique and used some batiks that I had. So you could call this a scrap quilt of sorts.

Here are the fabrics I chose

Next came the design. I used EQ5 to design a table runner and decide on the colour ways.

Once the decision was made I set to making each block. The instructions are very clear with YouTube videos to help. I was amazed at how easy the pieces all went together. Soon I had five 16 x 16 blocks made.

This is what it looked like in fabric

 Simple boarders were added and the quilted following the lines of the wave pattern 1/4 inch on each side of the seam. 

Scrappy frames

I love trying new rulers and gadgets. Creative Grids are one of my favourite ruler producing companies. I love the 2 1/2 strip rulers, but instead of using a jelly rolls - I use scraps!

The ruler:

Productive of playing!

I started playing with the 90* ruler and this is what I have produced just playing. It uses 1 1/2'' strips. This is a quilt for the future!

Triangle fun

I was given a Moda scrap bag which contains  the left overs from Moda's production of layer cakes and charm packs. The bag contained varying widths of fabric strips from 2'' to 4'' all at least 32'' long.

So I decided to use Creative Grids 60* Single strip ruler.

I love these rulers - they are so cleverly designed and so easy to use.

From the contents of the scrap bag I made a lap quilt.

It was free motion quilted and this gave it an antique look.

Cotton Sheet to Quilt

I found an old cotton sheet that I knew we would never use. Dug out my procion dyes, made up vast quantities (3 litres each) of salt and washing soda solution, donned rubber gloves and set to making some new fabric. I cut the sheet into 12 - 14 inch squares. I wanted to have a gradual effect, working with three colours to make a spectrum of colour.

I started with lemon yellow, ultra marine and scarlet powder dyes. I mixed up a dye solution of 5 tspn of dye to 100ml tap water. I wrote on each piece of fabric as I went what the combination of colours was, however in hindsight it would have been better to do this before I started as I think I repeated one or two of the recipes.

I took a plastic bag and placed this in a small bowl, then added 5 desert spoon of the dye solution. To this I added 100 ml of salt solution, and 100 ml of soda plus 350 ml of cold water. To make this process easier I had an old jam jar marked up with masking tape accordingly.  Then I added the fabric. To make it easier for the fabric to absorb the dye I had dampened it first. I agitated the fabric in the bag sealed it with a secure knot and placed it in a cat litter tray. To the next bag I added 4 desert spoons of the first colour and one of the second.

Here is a chart to illustrate the the dye quantities

5 Y	5 B	5R
4 Y 1B	4B 1R	4R 1Y
3Y 2B	3B 2R	3R 2Y
2Y 3B	2B 3R	2R 3Y
1Y 4B	1B 4R	1R 4Y

Eventually this is what it looked like when all the bags had been completed. I then left all this over night, and agitated the bags whenever I went past.

The next morning I could not wait to open each bag. I carefully opened and rinsed the fabric in cold water then washed thoroughly, dried and ironed.

All this lovely hand dyed fabric was to be used in a dog bone/apple core quilt. All the dyed fabric was cut on an Accuquilt Go machine using the Apple Core cutter. The machine was easy to use and far quicker than trying to rotary cut around a template.  I do have the Curve Master foot, but find that my 1/4 inch foot  #57  with a lip on works a treat. The trick is to match the top tips laying the top one at near right angles and then holding this up as you sew. The machine sews and follows the curve.The actual quilt went together really easy and is now ready for quilting