Treasures new and old

Over recent months, I have been designing some new Pinterest Pins to display the patterns I have available in my shop. It's been a fun thing to spend time on. Here's a sample of just a few:

Do you enjoy Pinterest? It certainly is an inspiring and creative space. You can find me on Pinterest here.

In the process of sorting through the photos of my patterns for these Pins, I discovered there are a number of my designs that have not been offered for sale in my shop. There's about 40 that will never be offered. Some of them are not my best work, others are in colours that don't turn me on (I can never get my heart around orange!!!), others were designed for a specific magazine brief and are not really 'me', and others I have never really loved and certainly don't have any feelings of affection for now!

However, there are a few that I quite like, but they either need updating or tweaking. I plan to work steadily on those over the coming months. I have already started on the Enchanted Garden Pincushion and Needle case (old version below) and I am loving the new look.

Then there are other designs which I cannot understand why I have not put them in my shop, so I have started remedying that. Two cushions have been added - Fan Fantasy:

fun with Dresdens and a little bit of embroidery.

It's totally 'me' and in one of my favourite colours.  Here's the Pinterest Pin I made for it:

The other cushion is my Spending Time Cushion:


It has a delightful sentiment to stitch, my favourite applique and a little bit of embroidery.

... and here is its matching Pinterest Pin.

You can find these cushions on my Cushion Pillow page here.

BIG NEWS 

of the week is that I am planning to offer a Block of the Month Wall Quilt in 2020. It is very much in the thinking stage at the moment, but the decision has been made, and now hopefully I will be able to get it all together by the end of this year!

Happy stitching.

Val

EPP's and Quilt-As-You-Go - a match made in heaven!

After all my months of stalling, I have finished my Lucy Boston quilt!

As I've said before, the EPP (English Paper Piecing) process didn't turn me on at all, but I LOVE how my quilt has turned out. 

The compromise of appliqueing the blocks onto white fabric has been a good option that I am very happy with. It saved a lot of angst I would have had in doing dozens of little EPP squares, but still gives a good contrast for the blocks.

The sashing and border took lots of effort but it sure was worth it all. With five elements to each one, it was a lot of cutting and piecing and quilting but I think it has lifted the quilt out of the ordinary and given it the wow factor I wanted.

It's the first time I have done wide sashings using the Quilt-As-You-Go method. All my previous QAYG quilts have been with narrow sashing strips, so these had to be done differently, being so wide. Usually there are two blocks abutting, with a joining strip placed over the top, back and front, to cover the join. With these wide strips, I joined them in the same way as with a QAYG border, and that is to abut a piece of batting in between the back and front sashings. That way, there are no double thicknesses of batting to cause an uneven surface. It works brilliantly and all is held in place with the quilting. 

The thing that I was thrilled about was that I had enough fabric to complete the quilt exactly how I wanted. When I started out, I just grabbed what I had in my stash in blues, blacks and gold, with no plan at all in my head, other than to try some Lucy Boston Blocks. A couple of years later, and now with all nine blocks pieced, I had the bright idea to do this particular sashing from the Jinny Beyer 2015 Block of the Month Quilt. After lots of calculations, I figured that I would JUST have enough fabric. Would you believe all I had left of the main blue fabric was just 1½ inches across the width of fabric, plus a 10 inch square!!! I reckon once again that my God was looking after the tiny details of my life!

I'll finish up with this gorgeous bunch of roses that were given to me by lovely friends. Fresh flowers in the house are so uplifting, aren't they?

Happy stitching,

Val

A love/hate relationship with EPP ... and a new pattern!

First of all - my new pattern.

One of my lovely craft friends asked me whether I had a pincushion pattern in the shape of an Iron. I didn't, and with her permission to pinch her idea, I tried my hand at designing one.

I made one with felt, which I didn't like at all, so it was back to the drawing board, and eventually I settled on this design. I have called it "Pressing On".

It's cute, whimsical, and fun to make. If you like it and want to make your own, you can purchase the pattern on my Pincushions and Needle Cases page here.

Many years ago, hubby and I were going on a long car journey so I wanted to take some stitching that I could do in the car. Everyone seemed to be doing EPP's (English Paper Piecing) making beautiful hexagons, so that was obviously something great to do on our trip.

I made a total of about ten hexagons on the journey and then did a few more when I arrived home. It was never really a love affair with EPP. I didn't really enjoy it and my grand intentions amounted to the photo above where you can see the sum total of my life's hexagons! I absolutely loved all the photos of everyone's beautiful Grandmother's Flower Garden quilts etc. but the process didn't turn me on at all.

A few years later and all the rage was the revival of the Lucy Boston Patchwork of the Crosses. It took a while for me to become enthused but ultimately I could not resist the charm of these gorgeous blocks.

I was determined to use only what I had from my stash and had fun finding some suitable fabrics. Fussy cutting the shapes even excited me. Then it was the boring bit, cutting all those paper shapes.

I scoured the internet for good advice on how to stitch the pieces as I had seen some put together with ugly stitches showing and I knew I wouldn't be happy with that. So, armed with good technique, good fabric, good thread and good intentions, I set out on my new EPP journey.

I was very happy when the first block came together and even was enthused to start on the second, but the thought of doing nine blocks was overwhelming. Gradually the drudgery of joining the pieces came to the fore and the project was abandoned in favour of 'real' stitching - projects with stitches like Palestrina stitch, Bullion stitch, Fly stitch and Cast-on Loops.

So here we are a couple of years later and with no magazines much to publish my designs, I have a lot more time to work on my own projects. Out came Lucy Boston again, and with a new determination to finish this project, I set out to complete all nine blocks. I had to have a break or two every week to do more exciting sewing, but the more blocks I made the more I wanted to complete what I had started. 

I was fascinated with how each block looked so different depending on where the light and dark fabric was placed. I loved the look of each block, even if the process of getting there wasn't particularly enjoyable. Eventually I completed all nine blocks! 

Then I looked at all those 1½ inch paper squares I had cut ready to fill in between the blocks, and said to myself "NO WAY!"  I had disciplined myself enough to finish the actual blocks and there was no way that I could bear to do any more EPP! So, what was I going to do with the blocks without all the joining squares?

The answer was Applique - applique the blocks onto white background fabric and make a quilt from there. So here you have the results. I have decided to put the quilt together using my favourite Quilt-as-you-go method. The blocks are quilted easily before they are joined together, and as quilting is not my thing either, I have quilted them very simply.

I have plans for some lovely sashing. It's quite a bit of cutting and sewing but I think it is going to look good and be worth the extra effort. It won't be authentic Lucy Boston, but it will be achievable for me and another PASS (Project At a Stand Still) will be done and dusted. Hopefully next blog post I will have a photo of the completed quilt - that will show my love relationship with EPP!

Happy Stitching

Val