Pages

Tuesday 29 October 2013

Blogger's Quilt Festival - tiptoeing in!

I'm tiptoeing into the Blogger's Quilt Festival at Amy's Creative Side with two entries, just for the fun of it and slightly in apprehension to put my work next to the work of some great Quilters, who enjoy blogging too! But here goes, my two entries which I hope you'll enjoy looking at.

My first entry for the Quilt Photographer category is my Phoenix Stealing Happy Hexagon Trivet:


Everyday when I take my Baby to Nursery School and then go to work, I pass in front of the long wall of the Sports centre filled with fantastic mural art. The Phoenix kept looking at me, reminding me something. The Phoenix was reborn from the flames of fire and some days don't you feel like that too? Well, it happens to me so this is my homage to getting up again when you fall down, a message of hope.



Read about my Happy Hexagon Trivet from the Patchwork, Please Zakka Along here

Please vote for my entry in the Quilt Photographer category here from the 1st of November till the 7th of November.


My second entry for the Art Quilts category is my Lago Maggiore Quilt:



Born from my love for Lake Maggiore in northern Italy, where I live. I've spent many hours looking at this breathtaking lake. In this quilt I've tried to capture it's essence: the bright sky with the outline of the mountains,


 the dark water apparently calm until the strong wind "Tramontana" starts blowing...


and the beaches, mostly stony and sometimes with grass reaching the edge of the water:


You can read more about my Lago Maggiore Quilt in my post here.

Please vote for my entry in the Art Quilts category here from the 1st of November till the 7th of November.


Blogger's Quilt Festival - AmysCreativeSide.com



Sunday 27 October 2013

Laura Armiraglio's Tutorial: Sew (Knit not!) Wool Cowl Scarf

I've been waiting for it to get colder around here to write about a fantastic tutorial Laura Armiraglio gave us at Francesca's shop Tessilesa during the summer. Now that Autumn has come and you feel like wrapping a nice warm scarf around your neck, I'll write about Laura's great tutorial on making a wool cowl scarf with no knitting involved but lots of free motion quilting!
The photos were taken during the demonstration I was trying to follow at the same time, so please forgive the quality!




Laura demonstrated how you could make this beautiful wool cowl scarf using two products by Freudenberg - VlieselineSolufix and Soluvlies.

The first step is to cut out a rectangle of Solufix. The height and the length should correspond to the height and length (measuring the circumference of the ring) of your finished cowl scarf. If you're not sure about the size take your favourite scarf and use it as an example. Now take your wool and start forming a pattern on top of the rectangle of Solufix, after laying it out flat on a table. 






TIP: use different kinds of wool, with different textures and thicknesses. The best effect I've noticed is achieved by using spirals and tight loops.



When you've finished covering the surface with your wool pattern, then cover everything with one layer of Soluvlies. Fix the layers together with safety pins and now start free motion quilting.




To make the cowl scarf circular you must overlay the two short ends and quilt across. When you've finished quilting, dip everything under cold running water and the Solufix and Soluvlies will dissolve. Lay out your work on a flat surface to dry.




TIP: try leaving as few gaps as possible in your pattern. The more dense the pattern, the more the texture of your cowl scarf will be dense. You can make a more decorative version of the cowl scarf leaving gaps, giving a final "cobweb" effect. 

For a very cool example on how to use the same technique (created by Jeannette Knake) to make yourself a dress from an old t-shirt and some wool, look at this post by Laura Armiraglio. Pure genius! She is extremely talented and creative.
I would to thank Laura for giving me permission to write about her tutorial. 


Saturday 19 October 2013

Maxi Trivet with Patchwork Wheel Block

After making the patchwork wheel block for Adrienne @ Chezzetcook Modern Quilts during September's Global Scrap Bee , I decided to try the same block in black and grey, just for fun. I was curious to see what it would look like, after seeing different versions of the patchwork wheel block.




The patchwork wheel block has become a Maxi Trivet, to help with big saucepans that always seem to be falling off normal sized trivets!


The quilting lines are to make the wheel stand out as much as possible. I really like the difference the quilting has made even though I'm still wondering if I should quilt right to the edge and not leave the smooth black border.


And this is the back. I did actually have enough black (in case you were wondering!) but couldn't resist "patching it".

The same block made my Global Scrap Bee block:


And I particularly liked Dolores' version with the white background, I came across at her blog True Blue Canadian. It's brilliant and you can decide whether you're looking at wheels or crosses! Love the fabrics she's chosen too.




Linking up at TGIFF this week at Quilt Matters (don't forget there are lots of giveaways here!), Crazy Mom Quilts and Can I Get a WHOOP WHOOP!




Wednesday 16 October 2013

2013 Q4 Finish-A-Long at Leanne she can quilt



Am I just in time to join? Can't believe I'm so late! 

she can quilt

I'm joining Leanne Q4 Finish-A-Long because I have some quilts I really have to finish this year. The photos are coming up soon because I completely lost track of time.

In the mean time a peek view of some projects I'm making more of for Christmas:










Sunday 13 October 2013

Giant Prettified Pincushion - Zakka Along

OK, so I was joking, it's actually not a Giant Prettified Pincushion but a Giant Prettified Pincushion! The first time I saw the photo on the cover of Ayumi Takahashi's book Patchwork, Please! I thought I was looking at beautiful cushions. Afterwards I noticed there were pins stuck in one of the cushions and so... they were pincushions, of course! But the idea of the cushions stuck in my head and as this is the last day of the Zakka Along 2.0 and seeing as I've really enjoyed this sew along, I decided to make this fun project.


The pattern is enlarged by 380%! If I were to make the cushion again, I'd changed the proportion of the side panels, they came too high even though I used the same percentage to enlarge these too. Don't ask me how that happened, probably some problem with my maths!


This was the largest self-cover button I had but I would have preferred a bigger one and I was missing a mattress needle to pull the button more tight, through the thickness of the cushion, so I'll be fixing that soon.


Thank you to everyone who participated because I really enjoyed looking at your work in the Flickr group. I had no idea this was going to be so interesting. It's incredible how choosing different fabrics and thanks to everyone's personal style, you can get such incredible results, starting from the same project. I'm going to miss the Zakka Along... come on, I'm waiting for the next excellent Zakka book to be published, Please!


Saturday 5 October 2013

Skinny Pincushion - Across the Pond Sew Along

Another fun project this month for the Across the Pond Sew Along: Skinny Pincushions. I hadn't seen one yet until I read about them on Amy's blog Amy Made That! and on Susie's Sunroom. I went for Susie's solution of stuffing the pincushion with cat litter to weigh it down and sharpen my pins, it really works!






I decided to use the button fabric I recently bought. Love at first sight and it's quickly found a special home. To complement the fabric I added three vintage looking buttons which luckily match the colours in the fabric beautifully.


The "tape measure" linen ribbon is by East of India. They make very high quality ribbons and this one has a very pretty packaging. How can you not like the quote it has on the card? Would make a lovely gift for somebody who likes sewing. I bought mine at Temptation Gifts and over the years I have bought quite a few...ehm, ehm.








Amy Made That!...by eamylove



Linking up at TGIFF this week at Quokkaquilts
there's a great month of giveaways lined up!