Tutorials

Hello again! This week it's the turn of the inner border, imaginatively named "Border 1", which is made of 14 rectangles. This is where you get to use almost all of your remaining fabrics and your colour gradation will start to become really obvious.As before, here is the colour-by-numbers version of the piecing diagram:(The red numbers are the fabrics you need to use, and the grey ones are the number of that paper section).Once you have made all your sections, sew together 5, 6 and 7, and 12, 13 and 14 to make the two short (side) border pieces. Then make the two long border pieces (top and bottom). Make sure you get all your paper templates the right way around and in the right order. It [Read more...]

Welcome to the next instalment in the pervalong, which follows the same basic principles as last week. I am sure that by now you are all experts at piecing your shapes so here are the suggested colour layouts for blocks C and D. Again, you can change these however you like, or not.And here are mine all pieced (remember, it ends up a mirror image):When you have finished all four of the central blocks you can sew them together. The only piece of advice I have for you here is to remove the paper along the long seam line (after you have sewn it), just to make pressing a little easier:And there you have it, the central section all finished.Next week borders, where you get into the rest of your [Read more...]

I hope you all have your fabric and are ready to start piecing! Before you do anything else, take your 3/4 metre length that includes your binding fabric and cut four 2.25 or 2.5 inch wide (whatever you prefer) width-of-fabric strips. Put these away for later. I can neither confirm nor deny that I may have had to buy extra black the first time because I forgot to do this. Ahem.If you are new to foundation paper piecing, then please check out this tutorial for a brilliant, clear set of instructions that are far better than I could manage!Here are the suggested colour layouts for block A and B. To make things a little easier for those of you using your own colour schemes I have included a [Read more...]

Fracture is foundation pieced using paper templates, but don’t panic! The templates are very simple with only three or four sections each, and if you make a mistake you can just add another piece of fabric until you have covered the whole shape. It’s the reduced-swearing version of paper piecing. If you are new to foundation piecing then there are lots of tutorials available on the interwebs, like this fab one from Katy.The quilt is constructed using large and small squares and rectangles. To make a quilt the same size as the original (36 inches square) you will need to cut the following:If you want to make your quilt bigger (or smaller) then simply adjust the paper sizes accordingly. As [Read more...]

*does not involve actual pervs. Sorry to disappoint you.   Hellooooo! I'm a little bit excited (and also scared) to launch the pervalong today. Please go ahead and grab a button from the sidebar and join the flickr group too, if you like.    Here is the (hopefully sufficiently relaxed) schedule: Today: Choosing your colour scheme Preparing your foundation papers Piecing central blocks A and B Piecing central blocks C and D Border 1 Border 2 and finishing your quilt top  Colour scheme The basic principle for choosing your fabrics is to start with a strong colour in the centre (I used Papaya – a lovely warm yellow) and fade gradually through to paler colours (corn yellow, [Read more...]

Scrappy coasters are my go-to gift. They come together quickly, you can make them to co-ordinate with any colour scheme and they help nibble away at the scrap mountain, which is always a good thing. I was making a set today (for a commission, excitingly) and thought I would put together a tutorial. They are not difficult to make, but there are a few little tips that make them even easier. So here we go - my first tutorial. I hope it all makes sense!First gather your scraps. You can use even the tiniest pieces – some of mine were only an inch wide. You can iron them if you want, but I don’t usually bother. Sew scraps together until the piece is bigger than 5 inches square. [Read more...]