I've finished my doll quilt for the DS Quilts swap, and I love it so much I don't want to let it go. It is pretty heavily hand quilted (along the edge of all 160 fan blades, plus a fair bit of echo quilting) so it has come out of the wash looking beautifully textured. It used literally every tiny scrap that I had of these precious fabrics, and finished a tiny bit bigger than it should have (20 inches square, rather than 18). I hope I don't get reported to the quilt swap police.The pattern is from this book by Sarah Fielke, adapted slightly so there was more empty space around each fan. That is how it looked in the picture, but I think there was a mistake in the pattern because it originally [Read more...]

I'm part way through quilting my mini quilt for the DS Quilts Doll Quilt swap. It's a lovely way to spend a quiet Sunday.I really hope that my partner likes this. It's my first ever quilty swap and I am really nervous that it will go down like a lead balloon. Partly because I really love it, and partly because I am hand-quilting the hell out of it, so it is taking forever.This is actually quite nerve wracking!

*an unpleasant combination of stubborness and contrariness. Not to be confused with determination, which is an excellent characteristic.The London Modern Quilt Guild challenge for this month is to create a mini quilt (maximum 12 inches square) that represents your own definition of modern quilting. A selection from the group will then be displayed in John Lewis (a major department store in central London). My personal definition of modern quilting is the freedom to create something a bit bonkers. Perhaps using a design that wouldn't normally be considered 'quilty'. To use fabric in unexpected ways. Last year my friend Sally blogged about QR-3D - a project to create artwork [Read more...]

Or so they say.I've completed all but two of my rose stars. Just to mix things up a little I thought I would start to sew them together. I've opted for plain white as the background , given the huge number of prints and colours in the blocks themselves. That and the fact that I am terminally indecisive. Oh, and I have a load of white ikea sheets lying around just waiting to be cut up. I use them a lot when I need plain colours, as the backing and binding here and here, the sashing here and here, and in these cushions. They are really cheap, and unlike other (fancier) sheets are about the same weave as quilting cottons. Each of the blocks took about three hours from start to finish. [Read more...]