Blood Moon Pillow

I have participated in the last couple of rounds of the X-Factor Pillow Swap - the premise of this swap is that each round, you make a cushion based around a theme, and send a photo to the group admin, who posts it to the group (so you don't know who made which cushion). After the deadline for entries has passed, everyone ranks the entries in order of preference, and the person whose cushion got the most votes gets their first choice, the person whose cushion got the second most votes gets their first choice (if it's still available), and so on.

The theme for the most recent round was drunkard's path, and this is the pillow I made.

 

It's a pretty literal interpretation of the theme, but sometimes I think simple is better.  I cut the drunkard's path blocks using my friend Anne's Accuquilt machine and a die I bought, and used a selection of Umbrella Prints fabrics, solids and Essex linen.

 

With fairly simple piecing, I thought I should add a little bit of interest with the quilting.  I stitched in the ditch in grey thread to stabilise the piece, then hand quilted about 1/4" of an inch inside each circle. I used a variegated 12 weight thread from Wonderfil - it's one of my favourites at the moment.

 

I nearly stopped quilting there, but then I thought it would be fun to add some little quilted crosses a la Jen Kingwell (you can watch how she does this quilting here).  I'm really happy with how they turned out and I'd definitely put them on a quilt again.

 

This pillow is finished using the method set out in my covered zipper cushion back tutorial, using a slightly heavier weight fabric my dad bought in Japan. 

This pillow is heading off to its new home very shortly, and then I will wait with bated breath to see which pillow lands on my doorstep.

#igminiswap

I haven't been swapping much this year, but when I saw heaps of my online quilting buddies signing up to the #igminiswap being run on instagram, I couldn't resist.  It's being run by Sandy aka @curly_boy1, and the mailing deadline for international participants (i.e., me) is coming up soon.

This is the mini quilt I've made for my partner.  I wanted to use some of the very special handprinted fabrics I got from Karen Lewis Textiles (formerly Blueberry Park).

This log cabin variation, which uses wide logs and narrow logs (which are half the width of the wide logs), is something I've been wanting to play with as well.  I know my partner likes a low volume background, so it seemed like the perfect way to let the hand printed fabrics shine.

Hopefully this doesn't give the game away, but my swap partner has some mad machine quilting skills, so I decided to take the complete opposite approach and hand quilt this mini.  I've been enjoying hand quilting a larger quilt but it's taking FOREVER, so it was nice to have a quicker hand quilting project!  I used Aurifil 12 weight thread in white (2024) and I love the effect.  I actually bought a box of assorted 12 weight threads (this one) because I see more hand quilting in my future.

I bought a cute "made with love" stamp from Typo a couple of months ago, and I've been waiting for the chance to use it.  I used permanent fabric ink with the stamp and then added my own name and my partner's name (edited out in these photos) with a fabric marker.  The hand-worked blanket stitch is kind of my label signature now.

I had a few scraps left over from cutting the logs for my mini quilt, so I decided to use them to make a cute little pouch to go with the mini.

I'm not sending the threads but they just looked so pretty with the colours of the pouch!

 

My partner can use this pouch for whatever she likes.  But, it does fit lots of threads!

 

As usual, I used the open wide pouch tutorial, but made a fairly random size (basically the size my scrappy panels came out) and didn't box the corners.  I quilted the pieced exterior to a scrap of batting to give the pouch a bit of body without having to use interfacing (I hate interfacing so much!).

I'm really happy with how this mini turned out, and I enjoyed making it.  I really hope my partner likes it!

Have you been making things to swap lately?

Quilt Stats 

Pattern: I think this is a traditional block, but I did the quilt math myself

Finished Size: 18" by 18"  

Fabric: various low volume fabrics, Pretty Potent Co-ordinating Solids Fat Quarter bundle, printed by Karen Lewis Textiles

Backing: Ephemera

Binding: Print from Lotta Jansdotter's Sylvia line

Pieced and quilted by: me

Sarah Fielke's quilts and hand quilting

To follow up on my post about Sarah Fielke's workshop in Christchurch, I wanted to share one of the highlights of the workshop, which was seeing a selection of Sarah's gorgeous quilts up close and personal.  She brought quilts from her latest book, Hand Quilted With Love, as well as quilts from her previous book, Quilting from Little Things.

This quilt is called Lady Marmalade and is really fun up close.  Most of the circles in the borders feature fun fussy cut and novelty prints, often with animals.  Did you know that there's almost always at least one animal in each of Sarah's quilts?  I didn't, and I thought that was such a lovely idea.

This quilt is called Bangles and every time I've seen it made up in different colourways it looks awesome.  One of my favourites is this version made by my friend Erica of Kitchen Table Quilting.  I bought the templates to make this quilt from Sarah and it's on my to do list - possibly using a jelly roll of Oh Deer! fabric I've got hanging around.

 

This quilt is truly stunning in real life.  The hand quilting adds so much texture which was quite hard to photograph inside.  I also really love the little tabs around the edge - so much, in fact, that I used similar tabs on this pillow.

 

This is one of my most favourite quilts in all of Sarahs's books - it's called In the Night Garden.  All those shot cottons are amazing - and look at that gorgeous hand quilting.  I bought the templates for this one too!

 

This quilt is called Millefiori and is such a happy quilt.  There are lots of shapes I love in here - probably too much appliqué for it to go on my to do list though.

 

This quilt is really amazing in real life.  This picture doesn't capture it but careful colour placement means there is a secondary pattern which becomes clear when you step back from the quilt.  There's plenty of interest up close too.  I'd love to play around with this kind of strip piecing/fussy cutting idea - I think there's a lot of potential for really interesting quilts there.

This quilt doesn't normally travel, but Sarah brought it along because she wasn't able to bring her Fancy That quilt (it's huge and really heavy with all the linen used in it).  This quilt is called On a Wing and  Prayer and it is really really gorgeous.  It includes Oakshotts (love) and text prints (more love) and I can see why Sarah likes to keep it at home safe and sound.  Yeah, I wanted to steal all of these quilts.

Going back to the workshop, Sunday was reserved for people to work on whatever quilt they liked from any of Sarah's books.  I continued to work on my Fancy That quilt, but I also took the opportunity to learn Sarah's method of hand quilting (you can watch for yourself in this free video tutorial).

I'd actually watched the tutorial before and given this method a go, but it helped so much to watch Sarah in person and to have her there to give me advice as I clumsily tried her technique. It took me a little while to get the hang of it (especially since I've barely used a thimble before) but I did, and once I got going I found that it's really rather addictive.

One thing that Sarah covered in person but not so much in the video is the type of hoop to use.  I have a really large oval hand quilting hoop that I bought second-hand (I thought it would be better quality than a cheap new one and I didn't want to invest lots of money before I knew whether I'd enjoy hand quilting or not).  It was really a bit big to travel with so I was lucky that Sarah let me use her hoop in class.  Her recommendation was not to use a really big hoop - you should be able to hold it so it sits comfortably along your forearm between your bicep and your hand.  For most people a 14" hoop or a 16" hoop will work well.  I found that really interesting - I don't think I've heard or read advice on what size hoop to use for hand quilting anywhere else.

Sarah was using a 14" hoop and I found that comfortable, so I've ordered one of my own.  I've done a little bit of hand quilting at home so I don't completely lose the muscle memory of how to do it, and it really is awkward using my giant hoop!  I can't wait for my new hoop to arrive so I can keep quilting.

I'm very new and to be honest I never thought I'd be a hand quilter, but it's surprisingly enjoyable.  So, any other hand quilters out there?  Maybe you're just starting out, like me, or maybe you have been hand quilting for ages and have some wisdom you'd love to pass on.  Let me know!