Apples

Lots happening in our household, the beginning of winter sports - goodbye saturday morning sleep in/ hello beanie,gumboots,coffee and a bacon & egg roll at 7am.

Family coming to visit from Ireland over the weekend which I'm looking forward to.

 A few projects on the hop that need to be finished and most exciting - I'll be teaching a class at Calico & Ivy Balmain next term, so I'm doing my prep work for the class. 

My Classes will be on a Thursday 10:30 - 1:30 and fortnightly (five classes all up).

Calico & Ivy

The class list etc will be emailed out to everyone on the email list later this week, so sign up if your not already on the email list - not many places in the classes so you will need to be quick sticks or you'll miss out.

I picked up some lovely Liberty of London fabric today from Calico & Ivy Balmain. I'm starting to do my examples for the class and I will be using the Liberty Fabric. 

Below are the Quilts we will be working on,The class is still being nutted out a bit - but I want to encourage Improv Quilting using simple shapes and also looking at structure and colour  technique in the log cabin.

Scrappy Quilt - Improv

Be Square Quilt - Log Cabin

for more info in regard to class content check out Calico & Ivy towards the end of the week.

These quilts suit both beginner and Advance students. The possibilities are endless.

 

Xx Siobhan

Warning Warning!!!!!

 Warning  

This post contains very little if any reference at all to sewing/Quilting

Good I'm glad I alerted you to the above.

This post is all about my Lovely Dad and all the treats he brought me back after a trip to Paris. Very self indulgent - but look how great it all looks, I had to share.

The French have a great way of packaging and presenting things. There is actually a fabric picture snuck in - It's made in Lyon, I'll keep you posted when I use it.

Liberty Gum Boots? not Fabric but it is Liberty! that almost counts as Quilty.

Anyway I'll leave you with the pretty images

Xx Siobhan

Sneaky peak

Hi All

I'm working on some "stuff" with these guys.

 It will be a while till I can say what I'm working on etc but I just wanted to show you the fantastic fabric I'm working with. 

I'm very Happy :)




also ! tomorrow (Thursday)check out Modern Day Quilts. I'm being featured!!!!!!


Xx Siobhan

Lovely Linen

 Here we have the Linen & Liberty & Anna Maria Horner fabric I was working on. 


It's a perfect baby cot size or Lounge throw. It's lovely and soft because of the sparse hand quilting. Binding was done in Liberty of London and Anna Maria Horner fabric. 


I pre washed my linen in hot water and put it through the dryer, usually I wouldn't bother but because I was hand quilting and not densely I wanted the linen to stay put! no shrinking please.

Very easy - I would highly recommend you give it a go!

I wanted the hand quilting to  look very naive, I used a number 8 perle cotton and also doubled it over for thickness.

The back view of the quilt with the hand quilting showing through :)

Usual pile of Quilts hanging around somewhere in our house

Miss 4 had to get in on the photo action - never one to miss out.

This is a chair I'm thinking of upholstering  with some quilting...... I have two of them (the blue one),

Till Next Time Xx

Rainy Sundays

Hi All 
It's been raining here in Sydney all weekend, and it's really nice! it hasn't rained here for a while and the garden really needed it.


I thought I'd show you a good way to get rid of some scraps and small bits of fabric you might have lying around.


I call this my 

Eton Mess Squares Block

I am using a 1/2 inch seam in this example. Very odd I know - but I like it, It irons down easily and sits nicer when I use big heavy linens and canvas.


In this example I had 6 different fabric ranges. Ultimately you could have a million different fabrics or just two - The possibilities in this block are endless.


First you need to make a framed Square 
- you will need one 7 X 7 inch square and then framed with 3 1/2 inch strips for each square.

Fold selvage to selvage, line up your fabric and trim to square off. 

Measure 7 inches and cut

turn your strip and measure 7 inches again - now you have a 7 X 7 inch square.

cut a 3 1/2 inch strip and then cut into 

a 7 inch strip and 12 inch strip

each framed square should have a contrasting fabric framing it.

sew both 7 inch strips to the squares, press seams open.

Sew the 12 inch seams and press seams open

One finished framed Square

For todays purpose Im working with 9 framed squares

Grab three squares from a row and place on top of each other

Make one cut horizontally and vertically, try to be a bit off centre to make it look a bit more messy.

re-arrange blocks back together again and repeat with the next two rows. Try to mix it so that no same fabrics are side by side.

sew two bottom bits together and then two top bits together, press seams open and sew the two together. You now have a Eton Mess Square complete.

One Complete Eton Mess Square.

Sew three blocks together to create a long strip - repeat with all three rows.

Sew the three rows together and press seams open

One finished Messy Squares Block containing
3 X 3 Eaton Mess Squares

What the back should look like

This finished block measures 32 Inch's.

Perfect for a nice Baby throw or cot cover. Equally great for a Big Cushion.


I've made a Flickr Group for anyone who made the Eton Mess Square or any other of my Designs to show - I'd love to see what people come up with.


http://www.flickr.com/groups/beaspokequilts/

If you wanted to turn this into a single bed size quilt you would need to repeat the above pattern three* across and four* down.
-three and four of the finished block from the above pattern, this would give you 12 small squares across by 18 small squares long! does that make sense :) I hope so.

I'm thinking I'll keep adding to it.
I'm also thinking of Eton Mess and wondering if I have the ingredients to make it......