Wise old Owl

Remember this Quilt ? I started it back here.

Have I ever told you how much I love my long arm machine Quilter?!? I use Kim Bradley & she is fantastic!!

I love going to her place & checking out whats going on in the world of quilting - I learn so much. 

On the particular morning I went over to Kim's with this quilt top - I was rather hazy.

 It was the end of a long school holidays, I had work piled high & sleep was much needed.

I also wasn't entirely convinced that this was one of my greatest quilt tops, It seemed a bit plain and I was concerned that your average long arm quilting was going to make it naff.

I expressed my concern to Kim - she always has an answer!

On the machine behind me was a quilt being done with a new long arm pattern......Owls!

 I love Owls!

Its the sweetest pattern ever & it gave the plain simple quilt top the perfect lift that it desperately needed.

Very happy indeed

The backing is an IKEA text print - love it and very reasonably priced.

The centre fabric is from CLOTH

and the rest is a mix of Lotta Jansdotter's Echo range, Sweetwater, Denyse Schmidt & My text fabric on spoonflower.

Its really light and fresh in its colours & design. I seem to be doing a lot of pinks & yellows together.

 In other happenings - below we have some sneaks at other work I'm in the midst of

I'm really enjoying working with the new range from Lotta Jansdotter "Bella" - Due in store in August 2012. 

Miss 5 is home sick "Helping"

and I'm testing out a template I have designed with some of my spoonflower fabrics!

all Systems go in our house!

I'm also enjoying the cold but sunny Sydney weather.

Xx Siobhan

On a binding roll & other bits

I've been binding quilts all day!

and here is number 1

This is my take on a log cabin block.

I wrote about it originally back here.

The log cabin is very easy to piece together - Its quick & effective.

It still amazes me after all these years of quilting - how much of a change the quilting actually makes. This one was long arm machine quilted by Kim Bradley

The text fabric is my Pride & Prejudice text design - available at my shop

and the postman delivered some Heather Ross fabric! now I can get started on another one of my little miss quilt tops - I plan on writing up the pattern/ dimensions. Keep an eye out for that post soon

on an extra note before I get back into work mode 

The Ladies at CLOTH Fabric are participating in the City of Sydney Garage sale trail.

Its on this saturday 5th May.

I used cloth fabric in the middle squares of the log cabin quilt.

When your looking at the fabric - you need to remember that its a very wide fabric 140cm, keep that in mind when your ordering your length.

Should be lots of fun!

I'm off

Xx Siobhan

Final Quilt Top - Little miss 5

Yep - so I decided to add the two extra boarders. Happy I did, I think it makes the Heather Ross fabrics stand out & frames it nicely. I'm planning on using the purple fabric to do the binding.

I have a whole pile of Heather Ross fabrics coming my way from old and new collections (thanks to etsy) - I'm looking forward to whipping up a few more quilts with it, its such sweet fabric

two of my favourite blocks - This one with the red & pink

and this one with the yellow, purple & pink

I'll be dropping it off tomorrow to Kim Bradley (my fav machine quilter). Unfortunately or fortunately I just don't have time to machine quilt it myself. 

My Work projects are piling up!!!

I have a project to complete out of Lu Summers new range for Fat Quarterly Magazine 

A big quilt to make for Lotta Jansdotters new range 'Bella"

A pattern to finish & quilt to deliver to CLOTH

and a few Magazine stories that need finishing by June!

I'm in fabric Heaven :)

Hopefully I'm picking up a few quilts when I go to Kim's tomorrow too, I'll keep you updated ;)

take care

Xx Siobhan

Neutral

Lately everything I do is ladened with colour, I love colour - I tend to steer clear of white in my quilting.

Until now that is!

for days and days I have been machine quilting this quilt top. It does have a tiny splash of colour, as you can see in a bit of a sneak peak in the bottom picture.

I'm also getting a little carried away with the echo quilting concept.......

Xx Siobhan

Trimming a Quilt & a bit about Machine Quilting

A lot of my quilts are long arm machine quilted by Kim Bradley. It started out when I was making the kids double sized quilts and my machine of the time couldn't handle quilting them. I had previously made a few larger quilts on my Nana's sewing machine (going back 12-15 years ago)but they didn't handle my vigorous washing and drying regime. 

This time around (3 years ago)I had spent a lot of money on fabric and time on making quilts for the kids beds, I wanted these to last & be easily washable. I also didn't have the time I would have liked to quilt them nicely.

With that I looked into long arm machine quilting and decided to give it ago. They wash perfectly and I haven't had any issue with them.

I have a formula I go by now

Who is the quilt for ?

Where will the Quilt be?

What material is it made out of?

depending on the answer depends on how I finish the quilt off

Home machine top quilting

Hand quilted

Long arm machine quilted

 it also has an impact on what fabric I use as well. Picnic or outside use I'd go for a linen/ canvas or even denim. Kids beds I stick to natural fibres and adults can have a huge mix.

I also have my "go to" patterns that I choose for long arm quilting, but more on that in the next post

When I'm teaching I spend a lot of my time teaching students how to cut fabric, bast quilts, trimming & binding

sewing the top seems to be the easy bit for most once they have chosen a pattern!

I thought today I would show you how to trim a large quilt square ready for binding

This is the scrappy quilt I did back here

I like to find a large clear flat space - I usually use my dinning table.

Start by having one of the edges on the cutting matt.

I use my longest ruler, to start my first cut I like to get a nice right angle.

I line up one of the lines on the ruler on the bottom edge and then cut straight up with the rotary cutter.

I then use this first cut as my guide and continue up the side of the quilt as you can see above & below

from time to time I may use a seam & my ruler to check that I am still cutting straight - see the line on the ruler matches the line of the seam above

keep going around the quilt the next edge should be easy because the bottom will already be straight and squared

all the excess! which I go through and salvage, material goes into my scrap basket and the wadding gets folded and goes into a box for other small projects I may do

one trimmed quilt ready for binding

 & another quilt trimmed & I'm starting to bind  Lone Star Quilt

Every one does things differently, If you have a tutorial or info you would like to share - leave a link in the comments. 

or if you have a question I'll see if I can answer it for you :)

Xx Siobhan