Quiet always means real work is going on

This is a little snap shot of what my week has looked like

I've been head down sewing - attempting to finish some big tricky quilts

I cant show you the quilt - But I can show you the colours! (bit cheeky)

This grouping of fabrics below is for the next quilt. I like to prep one quilt as I'm working on one.

 It keeps my mind working and interested - I'm going back to some more subtle fabrics Liberty/ Linen/ text after working with the extra brights above.

The text fabric is my own and available on Spoonflower or I have a few Fat Quarters available in my ETSY shop

I've been looking at some posts/ blogs about Quilt Con that was held recently in Austin USA

The conference looked fantastic - Its made me want to make one of Denyse Schmidt's wonky scrap quilts, and I think my scrap basket is screaming to be used!

After these two/ three quilts are made for "work" purposes I plan on making either another trip around the world quilt or a Wonky improve quilt .... and a messenger bag! I'm desperate to make a bag

In all my cutting of late I have cemented in my mind forever more that 1 Fat Quarter of fabric gives you 30 X 3.5 inch squares 

Handy to know.... 

I still haven't gotten around to photographing my "Bella" quilt that is on the cover of Down Under Quilts #156

I've had lots of emails about sourcing fabrics for the quilt - I had a look and found these

I noticed that Purl Bee's online shop has most of the range

 

http://www.purlsoho.com/purl/products/item/8819-Windham-Fabrics-Bella

 

and so does

 

Fabric Worm

 

http://www.fabricworm.com/loja.html

 

and 

The Fat Quarter shop

http://www.fatquartershop.com/Bella-Lotta-Jansdotter-Windham-Fabrics.asp

 

even though the fabric line "Bella" only came out at the end-ish of last year it seems to have sold quickly?!

The Quilt was long arm machine quilted by Kim Bradley in a funky fans pattern

Down Under Quilts by Practical Publishing

In other news I'm going to Spring Quilt Market in May!

its going to be held in Portland, Oregon USA

I've never been before and happy for any hints!

anyway

I best be off

We have a big weekend of Kid focused activities and hopefully some sewing :)

Xx Siobhan 

Everyday the sun comes up

Life does not stand still ....

everyday the sun comes up and life continues

at the moment that life entails chasing children - getting them to sleep, getting them to wake up, getting them dressed and getting them out the door - lots of other "getting them..." in between 

Usually all that stuff doesn't bother me

but every now and then I get huffy 

and when that happens I find the best thing to do (other than go for a walk) is make something. 

Luckily for me I had been watching everyone else in the online quilting world over the last month make a scrappy trip quilt.

If you don't know what that is - then take a look at the FLICKR group hosted by Just a bit Frayed and it has all the links to the original pattern by Quiltville etc

Its a great pattern 

as usual I changed it a little bit

I used 3.5 inch strips as it was what I had in my scraps from previous quilts

1 X 3.5 inch strip selvedge to selvedge (42 inch useable print) will give you two blocks

1 X Fat Quarter strip (21inch long usable print) will give you one block

each block finishes at 18inches 

I think I am going to do 

4 Blocks X 5 Blocks?

anyway - its been lovely to just mindlessly sit and sew over the last few days

and I love the results so far

One of my jobs for this week is to list fabric in my etsy shop!

I took delivery of lots and lots of Fat Quarters of the below text fabric with the white base cloth

I finally got my hands on some copies of my two recent magazines!

They are in Australian shops now 

The below fabrics are available in my spoonflower shop - I'm thinking about buying some bulk and selling it through etsy ..... lets wait and see how I go :)

I'm off to make more scrappy blocks

Xx Siobhan 

Which Fabric .............

What current fabrics are you collecting?

I really wish I had bought more of the "Echo" range by Lotta Jansdotter. 

I don't get to spend much time on the net anymore - between work and kids.I feel like I miss out on whats happening in the fabric/ quilting world sometimes.

so many good designs and colours around.

I've been collecting fabric over the last month or so for a magazine project I'm designing, I need lots of colours.

Now it's getting to a stage that I need to cull and cut.

of course I had to add in a pile of my own designed fabric.........

and below I'm pretending I'm supper organised - note bobbins wound and ready to go!

I'm busily machine quilting a quilt that I have made for a design challenge for the Fat Quarterly Team. The quilt features Lu Summers new range with Moda called "Summerville".

That's me for today!

Xx Siobhan

another quilt in the pile & a quick plug :)

Another Quilt from the pile

This one was also made a while ago & its been seen a few times on the blog

I wanted an adults king bed size quilt - something modern and monochromatic & again in big thick strips similar to the yellow & grey quilt in my last post.

I used a few different greys and a text print with a sparse white background.

I designed and printed all of these fabrics specifically for this quilt and thankfully it worked out just how I wanted.

I've since used these fabrics in lots of quilting projects - especially the greys.

The grey ties lots of fabrics together nicely - especially when I have used lots of colour in a project

Once I had pieced the quilt together I struggled with how to quilt it, I didn't want swirls or flowers in this one. I wanted to keep it simple. After much talk with many people I decided a hand writing type loopy pattern going straight across would suit.

Thankfully I know a wonderful machine quilter with a clever husband - Kim drew up the scribble loops for me & Dave scanned it in & turned it into a pattern.

When I saw it I was so excited, perfect!

Quilt long arm machine quilted by Kim Bradley creations - quilting in a loopy scribble pattern

very grown up & fresh

& a huge three meters wide!

on the back of the Quilt I injected a bit of colour for fun & used a grey honeycomb for the binding

My Fabrics available on Spoonflower to buy.

This is my recent story on cushions in a local Sydney Magazine Northside, you will find instructions on how to make a cushion with an envelope opening :)


*ignore step number 6 in the article to turn inside out - if you did you would have your nice fabric on the inside!
Not sure how that step got added in! anyway, hopefully people work it out :)

photo instructions as seen in Northside Magazine 15th November 2011



next blog post I'll have some more pictures/ info for the starry night quilt , I have worked out how to embed a PDF! so you will have diagrams & sizes etc if you want to give it a go


Enjoy your day

Xx Siobhan

Parting ways.....

What a lovely spring day in Sydney,

Perfect for finishing odd jobs

& thankfully I got quite a few jobs done today!

Bacon & Eggs to start the day :)

I posted my cushion off to its new home, hopefully my pillow swap partner likes it!

& took a million pictures of the said pillow - so I remember how to do it again.....

hmmm  & Home made Spinach pie for dinner

So far all Good

Xx Siobhan

Sticking with the classics

Hi All

I've settled back to routine nicely :)

Kids back to school today & everyone cheery 

Playing with fabrics today - working out what to do next!

sometimes I get overwhelmed by my stash of fabrics and colour choices, I think thats why I always have a go to fabric.

I have no real intention of being a fabric designer, when I design and print fabrics on spoon flower the intention is usually to make a fabric that will mix n match with designer fabrics - I dub these my "classics". 

When I say classic - I mean something that will have a staying power from season to season, something that will mix with new designs - a fabric that will go with everything.

If you look at most of my quilts/ cushions - they all have a bit of my own fabrics in them.

below are some I received in the post today, 

I needed a few more colours to mix up with my stash. 

Mustard, red, turquoise, pink & grey

if you'd like to have a look they are all on my Spoonflower shop

and here we have some IKEA fabric, this is going to make some great cushion backs

Im desperate to put some of my mustard numbers & black/white/grey text fabric with the IKEA fabric - Love the combination

This matches beautifully with a new lot of Liberty fabric I picked up!

Looks like I have some sewing to do

Have a good week :)

Xx Siobhan

OOOHHHH!

Nearly forgot to show you this one!

My head is in the clouds lately

A fair while ago I sent this baby to be machine quilted & I got it back again on monday

It's a combination of my text fabric which is for sale on Spoonflower & Liberty of London Fabrics.

here it is before being machine quilted

& Voila ! machine quilted and binding done.

 I try to make a habit of making my binding when I'm doing the quilt top, that way its all done and I don't have to scrounge for the fabric bits or accidentally use the last bit in another quilt forgetting I need it for binding!

I wind it around a paper roll and its stored all nicely till its needed.

for the back I used a piece of Liberty that was just the right size, its really soft and lovely.

The pattern is simple enough, it reminds me of floor tiles in old houses :)

Its a good lap size or cot size. I'm amazed at the variety of uses Text fabric has - It seems to match everything!

Xx Siobhan