Little Owls Quilt

One of my favourite recent Moda fabric collections was Ten Little Things with four different colours of little owls in it. I couldn't choose between them and ended up buying all four for the shop.
They were all equally popular, and suddenly all four sold out...before I'd even made anything with some!
I had one fat quarter of the yellow one left, so I snaffled it, plus a strip left from the end of the roll. Just enough for some little quilty thing... My Little Owls Quilt.

With a collection of coordinating Bella Solids and a scribbley black and white in tow, I cut 3 inch squares trying to get as many owls as possible. I did make a little cutting mistake so some of the squares had to be joined - being the red and scribbley fabrics, they couldn't be left out! I ended up with about 200 squares, and here's what I did with them:

How to make an Easy Peasy Little Quilt out of Moda Charm Squares.

 I promised my Facebook page likers that I would write up a tutorial/pattern for this little quilt.

It only takes a few hours to make and is a great stand-by, go-to quick project for a gift for just about anyone.
I've made lots of these, and it's my favourite little starter quilt to teach.

Here it is in gorgeous  Australian designer fabrics: Saffron Craig on top  and a  Melanie Hurlston back.

It finishes up at about 1m - 1.2m square, so just big enough for a baby, child or lap. It's perfect for watching TV, babies to crawl on, decorating a spot that needs it or giving as a gift.

9 Squared Quilt

What you'll need

• 2 Moda Charm Packs with 42 squares each (I used Tend the Earth by Deb Strain in this quilt)

or

• 81 x 5 inch squares
• 1.2m, 115cm wide  fabric for backing something a bit different to the top is fun) 
• 30cm binding fabric cut into 4, 2 - 2 1/2 inch strips across the width of fabric.
• 1 x 1.2m square of natural wadding (I prefer bamboo)
• neutral cotton thread for piecing
• machine quilting thread (I used Wonderfil Confetti in a light grey)
• Sewing machine, rotary cutter, ruler, pins etc.

My lovely Janome 6500 is back from the sewing machine doctor.

This is the combination of Moda fabrics I used in the quilt : Tend the Earth charm squares, grey Sunkissed backing and  a graduated spot from Hoopla. (Could have probably gone for something a bit less of a statement for the binding...c'est la vie!)

How to Make it

• First, open your charm packs and sort through the colours and patterns. You will need to use 81 of the 84 squares in the two packs, so you can straight away put aside three of the squares you don't like.
• Next, lay the squares out on a design wall, floor, bed - somewhere you can see how the fabrics look together. Move them around till you're happy with the placement of colour and pattern.
•  Start by sewing across the rows. 
• Then sew the rows together, working down the quilt. To get the points exact, I prefer to press the seams in alternate directions. For a quilt like this, you can press all the seams in a row in the same direction. Then all the seams in the next row will be pressed in the opposite direction. Very easy.
• Once the top is all together, give it a good press and run a row of stitching about 1/8 inch all around the edge to stop keep it neat.
• Now baste the top, backing and wadding. 

•  Quilt "as desired". By machine, the easiest way is to sew a continuous cross hatch through all the squares using a walking foot and increased stitch length (about 3.5). I made this one a little bit different by using one of the sewing machine's inbuilt fancy stitches. Sometimes I stipple, use a free motion foot and do a curvy design. You could also quilt by hand. Whatever you choose, it won't be hard, or take long, because the quilt is so small.

The quilting stitch is a fancy stitch on the sewing machine.

• Run a line of stitching  around the outside, a bit less than 1/4 inch from the fabric edge.
• Square the quilt by trimming the edges using a rotary cutter and ruler.
• Make the binding and attach using your preferred method. For these quilts I usually do an all in one machine binding which I make by cutting 2 inch strips of fabric and turning them into binding with a one inch bias binding maker, then sewing onto the edge through all layers all in one go. 

*I saw a fabulous post about different machine binding methods on Kathy Mack's Pink Chalk Studio Blog, so have a look there at some other methods used by quilters.)

•  Your quilt is finished and you can throw it in the wash, gentle cycle, gentle low phosphate liquid detergent; tumble dry on synthetic cycle for about 90min. this will make your quilt soft, crinkly and fluffy

You can see the machine sewn binding and the "fancy" stitch quilting here.

Finished.

Of course, you can use any fabrics you like. Sometimes I combine two different charm packs. I've also used just fabric I like. But to keep the quilt and the requirements simple, the finished top has to be less than the width of a regular 115cm wide cotton fabric so you can easily cut the backing. If you're using 240cm wide batting, you can get 1.2m and you will get 2 quilts out of it.

Hope you get time to make a 9 Squared quilt, and I'd love to see it if you do. 

This Quilt is for SALE @ $75.00
SOLD

Have you got an easy peasy little quilt you like to whip up for all occasions?

Till next time -

Ann ♥

Quiltopia!Design 2010 Closure Quilt

Here are the first blocks of my Quiltopia!Design 2010 Closure Quilt, stacked up like fabric pancakes! Each finished block measures 4 3/4 inches.

I made them out of this:

This is the mass of tangled fabric strips I cut off from the beginnings of bolts in my shop. Every fabric bolt that started with a ragged or uneven edge had a strip taken off to even it up, and the strips were collected over the cupboard door handle. There was quite a pile by the end of 2010!

This is the sewing machine I stitched the blocks on:

This is also the sewing machine I learnt to sew on in 1970's. It was second hand then and belonged to Mum. She recently downsized and I kept her sewing machine, not used now for many years. I had it serviced and it sews like a dream. This particular Singer model was apparently Australian made. It was/is a lot of fun to sew on!
You can see the blocks taking shape. I decided on a liberated Log Cabin style I constructed them in a liberated manner on a calico/muslin foundation so each block could later be cut down to a uniform size. After making quite a few blocks, I wished I'd chosen a larger size!
I tried out some different layouts and I decided on the very traditional Straight Furrows design - it seemed to show up the subtle lights and shadows best. Sometimes it was quite difficult to find enough darker fabrics.
I began to notice that the blocks tended to use certain colours in their light half and I organised them so the colours flowed diagonally up the quilt in stripes of yellow, pink, blue and mauve.

Then I stacked them into piles of their rows and took them home to continue over my Christmas break. It has been a fun exercise.The challenge I set myself was to:

use only fabrics I'd had in my shop
make small improvised blocks
finish by the end of the year 2010

I succeeded in the first two, but the third? I'm still going...although I have finished the quilt top!

I will post some more photos of the quilt's progress next time. In the meantime, you can follow its progress on Quiltopia!Design Facebook page if you'd like.

xo xo Ann.

Cats and Quilts

Isn't he handsome? Dusty really knows how to charm.
He's sitting on my finished Gypsy Quilt... Before I wrecked it by washing and drying it too strongly. I gave it the usual treatment of a gentle wash and drying in the dryer, but I forgot about the SILK. When I took it out of the drier, some of the silk squares had frayed out of their seams AND their colours had run through to the stylish cream and black back. You can imagine some of what I said alone down stairs in the laundry...
It's now in the process of a transformation, so watch this space _______. I haven't been terribly inspired yet but I've got a few ideas.

It's raining again in Maleny and the cats are in their favourite viewing spot on the ironing board. We've got a big fat tabby feral cat trying to make our home his at the moment, and this morning I discovered him fast asleep on our veranda chair (I'd had suspicions) to keep warm and dry through the cold, wet night. It's very disturbing for all of us, especially the cats.
Happy stitching,

xo xo Ann.

Maleny Quilt Show and a New Quilt.

This is one of my latest finished quilts. (Actually my latest is The Sewing Circle - the quilt featuring whimsical retro 1950's themed embroidered blocks... but more about that in a later post.) This one is from Julie Wallace's pattern, Floral Maze. I saw the original quilt at the Melbourne Quilt Market last November and thought I could do something with it. It's another pattern using the Lanterns of Light Ruler and hexagon shapes, which I've formed a sort of love for. These are big so you get to see a fair bit of the fabric, and I like that too.
I decided to use a selection of lovely floral fabrics with the main criteria being " beautiful fabrics that haven't sold well"! So I just went to the shelves and picked out 12 lovely fabrics that for some reason, people haven't been buying. I put them together and, voila! A beautiful quilt was born.It's quite a small quilt, but easily enlarged with in multiples of 6.
I used a gorgeous Valerie Wells floral on the back, quilted the heck out of it and bound it in that other lovely turquoise Valerie Wells print. Love this one and it's going to stay with me.

I took it to the Maleny Quota Quilt Show a couple of weeks ago and here are Annie and I with it at my stand.

It was a lovely country quilt show, set up in the Maleny High School Indoor Stadium. There were some beautiful quilts but you'll have to be satisfied here with the pics from the traders' area. In the foreground is Kimz Patchwork, The Gympie Patchwork Factory, then Shirley's Buttons, Me and on the other side, Van Coutens Drapery, and Palmwoods Ats and Crafts. It was a small show, but lots of lovely quilts and fun.

Last weekend I took Quiltopia! to the Mountain Quilters' Show, Silver Threads and Golden Needles... but more about that in a longer newer post. I was a lot more relaxed there and took the opportunity to wander around and look at things! Next week I'll be at The Gympie Quilt and Craft Spectacular... sounds really big and scary to me, but when you look at all the blogs about Quilt Market in America now, it definitely puts things in perspective!
Till next time - Happy Stitching,

xo xo Ann.

The Sewing Circle

I've been stitching Robyn Allen-Waters, The Sewing Circle for over a year now! It was actually one of my first blog posts back in 2009.
I finally sewed the last stitch in the embroidery blocks a week or so ago, and here they are being trimmed to size for sewing into the quilt. It was quite a departure in style for me. Firstly, it's designer's concept and, and secondly it is primarily a hand embroidered work. I can honestly say, it's the first embroidery I've done since college art class. And I really enjoyed it! It was a bit s l o w (for a machine quilt piecer) but...

It was surprisingly satisfying!

I decided to frame the embroideries with a lovely black and ivory stripe and use a Boutique Layer Cake, with a retro theme and softish but rich colours - similar to the ones I used in the stitching- for the pieced quilt part.

I set it all out on the wall and I've started started sewing it now. Actually I've almost finished sewing it together, but you'll have to wait for more on this in the next post.

I added some special vintage bits to the mix and I think it's looking pretty nice. A slow project seems to add another dimension to your life. Not sure about the quilting now...
We'll see.

xo xo Ann.

Who's Giving Quilts this Christmas?

Who's giving quilts this Christmas?

Who's spent the last few weeks frantically finishing off projects just right for those special people in their lives? Who's breathed that deep sigh of relief at a task finished and a job well done?Who's wrapped them carefully and packed them up with just a little anxiety, hoping their recipients will love them?
Who has stepped back to admire their handiwork and skill? This is one I think we tend to forget.
After I'd packed these four quilts for family members, I looked over and saw them stacked up and looking magnificent in their Christmaswrappings - I'd forgotten to appreciate them stacked as themselves with there bright and subtle colours clashing and complementing each other as the personalities of their receivers do!
I wonder if they'll guess what their presents from me are, under the Christmas tree this year...?

Many wishes for a Joyous Christmas and Wonderful New Year!
Ann.

Another Stained Glass Class at QuiltEssentials

I've just finished another class for my quilt, Zen Courtyard AKA Stained Glass Stack and Slash. I've posted a few times about various classes, and quilts made in them, for this quilt. So, just a quick peak at a block from most of the participants- unfortunately a few were away on the day I brought my camera! Have a look at the blocks below just to see how different each one is. Even the two Bali Batik ones, though similar, are different and will make up two very different feeling quilts.






As usual, it was a lovely class at QuiltEssentials in Brisbane. Great work space, friendly people, lovely class participants and yummy food from Alfina's next door, as you can see from the mini mud cakes in the first photo.
Thanks girls! And thanks for stopping by,

Ann.

"Patricia" Quilted

I finished quilting the Gypsy Bubbles, Patricia Quilt! I love all those beautiful photos on other people's blogs, showing the lovely textures of quilting, so I tried to take some to show you too.

I am quite proud of this one, having quilted it entirely free of templates on my domestic sewing machine. My nice big Janome 2500 sort of died in the process (more correctly, it's gone into a coma after having a seizure caused by a malfunction in its motherboard). So I had to change over to my little Pfaff. It did a pretty good job.
This is the back,

a close up of the all-in-one binding with its little peeper trim,

and finally, its passed the comfy test by Dolly who started to sleep on it as soon as I folded it and put it on my studio table!
I haven't got back to the little doll quilt I asked you about in a post below, but the overwhelming vote went to (a), the yellow with the pink dot. Thanks for all your responses and I'll post when its finished.
Till next time,

Ann.