Charly & Ben's Crafty Corner: May 2016

Monday, 30 May 2016

The Rainbow Rose Quilt-A-Long

This week over at the Modern Quilters Ireland blog we're having a Quilt-A-Long with my version of the Dutch Rose in Rainbow colours. I'm calling this one the Rainbow Rose!

I've made this block twice now a 24" version for a Schnitzel & Boo mini quilt swap and a 16" version as a starter block for our Round Robin but lately I've been thinking of making a giant block version as a lap quilt. Plus I have two baby quilts to make this might be a fun present for a family with a newborn!

National Quilting week in Ireland starts the 1st June so we will be launching our Rainbow Rose QAL to coincide with that this Wednesday.

The Quilt-A-Long will guide you through 2 sizes of quilts:

A baby quilt using 5" squares so perfect for those Charm Squares you may have been collecting. 40" x 40"
A larger lap/bed quilt using 10" squares so perfect for Layer Cakes! 80" x 80"

We'll have fun exploring some colour theory and building a colour wheel.

The schedule is:
June 1st: Fabric Selection
June 8th: Piecing the middles
June 15th: Piecing the corners
June 22nd: Piecing the centre star
June 29th: Assembly
July 20th: Link up party for assembled and completed quilts

We have sponsors who have very generously offered a fat quarter bundle to the value of €20 as prizes every week with 3 prizes at the end for the final linkup.

I hope you will quilt along with me and the Modern Irish Quilters on June 1st!

And if you are up for shopping click on images below to visit our sponsors shops:

Spread the word - the more the merrier!

We have a winner!

Thank you all for taking the time to enter the giveaway for Lara's book: Crafted Applique - new possibilities. Apologies to all I did not get to reply to, I enjoyed reading about everyone's applique projects. Random number generator chose comment number 13.

Congratulations Quilting Babica who left this comment!

In case you missed out on winning Lara’s new book Crafted Applique: New possibilities the book tour and blog hop continues over at BuzzinBumble and there are more chances to win Lara’s book throughout the week.

Crafted Appliqué… New Possibilities Blog Hop - May 1^st to June 5^th 2016

Sun	Mon	Tues	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat
1 Lara Buccella BuzzinBumble Introduce Tour	2 Valerie Smith Pumpkin Patch Quilter	3 Dana Gaffney Stormy Days	4 Lorna McMahon Sew Fresh Quilts	5 Mary Schuberg Needled Mom	6 Heidi Kuntz Red Letter Quilts	7 Alycia Carmin Alycia Quilts
8 Amy DeCesare Amy Made That	9 Sherri McConnell A Quilting Life	10 Lara Buccella Sew Mama Sew Guest Post	11 Christina Cameli A Few Scraps	12 Melissa Corry Happy Quilting	13 Sarah Craig Confessions of a Fabric Addict	14 Soma Acharya Whims & Fancies
15 Valerie Reynolds Val’s Quilting Studio	16 Angela Pingel Cut to Pieces	17 Sandra Walker Musings of a Menopausal Melon	18 Cheryl Brickey Meadow Mist Designs	19 Judy Murphy Quilt Paradigm	20 Yvonne Fuchs Quilting Jetgirl	21 Cindy Pieters Stitchin’ at Home
22 Susie Zlogar Susie’s Sunroom	23 Connie Campbell Freemotion by the River	24 Ruth Bourke Charly & Ben’s Crafty Corner	25 Kaja Zieslar Sew Slowly	26 Ann Brooks Fret Not Yourself	27 Cynthia Brunz Quilting is More Fun Than Housework	28 Holiday
29 Holiday	30 Holiday	31 Jenn Trott-Zisserson Quarter Inch from the Edge	1 Paulette Horn The Way I Sew It	2 Sandra Jansen Studio Sew of Course	3 Christine Sherman Triangles & Squares	4 Darlene Simmons Quilt Shop Gal
5 Lara Buccella BuzzinBumble Giveaway Winners Announced!

Tuesday, 24 May 2016

Giveaway & Book Tour - Crafted Applique: New possibilities

Welcome everybody to my stop on the Crafted Applique: New Possibilities blog hop!

I am delighted to be involved in the hop and share Lara's generosity by giving away a copy of her new book! I've been following Lara's blog BuzzinBumble for ages and last year when I was renovating our kitchen, we got chatting by email about being too far away from each other to be able to drop by for a cuppa, so we decided on a mug rug swap instead and this way have a virtual cuppa with each other. This is what Lara made for me!

If you have been following Lara's blog hop you will have seen this mini featured on Sew Mama Sew but I had to show it again for my stop on the hop to show what you can be done with Lara's applique method! It is perfect for tiny pieces to add detail. Check out their perfect expressions - this little mini brings me such joy - it captures the personalities of our Charly & Wilbur perfectly!

I ordered my copy of Crafted Applique from the AQS shop as soon as I heard it was available for pre-order and got it last month ahead of the hop & just in time for an applique project I was planning. I had the bright idea of making a glow in the dark Lego inspired Darth Vader for a Star Wars mini quilt swap on Instagram!

Lara's method is very well explained in the book and when I emailed Lara to tell her I had a copy of her book in my hands she gave me pointers to help me apply it to Vader and it made the making of this mini so much easier! The applique parts can be re-positioned and moved if you need to and I did! The no fray aspect allowed me to make some tiny cuts into the fabric on Vader's face to give him a bit of a scowl. I also added some detailing on his breastplate by cutting parts away and this made the glow in the dark fabric shine through!

Being able to make small cuts and not having to worry about fraying edges got me thinking about making a second project! I am a big fan of all things Space related and have a great fondness for things like Star Wars and Doctor Who!

Lara Buccella

Ruth

The Doctor, a Time Lord from Gallifrey has a language made up of circles and is read anti-clockwise. The TV program is full of beautiful images using the circular language and someone even went and created an alphabet for it. Here's my name, Ruth and Lara's full name in Gallifreyan!

Yes there is a bit of artistic licence in this one - well its a made up language for starters! But you can move the dots and lines about a bit and change up the colours and like Lara's method for applique the possibilities are only limited by your imagination!

So I've stared cutting into fabric again trying to make something circular inspired by circular Gallifreyan. I tried cutting shapes with a scalpel and that was tricky even with paper as a base as there is so much give in fabric. So, out came the scissors and I just played with the shapes. I am starting to think I need a die cutter as the only limiting factor with this one is not Lara's method but my ability to cut a curve!

I am far from finished, this is only layer 1 and 2, but I'm having a lot of fun and really enjoying the variety of things you can do with no fray applique! From butterflies to flower gardens, mermaids to dogs on carts the possibilities really are endless!

To win a copy of Lara's book Crafted Applique: New Possibilities please leave a comment telling me what you would like to make for your next applique project! The giveaway is open until midnight Sunday 29th May, winner will be chosen at random next Monday, 30th May. Good luck!

To see more amazing applique projects and more chances to win Lara's book please visit my fellow blog hoppers on the book tour below! If you just can’t wait and want to buy a copy right now, Lara has offered to refund your money if you win a copy in one of the giveaways! You can purchase a signed copy on BuzzinBumble, or from Amazon.co.uk