Design Wall Monday–Oriental Applique Motifs

Remember, I mentioned that I wasn’t sure I liked my work in progress on the pattern, Fat Quarter Fizz, applied to Oriental Traditions (fabric range by Robert Kaufman).  Some of the fabrics I really like in this range and some not so much.  I got some really helpful suggestions in the comments on my last post – thanks so much everybody for all your help and encouragement!

Robin suggested not being bound by the pattern and changing it up a bit.  My mum took one look at it and suggested swapping some of the cream squares out for red and Claire dug out two Japanese quilting books and brought them to our Thursday night sewing group.  Since then my head has been spinning.


Claire’s book “Japanese Inspirations” has been very helpful for imagining how to add a bit of red and change it up a bit.  The book gives templates for seasonal motifs that can be used to make stencils for fabric painting, embroidery or applique.

As soon as I saw these plum blossoms in the book, I really wanted to make them and hoped they would add some oomph to the quilt.

I really like the cut out lines and how the parts come together to make the flowers.

I had a red & gold print fabric in my stash, that I bought last year at the Irish Quilt Festival in Galway, and like some of this bundle I wasn’t too keen on it (no idea why I bought it!) but it fits in with the oriental theme and I finally found a use for it!


In the book, the plum blossom is a winter flower and I learned that the motifs anticipate or herald the coming season not reflect the actual season that is in it.

 I’m probably breaking all the design rules here but I picked out a few motifs across the seasons to use. 


I have the cherry blossom for Spring, the Butterfly seems to cross over Spring and Summer and the House Martins are a Summer motif in this book.  They remind me of swallows here in Ireland which are associated with Autumn so I think I have the four seasons covered, at least in my head anyway!



I don’t think I’m going to add any more to it.  5 and 7 are lucky numbers (3 plums, 1 soaring bird and 1 turning, 1 butterfly and the cherry blossom cluster).  The design wall was great for this and helped massively with the applique placement.  I gained an extra foot in width too!  My uncle saw me using it and thought 4ft x 7ft was just a bit too small so last week he arrived up to my house with an extra 1ft x 7ft to bolt onto the frame – perfect!  I am seriously so grateful for this.

I’m still going to practice free motion quilting in each rectangular block so this will be an on going work in progress and definitely not a quick finish!

To do that though I need a back.  I had some leftovers from the fat quarters used above (4.5” squares) so I put them up on the design wall and thought they’d make a nice back, with maybe Kona Ash on either side?


Then I took a break, made a cup of tea and started reading the second book I borrowed from Claire. 


This is a fantastic book with lots of hand stitching patterns to learn Sashiko.  There are variations on squares, diamonds, circles and some complicated looking patterns and one stitch patterns too.  I think I’m going to have to buy this one!



Of course, reading while sipping my tea, I had another idea!

How about taking those squares and making a chain of 4 patches?

I could then use the blank squares in between to try a different Sashiko design.  It would make a small sampler style quilt, with coloured thread on a warm grey like Kona Ash or a beige.

What do you think – quilt back or Sashiko Sampler?


So that’s the design wall today, the head is still abuzzing with Japanese inspiration.  Think it could be time for another cup of tea!

Linking up to Design Wall Monday and

WIP Wednesday - Patchwork Cushions!

My good friend Sarah asked me if I'd help her make some patchwork cushions to spruce up her spare room.  While I was wandering around the Limerick Quilt shop, I spotted a charm pack of forty 5" squares the shop had put together, from Flo's Garden by Andover fabrics.  I only went there to buy new blades for the rotary cutter but when I saw the gorgeous pinky corals and cute woodland theme I thought straight away of Sarah. 

So last Saturday, we got stuck in slicing up the home dec. weight fabric Sarah had bought and the charm pack of Flo's Garden.  Don't they co-ordinate perfectly?  The stripy fabric will be the same used for her curtains and the floral surround is from the same collection. There will be two of these traditional looking cushions with the pinwheel in the centre.

Our friend Mary, and her 2 1/2 yr old Maeve (my youngest Godchild!) arrived to see how we were getting on and joined in the fun.  I think we have the makings of a fabric lover here!

And a dog lover!  Girl after my own heart!

So while I was making pinwheels and adding stripey borders, the girls got to work pulling apart the rest of the charm pack and the co-ordinating home dec. fabric to make this applique cushion cover.  It's the free pattern from Tula Pink called Coastal Cruiser.  I just love this pattern! 

We had to piece some of the charm pack squares together to get pieces big enough for the VW Bus and the girls had great fun deciding on what to use for the lights and windows.  I talked Sarah through how to use the fusible paper.  Didn't she do well?

So to finish them off, I'm going to sew down the raw edges with a zig-zag and quilt this one in straight horizontal lines.  As it's made from the same fabrics, it should co-ordinate well with the pinwheels even if it is a less traditional design.  I've the batting and backs cut to make an envelope back for them all, from the neutral check fabric in this block above.  For the 2 pin wheel cushions I'm just going to do some light quilting with a wiggly free motion stipple design.

There will be one more applique cushion to complete the set, (yes a dog!) but we didn't get it finished on the day.  All in all I think we did well for 6 hours work!  

Linking up to

A Finish - Dogwood Cushion

Can you believe this is a practice piece?  It's the first exercise in the Penny Sampler Quilt course over at Stiched in Colour.  We are learning applique techniques and I finished this yesterday evening.  

 

These are not my normal colours but I really liked the pattern in the orange fabric when I was browsing through fat quarters in my LQS.  The cream tone on tone pattern caught my eye.  I have no idea what it is but I bought it in two different shades of blue as well for my Doctor Who Quilt-A-Long.

The black sketch stitching was great fun and not that difficult in the end.  I've always liked this look but for some reason felt it must be hard and shied away from it.  I think I have found my new favourite way to applique!

The course is still open for registrtation here and you can join in anytime.  Linking up to Finish it Friday and

and

Finish-A-Long Quarter 2 update

Linking up to the Finish-A-Long at SheCanQuilt it's time to review the sewing goals I set myself last April.

Nothing like a deadline to push those unfinished objects to the finish line! Ahmm yup that's what I thought 3 months ago. Except this last quarter, I started more new things than I finished. There was just so many lovely projects going on that I joined in on and a few weekends to Galway and a week in Chicago visiting family ( though I did visit the Quiltology store and bought fabric for a Swoon quilt so not all of it was non-quilting time! )

So here's the round up:

1. Bounce : in April here's where I was

 In June Bordered and Basted - not yet quilted

 Finish = 0

     2. A Dog's life - applique project for myself - no progress, nope, nothing at all

Finish = 0

    3. Karavan Cushions - 2 finished, 1 to go!

Finish = 2/3
  
  4.  Scrappy Trip - 2 blocks completed and given away, no finished quilt

Finish = 0

   5. Strip & Flip quilt
In April this was the pieced top

In July Basted and quilted! Yay

Finish = 1


So all in all 1 2/3 out of 5.  Yup I can definitley improve on that score in the next qtr.  Hope you guys managed a little better!

A Dog's Life: Block 1 & 2

Wow, that was a quick weekend.  I can't believe Monday has rolled around again already.  I spent a good couple of hours on Saturday breaking the back of the stack of 252 squares and flying geese that needed to be sewn together into rows for my Bounce quilt.  More on that later! 

So Sunday dawned and I really had had enough of Bounce and decided to work on something for myself.  As you can tell from my blog title we're a doggy household and I just love quilt projects with anything to do with dogs.  I have had this project on the back burner for a while: "A Dog’s Life" by Lynnette Anderson.  

It makes a lap/baby quilt and comes in 4 parts.  It was originally a Block of the Month program and when I saw it while browsing Lynnette's website I knew I had to have it.  I searched all the quilt supply shops for this locally (Lynette is based in Australia) and I found it in Switzerland from Cotton and Colour (not that Switzerland is local but it is closer!) Lynette uses lovely muted colours with a lot of grey in them.  I like my colours just a bit warmer and so chose Nancy Halverson's Forever Spring collection.  My local quilt shop didn't have any of the red in stock so I searched the online shops again and luckily I stumbled on a shop in the UK called Quilter's Trading Post.  They had nearly all of the range and I bought a Fat Eight of each pattern they had.  I started in on block 1 and completed it before Christmas (see above).  Then I got distracted with other projects and since then it has sat in my plastic tub of stash.  Well it's been on my mind and procrastinating about finishing Bounce and the desire to do a "me" project allowed me to spend half of Sunday pulling fabric and patterns and just having fun.

The pattern comes with two sheets showing the layout and the embroidery stitching for details like the eyes and flowers.  There is also a sheet showing the appliqué shapes to be cut for the dogs and cats.  I chose to use washable fusible glue sheets to hold my fabric to the background before stitching all around the shapes with a blanket stitch.  Needle turn method would be lovely but as this is my first appliqué project I'm going with the simplest and quickest method for me.

The fusible glue sheets come with a paper backing on one side and a rough un-papered side on the other.  To begin with I ironed the rough side to the back of the fabric prints I wanted for my shapes.  For the appliqué method I was using you have to reverse the appliqué shapes to trace on the back of the bonded material so first I traced the shapes to paper then I reversed the paper templates and laid them on the back of the material with the backing paper facing out.  I traced around the templates and cut out the fabric pieces.

Next I traced the layout pattern provided with parchment paper to give a semi-transparent image I could use to help layout the shapes correctly.  I removed the backing paper from my fabric shapes and arranged them on the background fabric as per the design paying particular care to what should lie on top.

 I then ironed it all down piece by piece and I think it looks great already.  Now I can embroider around the shapes with a blanket stitch to keep them in place as in block 1 and add in the details while I'm watching TV or have a few moments to spare during the week.  So glad I took a break from Bounce to catch up on this!