Friday, September 23, 2016

Medieval courthouse steps

It seems like ages since a made a new quilt and finally I have made a bed quilt for myself! The starting point for this one was a Mulberry home dec fabric featuring embellished letters like the ones you see in medieval manuscripts. I cut the letters apart and added strips around in Court House Step fashion in jewel-like colours with a bit of bling to go with the theme of those beautiful old books, often featuring covers embellished with gold and gems.
The pattern is from an old Quilt Sampler Magazine, but with larger central squares and narrower strips to allow for the size of those letters. A double width bali print with swirls of colour on a black background serves as both backing fabric and binding.

This was the first quilt I quilted on my new Bernina, so I chose the old easy standby, meandering in large loose loops to get the feel of quilting on a new machine. I think I'm ready for more intricate patterns now, but I'll choose a smaller quilt next time...

Tuesday, September 20, 2016

Tiffany cushions

Years and years ago - yes, that's a quite specific time frame, isn't it? - I bought three cushion kits in London. I don't remember where. I stitched the first one (the Iris) right away and promptly forgot all about it.
Several years and moves later I found them in a basket while looking for something easy to work on while waiting for my mum having minor surgery. I wanted something that I didn't have to concentrate on too much, and this was ideal, since the outlines were printed on the fabric and all I had to do was to stitch those in black chainstitch and fill in with colours later.

The surgery went well, and my hours in the waiting room didn't feel too long, since I had something useful to do. I was amazed by how fast the work progressed, and kept at it after coming home.  A few weeks later the tulip was all done and I went straight on to the sunflower.
The finished panels were about 12" - slightly too small for sofa cushions (I couldn't find any inserts that small, anyway) so I added strips of blue home dec fabric around the edges and used the same fabric for the back.
Once they were finished I gave them to my mum for her birthday, and I'm glad I did, because she was overjoyed.

Monday, September 19, 2016

Lorem Ipsum bag

 I made another Sewtogether bag. The first one is in daily use next to my sewing machine and holds all the tools and things I need while sewing. I have been meaning to get better at journaling, documenting my creative ideas, but I nneeded something to keep my pens and pencils in, so why not make another of these handy bags?
The Typography fabric line by Jessica Jones for Cloud9 Fabrics was ideal for this: text fabric and some of my favourite colours too, what's not to love! I added some orange binding and zips in honour of Jessica's blog How about Orange, an old favourite, though sadly no longer being updated.
Did I mention that I love this fabric line? I am in fact working on a quilt as well, but more about that later...