Summer loving

I love summer holidays.  I don't even need to go away, I am happy to be at home with my daughter, with Damian when possible, with our pets and have lots of free time.  I have reduced working hours in the summer and at the moment there are just under 3 weeks of hoiday to enjoy- it seems to be longer this year and with favourable weather I am loving it.

We have just returned from visiting my husband's family in the North West.  Lula is an only child so she has the fun of being one of the gang with her cousins.  I visited my granny who is in good health and we went through old photos.  The joy of an iphone is being able to snap the snaps.  She is with my late grandfather looking very much the young couple in love.  I adore the shine of her tightly pinned hair, very film star.  The picture below shows her with her sisters. She is back right.  The styles look very like the sort of thing you could easily find in Colette patterns.

This was a glamourous blurry and tiny photo of her at the beach.  It captures a mood and a time before they had a child, before the second world war.

It was truly a pleasure to see her.  I don't see her often and I wish I lived nearer.  All the visitng lead to lots of time on the train so I pulled out neglected EPP started last year when the olympics was on and completed the central rosette of the design.  Now I need to prep the next for another set of train journeys coming up soon.  I really enjoyed getting back into hand sewing again.  This quilt is 'Tesseltations II' from Feathering the Nest

 I finished another Miss Maggie rabbit, ready for a new baby gift.  This is my third.  Each is immensely enjoyable to put together.  She needs clothes and I am thinking of drafting some bloomers to go with the dress.

And a visit to the Northwest always means a trip to Abakhan.  From left to right:  1m feathery georgette, 1m drape comma mamade silky fabric,  1.5m striped jersey and 2.4m tweedy looking printed cotton.  These were all remants from their clothing fabric bins.  All this fabric for £14- such bargains!  The craft fabric was disappointing this time, I couldn't find anything I liked but there were a lot more dress remnants to chose from.

And now I am home I need to get my swap item finished for The Sewing Room Flickr swap.  One of the items I am making is The Social Tote, a collaborative pattern between Anna Graham and Carolyn Friedlander.  It is one of those projects that you need to give your full attention to, a brain workout as well as a sewing one and it has worked well so far.  I am making two, one for me, one for my swap partner. 

And I am getting the itch to get more clothes made.  Planning that in my head so far.  Happy holidays!

Brit Quilt Swap- Summer Medallion

I have finished and sent my quilt and it is on its way to its new and lovely owner!  Here are some pics.   A hint on where it might be going and a glimpse at the backing fabric- a vintage print which I picked for the colour, the motifs are crazy clocks and timepieces.

This quilt was based on 'Mrs Vigor's Medallion' by Brigitte Giblin, from her beautiful and inspiring book, 'Feathering the Nest'.  It is a scaled down version of the centre motif. It was a journey of construction, starting with English paper piecing the centre star- tricky with its subtle curves, I will do a separate post on how I managed that and some tips in case you fancy doing the same.

The scallop style edge is also English paper pieced and added to the centre star.  This whole motif is appliquéd onto the background.

The outer triangle ring was foundation pieced and then appliquéd around the medallion.  The solid background fabric is Verdigris from Connecting Threads.  Penny sent me this along with some of their other solids.  They have a lovely feel, a smoother than Kona and their colours are incredible.  They don't ship internationally, but USA and Canadian quilters and no doubt familiar with their fabrics.

I hand quilted- do not look closely, this is not my best skill.   I tried machine quilting but it was not going to sit well on such a lot of hand piecing.  I bound it with a lovely scrap that Marit sent me, perfect colours and print and added a scrap of Chloe's closet check to make up the length.

I loved making this,  It was a struggle at times but a new way of working.  I can't do sustained handwork as it is hard on the hands and arms but enjoy spells of it.  I was sewing this off and on all through the summer and it has been a summer of change.  I love it but I don't tend to cling to what I have make for swaps as I make them with the recipient clearly in my mind.  The selfish part was choosing this pattern- I was desperate to make this from Feathering the Nest from the moment I  saw it.  I think I have ticked enough boxes with colours and prints to tickle my partner's fancy.   It has been sent with a pile of goodies, I wish it safe transit.  And I wonder what I will receive in this swap too, hmm, curious...

Investment

I heard about this on Twitter from Katy and as soon as I saw a picture I was smitten.  I held back form an immediate purchase just in case it was a passing fad but no, it kept creeping back in to my mental library of quilt images.  It is expensive, imported and then sent via Europe but it is worth every single penny.  Sometimes a book comes along which changes your creative ideas- I remember buying Suzuko Koseki's Machine Made Patchworks- now Patchwork Style and it changed so much for me.   This book is in the same catergory.

 Brigitte Giblin is a talented quilter who was born in France and lives in Australia.  This combination has created a beautiful chateau/Ayer's rock colour scheme that runs through all her quilts and astounds me every time I look at it.  Many of the quilts are english paper pieced but there is machine piecing and foundation and there is constant inspiration.   The photographs are stunning, quilting eye candy everywhere. When I sit and browse this book, my husband cranes his neck over too and comments on how much he likes the quilts.  This is not a normal occurrence!  We were both drawn to 'Dancing Dollies'.  The organic pieced and appliques shapes reminded us of the geometry found in sea shells and a vintage book full of similar pictures.

I already know that I have to make this beauty, Tessellations II.  I have some larger floral prints and a colour palette of jewel like prints.  I am going to attempt to machine piece this- we'll see how that goes- but it will mean constant Y seams.  I am not usually a big fan of hexagons but this book, along with Tasha's Hexa-go-go is changing that.  I am seeing them differently and I am also look at large florals- Martha Negley, Kaffe Fassett and Philip Jacobs and wanting to add these to my stash.

And for my Brit quilt partner, I am sorry but I feel compelled to do this centre circle medallion whether my partner likes it or not.  Finger's crossed that she will...

You can buy the book here.

Brigitte's website is here

And Brigitte's blog is here.  I have already contacted her with a query and she is quick to respond and very helpful.  There are also tips and pointers for the quilts and techniques.

You will not regret it.