Guesting at Quilt Story-Hexagon Handle Holder Tutorial

Today you will find me at Quilt Story,with a Holiday Tutorial starting the gift making season with an each project.  Heather and Megan have a great list of contributors- check them out here.

My tutorial is for a hexagon handle holder: a quick and easy make and perfect for scraps- especially those with a kitchen theme.  Let me know what you think over at  Quilt Story.

More to share

Lula spent the weekend on a guide activity and came back Sunday pm with a platter of her efforts.  Sugar overload.  In the future she wants to either run a cake shop or go into dentistry-there's synergy in  her plans...

Damian excelled himself, this was inside my Valentine's card.  I am very lucky, we have been together a long, long time and he is the best man and human being I have ever met.

A few weeks ago I was fiddling around on New years eve finishing a coaster for idea of a set of coasters for the Japanese fabric designer Suzuko Koseki.   Everyone made their coasters, they all got to Japan in time and Ayumi did meet SK and have the most incredible time.  Read her account here and take a look at her fantastic photos, I am practically drooling at all the loveliness!  The success of the project was a credit to Ayumi's generous spirit.  Her pic below shows all our efforts.

Fancy a visit to Kat's blog to read my post on blogging ettiquette?- I am up today!

A sneaky peek for those of you quilting-a-long!  Yay, it works and looks like a ring!  I only had this planned in my head so I am happy to see it is as I envisaged.  I'll give details for the final blocks later this week.  I also plan to round the corners off and have bias binding- haven't done this before but I have already cut it and it was so easy and 1 fat quarter produces enough binding for the whole quilt!  I think it will really work with the design.

I also joined a new flickr quilt bee with a European focus- Bee Europa 2011, should be fun!

One more thing... I won something that I cannot quite believe- I came first in the creative section of the Quilt Story block party with my vintage spools block.  Wow...

 I am so proud and there is a prize too.  Lynne from Lily's Quilts came second in the same category!  I don't know what else to say but that I am very happy :)

Block Party

Quick, entries finish today!  I just saw this earlier at Lilys Quilts and thought I'd better get a shift on!  If you are visiting from Quilt Story Block Party, hi, I'm Kerry, I live in a little city near the sea in the UK and this blog is my sewing and vintage life.  I've pulled out blocks for each category, traditional, modern and creative and they all started from Ringo Pie Flickr bee

Traditional- Vintage Union Jack

This is as traditional as I have gone in a block and the tradition is more to do with the iconography of the Union Jack than being a traditional quilt block.  I used Lynne's Union Jacks as a start to get my shapes and drew it onto A4 paper.   I don't like stitching through paper so I strip pieced the red and yellow and used paper templates for the triangles.  The red is vintage Liberty- very British!  The white donkeys are vintage fabric and the yellow colour is Kona banana.  It was a fiddly block to get right, accuracy counted for a lot otherwise it would be a wonky UJ!  This was for Erica.

 Modern-Yellow Door
Mid century modern doors was Lisa's January theme and I just loved making this.  It started off with a great pic found on flickr.  I drew it onto graph paper and then traced onto freezer paper. The panes of glass were a bit tricky with their borders.  Five is to represent Lisa's birthday- I wanted a significant number for her.  The fabrics were chosen to fit the mid century modern theme.  It was the best themes and all the blocks were so ingenious and clever and communicated the house and the inhabitants behind the door.

 Creative-Vintage Spools
Vintage spool- I made this for myself to kick off the first month of Ringo Pie.  I chose collections as a theme and this represented one of my many pies of spools and reels.  I designed the block, drew it on to freezer paper  and pieced each spool separately.  The fabrics are a mix of vintage, new and gifts from bloggy friends.  I hadn't really tried anything like this before- all the Y seams  were new to me and they took a bit of mastering but I still like this and I got to keep it!  This is me in fabric form!

If you haven't already take a visit to Quilt Story  and take a look at the amazing blocks and give some comment love!