Towse's first 'sewing group challenge'

Around the middle of last year I joined the Fat Quarters sewing group, which is based in Great Missenden and affiliated to The Quilter's Guild. I have learnt a lot of new stuff and met a lot of very clever women! In the Autumn, to my bemusement, they brought around the 'February Challenge'. Everyone was given an eighth of self patterned cream fabric and a photo. The instruction was to create a piece inspired by the photo which used all of the cream fabric. My photo was the roof of Marylebone railway station.

Interesting as it was, I had no idea what to do with it, so there it sat until Christmas and a conversation about architecture with neighbours. Then I started doodling, re-arranging and more doodling until I had an image that I thought I could replicate. Of course it wasn't that simple with little paper templates and the realisation that I had done some 'strange' junctions. I also realised that the whole thing would have been easier if I had understood the practice, rather than just the theory of foundation piecing. However, here is the finished piece, which might well end up a cushion cover or something.

My neighbour, who knows more about architecture and art than I ever will, has shown quite an interest in the pattern and the process. (In fact, he drank tea while looking keenly through my latest patchwork pattern book the other day!) He says my piece reminds him of cubist inspired abstract paintings of the early C20th such as this one of 1913 by the Russian Mikhail Larionov. Does that make me an artist?

2014 and the Farmer's Wife blocks keep coming!

OK, I admit it, my FW is going to turn into another 'Monster', but then when I read the book I understand that I could need 111 blocks to make a double bed sized quilt. So that's my story and I am sticking to it!

Because I have got so fascinated with the possibilities for pattern and colour combinations I have carried on doing duplicates of the blocks that Debs has already covered and then I found some blocks on a US blog that I realised I could re-create using my current templates. So they just started to grown like Topsy - and now I discover that I am up to a grand total of 50 completed blocks. Either I am officially a patchwork addict or I definitely need to get a life!

So here they are and if you click on the picture to enlarge it and then look closely at the red and white images you should be able to read which FW templates you would need to make them up yourself. I also did another of the Card Tricks block, because I like that one too!

And yes, I have rectified the mistake on the above and it looks much nicer!

Here is the applique elephant that my nephew brought me back from an England Hockey Tour in Delhi because he thought I would like it - which I do. It cost him the equivalent of £1 and is all hand stitched!

And then I just needed some more fabric, honest!!

And I have discovered on EBay someone in South Korea of all places who is hugely efficient on the postage and has a good selection of fabrics all at reasonable prices. So I bought these:

A metre of this

And rather more of these because I thought they might be useful for backs......................

This week I also go on the first of two sessions to make me friends with the old sewing machine that lives in this house but I can't use. Heaven knows what will happen if the machine and I become friends and start to create blocks together!

The Farmer's Wife block addition continues.....

You could say that I obviously haven't had enough to do at this time of year when everyone else is rushing around preparing for the silly season!! My excuse is that is it really my fault that I haven't had much proper work and also had such a bad cold and cough that for a few days or so (!) all I really felt fit for was sewing and whatever silly film was on C5 in the afternoon.

So I have been amusing myself doing variations of the blocks we have already been given in class. I think I am up to about 42 blocks now, so there is definitely another monster in the making. Part of the inspiration is that Graham has taken to wanting to choose colour combinations with me. That means that I end up with blocks that I probably would not have chosen myself but it seems that the beauty of these little blocks is that none of them is so different that you can't find a home for it amongst the whole collection. I am also constantly surprised at how different the blocks look with some simple variations.

So here they are:

 

Notice that there is only one each of Geese and Corn and Beans - those are blocks that I won't be replicating!!

I found a block called Card Tricks which I liked because it has a 3D effect until I realised just how many triangles and squares it took. Then I found a simpler version of it called Card Games in an older book by Janet Kime called Quilts To Share that I discovered through Silve. This time the pattern needed scaling down but then, I realised that FW template 4 (a little square) was just the right size for the squares and all I needed to do was double it for the rectangles and half it for the triangles. The corner triangles I created as I needed them and then ..... a bit later ..... spotty Card Games was born!

 

I really like this one ... I suspect it will spawn some lookalikes in due course. In the meantime I have found some more inspiration from a traditional quilt referred to in one of the US blogs I follow. I have captured pictures of half a dozen of the blocks that look at though they will fit into the Farmer's Wife universe - and using the same templates. So in due course, off I will go again.................!!

Happy sewing!!

A finished project for a friend's January birthday

Way back in the summer my long time and lovely friend, Amanda, showed us the feature wallpaper in their newly decorated bedroom.

Called 'Cherry Blossom' by the PIP Design Studio, she had fallen in love with it before she realised how difficult it was going to be to tone with bedclothes and soft furnishings. We stood looking at a blank space on the wall above a chest of drawers that just cried out to have 'something'. We talked about how some small pieces of the paper could be framed and then I said, 'Give me a piece of the paper and we'll see......'

Move on to our trip to stay in Bromyard and I spent a good hour and more with the brilliant Ruth Doughty of Doughty's of Hereford, who helped me match/tone both the gold/yellow and the two shades of each of pink, blue and green that appear in the pattern. 

I looked at all the patterns I had for inspiration and decided that Checkerboard (Farmer's Wife) didn't look too complicated - little did I know that Debs would later classify it as one of the 'fiendish' blocks when we started the class. But Debs scaled the original up for me to a 12" block, which was still fiddly but more manageable and the result turned out to be quite pleasing. 

Graham, who is becoming a willing supporter of my patchwork addiction, took the patterns of the garland, butterfly and two sizes of flower and made me cardboard quilting templates and I hand quilted the surface all over randomly with the different patterns using variegated shades of Perle Cotton in pink, blue green and yellow. You'll probably need to enlarge the picture to see the quilt detail.

After a bit of discussion with those of my buddies who know better than me, I put a sleeve on the back through which a dowel rod will go in due course and after a bit of debate I hand wrote a label using a permanent pen in my usual trademark Mrs Everything a Little Bit Wonky Style!

Amanda's birthday isn't actually until the end of the month but I do hope she will like the finished hanging. She does know that there is 'something' in the pipeline because she caught me looking at the blank wall in the bedroom during one visit when I had supposedly gone up to use the bathroom!!

Happy sewing!!

Sue D's Christmas Quilts

Sue has finished a couple of projects prior to Christmas.

Note the hand quilted detail....

Also important news that Sue has finished her Simple Sampler quilt. Last week she came round to Towse's house - Carolyn joined us briefly - and in the spirit of the old time quilting bees we had a joint bind, fold, pin and slipstitch session and Hurrah, there it was done. I hope that Sue will share a photo with the blog in due course.

Happy sewing and compliments of the season!

A bit of an impromptu gathering/catch up

Mainly for those of us doing the Farmer's Wife class, Eleanor suggested a bit of an impromptu catch up session at her house. Eleanor has done a bit of travelling recently and we were all crucially aware that the next class is only a week away. That monthly class seems to come around so quickly and none of us want to fall behind if we can help it. So quite a lot of sewing was done (well there was a bit of chat and tea/coffee drinking as well and Eleanor did make some delicious chocolate cake) and Sue Mc took some photos to prove it!

As you will see I am cheating a bit by doing hand quilting for another project - because, class swot that I am, I am up to date with my FW blocks!

We will have to post some close ups of our blocks here very soon. It is fascinated to see all the colour combinations we have chose. Somehow they all seem to go together for this project, perhaps because the 6" blocks are so small.

I can resist anything except temptation

I had been promising for some time that I would take Sue D to Threads and Patches www.threadsandpatches.co.uk but somehow we had never managed a date. Then we realised that they were holding a one day flash sale on Saturday - decision made and off we went. Sue was able to get the fabric that she needed to be able to complete her Simple Sampler and for current projects. I was adamant that other than some binding fabric to complete my first EPP project, I had NO NEED FOR ANY MORE FABRIC!! At least that is what I had told several people, including the man of the house. We did, fortunately have a discussion about budget limits before I left home anyway......

The shop had turned its entire classroom into a sale area, with bolts of fabric perched sideways on trestle tables and two cutting tables. All the fabric was £6 per metre. There were other offers throughout the shop. What a selection! The bad news (well not bad at all really but it does mean that your spend does tend to mount up easily!) was that the minimum cut was 1m.

So this is what I bought..................................

Well there's only nine fabrics here, with a couple that were a bit more than a metre because it was the end of the bolt! What is interesting is that I am seeming to be drawn to the ditsy small patterns that are suitable for the smaller blocks of things like Farmers Wife. Whereas Broni, who also came with us, looks for fabrics that she would like as clothes - mind you, neither of us can make clothes, at least not anything that might fit. What is also interesting is to realise just how my choice of colour/tone matching has changed since last year with all the hassles of 'Monster' and fabrics not going together. It is always a delight for me to see the progression of learning in children that I have taught. It's equally interesting, and a compliment to my teacher (Debs), to see the same progression in my own work.

I can heartily recommend a trip to Threads and Patches. The staff, and Sally the owner, are always very friendly and helpful even under the busy circumstances of a one day sale. There is also the advantage of an upstairs tea room, where you can make yourself a hot drink and eat a chocolate bar when you have got exhausted and over stimulated from all the choices downstairs. Rejuvenated, you can then return to the fray. Yesterday was a short trip for us - we were only there just over two hours!