You asked for this…..

Liz Dandelion asked for this….. One clue: I’s sitting bottom left.

I haven’t much changed in the 5 years(!) since this picture was taken in Crete, though my hair is longer.

1 week to go…

Yay! Only 1 week to go till I am with my fellow quilty friends in London.

Lynne @LilysQuilts, who is hosting the lnky party over the FQ blog, posted  a photo of herself on her blog…. Well! Not me! I just don’t like having my photo taken; I can just about stand having it taken for passports and work ID badges.

I have been doing patchwork/quilting since the late ’90s, but ended up on hiatus due to a full time job at a local city council. But due to issues at work last year, I was at home for nearly a month and was looking for something to do that I could put down & pick up without losing my place, unlike knitting or cross-stitch. And over the lasat year I have completed 3 unfinished tops: one of which is now a completed quilt, another is being quilted and one waiting to be quilted.

What you don’t know about, unless you dig around in the older posts, is that although I do have a sewing machine (a basic Toyota machine that cost me £20 from Argos!) I piece, quilt & bind  by hand.  I can’t really explain why I do it, but I really enjoy the slowness of it.  I am self-taught from books & magazines regarding the quilting/binding bit,  but EPP (English Paper Piecing) is not that hard to do.

I will be bringing Autumn Waterfall & Diamonds in the Sky for show and tell.

Gallery of Rogues #3 – Cindy from Fluffy Sheep Quilting

My next interviewee is Cindy, aka Fluffy Sheep Quilting.  She was nominated by Hadley (aka FlyingBlindOnARocketCycle) as a possible participant in my mini series. Thanks to both Hadley for nominating, and Cindy for participating.  So grab a drink, pull up a chair and let’s see what Cindy has to tell us…..

Help!  Help!  I have a monster that has taken over my quilting space!

For those of you who I have not already met, I am Cindy.  It’s so nice to meet you!  I blog semi-regularly over at Fluffy Sheep Quilting and have just opened a shop also called Fluffy Sheep Quilting.  I started quilting less than three years ago and blogging over a year ago, but you would never know it.  They have become absolutely central to my life and happiness.   I tend to be drawn to modern quilts, because I love their bold colors and geometric patterns, but I could just as easily be entertained by a traditional quilt.

You’re not here to chat about modern vs traditional quilting, though.  You want to hear about my monster!  I call her Community Quilt and I absolutely love her through and through. 

I was struck by how fantastic the quilting community was when I just started quilting and blogging.  How great folks were at freely giving suggestions to new quilters, teaching new techniques and supporting one another.  So, I wanted to make a quilt that honored that spirit.  

I started requesting scrap donations back in spring of 2011 from quilters in blog land.  I wanted a physical way to link each and every one of us, so I decided on a scrappy Irish Chain-type pattern that would allow for each person in the community to donate fabric from projects they were currently working on and I could combine them into one piece.  And what do you know, but piles and piles of fabric started to arrive.

Oh, goodness!  Time to start piecing!  This pattern called for 1,330 little two inch squares of prints with 512 little background rectangles.  What!?!?  Anyway, I just started to dig in and piece.  It came together faster than I thought it would!

Until there were more blocks than I knew what to do with.  After some fiddling around, I found an arrangement that made me happy. 

Up to this point I was expecting a finished quilt of 82×82 inches.  I just had to add the borders and layer it.  Easy peasy.  But that’s where this project took it’s monstrous turn.  I miss calculated how many blocks I needed for the border.  Instead of making enough for one…I made enough for two!  After all of the time it took to cut the little tiny squares and piece them, you better believe I was going to use that double border!  Still, this enlarged the top by a further 7 inches a side!  Eeek!  I now have a top that measures 96×96 and is truly a monster.  What was I thinking?

And here the story takes a sad turn.  I love this quilt.  Love every little stinkin’ piece of it.  But the quilting is just killing me!  I am having trouble manipulating it under my machine.  Trouble finding a pattern that compliments the piecing.  Trouble in general.  And now she sits in a small pile in my quilting space.  

However, the spectacular Trudi of Quilting Prolifically has just offered to help me design a pattern that might suit and then to quilt it for me.  Thank goodness!

I love this quilt and I want to see it finished.  I just need help.  Would I make another monster?  Not on your life.  Still, I am entirely glad that I made this one so I can now appreciate massive bed-sized quilts when I see them.  (I agree with Cindy… Trying something just once can make us appreciate someone else’s hard work!)

Liz, thanks so much for letting me share my tale.  For your readers quilting a monster right now, I wish you the best of luck and much happiness with your creation!  I know you’re working incredibly hard on it and I am sure every bit of effort will pay off in the end.

It’s been a pleasure to have Cindy take part, as I enjoyed following her quilty adventures in Ireland. (Not exactly a country I would associate with quilting, boy am I wrong! I love the Irish Chain pattern. Maybe I will feature it in my next quilty history post.)

Bloggers’ Quilt Festival: Spring 2012

This is the first time I have entered this online quilt show.

I have chosen to ‘show’ Autumn Waterfall:

This is not the oldest quilt I have made, but is certainly my current favourite.

Due to being on suspension from work last year, I was at home for a month and feeling kind of depressed. I had been reading the April ’11 issue of British Patchwork & Quilting magazine, which inspired me to dig out the then-unfinished top and finish it. Also in BPQ there is a regular column called Wandering the Web and this led me to find the many quilty blogs I now enjoy following.

I had first seen the pattern in BPQ a few years ago, as a background that had appliqued cherry blossom. I loved the geometric design and at that time Makower had brought a collection of fabrics called Elizabethan, which I fell in love (it was the first time that I ever considered buying a fat quarte bundle of an entire fabric corllection!) I made my first completed quilt and gave it to a much missed friend, who due to having a massive stroke had to retire. But I still loved the pattern and was determined to make one for myself!

I did not plan on making an autumn themed quilt, but the little swatches I pulled from the sample pack I got from Strawberry Fayre said otherwise.And hey presto! I started on piecing Autumn Waterfall. It was when I was about half way through the piecing, I said to my mum that I wanted to make a set of quilts in this pattern, one for each season.

I did not really complete it as a quilt until earlier this year. I doubt the Guiness Book of Records would recognise it as a candidate for a quilt that the longest time to complete, but I so glad it is now a quilt to be used.

Galley of Rogues #2

My second interview in this mini-series is with Helen.   Thank you Helen for being a willing interviewee.

Liz: So tell us a little about how you started quilting
Helen: I started quilting five or six years ago when I was first off work due to sickness (I have CFS/ME) and after a few months I’d got to the stage where I felt like doing something that I could pick up for a few minutes at a time and easily put down when I became too tired to continue.  I was having trouble concentrating when reading/watching telly, etc. but I wanted to have something to do that would be fairly simple but satisfying.  Up until then my only experiences of patchwork were my mam making some EPP hexagon pincushions for a school fayre (she spent hours making them and they were sold for a very small amount of money and she was so cheesed off she didn’t make any more!) and machine piecing a couple of simple cushion covers about ten years ago (using some plastic templates and a couple of FQs I’d bought from my LQS) and although I enjoyed the process I didn’t carry on.  (Had I looked on-line and found some quilting blogs I suspect it may have been a different story!)  Fast forward a few years and I realised that hand piecing could be the thing I was looking for – I’d always enjoyed embroidery and other hand sewing so I was fairly confident of my sewing skills and I realised that I could just do a few minutes and then put it down for a while without losing my place whereas knitting or crochet would need more concentration (and you can’t really stop knitting in the middle of a row, at least I can’t, without dropping stitches or losing my place in the pattern!).  I was soon hooked and it came a pleasant surprise to discover that on the days I wasn’t well enough to sew I could flick through a quilting book or magazine or even just play with the fabric or think about future projects whilst lying in bed/on the settee – perfect!  I don’t know how to describe my style, I’m not even sure I have one so I’ll leave it up to others to decide!  I do know that I tend to like small pieces/blocks and traditional patterns made with modern fabric and also enjoy improv/liberated piecing – I’ve no idea what sort of quilter that makes me!

Liz: What inspired you to make your lovely ‘monster? (I had asked if Helen had named her quilt)

Helen: I’m afraid it doesn’t have a name other than ‘Mam and Dad’s quilt, I don’t tend to name my quilts!  Mam and I were in the coffee shop opposite our LQS when she spotted something in the shop’s window and wanted to have a closer look.  It turned out to be a panel and Mam decided there and then that she wanted a bed quilt featuring the panel and she knew just the person to make it!  (In fact she loved it so much we were ‘forced’ to go inside and look for fabric!  When she learnt the owners were trading at a quilt show at the end of the week (and taking the panels with them) she got so worried they’d sell out that the owner took pity on her and promised that if the panels were selling really well she’d put a couple aside for a few days!)  Over the next week or so I spent quite some time designing a pattern that incorporated the panels (I decided to use two panels to make the design more balanced) and the Drunkard’s Path blocks and floating squares border that Mam had said she would like to be included – it was working out the sizes of blocks, etc. rather than the design elements that took the time, I kept finding that the pieced borders I’d designed would be three inches too long (or too short!) for the rest of the quilt!  After lots of scrumpled up paper and rubbing out I finally had a pattern that worked and after three months of (machine) piecing and six months of (hand) quilting it was finally finished!

Liz: As this mini-series is what I call ‘monster’ quilts, did you plan on making the quilt as big as it is or was it an accident (ie miscounting of blocks)?

Helen: The size was deliberate – I measured my parents’ bed several times to ensure that it would be big enough to cover their king-size quilt/duvet and also be long enough to cover the pillows.  The size became a bit of an issue when I was quilting – I would often get things caught up in the bottom of it and the only place I could keep it between quilting sessions was the settee – it ended up with a seat of its own!

I just love those panels. What a nice gift for your parents, Helen.

Liz: Do you have a favourite ‘monster’ that either you or someone else has made, and what makes it your favourite?

Helen: I don’t have permission for these photos and I’m not sure which quilt Lynne is planning to post about (it might be the one I mention) so I’ve included two.  Pick whichever you like, I love them both!  I’m also not sure of the sizes but I’ve always thought of them as big quilts!

I love Lynne‘s Penguin book quilt -

and Hadley‘s Bee constellation quilt -

There are many other big quilts that I love but these two kept leaping to mind whenever I thought about the question!

I agree with your choice, especially Hadley’s quilt.

Liz:  Now that you have made one, would you make another?

Helen: I already have…..

and I’m planning another one – I’ve started the cutting but haven’t managed any piecing yet, don’t hold your breath as it’ll probably be the end of the year before I get a finished top!

If you want to get to know more about Helen’s quilty life (and Archie!), just go to her blog and say ‘hi’.

And the winners are…..

I had to count the number of comments twice as I couldn’t believe what I was seeing….. 32 people (some I ‘know’ and some I don’t) had left comments for my blogaversary giveaway. I would like to thank you all for taking part.

*drumroll*

The winner of the Joel Dewberry Heirloom fq bundle is……. Helen. Congratulations Helen!

And the winner of the Riley Blake fq bundle is …….. QuilterCaroline.

I have emailed both winners for their addresses.

54-40 or Fight …. A history of a block

I have been mulling this post over for the past few weeks since seeing a comment on a blog (I forget who made comment & where I saw it). After I read the comment, I scrolled back up the page and had a look at the block, and immediately I thought ’54-40 or Fight’.  I pulled out my copy of 5500 Quilt Block Designs by Maggie Malone and looked 54-40 or Fight up… I had guessed correctly, and I started thinking about the history of the block design & especially the name.

Picture courtsey of  My Quilt Genie blog

Firstly, the name. Why choose 54-40 or Fight?

The name was originally a slogan from the 1840s, and in particular from the turmoil of the Oregon boundary dispute (or the Oregon question), which arose as a result of competing British & American claims to the Pacific Northwest of North American.  It appeared by January 1846, driven in part by the Democratic press, and is often misidentified with the 1844 presidential election campaign.

The British knew the region as the Columbia District, a fur-trading division of the Hudson’s Bay Company, while Americans referred to it as the Oregon Country. The broadest definition of the disputed region was defined by the following: west of the Continental Divide of the Americas, north of the 42nd parallel north (the northern border of New Spain and after 1821 of Mexico), and south of the parallel 54°40′ north (the southern border of Russian America after 1825).

In 1844 the U.S. Democratic Party, appealing to expansionist sentiment and the popular theme of manifest destiny, asserted that the U.S. had a valid claim to the entire Oregon Country up to Russian America at parallel 54°40′ north. Democratic presidential candidate James K. Polk won the 1844 election, but then sought a compromise boundary along the 49th parallel, the same boundary proposed by previous U.S. administrations. Negotiations between the U.S. and the British broke down. However, in 1846 the Oregon Treaty was signed, setting the boundary at the 49th parallel.

Secondly, the design.

The block was already known at the time and was published in women’s magazines of the time under various names, including  ’54-40 or Fight’ in later publications.  One of the later publications of this block was in the Kansas City Star newspaper (which was founded in 1880).

A Gallery of Rogues

First of all I would like to all of you who have entered my blogaversary giveaway. I will be picking 2 winners next Monday, so keep tuned in!

Secondly, I have had the first of my interviews back. The subject of these interviews are those rogues (aka monsters) that we end up with, either by accident or by design. I have decided to call this series, A Gallery of Rogues.  To me (and this is a personal opinion!) a rogue/monster is a quilt that is 90 x 90 inches or larger, and with this mind I emailed a select group of friends asking they would be willing to take part, and thankfully they were

My first interviewee is Sheila Donnachie, known to almost all of us as the bluepatch quilter. Thank you, Sheila, for a taking a few moments out of a busy schedule to answer a few questions…..

Liz : Please tell us a little about how you came to be a quilter and how you would describe your style.

Sheila: I have always sewn, but in 1997/8 my little “sewing bee” was introduced to a new member, and in time she introduced us to her quilts. We had never really come across anything like it before. I was hooked from the start and have been quilting ever since. My preferences back then were fairly traditional and “country” style fabrics from the likes of Thimbleberries etc. I have pretty much muddled along, sticking to this style and using what was available locally.

However, my quilting world was turned upside down when I started blogging. I feel as if I have just started again and feel like a newbie as I am exposed to all the wonderful new designers and modern quilts that are all over the blogs. I have enjoyed swaps and QALs and have dipped my toe into a bit of improv here and there. There really is no end to inspiration available and I am currently enjoying the Zakka Style sew a long – mostly small, quick projects that leave you feeling very satisfied in having finished something!!

I think you asked me to join in, following the “creation” of my Hexie quilt but it doesn’t qualify as a monster.

I do however have a monster that lives on our bed…..

Liz: What inspired you to make your ‘monster’?

Sheila: I started this with no great plan to make such a big quilt. The central portion of the quilt was featured in an Australian magazine I had and I loved the big, stupid looking teddies. I had never really used a lot of applique on quilts until this one and had fun using faux suede for the teddies’ bodies.

Liz: As this mini-series is about what I call ‘monster’ quilts, did you plan on making it as big as it is or was it an accident (ie miscounting of blocks)?

Sheila: At the time, in class, my ladies were following the Contrary Wife block pattern – and I sewed along with them, using up lots of my Thimbleberries fabric leftovers…………I stuck to a sort of brown/cream & blue colour theme.

The quilt was designated as one for our own bed and as we have a superking, it had to be big. It is big enough to sleep under comfortably at about 90″ square.

As an aside, I must say that I quilted this in three sections, my method of QAYG, and then joined them together. I would, and have made other biggies but would never tackle quilting in one whole piece – QAYG every time for me.

Liz: Do you have a favourite ‘monster’ that either you or someone else has made, and what makes it your favourite?

Sheila: At my recent Open Day there were some wonderful quilts – these next three were voted by visitors on the day as the favourites.

In first place was -

by Muriel

In 2nd place -

by Lorna

In 3rd place -

by Caryl

I love these quilts – Muriel and Caryl learned to quilt in my classes and I have loved watching them grow and stretch themselves. They both constantly challenge themselves.

Lorna joined my classes this year, she is a young quilter, who I have known since she was a little girl. She is a force of nature in all that she does and watching her make this quilt was an education for me. As an example, she took the pattern from her Jelly Roll book, but cut her own jelly roll!!

Thanks, Sheila, for being a willing interviewee, and I really love those teddies!!. Do visit her blog and say ‘hi’.

PS: all photos courtsey of Sheila (via flickr).

Blogaversary Giveaway

Firstly, I am loads better now (I had a cold which turned into bronchitis over Easter!).

GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED (07.05.12 – 2:05 pm)

Secondly, a week tomorrow (April 29th) is my 1 year blogaversary!  To celebrate, I have 2 FQ bundles to give away:

1. Heirloom by Joel Dewberry, made up of the following fat quarters:

~ Blockprint Blossom in amethyst
~ Blockprint Blossom in fuchsia
~ Chrysanthemum in chrysanthemum
~ Empire Weave in amethyst
~ Marble Stripe in green
~ Marquis in amethyst
~ Opal in fuchsia
~ Opal in green
~ Ornate Floral in amethyst
~ Paisley in amethyst
~ Ribbon Lattice in fuchsia
~ Rose Bouquet in sky
~ Tile Flourish in green

2.  Happier by Deena Rutter for Riley Blake:

Just leave a comment, stating which bundle you would like to win and what you would make out of the fabric. The giveaway is open until May 7.

A finish and ….

Hope you all had a great Easter! Last Thursday/Friday I came down with a sore throat which progressed into sniffles and now I have a horrible chesty coough…. yep! I have been suffering with a cold over the weekend and looks like I will be home sick this week.  Such a great Easter weekend for me, lol.

Well I got one quilt done & have 2 to go!  Last Thursday I finished the binding on Autumn Waterfall, though I kind of mucked up joining the two ends.

I used Kona Chocolate for the binding, which frames the top beautifully. I borrowed the washing line at my parents’ to take this picture as I don’t have the space at the flat to lay it out.

I am now working on quilting Diamonds in the Sky, which is not exactly a doddle as the patches are 4cm squares and half the blocks are different colours.