Monday, December 24, 2012

Merry Christmas to all my dear friends!   May you have a wonderful holiday and may 2013 be blessed with peace, hope and happiness!




Wednesday, December 19, 2012

More Stitching


 I spent some time in my studio yesterday and completed my 3D flowers.   

It took alot of cutting and turning, stuffing and quilting to get them to the second stage.   The hardest part was matching them up to give the most pop of colour.


Finally, they got their three dimensional shape and turned into a lovely bouquet of flowers!




Sunday, December 16, 2012

Free Log Cabin Quilt ebook


I received an email last week from Fons and Porter asking if I would be interested in doing a book review on their Log Cabin Quilt ebook.   I have done reviews before and one thing I do tell them is that I will be honest.   If I don't like something, I will be polite about it, but I will let the readers know that it didn't turn my crank.   
So I accepted the offer and was sent a 24 page book on log cabin quilts.   I have done the log cabin block before, but not being a traditional quilter, never really knew what to do with it and never knew how to put it together into a quilt that would make it pop by my standards!   

I was in for a very pleasant surprise.   This ebook  gives some fantastic examples.   They start by breaking  the ebook down into three categories, traditional, courthouse steps and chevron.  Can you guess which one I zoomed to?   Yessir, chevron here I come!
Fat Quarter Quilting Patterns
The ebook is very well put together.   They provide excellent instructions and cutting charts for you to follow, and they are simple!    If you have never done a log cabin quilt, this book is not intimidating in the least.   And if you have whipped through some log cabin quilts, guaranteed you will find something that catches your eye.  
Free Log Cabin Quilt Patterns
The little extras they put into the book are just wonderful.  For example it describes thoroughly how to bind with piping, and how to bind the 'lumpless way'.   

Free Log Cabin Quilt Patterns

I highly recommend this book as a wonderful addition to your quilt book collection.   And best of all is they are offering it to you free!  Thank you Fons and Porter.


All images courtesy of Fons and Porter website.

Friday, December 14, 2012

The Coolest Colour Collection Ever

This is the best site I have ever seen for colours and inspiration.  

There is a full set of instructions written up for it here.  Basically it lets you select up to five colours and it searches 10 million Creative Common images on Flickr for your viewing and inspirational pleasure.   When you see a picture you like, you can click on it and be taken directly to it.

Now I must warn you, this is a real time sucker as it is so much fun.



Go here to read all about it and give it a try!



Monday, December 10, 2012

Emag Tutorials

  Remember a little while ago, I posted this emag?   So many have asked for tutorials that Amanda of The Quilted Fish has done up a couple of blog posts with the patterns in them.

This is Brooke's adorable table runner.  I am going to make one or two or three...
Brooke

Here are Candice's placemats.   These are the ultimate!
Candice

Stephanie outdid herself again with this wall hanging!

Sally has so much cheer it overflows from her.
Sally

My dear Jana is super creative with this apron.
Jana

My bag pattern is one of them.  It is a quick and cute way to present a gift this season.

Jackie

Go and check us all out and grab a pattern and have some fun!

Sunday, December 9, 2012

Playing with Embellishments


I have been experimenting again with making embellishments.   The star below was found at this blog and was done with paper, but I figured I could do it in fabric and it worked just fine.





I tried a different way of working with my 3D flowers and was very happy with the results.  It eliminated any raw edges and allowed for a cute little ric rac trim.


Looking to do something small on the holidays?   Take a few 4" squares of fabric and fold them into different shapes and stitch down to hold and see what you come up with.

I am linking up with 'The Free Motion Quilting' blog run by the wonderful Leah Day.



Wednesday, December 5, 2012

New 3D Embellishments

Are you like me in the fact that Christmas has you baking, cleaning, procrastinating on said baking and cleaning, so when you hit your studio, you just want to hide?  I can't get into any big projects in December, it is too mind boggling for me.  

Instead I decided it was a good time to create some new 3D embellishments for my art quilt that is still a work of progress.

Here is what I came up with.  This little flower used scraps of fabric from my Modern Quilt.

I think one of my favourite items to use when making embellishments is ric rac.   I took 2 different colours and wound them together, stitched that down, rolled it up and peeled back the layers.   For the yellow and grey one, I also wound some pink lace around the ric rac to add a bit more colour.



Now I am off to make more 3D flowers!


Sunday, December 2, 2012

Link Up With UFO's


Today I am trying a link up with Leah Day over at her fantastic blog The Free Motion Quilting Project.


UFO Sundays on the Free Motion Quilting Project

Head over and check out all the UFO's in progress and why not add your own?