Unfeasibly excited

Having been a total technical dunce since forever and a day and having made my templates by drawing with pen, tippexing out errors, printing out text, cutting it out and sticking it onto the templates and then photocopying, I made this this morning.  Yes, all my myself.  It's not an actual template for an actual Union Jack block but will be once I've tweaked the measurements.  And will form the basis of my lesson at the Fat Quarterly Sewing Retreat in London in June.  

It occurred to me yesterday in a Eureka moment that these days the best and cheapest new software(s) are apps.  So I hunted around and downloaded TouchDraw for iPad for £5.99 and drew this within the first half hour, from a standing start.  I have NEVER used any of this kind of software EVER before EVER, that's how easy this was to use.  So all your appaholics out there, are there any great apps I need to know about?  I'd like one for my macbook which will replace Piknic when that vanishes soon - some kind of photoshop-type programme but not trillions of wonga.  So I can tweak my photos, make mosaics, add text, re-shape them into blog headers, buttons etc.  Just a bit more than what iphoto does really. 

Quilting Advice

A couple of weeks ago, I asked you how I might quilt the Oakshott 12 trees quilt and I got lots and lots of great ideas, advice and suggestions from you.  Angela Walters is a frighteningly talented long arm quilter who quilts for Tula Pink, Katy I'm a Ginger Monkey, John Quilt Dad as well as quilting a significant number of the fabulous quilts that the fabric manufacturers and designers bring to Quilt Market each spring and fall market.  Today she has taken quilting suggestions for my quilt from Tia Camp Follower Bag Lady, also a talented long arm quilter, as well as giving her own suggestions which you might like to read here as part of her weekly series "Deciding What to Quilt".

Embarrassingly, she has also asked me to come back and show her when it is finished which, given how I feel about my quilting skills, has me feeling a little anxious.  I have now decided how I am going to quilt it and will show you when it's done and just hope I don't make a right Horlicks of it.

Keep Calm and Quilt Like Lily's Quilts

One of my sons got a "Keep Calm" app for his iPod and made these three pictures for me.  The first has a picture of a block from my Amitie BOM quilt on the top.

The second has a picture of my Moda Bake Shop Union Jack on the top (which hangs on our sitting room wall). 

I have this one all ready for when I start my next Quilt A Long. 

And this one is my favourite. 

Skillage

No, I didnt make this block.  I don't have those kinds of skills, or skillz or skillage (as my 12 year old son calls it).  This was made be Charlotte over at Lawson and Lotti and I am showing this because it's about time I showed you some decent sewing after yesterday's sorry block and because today she is featuring me on her weekly "Sunday Sewing Spaces" feature.  So hop on over there to find out more about my sewing room.  There is no sewing room quite like it, that much I can say.  

Thank you for guessing

Thank you all of you for the wonderful, sometimes accurate, sometimes kind, sometimes funny guesses.  The background to this block is that I am in a bee and this month Marianne has asked for urban inspired blocks.  Ethne made this very cool block.  

Inspired by this photo.

 

 Marianne made this very cool block.

Inspired by this photo.

And I made a power station cooling tower which I am not proud of because I think it looks like amateur hour but I tried my best.  On the plus side, I made it from Oakshott shot cottons so the fabrics are beautiful and I made it using Jenny Pedigo's curve ruler so the curves are perfect and were quick and easy to do.  So please make me feel better, have you ever pictured something really cool in your head and then, when you'd made it, you just thought - well that's rubbish.  If so, please leave me a comment!

What have I made this time?

OK so occasionally I make a block and I know what it is and then, when it's made, it looks like something else (if I ask my husband, his usual response is some comedy body part in the nether regions). So I'm going to give you no clues as to what this is supposed to be and hope that everyone single one of you sees what I was trying to make but will laugh very hard if you all see something completely unrelated as happened with my post-box-that-looked-like-a-penis.

Have you ever done a BOM?

I confess that a BOM (Block of the Month program where, for a monthly fee, a quilt shop sends you fabrics and patterns for a block each month until you make a whole quilt top) does not really appeal to me.  Why would I want to make a quilt someone else designed in fabrics someone else chose.  Well I tried one out and I was proven wrong.  I absolutely loved it.  The quilt I made was from the Amitie Textiles Circle Game BOM and ended up looking like this.  If you love this quilt, I have a feeling a second round of this BOM is under way right now but I don't know if it's all sold out.

I missed their previous BOM, Green Tea and Sweet Beans (although I always think of it as Green Beans and Ham), a wonderful BOM which my friend Katy bought, never got around to doing because she has been so busy being the pied piper of the quilting world, and has passed to my friend Mandy who is doing it absolutely beautifully and I might even get some pics of it when she come here for our sewing day next week.  Here is a Green Tea and Sweet Beans quilt top finished by my mate Lil.  

And now there is a new BOM starting right now (go to Amitie to sign up) and I confess I signed up even before I saw a picture of the quilt itself but Jenny has just shown a glimpse on the Amitie website. You can hand or machine piece this one, which is perfect for me because I don't have the patience for hours of hand sewing whereas some people just love it.  This newest BOM is called the Gipsy Wife and is as whimsical and quirky as the previous two and I cannot wait for my first month's package to arrive.  I will squeal.  I know I will. 

What sets Amitie's BOMs apart from the rest for me are both the wonderful designs of the quilts themselves but also the fabrics they send. If you have a bored moment, pop over to their website for the most incredible selection of fabrics you will find in any shop anywhere in the world right now.  Take a look at this little trio of Liberty fabrics just to get an idea of what I'm talking about (that price is AU$ BTW and not US$ since the shop is situated in Melbourne Australia). 

So tell me, have you ever signed up for a BOM?  Did you enjoy it?  Did you get the quilt finished?

Psychedelic Seaside

So when I first got my grubby mitts on Thomas Knauers' new line, Flock (hitting stores this month), I thought it was all about psychedelic London in the swinging sixties.  And so for the front of my Flock pillows, I fussy cut and fused my favourite Flock motifs for a modern, clean psychedelic look.

But then my twin daughters intervened and explained that I had it all wrong.  The theme of these fabrics was a flock of seagulls at the seaside at sunset and could I please incorporate that into the pillows.  And so, duly chastised, I did as I was told.  And we are now debating which side of the pillows we prefer.  Twin one prefers the "fronts" (photo above) and twin two prefers the "backs" (photo below) and so they are now doing that annoying thing where one turns her favourite side to the front and then the other turns her favourite side to the front and so on and so forth.   But which twin is right?  Which side do you prefer?

Do you know Tracey?

I have only recently stumbled across a new (to me) UK quilting shop.  Tracey Pereira of Quilt Me Happy owns the shop and is also a long arm quilter.  That was how she and I "met" since I was looking for a long-arm quilter and Tracey and I started chatting and today my first quilt is being mailed to her to be long arm quilted.  Well not my first quilt but my first quilt to be long arm quilted.  It's my mahoosive swoon and I will be sure to let you see it when I get it back.

So then I realised that Tracey also has a quilting fabric shop and I just wanted to mention it to you in case you didn't know.  Quilt Me Happy covers a range of modern (think Aneela Hooey, Deb Strain, Sweetwater, Pat Bravo) and what I would call modern/traditional and what I would call modern/traditional fabrics (think Fig Tree, 3 Sisters, Chloe's Closet, Sentimental Studios).

She stocks everyone's new favourite solid, Essex Linen as well as some nice Moda essential dots.

She has some Timeless Treasures and Dear Stella coming soon as well as the delicious new line, Curious Nature from Parson Gray.  Perfect for a Father's Day Quilt.  If you have a minute, pop over to her shop and take a little rummage around, see if you can't find yourself a little treat or perhaps a sale bargain.

These are a few of my favourite things...

So here are a few of my favourite things.  And I'd love to know what yours are.  The format is "my favourite X are Y because Z."  So give me your top tips for your favourite anything out there in quiltingland.  And you can add in the odd non-quilty one if you feel so inclined.

My favourite threads are Aurifil because they have little lint, run like butter through my machine, do not twist and tangle for hand sewing and come in a dazzling array of colours.

My favourite solids are Kona solids because of the range of colours, the Kona colour card and their Bounty of Basics Boxes, all of which enable me to pick the perfect palette for every project.

My favourite sewing machine needles are Superior Titanium Topstitch needles because they last longer, stay sharper and I need to change them less often.

My favourite shot cottons are Oakshott because they are lustrous, irridescent, soft as Liberty Lawn and crisp as a new £10 note.

My favourite chocolates are Giandujotti, Italian praline chocolates wrapped in gold foil which the Roman family I au paired for for six months when I was 23 (after which I got sacked for laziness) used to buy in bulk for their dinner parties and I used to tuck handfuls into my pockets on the sly, they were so delicious.

Over to you, what are a few of your favourite things?