Ice Cream Soda Quilt - Month 2

Another month, another set of eight Ice Cream Soda Quilt blossoms. And I am still absolutely loving this project! And exciting news for those of you who may have missed the sign ups back in February - Jodi has announced that she'll be opening up another round of sign ups in May, so if you're keen to join in on the fun, be sure to follow her over on Instagram. 

I'm finding it really helpful to take pictures of all these blossoms together every so often, to get a grip on what colours I'm lacking and to check that it is going to work overall. I love the fact that it is going to be super scrappy and look really unplanned, even though I'm carefully selecting and fussy cutting all the fabrics for each blossom. I need to concentrate on using more pinks, reds and purples this month, especially in the outer rings, to try to make it a bit more balanced. 

Like last month, I'm still using lots of my favorite designers - Lizzy House, Tula Pink, Heather Ross and Anna Maria Horner are all making frequent appearances.

One of my favorite finds for this project has been Heather Bailey's True Colours collection. I bought a bundle of these from the Fat Quarter Shop (in one of their flash sales, so it was something like 50% off - bargain!), and they are so perfect for fussy cutting. The centre of this blossom (one of my personal favorites) features one of these prints in the centre. I find sometimes geometric prints are difficult to fussy cut, as they aren't always symmetrical. Not a problem with these, and I can see myself using them in lots of my blossoms.

No colour is being ignored for this quilt - I'm even including brown (a totally underrated colour in my opinion!) I am SO in love with these hedgehogs wandering around the edge of this blossom!

I wasn't sure about the centre of this one initially (deliberately cut so that the arrows are offset from each other), but it's really grown on me and I have decided I love it.

I haven't forgotten about my promises of some English Paper Piecing tutorials either - between my middle child turning 10, Easter, school holidays, some secret sewing (plus work and life in general) I just haven't had time. But once school is back I plan to get them sorted!

I have some other exciting news too. I've been practicing like mad quilting pantographs on a long arm at one of my local quilt shops, ready to offer customer quilting. So I'm extremely excited to announce that I'm now available to do edge to edge quilting for customers! I'll share more details about that really soon!!

xx Jess

Ice Cream Soda Quilt Month 1

Back in February, my friend Jodi (aka Tales of Cloth) announced a block of the month program she would be hosting for 2017, called the Ice Cream Soda Quilt. Jodi and her family run a business, laser cutting paper pieces for English paper piecing (EPP), so the Ice Cream Soda Quilt is a cleverly designed EPP project. Until last year, I never really enjoyed EPP all that much, but having started this project (and another EPP project I'll share soon) I can gladly say I'm a bit obsessed. 

So each month, I receive a packet of paper pieces with all the shapes necessary to make these lovely little blocks. When I signed up, I initially thought I'd use my scrap baskets to make this quilt - but the lure of fussy cutting was just too strong, and I'm having a huge amount of fun choosing fabrics and fussy cutting as much as I can for these blocks. I'm sharing my first month's blocks today (eight blossoms), and as you can see there's a very strong animal theme happening. 

I'm having lots of fun using some very long hoarded and special fabrics - Heather Ross, Lizzy House and Cotton and Steel are all making frequent appearances so far, along with Aneela Hoey, Laurie Wisbrun and a few others who design fabrics that are just perfect for fussy cutting.

The other thing I wanted to mention is a new love affair with a new thread - Aurifil 80wt. I bought a few spools (2021, 2600 and 1246 - white, dove and dark grey) and so far they have been perfect for all the colour combinations I've used. I seriously can't get over how invisible my stitches are. I've used 50wt a lot for EPP in the past, and it is lovely thread to use, but 80wt is a total game changer.

I'm planning on doing a monthly update of where I'm at with these blocks - so I'll share them in groups of 8 here on the blog. I'm also going to put together a few English Paper Piecing tutorials when I get a chance - I'd like to share my fussy cutting technique and some tips and tricks I use for getting perfect points. If there's any other aspects of EPP you'd like me to talk about, please let me know and I'll be sure to include it in my tutorials!

xx Jess

Blue Wren Cushion {Finished!}

The last two weeks have been a flurry of pattern writing, fabric cutting, sewing and general organising at work. Some of the Frangipani Fabrics team (Briony, Cath and myself) are heading over to Melbourne tomorrow via boat to have a stall at the Australasian Quilt Convention, so we have been super busy getting ready for it. Our stall will be focusing on Indigenous Australian fabrics, including seven quilt patterns we are releasing, and it's going to be SO much fun! If you're heading to AQC, please come and say hi at Stall 153 :o).

I'll be teaching a short class (a Make and Take class) each day the convention is on. Briony and I came up with this design, and we are so pleased with it! It was a real team effort in terms of its construction too - I cut and basted the pieces, started the sewing and then Briony took over and completed the wren and appliqued it onto the background (which I put together). And then I quilted it and finished the cushion :o).  It's an English Paper Pieced Blue Wren, made entirely with Indigenous fabrics, and finishes up as a 20" square cushion (or mini quilt.) Kits for this project will be available at the show - and we are taking preorders for kits for those of you who aren't coming to AQC! We are also taking pre-orders for the pattern (which will ship once we get back from AQC).

We have also made up an Australian animal quilt, using Kristy from Quiet Play's fantastic foundation pieced pattern. This will be available as a kit at the show as well. Cath made the blocks for this one, and I pieced and quilted the quilt. These animals look fantastic using Indigenous prints :o)

I'll share more of our booth next week (probably on IG, but also in this space if I get a chance!)

I hope you're having a fabulous weekend!

xx Jess

Slowly, slowly

The first fabric designer I fell head over heels in love with when I started quilting was (like many, many other people) Anna Maria Horner. So I've been gradually building a pretty healthy AMH stash over the last four years or so. I have made a few quilts using Anna Maria's fabrics, but they generally just get gazed at. A lot. Ahem. 

So when Frangipani Fabrics decided to start stocking the paper pieces for Katja Marek's Millefiore quilt along quilt (based on blocks from her wonderful book, The New Hexagon) I decided it was time to take a few deep breaths and make this quilt with my favorite fabrics. Best decision I have ever made - I have never, ever enjoyed putting fabrics together as much as I am in this quilt.

I think one of the things that appealed about AMH fabrics for this quilt (aside from her genius ability with colour) was their fussy cutting perfection. So I've gone a little bit nuts with the fussy cutting; there is a real satisfaction in getting prints to create kaleidoscope effects and I find it is much easier to do it with English paper piecing than machine piecing.

It is such a joy to see these rosettes grow, and see what's going to happen next. No planning ahead, just choosing each round of fabrics as I get to it.

So although it's absorbing most of my nights and it's really not going anywhere fast, it is my happy place at the moment. I kind of wish I could just curate the fabrics and magically have it sewn together - but at the same time I'm genuinely loving the slow pace at which this quilt is coming together.

Have a great week!

xx Jess

WIP Wednesday - the one with a new obsession

I've had a fun week this week, trying a new-to-me technique: English paper piecing! I'm loving it, cos I can sit on the couch and sew and watch a bit of TV (Mr Elven Garden is working interstate at the moment, so I'm a bit tired most nights to sew on the machine.) I can only give you sneak peeks so far - this one is my mini quilt for the Modern Mini challenge:

And this is a secret project (so you won't be seeing any more of this one ;) )

Other that these new projects (I just can't help myself!!) I've finished off the quilting on my FTLOS project, and have made the binding so its ready to be finished finally. I've run out of thread though, so its waiting on me getting into the city to buy some more :)

I also finished and posted my Name Game swap mini quilt - and my partner has recieved it and likes it (so relieved - first swap and I was really nervous that she wouldn't like it...)

I'm linking up to WIP Wednesday over at Freshly Pieced (no WIP stats this week - it will just depress me, what with the new projects and lack of finishes ;) )

xx Jess