2013 - A Year in Review Part 2

Happy New Year!

 

I had planned for 2014 to start with slightly more calm than the beginning of December.  But that was not meant to be.  Hey ho, at least there won't be a dull moment!

 

So anyway, that's why it's taken so long to finish my review of 2013.  Thank you to everyone for your kind comments about all my makes of last year.  Now I want to share some of the event highlights, of which there were many.

 

The year started with the most wonderful gift a quilting girl could ask for, from my wonderful husband.  I am truly grateful and I have used my Bernina nearly every day.  (Thank you too Chrissie, for all you help and advice with choosing it).

 

 

Shortly after the arrival of my wonderful sewing machine, I attended a two day screen printing and portholes workshop with Lucie Summers here in Jersey.  Thank you  Sue for inviting me, I had such a ball.

 

 

Next on the agenda was a day trip to London for the Kaffe Fassett A Life in Colour Exhibition.  Here's one of my favourite quilts, and I really want to have a go at this design, isn't it just gorgeous.   

In July it was another trip to London, this time for the Fat Quarterly Retreat.  That was just 3 days of awesomeness.  I met SO many wonderful people, learnt new skills, drank cocktails, bought far too much fabric, went to Liberty for the second time in 2 months and made loads of new friends.  (Can't wait to do it all again in 2014!!) 

 

 

This trip was swiftly followed by the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham.  Oh my goodness, it was fantastic, and I even got to meet one of my quilting hero's, Tula Pink.

 

I'm pleased to say I also managed to have a holiday with the family; we went to France and had a wonderful week of sun, swimming and sightseeing. 

 
So could my year get any better?  It certainly did.  My wonderful, dear friend Julie, who has been my blogging/emailing friend for over two years, came to visit me, all the way from Australia.  It meant to much to me to finally meet her, and the 4 days that she was here went far too fast.  I can't wait for the day that we meet again.

 

 

The year ended well too.  I ran a little parent and child craft class at my house as part of a Promises Auction at my daughters school, and had such fun teaching new skills to Christie and mum Cleo. 

 





 

And finally I had a chance to relax for Christmas in a gorgeous cottage in Wales with the family before 2014 began. (Will blog soon about the Tula Pink needlepoint that I started, I love it!)

 

It really was a great year for me and I have thoroughly enjoyed looking back and reliving all the special moments.  I hope you had a happy year too and I hope that 2014 brings you happiness and all you wish for too.

Sarah x

The Last Stitch

Well that's me done for 2013...all my orders complete, woo hoo! 

 

Last night I put the last stitch into a custom order; a quilted journal cover using this gorgeous 'high tea' fabric. 

I love these fabrics and the ribbon was an early Christmas gift from a dear friend of mine.  It couldn't have been more perfect, matching the icing on those little cupcakes that look good enough to eat ;-)

 

I've packed my sewing machine away for now, and I won't bee seeing it again for over a week (breathe!!) as we are visiting the Welsh Valleys for a family Christmas. 

 

I've even managed to finish the stocking cross stitch, that I had so many kind comments about. 

 

 

Hooray!  That's another WIP ticked off the list, and all I have left on my list is my bee strip for February. 

 

It's such a great feeling clearing the decks and making way for new projects. 

 

Which start when we arrive at our rented cottage!  I'm pretty sure that Santa has fulfilled my wish, and that a Tula Pink Needlepoint Kit is on it's way to me very soon.  I've never done needlepoint before, and I can't tell you how excited I am to start this!

 

 

 

I'm giving myself a year; the plan is to have it finished by next Christmas.  I really want a portable project that I can work on when I'm not near my machine and I liked the idea of trying needlepoint and I just loved the colours in this.  Not to mention her hairstyle!  I'll let you know how I get on.

 

This will probably be my last post now until after Christmas, as I fear that the wifi signal in the Valleys is going to be anything between bad and non-existent.  But what a good excuse to crack on with my tapestry in between chasing after excitable young children and catching up with all the family. 

 

So I wish you all a very Merry Christmas, I hope it's a good one and I look forward to being back before the year is out.

 

Sarah x

Feeling Humble

The other day I wrote about the photo quilt that I made, and I included a tutorial of how I put it together.  If you missed it, here's the link to my photo quilt tutorial.

 

Since then, I've heard from the family who I made the quilt for.  And it turns out that it's now hanging up at a camp in Afghanistan, and not only that, fellow comrades are admiring it! 

 

 

 

I feel honoured to have made it, and so thrilled that something that I made at my kitchen table is now providing comfort and smiles to someone so far away, serving for his country. 

 

Sarah x

 

Linking up with:

 

 

How to make a Photo Quilt - A Tutorial

A few months back I was asked if it would be possible to make a photo quilt/wall hanging made up of family photos.  This is not something I'd done before, but I jumped at the chance to make something different and truly unique.  It was going to be going to Afghanistan as a special keepsake so it had to be perfect.  Here it is!

 

 

So if you've never made a photo quilt before, and would like to know how, this is how I did it. 

 

1) First, the photos needed to be converted to fabric.  There are two options here.  

 

a) Purchase some fabric sheets, specially designed to go through domestic printers, and print your photos that way.

 

b) Use a specialist company to convert your photos to fabric. 

I opted to go the professional route, as I was not sure that my printer would provide high enough quality fabric photos.  I used a company called Pictures to Fabric based in the UK, who were excellent throughout all stages of the process.  After some discussion it was jointly decided to have the photos printed onto faux suede, as this had a lovely feel to it, the photos came out really clearly and it was easy to stitch with. 

 

2) In order to get the  photos to the printers, I used my Dropbox account.  There were 25 photos in total, which my customer emailed to me, and I put them into my Dropbox account.  I've you've never used Dropbox before, it's a great way of sharing a large collection of photos.  You simply invite the recipient to access the folder.  So Pictures to Fabric were able to access and print them.  I had all the photos printed on one piece of fabric, with a gap in between them.  My customer chose colour photos but you could also opt for black and white or sepia. 

 

3) I cut all the photos down to 5 1/2" x 5 1/2" fussy cutting them, to capture the best part of the photo.  I then stitched them all together in the normal way.

 

4) Next, I needed a border for my quilt, and my customer chose fabrics from Tula Pink Salt Water collection for a scrappy border.  A Good choice!

 

 

Of course you can have great fun playing with layouts and fabrics and colours here, the world is your oyster :-)
 

6) I basted the quilt using quilting pins and stitched in the ditch around all of the photographs.  You don't want any fancy quilting here, as you may obscure all your lovely photos!    I put my stitch in the ditch foot to the test for the first time, and it made the job much easier.   

7) For the scrappy border, I decided to add some hand quilted detail.  I reached for my favourite Anchor no. 8 pearle cotton thread and did a loopy design all around the edge.

 

If you look closely you can see the subtle hand quilting

But of course you could quilt this any way you like. 

8) Bind the quilt in the normal way.  For this quilt I used a coordinating Salt Water fabric. 

 

9) As this quilt is going to eventually going to be a wall hanging, I created a hanging sleeve to go on the back.  I watched the this tutorial on Youtube for guidance.  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NO70_ENjQk

Easy peesy!

 

Here you can see the opening. 

 

This is the back of the quilt. 

And here it is, finished!

 

I hope you like it and found this tutorial useful.  If you ever have a go at making one, I'd love to hear from you!

Finally I would like to say thank you to the family who asked me to make this quilt.  Firstly for trusting me to make it, and secondly for allowing me to share their family photos and the quilt on my blog.  I feel honoured to have made it for them, and very excited that it's going to be travelling to Afganistan.  What a wonderful way to feel close to your family and take them with you. 

Sarah x

Linking up with:

 

 

 

Where can you find masses of mind blowing talent, all under one roof? The Festival of Quilts 2013 of course!

It's taken a week just to edit all the pictures.  There really was some serious  talent going on at this year's Festival of Quilts.  And I was lucky enough to be there for two days, sucking up all the inspiration and trying not to blow the budget on all those gorgeous fabrics, threads and notions that were surrounding me at every turn. 

 

 

 

If you couldn't make it this year, then read on, as I'd like to share just the tip of the iceberg of quilt awesomeness with you.  And if you did go, then read on anyway, as there was so much to see,  you might not have seen it all.  (I know I didn't, I'm going for 4 days next year!)

 

First up for me was meeting the wonderful, talented, Tula Pink.  I was so excited to meet and chat with her, and she signed a copy of her latest book 100 Modern Quilt Blocks.  I even had my photo taken with her.  But I look so terrible (I got up at 5 am that day) that I can't show you.  So here's one of the gorgeous City Sampler quilt instead.   Trust me it's prettier. 

 

I arranged to meet the lovely Lucie for lunch, and low and behold, our beverages were at the front of the shelf waiting for us. 

 

Ok so technically not the correct spelling of Lucie's name but we were happy ;-)

 

And talking of Lu, look at her stunning quilt that she entered into the Fine Art Quilts Category. 

 

 

You can't see all the wonderful quilted detail (sorry about that) but it really was breath-taking and so much work.  Lu you are a genius :-)

And I had the pleasure to meet the very lovely, and oh so colourful Brandon Mably, who you can see here dabbling in a spot of knitting, which just so happens to match the colour of his shirt. 

I loved Katy Jones' Dresden Quilt, isn't that shade of purple just to die for! 

 

And here's the best of the rest.  I've done my best to cite credit, when I know the maker and for the rest I've just watermarked with 'Festival of Quilts 2013' rather than my own watermark. 

 

 

This quilt was in the European quilts section, and it's hard to believe, but this is all EPP.  Just mind bogglingly beautiful. 

The miniature category defied belief.  The detail that was squeezed into such a small space was incredible.  And each mini was so unique and beautiful, not to mention cute.  Some of them were really tiny.

 

 

This below was the Miniature Category winner - even it were a full sized quilt it would be awesome, but for it to be so tiny was just breath- taking.  

 

 

Here's another winning entry - a quilted boat - I mean who has an imagination to come up with these ideas, just incredible! 

These teeny tiny log cabin cushions were all sewn together to create an impressive rainbow wall.  My goodness so very many hours must have gone into this, and such a fabulous use of colour. 

This sun quilt was amazing.

And this tiger was so lifelike, it was hard to believe it was a quilt.  And can you see the quilting?  Incredible. 

 

I was completely in love with this waistcoat.  It was only small, but I just loved the colours, the detail and the embellishments.  The steward told us that the colour was actually painted on before being quilted and then echo quilted.  This is a technique I'd love to have a go at some time.   

I loved this water lily quilt as it reminded me of Monet's impressionist paintings. 

 

I was completely taken with this hot air balloon art quilt.  The detail was incredible.  It even had a real working clock in the bottom left hand corner.  Simply stunning. 

 

And this Dr Who quilt is one I searched up and down for the aisles for. I knew it was going to be at the Festival and just had to see it for myself.  I'd read the story of it's conception through to execution here and when I heard it was coming to Birmingham I was very excited.  And here it is! 

 

I'm desperate to make a pixel quilt some time soon, perhaps not quite on this scale but I have a few ideas up my sleeve that I would love to try when I get spare (ha ha) second. 

 

Well that's pretty much it for my F of Q roundup.  I hope you've enjoyed it, and perhaps it's inspired to you go next year, if at all possible, or at the very least to push the boundaries of what you are capable of achieving.  I know for myself that I came home feeling so fired up to push myself; there are so many techniques and skills that I want to learn and develop, and one day I hope I will. 

 

Thank you so much for stopping by,

 

Sarah x