Regular readers, I do apologise as you’re probably sick to the back teeth of this one, however it is my most recent “proper” finish and it makes a change from Wallander progress, eh? You can just skip this post, k?

This is my Fryed Pixels quilt, I’m entering it in the “Art Quilt” section as even though it’s lap/wall hanging size, I’m not sure you’d actually use it for either. Well I wouldn’t, I’m actually wondering what I’m going to do with it!

It was made for the Quilt and Stitch Village show in the innovative quilts category. It looks a lot better from further away, a lot of people were being told to stand back for the full effect and the stewards were lovely about it. Here is is at the show…

And if you’re interested to know what the judge’s thought, scroll to the bottom of THIS POST.

I chose to make a picture of Stephen Fry because I wanted to do a portrait, but of a recognisable character. I chose him because everyone likes Stephen Fry! I think if I was to do it again I’d maybe choose someone more controversial just to get more of a reaction!

It’s made from 1″ finished squares and there are 1000s of them in this quilt. The piecing was done with interfacing underneath and stitching them in rows, but it still took around 30 hours of work to complete. The quilting was quite quick, it only took about 4 hours and I chose the dogwood pattern because it’s fun to stitch and unobtrusive to the patchwork design. The binding was done first as I turned it inside out for a pillowcase binding like you would around the edge of a tote bag. This was so the design flowed to the edges, there was really no need to frame the design with a binding.

Thanks for visiting!

So much so that my new techniques are going to be used on my Wallander quilt, which by the way I have passed the halfway point with in the piecing. I had a couple of scraggly blocks in the orphan drawer so I sandwiched them up, totally ruined the first, binned it and then attempted my first feather within the diamond shape on the second. Here it is…

It’s not great. I’m waiting for some Bottom Line thread to come for my bobbin, I’m hoping that will sort out the tension on the bottom as it’s not right, otherwise I’m going to have to slacken off my bobbin tension just slightly before I do it for real. Also I really shouldn’t have used a big 100 blunt needle from doing my QAYG bag panels as those puncture holes are huge. I could also do with better visibility when I quilt so I’m looking at getting a better free motion foot than the standard Pfaff one.

So assuming I get my thread and I can use the kimono silk thin thread to scribble around the feather shapes (which will be in green Aurifil for the top thread that is coming from Fluffy Sheep Quilting), some 80 needles, a new foot and the tension is all hunky dory, the next thing I need to work on is the actual design. The feather will actually be in the secondary diamonds between blocks. I need to get these a little closer together. I’ve also decided I don’t like the swirly stem in the centre with the pebbling, I think I’ll go as parallel as I can, keep it straight and build the feathers off there. The lines I’ve put on I think I’ll make more regular (if I have time after all the feathers!) and more of a grid with a cathedral windows style finish on segments diagonal from one another.

I wonder how much I’ll be spending on Superior Threads (and time on the actual quilting) in the future?!

I made 72. 18 for each border in this quilt top which was started by Nan and has travelled around the UK being added to. Just one more round to be added and it’s finished.

The closest guess was Lauren Giddy99 (comment 121) who guessed 70. She wins the FQs

I think Fletcher is the true giveaway winner here. He got a lot of biscuits helping me find my scrap bag winner! They’re just Bakers Meaty Bites which most dogs would take or leave as an actual meal, but he LOVES them so we give him them as treats!

There were 5 people who guessed 75, a total of 9 entries as 4 got an extra one for following. So we have Nati, Jamie B, Keitha, Rhonda and Shaena in the mix…

He knows something is going on so I close him out of the conservatory and he waits…

Sit…. Wait… Good boy…

GO!

And the winner of the scraps is RHONDA!

Have you been using Pinterest? I’ve been using it for a couple of years now to bookmark my favourite tutorials on the internet or designs that inspire me, or just pictures of puppies I like to go back and look at to cheer me up

Though you’ve always been able to sign up in the UK, they’ve made improvements specifically for UK pinners to make it easier to find content that’s more local and relevant. Those who have been lucky enough to already be using Pinterest will notice there’s a new design which makes the layout a lot prettier to browse (yes even prettier) as a result. So today is Pin it Forward Day, there are a few of us bloggers that have been selected to spread the word about this and I’m pleased to say that my Crafts Tutorials board is one of the boards that will be recommended to new users as a board to follow. So that’s pretty exciting!

If you don’t know what Pinterest is and you’re curious, you can “pin” things from around the web onto boards you create, on any topic you’d like. It’s sort of like an online scrapbook, or social bookmarking with pictures. You can follow other people’s accounts or just one-off boards (I’m here by the way) and repin recipes, humourous images, graphic design, whatever you like that you see and save them to your own boards for future reference.

Here’s my Craft Tutorials board (above), amazingly I have 1001 pins on there and over 800 followers on that board, over 1200 for my account overall which I am really astounded by. I’m not going to lie I don’t think I’m going to get around to making all 999 things on there, especially since I add new stuff all the time!

If you don’t have an account yet, you can start pinning by using this registration link!

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Who’s next? Blogging about Pinterest tomorrow is Kate Wyver, another UK blogger. Why not check out her blog too? http://www.styleisalwaysfashionable.blogspot.co.uk/ -~- http://pinterest.com/katewyver/

Yep that’s a bit of Heather Ross Lightning Bugs dog print and I have no recollection of where this is from… Anyone want it? I’m looking to swap for a small piece of the goldfish print, an 8″x8″ square is ideally what I’m after for a future project as I’ve still not found any, but a smaller piece is good too and probably more of a balanced swap since this is a weird shape. Just let me know if you want to trade.

So my drawers are all tidy now- I need to be able to find my greens quickly for the plan I have for the Forest QAL. I could do with some more of those Ikea divider thingys but the bags are kind of working for now.

Yesterday the brown cometh! I ordered some modern brown fabrics from Pink Castle (and some greens as I’m a bit low on those too) for the brown modern quilt. I’m back to not really knowing what to do with these again because I’ve gone off my original idea but I’m sure inspiration will come back.  Here’s the total stack of browns I’ll be using…

And then this morning my delivery from The Village Haberdashery’s 50% discount flash sale came through the letterbox.

The big piece of Cosmos will be to make a dress, the other two are just for my stash and I missed out on the Tula Pink fabric I added to my cart because so many people went sale mad, it took ages for me to checkout so I’m pretty pleased I got what I did!

Oh and I almost forgot, my quilt came back from the show and I got my judges marks too. Much kinder than FoQ so I’ve photographed them, put them here and thrown them away now. I got a few Excellents and only one “needs attention” for the way it hung which I think was very generous of the other two judges because it was awful. One judge didn’t give me anything less than good for any of it and I didn’t even have to pay them. If anyone has any advice for squaring up quilt tops, please let me know, I really need work in that area!

Right then. This weekend I made the flying geese border on Nan’s quilt top for the borders bee. I can’t really show you it though as it would kind of give the game away for the answer to my giveaway question! A few of you are close, and more of you are waaaay off that’s all I’m saying…

So what can I show you…. not the cushion for the magazine, nope, I don’t know if I’m allowed to… How about this bee block for Laura as part of a Quilt Together swap on Popular Patchwork?

It’s log cabin month and this was my take on it. Laura’s colours are blue/purple and yellow. I hope she likes it.

I also bought this awesome fabric from the Fabric Guild. I just couldn’t say no to graphic dalmatian print.

I did another column on Wallander too and I’m now partway into column 5. I know I said I wouldn’t keep sharing the whole thing over and over but this is one thing I CAN actually show you, so I’m going to.

We went to the most amazing authentic 50s diner in a grotty lorry park location on Sunday. It was AWESOME. They actually shipped the trailer over from Massachusetts and there’s only 4 in the whole of the UK. Great music, great atmosphere and fully booked until Christmas pretty much. You have to book to go apparently but we managed to get in for some chips and a milkshake (best ever on both counts) mid afternoon with only a short wait at the bar. When I got to work today and talked about it, Jo who sits in my office said she tried to go on Saturday late afternoon and was turned away! I want to go back again soon…

Yeah, I did.

I write projects for sewing magazines too, but most of them are waiting for later in the year so it doesn’t look like I’ve done a whole lot yet. I live in Leicestershire with OH and our greyhound Fletcher who appears quite frequently here. He’s at my feet as I write this because he desperately wants to go for a walk so I’d better hurry up.

So here’s what you can win. First prize is this small bundle of 3 Lucy’s Crab Shack FQs I picked up in Uttoxeter…

Second prize is this bag of scraps, it weighs over 350g and as you can see I stuffed it so full I broke the zip. Some scraps are nice and some are fugly (I call it a Good, Bad and The Fugly bag) so it will be a surprise!

To enter, just leave a comment with your guess of how many flying geese I made on Saturday afternoon, here they are all together. Bit more interesting than just leaving a random comment, huh?

If you want a second entry, you can become a blog follower (via your reader, e-mail, FB, I don’t mind!) or if you’re a regular anyway, tell me that.

This is open internationally and closes at Saturday 11th 1am UK time which is 5pm PST on Friday 10th. I will draw the winners on Saturday. If several people guess correctly, they will be entered into a draw (twice if they are followers), if no one guesses correctly the prizes will go to the closest guesses (again if some are the same they’ll be entered into a draw) and if there are two correct answers, I’ll get Fletcher to choose who gets what with the aid of biscuits

Good luck!

If I have admiration for a textile designer, I rarely keep it secret, so it seemed fitting to talk a little bit about Weeks Ringle and her husband Bill Kerr since their quilts have entered my consciousness several times this week.

If you want to learn more about Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr, clicking this picture is a good place to start

I took Weeks’ Craftsy class, “Designing Modern Quilts” and although I didn’t feel I had learned anything at first, the idea was to inspire you to think outside of the box in terms of colour and layout. Several months on from thinking I was disappointed with the class, I think something has clicked and I’m looking at things differently. Weeks (her birth name is Lucy, don’t worry, her parents weren’t crazy) and Bill are probably most famous for their transparency quilts and book of the same name (and the book before that “Quilts Made Modern”). They tend to use a lot of solids (but don’t like Kona as it’s not as soft as other brands!) and create interesting effects looking at colour values.

One piece of wisdom I have taken with me is that white on a colour print disturbs how you view it in a layout with prints in the same colour group without white. The white print (like a Pearl Bracelet or a Pezzy Print) is going to stand out a lot more than the other pieces in the same colour as there is this bright contrast going on. If that’s what you’re going for, great, but I have wondered in the past why some of my choices seem off-balance and this is why! So that’s why I don’t get too involved with prints with a lot of white in them.

It was also because of the way that they bind their quilts that I decided to pillowcase bind Fryed Pixels. I’m very impressionable.

The reason why I’ve been thinking about them most recently is because of that brown modern quilt I decided I would do (in a Barney-Stinson-Challenge-Accepted kind of way last Sunday). They have several brown/tan quilts which look amazing. Here are some of them that I nicked off the internet. The pictures link back to the sources I stole them from.

This isn’t made by Bill and Weeks but it is from their book and the colours are true to the original design.

I have a voucher from Amazon coming soon, I think I may be buying Transparency Quilts with it. Also, why don’t you follow Weeks’ blog? It’s here!

This is what he currently looks like. 1/3 of the way through! No I don’t know what the dog is doing either.

Finishing it for this challenge only means I ave to have to top finished though, right?