Saturday 29 December 2012

I love my vintage electric appliance ...

I came across this lovely group that aggregates all the vintage appliance advertising on Flickr.  I love old advertising and how they portray the values of the era in which they were made.




We have the "body" of our old canon 35mm camera in a box upstairs, we haven't touched it since we converted over to a DSLR many many years ago. Prior to our DSLR, we ran around with a Sony Mavica and I have a box of Floppy Disc's to prove it!

How technology has changed in such a short amount of time. The majority of the pictures that I take for my blog now are on my iPhone. The only time that I use the DSLR is if I am taking professional shots for etsy (and my online shop has been in vacation mode for far too long!).

      enjoy!


Friday 28 December 2012

Quilter's Brain

Is your brain like this? I love the fact that "more fabric" appears more than once!
 

I came across this on pinterest and upon trying to find the source (there are multiple blogs showing the image but no source indicated!), I found it in a cafepress shop by Quilter Bee.

I am going to presume that it is their original image, if not please let me know! 

How do you decorate your sewing or craft space?

Thursday 27 December 2012

Crafty Hexy necklaces

A while back I spotted this necklace by House of Harlow. A "hexy" necklace, rather lovely I thought.

 

House of Harlow have brought out another "Hexy" necklace ... probably a bit big for my physique .. but otherwise gorgeous.
via OhSoBoho  .. A bargain at 189 pounds!

If you like the idea of this, then here are some crafty or fabric alternatives ...

 


 


via Madz Has Runway which can be found at Gleaners in East Brunswick.




Have you made anything like this before?

Saturday 22 December 2012

Thirty Six Officers Quilt Top Tutorial

Another idea taken from the mathematics fact book (of which I should really find the actual name so that I can link to it), is the "Thirty-Six Officers Problem". My last one was the Penrose Tile post.

Wikipedia states:

"The thirty-six officers problem is a mathematical puzzle proposed by Leonhard Euler in 1782.
The problem asks if it is possible to arrange 6 regiments consisting of 6 officers each of different ranks in a 6 × 6 square so that no rank or regiment will be repeated in any row or column. Such an arrangement would form a Graeco-Latin square."

Can't you see how this would be an ideal pattern for a quilt? 
I just love the mathematics of quilting!


So I started playing around with the idea as a basis for a larger project. In the original problem, you would have 6 squares of each colour displayed in a way that looks random, but isn't really.

Using a jelly Roll, you would need 15 inches (plus slack) for each colour for a block finish size of 12 inches x 12 inches (plus 1/2 inch each side seam allowance).

Nine blocks would make a good cot quilt, 35 squares a good single bed, 80 a good double or queen size, then add sashing and surrounds.


Using a Charm Pack you would need 6 squares (5 inches x 5 inches) for each colour for finished block of 27 inches x 27 inches + seam. 36 charm pieces are needed for the entire pattern (most charm packs are 42 squares worth, with two squares the same).  So buying a few packs of the same design would work wonderfully.

Using a layer cake, you would need 6 squares at (10 inches x 10 inches) for each colour. Each block would be 57 inches plus seam allowance.

It would look quite effective as an Autumn Colour Scheme.

And equally as nice as a monochromatic version.

Assembling the blocks:

What type of patchworker are you? If you are precise I would sew this quilt row by row. If not, sew four squares together to make a small block, measure and trim. Then sew another 4 together, and so on.  

But if you are not a quilter, this pattern could work equally well as a crochet blanket.

If you end up making one of these quilts based on these ideas, please leave a comment and let me know!

Enjoy!

Margaret  

Monday 10 December 2012

Meow!


Here's hoping this gets your Monday groovin'
Here is the link

Sunday 9 December 2012

1876 Ellen Harding Baker's "Solar System" Quilt


Boing Boing posted this great link to this astronomy quilt. Isn't she gorgeous.

Poking around the internet, I found this one as well.


I have a week left of teaching and then I have to go like hell to get my Uni essay in before Christmas. Then, and only then, can I sit back and commence some serious craft ...