Lilo's Patchwork Creations

One of Andreas Mother's friends that the travellers visited in Germany is an avid patchworker. Far more dedicated than I am, she does everything by hand.

Check out the handywork on this, all the quilting done by hand

I guess I am too impatient to do a whole quilt by hand. I like doing some of the top stitching by hand but not the whole lot.

Do you know the name of this quilt design? Does it have a name?

I am already concoting ideas on how I might be able to do it by machine ...

Last day of Blogtoberfest

It is the last day of Blogtoberfest and it has been a long one. I was up at the crack of dawn with my Father-in-Law to pick up my hubby, daughter and Mother-in-Law from the airport.

Tori in Holzminden

We are now a family again and the chaos returns. Whilst I loved the slowness of the time apart, I missed them all terribly.

Glad that we have a few days up our sleeve before returning to work so that we can re-synch everyone's sleeping patterns. Both travellers had an afternoon nap and we managed to get Tori to sleep at 10pm. A bit late, but understandable given that she just returned from Europe.

Hubby took over 1,000 picture which still need to be sorted, including some lovely patchwork ones just for me!

Pot Holder Tutorial

I love my oven gloves, but sometimes they are a bit impractical when grabbing a hold of pots.

I previously made a friend a pot holder .. so here is the tutorial. Essentially it is a quilting block, layered with batting and a durable back.

Step 1: Feature Fabric

Fussy cut your feature image. Using your quilting ruler, allow enough 1/4 of an inch between your image and the outside of the 2.5 inch square.

Step 2: The first row of patching, 1 1/4 inch strips

I used a nice bold black border for my pot holder, but you could use whatever you like. I wanted a gap between my feature fabric and the outer border. I always cut my strips a slight bit larger than 2.5 inch and then press with an iron, and trim with a quilting ruler and rotary cutter afterwards to make sure that I have nice and clean sewing lines for the next row of patchwork.

Of course if you are doing a number of these blocks it is quite easy to do them in a batch.

Step 3: Press and trim

Once your first row of patching is finished, make sure you press and trim. The middle square should be 2 x 2 inches and the outside strips should be 1 inch in width. So all up 4 inches square. Use your quilting ruler to square up your creation before the next round.

Step 4: The next row of patching

Using your 2.5 inch strip, repeat the process. Please remember to press, measure and trim after each stage.

Step 5: Batting

I used double layer cotton batting, anything that prevents you burning yourself. If you have some old tea towels you could cut them up and use them if you wanted to. I used double sided fusable interfacing in between the fabric and batting to keep them in place before I quilted them. Of course you could use safety pins, but I was feeling a little lazy at this stage ...

You could hunt up some heat resistant batting if you wanted to, but because these were not oven mits, just pot holders, I decided to go with normal batting.

Step 6: Quilting
Grab your walking foot, ladies and gentlemen. I prefer a longer stitch length and thicker thread to add texture. The outside quilting lines are there purely to make attachment of bias easier. But if you are experienced and happy to play with pins then don't run these lines.

Step 7: Bias and hanging Loop

For my holder I used pre-cut polycotton 25mm thick bias. You can if you want round the corners to make the attachment process a little easier.

As for attaching the loop, you can either
a) put the loop in first and then bias around,
b) add the loop in half way through the bias process, or
c) do it at the start of the process.

I don't have a fool proof way of doing this, so I will leave it to you to experiment.

As with most bias, sew it on flip it over, press and then do your top stitch.
If you make a pot holder with this tutorial, please let me know so that I can link to your blog entry.

I hope that a few of you found this useful!
Please let me know!

The Practical Guide to Patchwork

I am getting very excited about this book at the moment written by Elizabeth Hartman of Oh Fransson! fame.

I can't wait to get my hot little hands on a copy. From what I have seen the projects look inspiring and most of all "different" from the usual guff you see in sewing books. I am particularly interested in some of her applique quilts.

She is currently having a blog tour to launch the book, so head over to Oh Fransson and check out who is reviewing the book.

Etsy Friday Finds

My current design obsession is with putting together a unique piece of decorative patchwork using traditional construction techniques, applique and bias to re-create something that might have been designed by Frank or Charles.

Dover frank Lloyd Wright book bymisuhleyneeuhs . Starting with some inspiration, Dover Publications are always a good stop for source books on a designer or topic.

Frank Lloyd Wright Decal Set by Hutch Me

These decals are just gorgeous, I can imagine them in my study, although I would need 4 ..

Frank Lloyd Wright inspired Embroidery by Clever Fingers. Something fiddly for the embroiderers. Not a bad idea to do a sample of what I am thinking about.

Frank Lloyd Wright inspired Welcome Sign by Kopper Kitty. I Love this welcome sign, but not too sure if it would match the front of my house. Theoretically it should given that my shack is bungalow inspired.

Frank Lloyd Wright inspired stained glass Window Panel by Stained Glass by Dianne. I figured that if they can do it in glass, I can do it in fabric.

What is inspirng you today?

Happy Birthday Hubby

For the first time in many years, my husband and I are apart on his Birthday.

He is in Germany with my gorgeous daughter, probably walking through Hamburg right now looking at model train shops.

Scrubs up nicely doesn't he!

Happy Birthday my beautiful husband, my lover, my friend.

Wordless Wednesday

I can't wait for Sunday, until I see her again ...

Frank Lloyd Wright

I've been looking for ideas to make a wall hanging. Something to hang in the space over my front door that you can see from within the house.

I want it to be patchwork/applique project.

I've been looking at some Charles Rennie MacIntosh and then I found this coaster design based on the works of Frank Lloyd Wright.

Can't you just imagine a quilted piece on these ideas?

Paluma Prints

I love stumbling across new artists and products that I think are unique. I came across Paluma Print, a business based in Queensland. Still a young one, her blog documents her journey into small business and her life.

Her prints are mainly botanicals, and I love what she has done with them. Tea Towels, placemats and then she has made a range of bags out of them as well

Visit her blog and take a look at here lovely homewares!

Jelly Roll Baby Quilt Tutorial

I had a few friends around yesterday for a bit of a quilting/sewing day. I started on another baby quilt. This time using the jelly roll that I got from Green Fairy Quilts.

The idea was to use 16 different strips and path them together into colourful blocks.

But if you look closely, you can see that there are 4 squares that are not from the Punctuation range, they are from an older Moda range called Breath of Avignon. When I sat back and looked at the colours, I decided I wanted more solids.

So in a bid to document a bit more what I am doing, here was my process:

1. Take 16 1/2 strips of different colours and sewed them into blocks of 4, use the full strip if you want it to be a larger quilt.

2. Pressed them out and then with my rotary and ruler cut 2.5 inch strips.

3. Once you have your different strips cut, then sew them together. For my quilt, I mixed up the order a bit in each block. But for the purpose of this tutorial, I am not going to mix the colours up.

4. Once you have your 9 or more blocks, start to add the sashing. I cut a length of Kona Solid Snow at 2.5 inches and then sewed each block to it, pressed it with the iron and THEN cut the individual blocks. In the end I had a stack of blocks that looked like thi.

5. Trim each of your blocks so that they are nice and straight using your ruler and rotary cutter and start assembling the rows of patchwork. Adding a sash to the top of the row so that you have three rows with top and side sashing. The bottom row gets a bottom sash. If you complete each row at a time, the off cut from the large horizontal sash, should be enough to do one of the vertical sashes.

6. Once you have sewn the main part of the quilt together to make it bigger you can add a few more rows of sashing. I am thinking of doing something different and adding different colours to border my baby quilt from the Punctuation range. What do you think?

7. Once you have finished the top, then it is time to baste to batting and a backing colour and then bind. I am thinking of doing some patchwork binding from the left overs, so that it isn't the same colour all around, but patches of the colours that are inside. I am not sure yet. More details later!

What do you think?
Has this tutorial been handy?
Please let me know if my instructions are clear!