Each time we cut into fabric there's a left over portion that's folded up and packed away into our stash to be 'used' in a later project. That elusive project often never eventuates. A stash of fabric is a vital component of a quilt makers kit but it's when this stash becomes unmanageable that the burden of excessive piles of fabric weighs heavily on our minds. How can we resolve this? Scrappy quilts are often the answer! Sandra Boyle of Everyday Quilts crates the most beautiful designs that wo
Once in a while it's good to do a bit of stash busting. Last summer I made a series of 7 triangle quilts. This summer I got inspiration from a quilter friend, Astrid and her lovely "chenille" pillow and throw. Probably not proper to call this a quilt, it's 8 layers of fabric that's stitched together and then cut through 7 of the eight layers. A true stash buster if you ever saw one! So, my drawer of brown Kaffe Fassett, leftover Cherrywood, a few homespuns and more, was turned into this 6 pounds throw. Yes, 6 pounds or 2.7 kg of fabric. That made some space in the fabric storage. Next up was the pastel blue with a bit of added orange. A smaller size, it weights 4.5 pounds or 2.0 kg of fabric. Both using 12.5 " squares, the brown throw measures 60" by 60" and the light blue is 48" by 60". I had my first go at machine stitching the binding onto these. So happy to have my heavy duty Pfaff sewing machine for this job. Not all machines will tackle sewing through 16 layers of fabric! Part of the process is washing and tumble drying the throw. Texture improves with every wash and dry. Softer with use... Stash busting mission of 2013 completed. A sore thumb from cutting all the slits. And more room for rummaging through the remaining stash. Happy with the result, I might use this technique to make a few hot pads for christmas presents this year.... What's your best stash busting trick?
Through star and bat filled skies to hidden potions, Peppermint enjoys the spookiest of Halloween nights in Sweet 'n Spookier Fabric Collection by AGF.
Choose Your Favorite Colors and Placements! Triangles sewn together and stuffed form a charming 3D Christmas tree for the wall. This simple project can be finished up while watching TV once the machine work is done. The triangles can be stuffed, sewn closed and tacked together during an evening. Plus, the tree can be given …
Quilt ideas to use up all of those little pieces of fabric that you just needed to buy. Here are some scrap-happy stash-busting quilts.
The Temecula Quilt Company is always doing something interesting. If you love reproduction era quilts and especially if you love super scrap-busting scrappy quilts, you might check them out on Instagram or their blog/website. You will get so much inspiration...
Like this photo? Like it a lot? Want it on a postcard? Sure thing!
It's been a while since I have posted here mainly due to the fact that I've just barely been able to keep up with life in general due to sicknesses going on here with myself and the kids. Nothing serious, just constant! I'm still sewing though, but possibly not getting done everything that I would like to! Nothing new, right? I have had the opportunity to attend two workshops the last two weekends. Considering that I have only attended four workshops in my quilting career up until now, it felt like a very busy week! Last weekend's workshop was with Chris Jurd, which I will blog about next. This weekend's workshop was with none other than the wonderful Kaffe Fassett! Nearly as long as I have been quilting, I have wanted to attend a Kaffe Fassett workshop. I have spent many many hours over the years pouring over his books and dreaming of quilts to make inspired by him. When I heard that Addicted to Fabric in Canberra was going to host Kaffe Fassett and run a workshop for the Bordered Diamonds quilt from his book, "Simple Shapes Spectacular Quilts", I jumped at the chance. And I have no regrets! If anyone is unfamiliar with how Kaffe runs his workshops with his partner Brandon Mably, they are all about the design process and colour placement. There is no sewing involved, but rather a lot of cutting and placing of fabrics on a design board and then moving and arranging the fabrics around. For me, this is the most exciting part of quilting, so a workshop dedicated to this process was extremely interesting to me. The morning started out with a brief introduction and discussion on how it is important that we work quickly and not hesitate or over think what we put up on the design wall. Their mantra is the same as the Nike commercial, "Just Do It". Most important was that we get something up on the design board and then stand back from quite a distance to look at our work. They suggested using a reduction glass to look through so that we could see what was working and what wasn't working easily. For the Bordered Diamonds quilt they suggested that large prints would be most effective and that smaller scale fabrics would be effective to use as the frames for each diamond. We were to cut the large diamonds out first and get them on the board first and then go back and work on filling in the frames for each large diamond later. Neither Kaffe or Brandon teach the workshop in a manner that they spend time babysitting what you are doing, but rather there is the feeling (particularly of Kaffe) of someone standing in the background parenting with a bit of gentle guidance here and there. This method I feel allowed me to be able to work and gain confidence as the day progressed. After I had placed about 15 diamonds up on my board, Kaffe did wander over and was quickly able to see what the color palette was that I was mainly using. He picked out about three or four of the darkest diamonds and said that they created too much contrast--too dark against the lightest of the fabrics that I had already had on the board. It surprised me how simply taking out those diamonds, suddenly made the start of my quilt seem clear and gave me direction as to where I wanted to go with it. I had brought with me a range of blue/purple, red and yellow/gold fabrics with a desire to try to use yellow in my version of his quilt. I told Kaffe that I find it tricky to use yellow in general and wanted to concentrate on this as an exploration on how to use it! Brandon mentioned that next to black and white, yellow is the most difficult color to work with. Kaffe's suggestion was to add in green, which I didn't bring with me, so I did get the opportunity of having him go "shopping" with me to pick out possible fabrics. That too, was an educational experience to see how his mind works. I suggest that if anyone ever gets an opportunity to do a workshop with them to take them up on their suggestions! It's the easiest way to begin to see what they already know. Close to lunch time I had already starting working on my borders for each of the diamonds. The suggestion was not to try and match the border fabric to the large diamond, but rather use instinct and choose the fabric based on what we feel works. Using a single or two color fabric seemed to work better than using detailed fabrics with many colours. Here is where I was up to when we broke for lunch: After lunch we kept working and trying to fill in as much as we could. Kaffe would walk around the room, sit down on a chair looking very relaxed and just look. Then he would walk up and point to an area and say, try this here, or this here. What I got from it was that where there is high contrast next to each other creates a starkness and doesn't let the colours dance together. Neither should the fabrics blend into each other. It was effective to choose a different colour for the border than the centre diamond. There is a subtle play and harmony when it works which allows the integrity of the shape of the diamond to remain clear. Below is a photo of where I was at at the end of the day. He then goes around the room and talks about the process each student went through to create their own palettes. This was an extremely interesting part of the workshop and fun to see how each person came up with really beautiful palettes of colour. This is a quilt I would like to try again to see how I could make it work in a different palette. Maybe next time I will try a darker palette. Here are some photos of what some other ladies in my workshop made during their day at the workshop: All in all, I was very pleased with the entire experience of the workshop. It's an educational experience. Be warned though, Kaffe and Brandon are very disciplined in their approach to teaching and expect you to be on your best behavior! We had a very nice group, so everything went very smoothly. At the end we got a chance to have our own books signed by Kaffe and then we rolled up our flannels with our quilt layout to be sewn up at home. I hope to get mine on my design board in the next week or two so that I can still remember what I learned in the workshop as I finish it! I want to add another row to each side so that it is the same size as the one in the book, which I believe is approximately 55" x 80". If you ever get an opportunity to attend a workshop with Kaffe and Brandon, don't hesitate, just do it!
Let Paula Nadelstern show you how to create templates for the kaleidoscopic quilts in Fabricadabra—Simple Quilts, Complex Fabric. Follow my blog with Bloglovin
Set of 5 lavender sachets, each measuring approximately 2-1/4 x 2-1/4." I created these petite sachets by upcycling beautiful hand-embroidered bits & pieces of white vintage linens and filling them with fragrant Pacific Northwest lavender. Scalloped edges are a pretty detail. You will receive 5 white sachets very similar to the ones shown in the photos, handmade by me from my vintage linen stash. Additional styles and quantities of my handmade sachets may be available in separate listings here: IntoVintageHome.etsy.com See what I'm up to on instagram @intovintage
A postcard and small bookcover both made using printed images on fabric and vintage embroidery mixed with various lace.
When I first started quilting, I eagerly jumped in with both feet. I almost immediately signed up for a "color of the month" stash builder club. Each month, 12 beautiful 1/2 yard cuts would arrive in my mailbox that I would lovingly fold and place on a shelf to admire. I imagined having one of those beautiful sewing s
In a comment on a previous blog, a follower asked if I would describe how I inject vibrant, non-realistic color into my pieces. You may never look at your fabric stash the same.
Scrappy Trips Around the World This Scrappy Trips Around the World quilting by Natalia at Piece N Quilt using Kawaii fabrics form my stash, The Pattern designed By Bonnie K Hunter aka Quiltville. it's
Stashwork's Quilt Along is ready to help you master the basics of quilting. Sign up now and get all the info emailed right away!
I finished my Legos top and love how it turned out. This is Ellis Island: While I sewed, I realized I was making a quilter's Ellis Island. (Ellis Island was the port of entry into the United States way back before airplanes). You know, send me your tired, your poor, your wretched refuse - all those unwanted (fabrics). The name's a bit formal for this loud fun quilt, but still appropriate. There really are some uuugly fabrics in here... I ended up going smaller than king-sized - this is 70x80. With all these shedding cats, any quilt on our bed will have to be washed and I'd like it to be easy to do. Plus, I was really inspired by a photo of Mary's bed with multiple quilts on it. Perfect since my husband and I completely disagree about how much warmth we need to sleep. So sorry that these fabrics from Barb didn't arrive in time, but they will get into another lego quilt! some of these are sooo not ugly. love love the "hello" fabric in all sorts of different languages. Not that we need warmth that often in Florida. But we'll be moving to Maryland next spring and I know they get winter "up in America" as my husband calls it. We've done some househunting and fingers crossed will get a house we love. Anyone here a member of the Columbia Faithful Circle Quilting Guild? I think that will be the nearest guild. Back to the legos. These blocks are sooo much fun to make and so addictive. Seriously fun. Here are some fun one that others have worked on (sorry if I missed anybody - just let me know!): Chawne's Compost Quilt top Julies Dumpster Diving Siobhan's Pensieve Quilt top Diane's Chinese Coins in progress Clare's ongoing monster (don't we all need Doctor Who!) Sara's legos with One-Patches top. The borders are great too. Joe Tulips legos with Flying Geese. she got distracted by zombies though... (well worth it!) Lynley's not quite legos top Kim's I-Spyish lego blocks This is how I approached making the Legos quilt. Sara came up with a different method, just sewing a biiiig long strip amd cutting it in two and joining those lengthwise etc. I have to get a blogpost done so I'm going to sign off now... See you all hopefully sooner than the last time! By the way, you can follow this blog by email (there's a doohicky over in the sidebar) so you'll know when I finally post again! That is, if you're not using a reader (which I highly recommend if you follow more than a couple of blogs). Lily says, time for a nap!
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve seen two things: quilters talking sheepishly about the size of their stash and quilters green with envy looking at someone else’s stash. I have a lot of thoughts about this, but it boils down to something simple: sheepishness and envy are not confidence, a
vintageshabbypink: “ (via havingahappyday, vintagerosebrocante) ”
These are my Parasols for the March Victorian Symbolism Challenge for CQI but it is also Block 12 for the Cream on Cream Crazy Quilt. I hav...
the whole cabinet has been used to stock the fabrics, still not enought space, need a new one immdiately.
Looking for a fun, inexpensive way to store your yarn? Here's how to make a yarn wall for beautiful & easy yarn storage and organization.
Happy Sunday my friends!! I hope you are enjoying some good quality quilting time! It’s been awhile since I shared some fabric stash purchases with you. And being the fabric lovers that we are, I t…
StashWork Book Release - Southern Charm Quilts - My quilt pattern releases - by Melanie Traylor of Southern Charm Quilts
These delightful and adventurous quilters made a silk cigar style selvage quilt on Saturday in Harwinton, CT. We took this photo before the end of the day, but you can see that there was a lot of progress being made! This was their first selvage project, and it's the most challenging quilt in the book: Quilts from the Selvage Edge. Lots of laughs, we had the best time, as quilters are known to do. :) This is a non-selvage, raw-edge version by Judi. Well, there is one selvage, and she asked me to sign it as a souvenir of the day. Isn't that sweet? This will be a hexagonal quilt for a table (under glass). Cool. I love how quilters see an idea and add their own twist to it! Thanks for a wonderful day!!
No mini quilt this month, but I do have a major top finished! I have continued to work on my Stars Upon Stars quilt for the past couple of weeks. And, now, I'm happy to say, the top is done. This pattern originated from an antique quilt found in the collection at the museum in Grand Rapids, Michigan Amazing, huh! The top was pieced in the 1890's. I used the rubber stamp pattern from Jeanneke.com. By stamping the template pieces, the hand sewing was perfect and the star blocks were precise. I had also bought the pattern from Laundry Basket. It was done with strip piecing and I knew I would not be able to sew accurately enough to handle this method. I did recalculate her sashing method and used her idea for my stashing. I guess each method is dependent on how you like to sew. It was fun to eventually lay out the blocks and see the quilt coming together. My design floor Sewing the parts together was a challenge. A lot of bias edges. I admit I don't usually pin much, but realized I needed to use lots of pins and a stylist to help keep everything under control. The long seams took over an hour to pin, sew and then press. We all know there's a difference between pressing and ironing. The back of this quilt is amazing with the amount of seams. Pressing was key to keeping the blocks squared and not stretching them out of shape. The perfect pressing is also key when it comes to the quilting. I admit I'm an ironer, so I had to continue to remind myself to press, not iron! So now this beauty is one step closer to being done. There are no borders on this quilt and I have stay stitched around the outer edge. The new challenge will be to keep the edges from stretching and then adding a straight binding at the end. We'll see. It has been a 2 year journey to get to this point. Maybe it's time to put some fabric away. I've kept all the fabrics in baskets and bags so I wouldn't repeat fabrics. It will be like having a new stash, but now it's time to to find a backing and get quilting! I'm planning on machine quilting this myself, mostly quilting in the ditch. That alone will be challenge, but aren't good things worth it? Until Next Time- Kyle
Please welcome Lisa Sliva of Stitching the Journey to our first Stitcher Spotlight, as she shares her version of Honeydew Quilt from the Hexie Handbook with us!
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve seen two things: quilters talking sheepishly about the size of their stash and quilters green with envy looking at someone else’s stash. I have a lot of thoughts about this, but it boils down to something simple: sheepishness and envy are not confidence, a
It’s an absolute pleasure for me to introduce to you our first Slow Stitcher, Emma Jones! I fell in love with Emma’s sweet English Paper Piecing style the instant I discovered her on Instagram. Not only are her projects cheerful and pretty, but Emma is also a wonderfully kind and thoughtful stitcher, always commenting on ...
Please welcome Lisa Sliva of Stitching the Journey to our first Stitcher Spotlight, as she shares her version of Honeydew Quilt from the Hexie Handbook with us!
Well, after y’all loved the Coach’s last post, I talked him into doing another one. Enjoy! I tried to explain that this was a one time deal the first time I agreed to post on the blog. It didn’t help when you readers started leaving comments about how funny my post was and now here...Read More
In January of 2012, I designed my first paper-pieced quilt . Little did I know what road I was embarking on. I spent 5 months on that quilt. I wasn't perfect at paper-piecing, but I was learning. And I loved the control I had over the design and precision of the quilt. I could easily ach
dried and pressed sea-weed picture from the Channel Islands A FEW SAMPLES FROM MY COLLECTION OF LADIES AMUSEMENTS Yes I am back on the job and please forgive the gap, which was not a holiday but was caused by three big events in my personal life - the decisioj, for purely health reasons to leave my lovely old house where I planned to stay for a few more years, the decisiion to put it on the market which has involved a massive sort out of belongings and old stock, and thirdly the delight of going back to bee-keeping with two hives on the terrace here which are just a big waste of time, but I do love my bees! DRIED FERN, DRIED FLOWER and SEA WEED PICTURES, SCISSOR-WORK, CUT-OUT PICTURES( papier coupe ), PAPER SCULPTURE of FLOWERS, a la Mrs.Delaney, SILHOUETTES,PIN PRICK WORK, often religious figures, FELT PICTURES OF ANIMALS, PLANTS, BASKETS OF STRAWBERRIES, especially sought after and so charming! SILHOUETTES, human HAIR mormentoes made up in braids and plaits , Shell covered boxes and ornaments, The materials and skills involved shows how Victorian ladies used their hands to create pictures of delight. The following Blogs will show just some of the samples of Ladies amusements, (Regency and Victorian craft work on pictures), which I have bought, sold and collected in a very informal way for my own amusement, and also to decorate the bare walls of each house I have renovated. Some are quite rare, others can still be found occasionally at the big general fairs, un-recognised by the sellers and very often in very poor frames which can easily be replaced and make a great difference to the charm of these rather delicate subjects. Birds and flowers predominate of course. Dried flowers pressed between sheets of blotting paper are fairly common in Victorian scrap books, but often very faded and incomplete without foliage. There are some exceptional groups of ferns which are often quite large and very stylish and decorative, and properly framed, these are very attractive in groups on large empty walls! Sea-weed, see above picture, dried and placed in a little woven basket, in semi-profile on a parchment backing, can be very sweet and often have a little poem below " Call us not weeds, but flowers of the sea are we " and are best seen in little boxed frames, well arranged and not flattened out. Many natural history subjects, like flowers, insects, butterflies, birds' eggs, etc., can be much cheaper to buy in later print form rather than in the original natural history volumes which are now rare to find as more and more are broken up to get the max. return on scarce designs - ' pity too' as the Welsh would say! More about these sort of pictures will follow with a few examples that I have owned or seen on my travels. There is not a great deal of literature about Ladies Amusements as they were considered amateur and trivial and there was no proper market place for them as they were made at home and kept in the family, together with samplers and other hand-made decorations. They were just 'family things'.
Use your scrap fabric to make this free quilted sleep mask! Step by step instructions for a beginner-friendly tutorial.
Annie Smith of Simple Arts has been known as the voice of the Quilting Stash podcast since 2005. She is an author, a designer and a Bernina ambassador and presented her debut Aurifil thread collect…
Please welcome Lisa Sliva of Stitching the Journey to our first Stitcher Spotlight, as she shares her version of Honeydew Quilt from the Hexie Handbook with us!
Well it's the end of a busy week! I don't know about you, but I'm pooped! But I'm pleased to say we've had some gorgeous, sunny days here in N.I. this week, and there's a lovely Autumn feel to the air! As always, the things I've been working on this week I can't show you yet (soon I promise!), so I'm going to give you a wee tute on how to use up every last wee bit of fabric shavings, you know those bits that end up all over your cutting mat after trimming blocks and hsts? We'll here's a cool way to turn them into a new type of fabric. As far as I know this product doesn't have an official name - I learnt it at college and it wasn't called anything then, but if you know the official name of this craft, please let me know. 1. Save up your fabric shavings & wee bits of offcuts that are too small to be useful (you can also cut up wee bits of fluffy wool, ribbon, sparkly threads etc.). Bigger pieces will need to be snipped down smaller. 2. Take a piece of plain sheeting/calico and lay a load of shavings on top. You can colour code your savings as I have done here, or have a multi-coloured mess! Make sure it's thick enough to cover the backing fabric, but not too thick to sew over. 3. Lay a piece of water soluble fabric over the top and pin/sew round the edges. This stuff is really cool - you can get different brands in a craft shop or online. I've used Avalon Water Soluble Embroidery Fabric by Madeira. 4. Now sew, sew, sew over the top of the w.s.fabric, either by free motion quilting or straight & wavy lines all over. Try not to leave any big gaps where the shavings can later escape from. 5. When you have stitched this to within an inch of its life, take the pins out and under a luke warm tap or in a sink/basin, allow the w.s.fabric to melt away (it goes a bit slimy as it melts off so rinse it well). 6. Give your new piece of fabric a good squeeze to get the water out and then allow it to dry on the radiator. 7. When dry, draw your desired shapes on the back and cut out. If you want to, sew more stitching on top to highlight details, for example veins in leaves, or sew on beads, sequins etc. 8. You can now use your fabric shapes to embellish/decorate cards, cushions, make letters or Christmas decorations etc. etc. The possibilities are endless! Another way to use this wonderful water soluble fabric is to roughly sketch a shape on to it & then put it into an embroidery hoop. Repeated sewing and shading with thread will close all the gaps, so that when you take the fabric off the hoop and dissolve the w.s.fabric you are left with a completely embroidered shape. Have fun & let your imagination run wild!
No, that’s not an attention-grabbing click bait headline, it’s the truth. I have seriously gotten rid of at least 1/3 of my fabric stash, plus most of my notions/patterns/STUFF that also accumulates. You can see in this room tour video what it looked like late last year, all tidied and organised, and already a little […]
Stitch and flip quilt blocks are a great easy quilt block for beginners to learn how to make a quilt! Start with an easy quilt pattern
After posting my last feature of Marilyn Hawkins, I received a few more emails from quilters with their own beautiful projects and I just KNEW you'd be itching to see more! Thank you to ALL for your beautiful work and thank you for letting me share you with the world. Hugs, Cindy :) I heard from Kelly Cline in Lawrence, KS with these BEAUTIFUL pieces. Her story: I am a linen lover by way of the long arm. I am really drawn to the society silk pieces and love the ones with words. I sent you one I started with...Kansas, and since then am just obsessed with these pieces. Here are a couple of recently finished pieces. The rose piece is a silk round about 17" in diameter. Love your work and I am a regular follower. Thanks for the inspiration! Kelly Cline **************************************************************** Geri Richardson is a fabulous linen lady who I had the pleasure of meeting at a past Linen Workshop in Rancho Cordova. I received this email from her about a much deserved award on her beautiful piece. This is a portion of her story~ The name of this is "Something Old is New Again". The center doily is an old piece I picked out of Cindy's stash basket in class. Background fabric is a pale blue Fossil Fern. Threads are YLI silk, Superior silk and Isacord poly. I got really lucky and found the lace edging at Beverly's then spent three days beading. The lace edge is beaded on, the diamonds have beads in the center of the cathedral windows and the inside oval is beaded twice. GREAT TIP HERE LADIES!!! Oh yes, MAJOR blunder not once but TWICE. I ran off the vinyl overlay I was working on to figure out my feather spine and got dry erase marker on the fabric. First time just a little, second time BIG TIME. Murphy's Oil Soap!!! It works!!! I entered this in two shows. The first in Tennessee at the Smoky Mountain Quilters where it won two ribbons...third place in the art quilt category and a special award for surface embellishment. Next it goes to a show in Indiana at the end of June. Geri Richardson *************************************************************** Quiltshopgal hosts a monthly FMQ challenge where readers are encouraged to learn new techniques from various instructors and make beautiful pillows in the process. During my feature, students were encouraged to use The Ultimate Stencil for their designs. I heard from Grit Kovacs in Germany with her gorgeous piece!!! Anna Surke from Hungary is one of my very talented Craftsy students. She is always posting gorgeous pieces. This is her pillow project also using The Ultimate Stencil! ************************************************************* Robin Gausebeck from Paducah, Kentucky sent me a photo of her project way back in March...I put it in my "follow up emails" folder and guess who forgot to follow up and post it! Here is her story: This is a picture of the quilt made from my grandmother's old linen table runner which I finally finished in time for my guild's upcoming quilt show. The original linen was brown with age and now it is back to being linen colored thanks to the RetroClean soap. I enrolled in Sue Nickel's feather workshop at the quilt museum this past summer specifically to learn techniques for quilting this piece. Using her strategy of designing feather motifs based on the letters of the alphabet, I was able to incorporate my grandmother's initials (BK) as the main quilting focal point. The table runner itself was stitched to Dupioni silk. I am pleased with how it turned out and I owe you a lot for the advice you provided. Robin Gausebeck
