A brief example of Australian quilting

I hastily snapped this pic whilst in bed under featured quilt. Hence the slightly crumpled look to the quilt. I thought it was a lovely example of quilting though. We went to Australia for two weeks around Easter and this quilt was made by a quilting group in Ballarat. 

Piles of goodies in Jaipur

In Jaipur we were treated to piles of gorgeous things that the shop owner pulled out to show us whilst we drank tea. The above are silk bed covers. The photo below is Indian patchwork made up from pieces of old clothes. 

I Spy: Ben Venom and heavy metal quilts

Ben Venom. Image from http://benvenom.blogspot.co.uk/

I was reading this list of male crafters when I spied Ben Venom. He makes the most amazing quilts made out of old heavy metal t-shirts. Apparently he tours around the U.S. with them. I love his designs and the up-cycling involved. Amazing!

A way to use a jellyroll

This is very simple way to use a jellyroll. I've decided jellyrolls are one of my new favourite things. In case you don't know what a jellyroll is - it's a bundle of fabric cut into strips for you. They're very useful for using as borders in quilts. However, I decided to use them to make the main body of a quilt wall-hanging.

This was super easy to make! I just machined the strips together and added the border. Then I put this on top of some plain backing material with some fleece in the middle to act as wadding. Next, I hand-stitched simple lines in running stitch to quilt it.

It's not quite finished in these photos as I haven't sewn up the edges yet. That's because I moved to India before I was quite finished.

I think this is simple but effective. It's a great way of using a roll of beautiful fabrics.

Exhibition: The Quilter's Guild at Hever Castle

Last Saturday we went to Hever Castle. Hever Castle was the childhood home of Anne Boleyn (the second wife of Henry VIII). It's very beautiful.

Interesting when we arrived we discovered there was a country-side living special event on. There was wood carving! And chickens! (man I long for chickens). As part of this there was also a quilt exhibition run by a local chapter of the Quilter's Guild. I used to a member of this Guild when I was a child (Young Quilters go) so I always like seeing what groups are up to.

There were some cute things hanging in trees.

And on washing lines.

Inside the big tent were lots of quilts made by members.

These were quite nice but the beautiful grounds were too alluring and so we ended up zooming around this exhibit in favour of the outdoors.

We saw a snake!

A wall-hanging for a new-born

Technically I made this two years ago but thought I would share it here now. A good friend of mine was pregnant with her first child and as she was the first of our group of friends to have a child I wanted to make her something special to celebrate it. 

I contacted our friends and some of her old friends from school and university and asked everyone to make a square. 

Originally I was going to make a playmat but when I received some of the squares I decided it wouldn't be suitable for small hands (buttons!) so thought a wall-hanging would work better.

When I received enough squares I sewed them all together. By this point the baby had been born (I had to wait a while for some of the squares) so I was able to add his name to the top. Huzah!

An ABC wall-hanging

When I went to the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham I saw a small quilt which had a black and white ABC on a red background. I loved it and so I bought a black and white charm pack and made my own. Mine is longer. I hurriedly whipped it up in a day because I was losing my sewing machine the next day (oh, moving countries has its downsides). This isn't quite finished as I need to put some binding tape around the edges but I think it's really effective. 

It was super easy too. I sketched the letters onto bondaweb (don't forget you need to do them backwards), ironed them onto the charm pack, cut out the letters and then ironed them onto the background fabric. Then I sewed around the letters on the sewing machine.

It is quilted. I used a piece of fleece for the middle, added backing fabric and machine quilted straight lines across it.

I think I might take this to India with me and use it in my lessons. Or something.

The Festival of Quilts 2012 Birmingham

Last week I went to the festival of quilts in Birmingham's NEC. It was great fun and there were many many inspiring quilts there. Here are a few of my favourites:

A freshly made bed is heaven

It was a bazillion degrees Celsius in London today. Okay that's an exaggeration. Let's find out how hot it really was... I just googled "what was the temperature in London today?" to find out. Okay so I literally use Google to solve all my problems. Google just told me that today it hit 30 degrees Celsius. Dudes! That is HOT. No wonder I felt like I was melting.

It a fit of not wanting to broil to death in bed I decided it was time to ditch the winter duvet. Behold (above) my newly made up summer bed. Oh, there is nothing quite as wonderful as fresh clean sheets to climb under.

The beautious quilt you can see atop my sheet was made by my mother. She whupped up a whole batch of them. She is a quilting ninja. I love it so much.

I'm really looking forward to snuggling up tonight and being all cool under my summer sheets.

Bliss.

A cover for my Kindle

It finally happened. After all my protestations of how it wasn't for me, of how I was happy in my old fashioned ways, I finally succumbed to the lure of the Kindle.

It arrived on Friday and so far I've read one whole book on it. I'm quite pleased that I weakened and bought one. It's so light! It enables me to sprawl in all kinds of new ways whilst reading. Also, I'm impressed with how little packaging it arrived in.

When I bought the Kindle I didn't like the look of the covers that were available for it on Amazon. I googled for covers and also didn't like any of the alternatives that I found. So my only option was to make my own cover. Huzah! I dragged out my scrap box and made this:

It's padded on the inside with fleece to keep the Kindle snug and safe. I also lined it with cardboard to help keep the cover stiff and secure against knocks.

Aw - look how happy the Kindle is in its little cover.

This cover is my second attempt as the first one turned out too small.

Today I'm going to have a sit and make more covers for my up-and-coming Etsy shop. That's right The String Empire will soon be on Etsy! Watch this space.

xxx

T-shirts recycled into a quilt

A couple of years ago I returned to my home country after a few years spent living abroad. My parents had patiently stored my clothes, books and other miscellaneous possessions all the time I gallivanted around with nothing but a rucksack. Upon my return I was told in no uncertain terms that now was the time to 'sort it out'. I discovered that majority of the clothes I had stored away either did not fit me or were too scratty to wear any more. 

Oh this was sad.

Many of them were clothes I'd had since college and had sentimental value. Because of this and because they were too worn to give to a charity shop I decided to cut them up and make a quilt. A good thing about old, worn clothes is that they are lovely and soft. I homed in on the softer of the clothes, t-shirts, pants (waste nothing!), and some cord trousers.

The process of making a square.

I cut some 20cm/20cm squares out of an old sheet. T-shirts are made of stretchy material and to stop them warping when sewn together I thought it best to sew them onto a non-stretchy fabric, such as this cotton sheet.

I randomly sliced up the clothes. I cut strips out of some, I carefully cut around any pictures or slogans on others. I arranged the scraps onto the sheet squares and pinned them down. Then I zig-zagged the scraps down using a sewing machine.

Altogether I made 24 squares. I cut long strips out off another sheet and sewed it to the squares as a border, gradually joining all the squares together.

The squares were so soft I decided to use a piece of fleece for the backing of the quilt, no filling. I pinned the front of the quilt (with the squares) to the fleece and then hand-quilted it with a simple running stitch before sewing up the edges using a sewing machine again.

A collage of the finished quilt with some close-ups of panels.