A Kaffe Fasset Double

You may remember last year that the uber talented Sarah Fielke (co-author of Material Obsession) was looking for people to make blocks for a couple of very special quilts.  Amy and Annabelle had lost husband and father Dan far too early.  Sarah wanted to make them both quilts from Kaffe Fasset fabrics using blocks that looked like bass lines on a stereo.  I wanted to help but only had a few Kaffe Fasset scraps and so Sarah very kindly sent me some of her scraps all the way from Oz.

Here are my blocks.

Amy`s block

Annabelle`s block

Well I was super excited to read this week on Leanne`s blog that she too had helped and that Sarah had pieced Annabel`s quilt.  Click here to see it (you`ll have to scroll down a couple of posts).  I love it!

So having written my Winter Stitches mid-term check in, I was beginning to feel very guilty about my mum`s birthday quilt.  She has waited patiently while various quilts, bee blocks, pouches, mug rugs and runners have been made and meanwhile I have prevaricated about which block to use.  She isn`t swooning over swoon - a block which many of you thought would look great in the Kaffe Fasset fabrics she had chosen.  So today, energized by a beetroot, celery and ginger juice (zingy and delicious), I started on the first block.  All I`ll say is it`s not a quick block (but I think and really hope it`s going to be amazing)  and it`s a block from this book.  Only sneeky peaks will be shown and here`s your first one.

I know.  I`m not giving much away.

Hope you`ve all had a fab weekend.  Check in later tomorrow to see if you won the giveaway (there`s still time to enter).

Blocks for Amy and Annabel

A huge thank you to Sarah Fielke for sending Kaffe Fassett scraps all the way from Australia so that I could make these two blocks measuring 8 x 11 inches. They will be used in quilts for Amy and her daughter Annabel who lost Dan a few weeks ago.  Amy`s favourite fabrics are Kaffe Fassett and with her husband`s love of the music world, Sarah thought these blocks which look like a bass line on a stereo display would be appropriate.

You can read about Dan here.

The Marrakech Rose Quilt?

So with the way I was feeling on Wednesday, I was all set to take my best dressmaking scissors to my husband`s collection of checked summer shirts (of which he has many and wears few).  This was not the premeditated actions of a woman scorned but rather my impatience at the length of time it was taking for my fabric to arrive from the US. Actually not an inordinate length of time as these things go - just two weeks but when it`s coming by plane, why does it take even two weeks??

I`ve always been impatient where sewing is concerned  - ask my mother. When I was a teenager, I made a lot of my own clothes  - I thought I was the bee`s knees as I wore my long straight skirts with buttons up the length of the back with a big baggy sweater,  and ankle boots - so eighties.  I would make a skirt in one sitting - no breaks until it was done and late into the night blood curdling screams would fill the air as I realized I`d made some mistake.  It had to be ready to wear the next day to college.

Anyway yesterday, much to my husband`s relief that he would have something to wear this summer, it arrived. Here it is washed and dried and ready to be cut up and sewn back together again.

Alexander Henry

I have to admit that I have been wondering to myself why I chose these fabrics.  It`s not that I don`t like them. Clearly, I love them but why reds, pinks and oranges?  They are just not colours I am naturally drawn to.  I`m more a blues and greens girl, and so I am thinking that maybe I was subconsciously drawn to them because they are colours that suit the light here in Marrakech.  Unlike the coastal towns in Morocco where all the buildings are painted white, here in Marrakech (which is on a plain at the foothills to the Atlas Mountains) the buildings are painted pink. In my design innocence, the last duvet cover I bought for our bedroom was a pale sage green.  I reckoned that it would cool me down in the summer months here.  I was wrong.  It looks terrible (and doesn`t even cool me down) - just as the reds, pinks and oranges of these fabrics might not suit the light in Scandinavian countries.  So now I`m asking myself  - have I subconsciously bought fabrics for what could be the first Marrakech quilt?

Kaffe Fassett

I plan to make a quilt based on the log cabin design of Jane Brocket`s Russian Shawl quilt so this afternoon I`ll be planning it out and will hopefully start cutting tomorrow. I`m going to piece by hand as I just prefer it that way and find it more accurate.  I`ll post some photos next week.

Oh by the way, I changed the name of this blog as it`s not just about quilting and my life has thankfully had a very rich pattern but that`s for a post another day.

City Quilts

I love receiving brown packages in the post.  There is something uniquely exciting about seeing a parcel with your name on it. One of the many advantages of living here in Morocco is that there is little if any junk mail. Apart from the odd bank statement and utility bill, our postman has a fairly light load and for the most part, that suits me just fine.

About a week ago, I ordered City Quilts by Cherri House and it arrived yesterday- a book showcasing quilts designed and made by Cherri and inspired by the urban landscape.  I`ve never been able to decide whether I`m a city girl or a country girl.  Before I went to college, I grew up in the countryside in a Victorian farm workers` cottage in beautiful Warwickshire surrounded by cornfields, with a wood at the bottom of the garden and a spinney at the top of the drive.  If it sounds idyllic that`s because it was although of course I didn`t appreciate it at the time.  After college I moved to London and then on to Marrakech so for the second half of my life, I have lived in cities...and there is definitely something about the city.  Perhaps that`s why I was drawn to the title of this book.

Like The Gentle Art of Quilting by Jane Brocket, and Kaffe Fassett`s Simple Shapes, Spectacular Quilts, Cherri shows us how stunning quilts can be made using simple shapes with beautiful fabrics.  However, unlike the fabulously funky designs of Kaffe Fassett and the bold florals so often used by Jane Brocket, Cherri uses the best quality Kona cotton fabrics in solid colours by Robert Kaufman.

I had previously and foolishly dismissed solids for the quilts I plan to make, but after reading City Quilts, I have been googling Kona solids to find stockists who can dispatch fabrics to me as quickly as possible. Cherri often uses black in her quilts, not something I would necessarily have chosen, but it works - making the colours in the blocks truly pop.

One of my favourite quilts, City Tracks

By reading Cherri`s book, I have learned a lot about colour and how to use it to its best effect in quilt design and she has left me inspired. `Nature is the best teacher...take a walk and really see the colors around you...I say that if it works in nature, it will work in a quilt!`, which is what I guess I was trying to say in this post. Each quilt can be easily adapted to suit individual tastes and many of the quilts would be great presents for the men in our lives who may not appreciate Amy Butler and Kate Spain as much as we do!

City Bank quilt inspired by a building in the film The Bourne Supremacy

This is a lovely book.  If you`re looking for a book to explain quilt making in detail, this is not for you.  While Cherri gives lots of great advice on the basics and using tools and resources, this is really a book about inspiration -  and contains 12 fabulous projects for those of us dipping our toes into the world of solids.

You can buy or order City Quilts from your local book store or from here.

Decisions, Decisions in The Land of Oz

My family is not known for its ability to make decisions....

... and when it comes to selecting fabric I am no exception.

With a diminishing stash (in fact it's more a stashette really) I spend hours and hours looking online. Site after site.  Filling my cart with swatches...sometimes in yards and sometimes in meters...perhaps some yellows and greens, sometimes blues and purples...fancying florals from Philip Jacobs on one day and  fun colourful designs from Jennifer Paganelli on another.

After carefully making my selection, I then decide to abandon my cart (like a supermarket trolley in a disused canal), believing that perhaps what I've chosen is not quite the right thing, colour, or design...and so the whole process starts all over again the next day.

Today, I found what looks to be a great site in the States, http://www.emeraldcityfabrics.com.With a wider selection of fabrics and cheaper by the yard than many of the UK sites, I acted out of character and decided to just go for it. I took the plunge.

I ordered this from Alexander Henry, a yard of this from Anna Maria Horner, some of this from Anthology, this from Amy Butler, this beauty from Kaffe Fassett and this from Jennifer Paganelli.  The fabrics are coming direct to Morocco - much to my mother's relief (who regularly hauls over my internet purchases leaving her just enough space for a shirt and a pair of jeans - thanks Ryanair).  When they arrive, or rather, if they arrive remains to be seen.  Fingers crossed.