Modern? Modernitional? Tramodernal?

Do you consider yourself a modern quilter, a traditional quilter or a bit of both? This seems to be a hot topic at the moment. If you're the latter like me then I like to refer to us as tramodernal.  At the start of my quilting journey I definitely wanted to think of myself as a modern quilter but as time has gone on I have become increasingly inspired by more traditional blocks.

I'm excited to share with you a project I worked on last month. Back in January, the Fat Quarterly team put a call out for people to take part in the next edition's designer challenge - to use a traditional block and make it modern.  I've always loved the Blockade block - a Civil War block, ever since I made this one.  It remains to this day an orphan and this is a reminder that I need to do something with it!

For the challenge I decided to make a cushion using some Chicopee and low volume fabrics. As I had a huge 22" cushion insert, I decided to go bigger and influenced by all the gorgeous medallion quilts being made, I added a clockwise 'circle' of flying geese - another traditional block which I only made for the first time this year.

Who would have thought Chicopee fitted in so well with our Moroccan floor tiles?

Issue 13 of Fat Quarterly is out now and it's full of seriously gorgeous tramodernal projects - and you can see how I made my cushion. So go have a look - you might be inspired!

Linking up with the Let's Get Aquainted Link-Up, which this week is being hosted by Kirsten.

Blog Claimin'

So I guess this is something I 'need' to do - claiming my blog on Bloglovin'

I hope you will continue to follow my blog by clicking on the icon over there on the right!

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Stash Defining

Make a scrappy trip around the world block or two and you soon see the colours in your stash so no surprises here - pinks, purples, greens and not enough blues.

Wall flower? No.  Pale and uninteresting?  Definitely not pale.

Loud, mismatched, colourful, in your face, scrapbusting...?

Not everyone's 'cup of tea' but I like it! Blocks 1-12 of the scrappy trip around the world quilt.

Linking up with WIP Wednesday.

If You Can't Stand the Heat Stay Out of the...

...sewing room! Well if I had a sewing room that is. And that's what I've been doing the last few days...well mostly.  It's still silly hot here but due to cool next week.  The heat hasn't stopped me from wanting to dive in to lots of new projects.

I've been looking at EPP (English Paper Piecing) projects and am really tempted to make some rose stars.  However, the propect of drawing the templates, printing them off, cutting them up and basting seemed too much like hard work and I have an existing EPP project which is far from finished.  So I have started joining my aqua, orange and grey hexy flowers in to rows of 8 and 9 - no real plan just taking a colour from each pile in a fairly random order.

There are lots of fun BOMs around (Block of the Month mum) and I made April's block for the Aurifil BOM using Chicopee and some of my low value charms from Laura Jane's recent swap.

I'm not sure now whether to continue and catch up or hop on to the Virtual Quilting Bee, which I also like the look of. I've a feeling this may be made in to a cushion for the small person.

Inspired by last week's episode of The Great British Sewing Bee (you can watch the first 3 episodes on youtube here, here and here if you have missed it), I did a bit of make do and mend.  At the beginning of the new year, Zaki went through the knees of nearly all his jeans. I loved a particular pair of skinny jeans from Gap and so cut them in to shorts and put a camouflage cuff on the bottoms - et voila! Ignore the dirty summer feet and open zip!

*edited to add: I was inspired to make these after seeing these jean shorts in Zara.

Lastly, I like to leave a few months before jumping on a bandwagon but this morning I had an overwhelming urge to start a scrappy tripalong quilt top.  I have lots of large scraps which I've had for ages and would like to see the back of or at least made in to a quilt. So following this tutorial, I cut up lots of strips and soon had the first four blocks done.  I'm not sure I have the scrappy tripalong vibe on just yet...I understand from the good folk on Instagram that it best works if you have a similar colour running through the middle of each block...as you can see I hadn't quite worked that out when I made these blocks.

And lastly, I really want to get this pattern by Jen Kingwell after Jess blogged that she was doing the Steam Punk QAL.  I have found it for sale in the States but wonder whether I should or not.  Has anyone done this pattern?

Tomorrow, Zaki will be back at pre-school after his 2 week holiday and so I hope to get on with basting and quilting Cindy's baby quilt.  Hopefully, a finish before the month end!

So I hope you have all had a great weekend - need to go tidy up the mess!

Cindy Said Sew

Back at the beginning of March, the lovely Cindy over at Fluffy Sheep Quilting asked for a little help from her friends to make some baby quilts for a quilt festival in Galway this June.  She aims to have lots of new charm packs for sale and needs some quilts to show off what can be made with them! With many of the lines not available until May, she was up against it timewise.

She gave us ideas as to lines we could use and I chose the existing Mama Said Sew as Cindy had it in stock and could get it over to me immediately.

A couple of weeks ago this little ready made quilt kit of loveliness arrived.

So yesterday with temperatures hitting 40° C (104°F),the sensible thing to do would have been not to start the quilt top. Sensibleschmensible. Using this super straightforward Moda Bake Shop pattern I soon had this baby sewn up.

Now anyone who reads this blog regularly will know this isn't my usual colour palette but it's been fun to play with fabrics which I wouldn't normally use and so many of the prints in this line are lovely!

Temperatures are due to drop again at the weekend and then I'm hoping to get this basted, quilted and back off to Cindy next week!

If you don't know Cindy's shop, where have you been? Gorgeous fabrics, solids, Aurifil, perle, amazing service...need I go on?

Stitch Tease Blocks Revealed

Photo Credits Top Row (Di, Susan, Danny, Helen)
                                 Bottom Row (Dianne, Hadley, Katy, me)

Yesterday I shared with you the gorgeous quilt top I received in the Stitch Tease bee.  Today, I'm revealing the bee blocks that I made for the 7 other bee members. I shall try and whizz through these as quickly as possible as after a year of teasing, you are getting Stitch Tease overload.

Having said that, the first does need a little explaining.

Bee mama Di asked for strips with words on them.  This was easy for me - Di often refers to her husband as Mr.Romance and this was my inspiration photo. Yep, he really is Mr.Romance!

Photo Credit - Diane Stanley

...and here's the strip I made for Di. It's a biggie at 72" long!

12.5" x 72"

So my words for Di were 'I LOVE US # MR ROMANCE'.  I appliqued one of Di's favourite flowers and the one in the photo, a sunflower, pieced a heart and as Di and her husband were learning Country & Western dancing this time last year I appliqued Mr.Romance in a cowboy hat. You can see the whole of Di's quilt top here.

Next up was Susan - Susan's block was a quick and easy make.  She asked for white wonky stars in amongst bright and scrappy squares and rectangles. You can see Susan's whole quilt top here.

20" x 30"

Danny was next.  I dithered and procrastinated over this one.  Danny gave us free reign to make what our heart desired but with so much choice it was tough to decide exactly what to make.  Eventually I made a strip of different blocks and incorporated a few of my favourites. You can see Danny's quilt top here.

12" x 70"

Helen's was a lot easier for me.  She asked for bright wonky stars against a background of Kona Ash.  Easy peasy. You can see Helen's quilt top here.

24" x 24"

Dianne asked for pinwheels - any pinwheels, any shape or size.  Now I had never made pinwheels before but after a perusal of flickr and pinterest I learned that there were many types.  I decided to include a Dutch pinwheel (far left) which I really love. She can see Dianne's quilt top here.

16" x 32"

Next up was Hadley - she asked for squares and rectangles of fabric in teals, aquas, oranges, greens, blues and greys.  By her won admission, she was quite specific about what she wanted in her block. There would also be a few white blocks randomly placed.  Now this block was simple but fabric choice had to be considered carefully.  You can see Hadley's quilt top here.

10" x 60"

Last up was Katy's block.  Katy asked us to replicate characters from her focus fabric.  I made the last option available - an appliqued space rocket! After this photo was taken I realized I hadn't finished the legs properly so I changed them but don't have another photo. You can see Katy's quilt here.

24" x 24"

So Round 1 is over and Round 2 kicks off next month. Big strips and blocks are gone and in comes more manageable 12.5" blocks!

The Grand Stitch Tease Reveal!

For the last year we've teased you, we've been coy and dare I say a little coquettish but today...at last...we can reveal our Stitch Tease quilt tops!

At the beginning of 2012, I received an email inviting me to join a mystery round robin bee.  The sender was bloggy pal Di.  She also sent the email to a few other bloggy friends and resistance was futile.  After a few emails ironing out the details it was agreed that we would make 2 starter blocks and post them to the person assigned to eventually making up our quilt tops which in my case was bee mama Di. The blocks we made for each other would remain secret until we received the assembled top!

I uhmmed and I ahhed about the theme for my quilt and eventually decided on curves.  This was my inspiration mosaic.

1. single girl - it's a wrap!, 2. Pear Blossom 4, 3. Detail of "Spot On" Circle Quilt, 4. asterisk detail, 5. For Quilt around the block, 6. Drunkard's path clamshells, 7. Drunkard's Path QAL, 8. Color Study: Drunkard's Path ~ 2009, 48"X52", 9. detail shot of the modern drunkard's path, 10. yellow drunkard's path block, 11. Not so little hint..., 12. Improv curve notecards, 13. FTLOS, 14. Squiggle pillow, 15. Baby Girl Quilt, 16. Drunkards Path for Amber aka One Shabby Chic - PTS 6, 17. anjas_amybutlerquilt_detail, 18. New Block Design :: Half Moon Rising, 19. Oregon born, NC bound, 20. Camera Roll-1097, 21.Sonnenschein lieblingsdecke krabbeldecke quilt frankfurt, 22. Retro Flowers Quilt, 23. retro flowers no. 3, 24. Neighbours, 25. Drunkard's Path Quilt

I asked for blocks measuring 24" x 24" and made my starter blocks.

Clamshells

Beads using Jenny's curved ruler

Each of us bought a yard of fabric which we would use in all the quilts - I used this Cloud 9 fabric.

In hindsight I realize that my theme was a little unfair but you know what, the girls did an amazing job!

So without further ado, here it is...!!

...yup, the wrong way round! You can probably just make out the puzzled expression on hubby's face? As I was walking down the steps, I heard my husband say, "Shouldn't it be the other...?" "What did you say?" I asked. "Oh nothing..." he replied. Yes my clamshells and beads are the wrong way round but never mind!

Just look what everyone made.

Top Middle Susan has such a distinct style colourwise - just like her, it's always bright and cheerful.

Susan is the only member of the bee I have met (so far) - here she is sitting in her home at her favourite spot last 'summer'. I could have picked her block out blindfolded (well almost).  She made some super cute pieced balls which look like juggling balls and cleverly used Lu Summer's portholes technique for the rings at the top!

Top Right So Di assembled the quilt top and did a wonderful job and had to deal with the fact that I had asked for Kona white to be used but made my own blocks using Kona snow...go figure! She knows how much I love the Drunkard's Path block and made me some beauties using some of her gorgeous fabrics.

Middle Left Danny made me a beautiful block of appliqued pebbles - the prettiest pebbles you could imagine finding. I have made a small block of these myself and appliqueing them is not that easy but I love the effect and they bring beautiful movement to the quilt!

Middle This stunning Dresden was made by Helen in Switzerland and is a perfect centerpiece for the quilt.  It's bold and beautiful and uses some gorgous fabrics.

Middle Right This very cool block was made by Katy and uses the most beautiful palette of aqua, greys and yellows. I love its originality - it reminds me of a branch of beautiful blossom.

Bottom Left Hadley paper pieced this utterly gorgeous New York Beauty for me and boy is it beautifully pieced and Hadley used such lovely fabrics!

Bottom Middle We have 2 'Di's' in the group and this Di made me this stunning 'lemons & limes' block. I know Di doesn't like curves but these are so beautifully made and sounding like a broken record made in the most beautiful fabrics.

And I rotated the photo so you can see the quilt top the right way round!

Isn't it wonderful?  Thank you so much to my friends in this group - Susan, Hadley, Helen, Di, Katy, Danny and last but not least, our wonderful bee mama Di. I couldn't be happier. Round 2 starts next month.  We're sadly losing Danny but gaining 5 new members to bring the tally to 12.  I can't wait!

Do check out the other blogs today as the grand reveal continues!