October Clamshells

Having stitched so few in September it was time to catch up for this month's update but first I needed to prepare more clamshells. My rows are now getting bigger requiring more clams of each colour & pattern so I printed off a whole batch with Inklingo .......

.........and then spent an evening cutting them out ready for stitching.

My clams around the world are growing, I've stitched 84 of these little beauties since the last update & it now measures 55" point to point. I think I'll be adding just two more rows after this faded red row, then it will be nice shorter rows to start filling in the corners & square it up.
Happy stitching :)

A few more Pies

I think I got quite carried away with making Pies last month & ended up with a total of 20! I'm using all sorts of red & blue fabric combinations, repros, brights, Kaffe Fassett & some delicate Rural Jardin by French General below.

I've also been auditioning a couple of spot fabrics for the background.......

& finally decided to go with the pale blue dots, so now at least I can start to applique the pies as I make them.

I've been so engrossed with these & catching up with my Tessellations BOM that I've completed neglected my clamshells, the end of the month has been & gone with no update from yours truely...........I promise to do better next month :)

I'm BAD

In fact, I'm very bad!

You can find out why here & here .
Please forgive me :)

Catching up with Tessellations

Earlier this year I signed up for the Brigitte Giblin Tessellations BOM from Material Obsession & was really falling behind having only completed the 1st block here back in April.

So I decided it was time to get a move on with these and catch up as Block # 8 is winging it's way to me as I type! I've loved working on these as the fabrics are fussy cut & English paper pieced to create the design which is then appliqued to the background.

Block 1

Block 2

Block 3

Block 4

Block 5 & 6 below ready to be appliqued to their backgrounds

and Block 7 below also ready to be stitched together

Hopefully this weekend I'll have the time to complete these last 3 and be up to date with this project which has been a pleasant distraction with all the bright vibrant colours.

Something new.....

Lucy joined me in the garden last weekend as we made the most of the fine weather to prepare quite a few of these.......I had ordered the templates & papers form here quite a long time ago but just hadn't got round to using them. My mother, knowing I have a weakness for tins & containers gave me this lovely old one below she no longer needed which is just the right size for keeping all the bits & pieces together.
Stitched together these slices make lovely pies (calorie free of course!) for the Pies & Tarts quilt designed by Sue Daley of Patchwork with Busyfingers. I know it's another EPP project, but this time instead of basting with needle & thread I'm glueing the fabric to the templates using a fabric glue pen by Sewline, which saves alot of prep time. See Sue's mini tutorial here.

I'm blaming the lovely Shirley of Stitcherydo for enticing me into starting this by showing her gorgeous pies here so we are now both working on this project & finding it as addictive as the Klosjes, Clamshells & Hexagons. I've been gradually building a little stash of red, blue & shirtings fabrics this last year which are perfect for this design as I've wanted to make a quilt using these colours for some time now. This pattern is also ideal for using up lots of different fabrics helping to reduce those piles of scraps we all collect.

The Quilt Room in the UK have started this as a BOM from the 1st September, so we reckon there are going to be quite a few out there stitching pies & were wondering if there's anyone else working on this design who would be interested in a Pies & Tarts club? Drop us an email or comment if you're interested.
Have a great weekend :)

Clamshells - August update

Here's my progress for August, 3 more rows added to my clamshell trip around the world. I managed to stitch quite a bit whilst on holiday,(so easy with Inklingo) & made the most of this lovely granite bench in Mum's garden to take a photo. I'm looking forward to seeing how everyone else is progressing with this project.

It's wonderful to see how the Pay it Forward is spreading through blogland. My 3 places are now full & if you wish to participate, don't despair as Theodora still has spots available so pop on over to say hi & sign up.
Have a great week :)

Home Again - Klosjes & Flowers

We're back in Jersey having had a lovely break visiting Mum in France. She lives in rural Brittany which is very quiet & relaxing with beautiful countryside as in Bon Repos above. This is where the Daoulas river joins the canal which runs from Nantes to Brest & in the background you can see the ruins of the abbey gradually being restored having been destroyed by fire centuries ago.

I managed to finish the Klosjes quilt just in time, Mum was thrilled & surprised with her gift.

I had taken it to work at Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust before we left & made the most of our beautiful grounds & granite buildings around the Manor house to have a little photo shoot.

The white door at the top of the above picture is the entrance to my office.

As I had been spending most of my time focusing on finishing the Klosjes quilt, my hexi flowers had been neglected ........

.........but I managed to make a few whilst on holiday

5 more were added to the pile

and a few clamshells were stitched too!

More to be revealed at the end of the month!

July update - Clamshell Calamity!

Remember how far I had got last month above with my clamshells? I was so excited at having the 3.5" Inklingo download to continue as it would save so much preparation time, alas, I just couldn't match up my Inklingo clams with the traditionally prepped ones.

So, in order not to waste all this precious fabric alot of unpicking had to be done

and a template was made to mark up the Inklingo points on the unpicked clamshells

which then matched up perfectly with the Inklingo ones!

So after alot of frantic stitching, I've just about achieved as much as I did in June.

I'm so pleased I switched to the Inklingo clams as they do go together more acurately than the other method I was using. Now when I look back at the 1st photo in this post I can see alot of irregularities, so, as they say...... it was meant to be.
Happy clamming :) G

PS. Thank you for all the sweet comments on the last post about Lucy, she really is an amazing cat & has settled into her new home so well in just a couple of weeks, we are so lucky to have her.

Lucy's settling in.....

Having spent her first 2.5 years in a cattery, Lucy is adjusting to home life very well. All the usual household noises were very strange & alarming to her at first. She soon became quite mesmerised by the television & even watched a bit of the world cup final.

It didn't take her long to find a comfy spot on my Klosjes quilt top either!

She also enjoys spending time on the windowsill watching the birds when she's not busy playing with her toy mice or catching flies.

.....and soon discovered the comfort of a nice soft sofa for a little snooze!
All in all, I think she's settling in really well, don't you?

Diamonds & tumbling blocks

Workshop Day 1
For Friday's workshop we were working with Big Diamonds from Kaffe Fassett's book Kaleidoscope of Quilts & I chose to work with the selection of blues pictured above. The day was very full on & intense as the idea is to get a huge variety of fabric cut & placed on the design wall quickly in order to have the time to focus on placement of colour values & the overall quilt design.

Brandon loved getting right in there with suggested alternative placements & was always on hand for advice when needed.
At 3pm it was critique time & Kaffe went round and gave his perspective of each individual piece of work & offered more advice on placement, emphasising the importance of using large prints for this quilt as small ones tend to become lost in the overall design and end up looking like plain colour fabrics with no definition or movement.

It was a fabulously inspiring day, so much so, that once home I had to continue cutting diamonds to complete my quilt & started machine stitching them into strips the next day (yes I actually used the machine!).

Workshop Day 2

Sunday's workshop was dedicated to creating big tumbling blocks inspired by Liza Prior Lucy's quilt in Kaffe's Quilt Romance book. The emphasis here was to focus on light, medium & dark colour values & their correct placement to create the 3 dimensional effect of the blocks.

Alot of cutting & placing was done

Loved this above combination by one of the ladies

I chose to work with graphic prints in warm ochres, browns & golds from Kaffe's & Brandon's range of fabrics as I'm planning to make this for my son. It was quite funny to start with as Brandon was pinching my diamonds & placing them as quickly as I was cutting, so the first few blocks at the top left of the picture will remain as placed by him!
After the all important critique, Kaffe once again offered to sign copies of his books & pose for pictures before departing for the day.
I thoroughly enjoyed my 2 days with these guys & am so glad I chose to do both workshops.......even though exhausting! They are very intense but an awful lot is achieved, so well worth it & I would highly recommend them without hesitation.