Fabulous Oakshott cottons

 

 Remember these gorgeous Oakshott cottons? I blogged about them back here and here,

Well I finally got my act together to complete this project this year. I had made a dozen or so 18.5" blocks of the 30 required when my trusty little electric Brother machine broke down.

  

The only way I was going to get this finished by my friends birthday in early October was to use my 1929 Singer 66K treadle machine which I acquired this July & hadn't quite mastered the art of treadling yet......... that soon changed!

The blocks are constructed individually quilt as you go method (I used Hobbs 80/20 fusible batting for this project) here's a quick photo record of how I did this. 

I would start with a simple pieced background using a couple of colours or some circle units made up of drunkards path blocks and add some straight line quilting to the background.  

The green section below

Next I would play around with placement of odd scraps/offcuts & folded 2"strips 

A bit more background quilting added here

more folded strips are added, careful placement of these secures the rectangle scraps added on top when the strips are stitched down

these are then pressed over & stitched in place

this vintage Singer machine really does stitch beautifully!

Sewing curves for the Drunkards Path blocks on the electric machine was easy following this great video tutorial I found on you tube, however this technique didn't work on the treadle, believe me I tried.......you would need 3 hands!

After some practice  with scrap fabric, I mastered curves on the treadle: the secret? use lots of pins!

.......and before long, I was motoring away and was gradually running out of floor space to lay out these large blocks

Finally enough were made to complete the quilt. The blocks were joined together using my usual quilt as you go method (see labels on side for a link) with plain black sashing to try and add a little control to all this colour

 I have to mention here that all the credit for the inspiration of this quilt goes to Marianne of The Quilting Edge blog who very kindly gave permission to use her quilt as inspiration Thank you Marianne :)

and the leftovers?

Well I just couldn't let these go to waste now could I ? They were cut into squares & framed with a very pale grey (Kona shadow)

and over a couple of weekends, a lap size top was created

all with the treadle!

I have loved working with these gorgeous fabrics, Oakshott cottons have such vibrant colour & shimmer, can't wait to work with them again.

March round up

As explained in my previous post here my 1st new project for March was cutting into the beautiful Oakshott cottons.....

Next up was the Small Quilt Challenge set by Kathy Tracy, to use our ugly fabrics to make a small quilt, I chose this drab repro fabric that I've never liked and added red, blue & yellow  to brighten things up

Still enjoying making these small quilts, especially the hand quilting part of it! Got carried away and made another one for fun.

This one is a gift for my Mum's birthday and is winging it's way to France, hope she likes it.......

March also saw the end of the log cabin blocks, I ended up making 80 in total and now have a completed top. I'm thinking about hand quilting this one with baptist fans, do you think that would look ok?

.........and finally, whilst i had all these repro scraps lying around, I just couldn't help myself and started making some scrappy stars, so this is my final new start for the New FO challenge for March, all in all, another busy month!

8.5" & 4.5" scrappy star blocks

Durrell News

We have a new arrival at work......

Meet Jantho, born on 1st April, the latest addition to our Sumatran Orang utang family.Baby & mum Annette are doing well :) To read all about it click here

Playing with colour

Well, I've finally cut into the Oakshotts and am really enjoying playing with these beautiful cottons, they feel and look divine.

The 1st 3 blocks so far:

Here's a closer view of a couple of them:

These 18.5" blocks are very improvisational, I start off with a general plan as to how I would like it to be, but the block evolves under construction and ends up being quite different to the original idea!
Well, that's 3 done......only another 27 more to go!
Happy in stitching :)

On the horizon

Something's going to be created with this......

.......inspired by this amazing quilt with kind permission by Marianne. Currently sketching out some ideas but hesitating to cut into these stunning fabrics .........

This is a commission quilt for my friend who lives in a modern art deco-ish type house, she has a monster of a bed & we've calculated that 30 x 18 inch square blocks will be needed to fit nicely.......this is going to be a long term project!