Liz's wedding quilt

My friend Liz is getting married, and at her hen weekend in Bath we each made a square for a patchwork wedding quilt for her.  Her maid of honour Anna contacted lots of family all over the world who also made squares.  I then had the job of sewing them all together to create this quilt.  It's full of stories and memories and hopefully is an heirloom itself now!

Lizzie's quilt

I recently spent a weekend at my mum's house where I slept under a quilt I'd completely forgotten having made years ago for my sister Lizzie.  It's a scrap quilt made of lots of snuggly textures - flannel, corduroy, velvet, suede.

Griff's baby quilt

My friend Rhys and his partner Nia recently had a beautiful baby boy called Gruffyd.  I made them this baby quilt using scraps of shirting fabric, and simple quilted lines on every other strip block.

Design choices - log cabin quilt layout

I've made some more blocks for my pastel scraps log cabin quilt and they're all now cut to size (7 inch squares) - but the next bit is trying to decide the layout and design.  The log cabin blocks have whites and pale strips on two sides, and colours on the other two, giving me a load of layout options that give the quilt different effects.  Here they are side by side to try and make deciding between them easier:

1. Straight setting;  2. Pinwheels;  3. Straight furrows; 

        

4. Chevron;  5. Barn raising;  6. Streak of Lightning;

          

7. Log cabin star;  8. Sunshine and shadows;  9. Shadows and lightning.

        

Suggestions on a postcard please!


Large images here...

In progress - pastel scraps log cabin quilt

I woke up really early this morning and couldn't get back to sleep for thinking about my sewing Sunday ahead - so I got up and started playing in my studio. I hadn't planned to start a new quilt (I was intending to actually finish some of the several nearly-finished ones that need backing) but began rummaging through some scraps and before I knew it I'd made a couple of these log cabin blocks. I was on a roll, so just kept going! I'm not sure where this will end up - either I'll make a load more and sew them into this light/dark diagonal colourway, or I might mix them up with some half square triangles (I spotted this quilt by April Two Eighty on Pinterest and am quite inspired to do something similar...) I'll keep you posted!

In progress - colourful pinwheel quilt

As I've mentioned, I recently discovered how easy it is to make quarter-square triangles and half-square triangles. This quilt was the result - I used a charm pack of 5inch square shot cotton plains, and some scrap pieces of Kaffe Fassett shot cotton stripes from my fabric stash. The colours are just wonderful I think! Just need to quilt it now - I'm hoping to spend a happy afternoon soon with my mum using her amazing long armed quilting frame. I'll post the results once it's finished...

In progress - Indigo baby quilt

I bought a stash of Indigo patterned fat quarters and white-on-white printed fabrics last time I went to a big quilt show. I cut some of it up into 2inch and 2.5inch squares, and then ran out of steam. But I've recently discovered how to make quarter-square-triangle blocks, and so I used up some of the larger squares to for this, and turned it into Ohio Stars. I still need to back it, but I'm planning to sew buttons on as laid out here to quilt it simply.

Another baby-sized quilt, but as I (stupidly, as always!) didn't wash the fabric before I got carried away starting, and as it's indigo it will inevitably run, this of course won't be suitable for a baby as I don't think you'd ever be able to wash it without it ruining! So it will have to become a wall quilt instead. Ah well...

In progress - purple stripes quilt

I'm in the middle of making this quilt using lots of purply Kaffe Fassett shot cotton stripey fabrics - the first time I've ever made something to 'match our sofa', a phrase I used to scoff at when I heard people choosing to buy paintings when I worked in an art gallery. A sign of growing up or selling out?

In progress - pink baby quilt

This is another quilt that needs backing - a baby quilt made of some old cushion covers I'd originally made from a charm pack of pink patterned fabrics. I cut the cushion covers up into random width diagonal strips and then sewed them together to make one higgledy-piggledy log cabin.

In progress - shirting scraps baby quilt

This is the front of a baby quilt I still need to finish. It's made with scraps left over from the wedding quilt I made for my friends Adam and Bex - vintage shirt fabrics from Worn and Washed.

Vasarely quilt

This quilt is based on a Victor Vasarely artwork called 'Tlinko'.  I made it as a present for my mum, who hung it on her wall in her government office! It uses the same basic applique technique that I've used before (see my easy baby quilt and Steve and Ali's rainbow quilt), this time with a few other not-quite-square polygon shapes to add to the optical illusion.

Steve and Ali's rainbow quilt

When I was little, my mum made my sister and I each our own 'rainbow quilt' which she said had magic powers.  The rainbow quilts were always given to friends staying over to stop nightmares away from home or got out when either of us were poorly.  For years Lizzie and I wore our rainbow quilts wrapped round us as dressing gowns on Saturday mornings.

When my wonderful friend Steve got diagnosed with cancer, I made him and his lovely wife Ali this rainbow quilt - I wanted to give them something magic. It was a double bed sized version of my baby quilt design using Strawberry Fayre 1inch samples.

Easy baby quilt

This was a really simple baby quilt I designed using sample 1inch fabric squares from Strawberry Fayre.  They are each machine appliqued onto a 3 inch square of calico, and then sewn together.

Adam and Rebecca's wedding quilt

I made this quilt as a present for my school friend Adam's wedding to the lovely Bex.  It uses the same Kaffe Fassett layout as my first quilt.  This quilt is made with recycled blue and white shirting fabric from Worn and Washed Fabrics.

My first quilt

This was my first ever patchwork quilt - a Kaffe Fassett pattern from his book 'Glorious Patchwork' which I've since used quite a few times (including a blue and white shirting version for a wedding quilt for my friends Adam and Bex).