Naughty or nice? A little bit of both

I'm so sorry for the silence. That puts me in the naughty category I guess! I just seem to have lost my blogging energy over the past few months but I have been sewing, teaching and doing trunk shows. Thank you to everyone who dropped me a line to make sure all is well. That was very nice and very much appreciated. All is indeed well with me.

This is one of the quilts I've been working on. The quilt is made of hexagons that are just over 1/2". I folded it up and put it on my sewing machine. Every rosette is fussy cut and I'm thrilled with how it looks. My plan is to add pieced borders to this quilt. Jinx decided this would be a great place to roost. Definitely naughty but I have to admit that he looks nice on the quilt!

In February I'll be doing a trunk show for the Region of York Quilters' Guild. February is Pieceful Quilters' Guild and April is Twisted Stitchers (what a nice name for quilt makers). Trunk shows are nice and I do enjoy sharing my work with others! I've been teaching at Country Clothesline / Spark Fabrics in Toronto (very nice). I know that registration is open if you are interested. There are two different workshops so far. The first is an introduction to English Paper Piecing and I call it "It's Not Your Grandmother's Flower Garden". The workshop is on Sunday, February 5. I designed two quilts for this workshop and patterns for both are included in the registration fee. The first one needs a border but the English paper piecing is done. It is called "What The Hexagon". This quilt was a great way to use up leftover scraps and that always feels nice.

The second quilt is called "Cotton Candy" because of the juicy candy colours! This isn't my usual colour palette but it is nice!

The second workshop is Fussy Cutting for English Paper Piecing and it builds on the first class. The quilt that Jinx is sitting on is one of the quilts that I will show at the workshop. It is scheduled for Monday, February 13. You will find more info here.

I've also been working on another project - very naughty when there is so much to do! I do love hexagons so here I go with yet another hexagon quilt. I saw an old quilt on Pinterest. It was made of rosettes surrounded by hexagons made of polka dot fabric and the path was made from a chintz print. I managed to find some polka dot fabric. Actually what I found were two different polka dots so I bought them both and mixed them together.

The white background was not nice (too stark) so I boiled a pot of tea and in went the fabric. Well actually, in went the pieced blocks that I had made so far, paper and all! I soaked them for a bit and then rinsed them in cool water and the result was very pleasing to my eye....nice! So I tossed the rest of the dot fabric before cutting it up for piecing. I'm really happy with how these hexagons are looking and can't wait to make more. This quilt will be all about the colour and print with no fussy cutting at all! Can you see the naughty fluffy toes in the upper right hand corner of the picture. He figures that he is being helpful but I have a different point of view!

I didn't have a suitable chintz but came across a new line of fabric, Pumpkin Pie by Moda. I had received a free pack of charm squares and the toffee colour background print worked perfectly with the blocks I had made. I received a 20% coupon from an online quilt shop that carried this line so I ordered the fabric for the path. I think this quilt is going to be very nice when done! I haven't decided how the edges will be finished but am mulling over a number of ideas all of which are nice.

So there you have it - a little bit of naughty and a little bit of nice. I'll try to be more regular in my posting. Until the next time, happy sewing!
Karen H

Sorting quilts

I've been busy pulling, sorting and refolding quilts for my trunk shows at Quilts at the Creek this weekend. It is a big job but as you can see I've got a "helper". Not much help if you ask me! Sorting quilts will just have to wait until he has finished his little nap.

The title of my talk is "English Paper Piecing and More". It is so hard to decide which quilts to take because they all have some feature that I think might be of interest to others. I will bring a few quilt tops one of which is Gardens of a King, a pattern I tested for Missie Carpenter of Traditional Primitives. The pattern is now available from her shop. You can see my quilt folded on top of the pile in the picture above.  The quilt was made using English paper piecing (EPP). I added my own personal touches such as the sun face in the upper left corner and a moon face in the lower right corner. It is a little detail that makes the quilt my own. I also added some butterflies and ladybugs in the floral applique b locks in the borders.

Gardens of a King by Karen H

I plan on taking Flora and Fauna, Parts of the Garden as part of the "more" portion of my talk. This quilt does not use EPP but it is one of my quilts that I love the most because of all of the little details. It was a challenge quilt. There were three fabrics that had to be used (all of which I detested and did my best to disguise) and I was able to add an additional six fabrics. I chose three greens, one brown, one blue and a very busy print on a butter colour background. I fussy cut last fabric to create all sorts of additional colours, plants and creatures. I also the wrong side of the blue fabric in the kit and that gave me two shades of the same fabric. You can't do this will all fabrics but in this case it worked!

Flora and Fauna, Parts of the Garden by Karen H

One of the reasons I like Flora and Fauna is because of all the little vignettes that I was able to create within the quilt. Here are a few examples.

I know this quilt appears as though it was difficult to make. I didn't have much of a plan for this quilt other than there would be a circle of blue in the middle for the sky. I would border it with a narrow bit of green for the grass and then a wide border of brown for the earth. The last border would be a pale green just because I like green! I used a fabric safe marker to draw the stems of the plants that would start at the green grass and reach up toward the sky. They were embroidered with two strands of floss. Once I had that framework completed I just started filling in the spaces with bits of this and that. I quilted tunnels for the ant colony in the brown border and then filled the tunnels with little brown ants. I worked on this quit top while sitting outside and as I saw bees, grasshoppers, butterflies, inchworms and other insects I would find a space where I could add them to the quilt. If I liked what I had done I would repeat it in other areas of the quilt! The more I added the more ideas I had. Before I knew it the whole thing was chock-a-block with creatures and plants. You don't have to make an entire quilt of detailed creations - you could just take one or two tiny details to a big quilt. Small details have big impact. That's what I did when I added bee details to the centre medallion of my quilt Mom's Flower Bed. The following pictures shows the centre medallion. On the blue-green batik hexagons that connect the green stars I added bees. The bee bodies were cut from yellow fabric. The stripes were added with my Sakura Pigma pens and then I appliqued the bodies to the hexagons. The wings were drawn on the fabric with my Sakura pens. Once this was done I cut my hexagons and continued English paper piecing in the usual way.

This is a close-up of the bees. Want to make your own bee? I did a little tutorial and you will find it here.

Bees not your thing? How about adding a grasshopper? I like to sneak a grasshopper into a quilt and tell the recipient it is there but not where it is. It is especially fun for children to search their quilt for the grasshopper! The tutorial is here.

I continue to work on my Green Parrot hexagon quilt but every time I put it on the floor to have a look this is what happens! There are plenty of places to wrestle but it seems that Green Parrot holds particular appeal for the boys, Jinx and Gump.

And when exhausted from wresting this is what happens. Jinx stretches out to have a nap on the quilt. Cute but not at all helpful!

I have managed to stitch the olive-brown border to the top section of Green Parrot. The final round will be a dusty pale green. I'm thinking I will fill in the "Vs" at the top with more pale green to finish the top edge but I'll make that decision when I get to that point.

There'll be little or no sewing for two days but it will be fun to share my quilts with others at Quilts at the Creek and I'm really looking forward to touring the outdoor show where 300 quilts will be on display. I'll try to take pictures and share them with you in an upcoming post. My talks will be at the Town Hall at 11:30 on Saturday and Sunday. If you are at the show and have time please pop in and say hello!

That's it for me until next week. Happy sewing!
Karen H