Applecore

Yet another busy week has flown by with frustratingly little time to sew! I'm finding full-time work hard going and my resolution to make better use of my evenings has not been going well - I'm just too tired. Still I have made a little progress with my apple core quilt as you can see. It's one more week til the schools break up for half term and I've booked time off to catch up on college work and relax a little - I can't wait!

Threads

 

Last week Barnyarns came from Ripon to visit my quilt group and Jonathan MacPherson gave a very interesting and amusing talk about machine threads. It was the first time he'd given a talk to a group so he did extremely well! As a bonus he gave us all a printed guide to accompany his talk and a discount voucher for our next order.

Of course he brought a selection of threads and his recommended titanium coated topstitch needles so I just had to buy some - it would be so rude not to!! I chose some KingTut by Superior Threads. I have bought a few reels of this before and absolutely love it because the colour changes are wonderful and it runs sooo smoothly through the machine.

Barnyarns have a monthly educational newsletter and lo and behold a few days later it dropped into my inbox and guess what? Jonathan had written about his visit to our group. Not only that but the newsletter included another discount voucher for 10% off KingTut. Well...... I'm sure you can guess what's coming next.....................I had to order some more KingTut to take advantage! I can't wait for the postman to call.

You can visit Barnyarns website here and if you sign up for the newsletter you get a free pack of needles.

Acorn in Canada

Krista has emailed to say my Fall Quilt Swap has arrived. I'm so please that she is thrilled with my quilt and she's taken some lovely photos of it. Her blog is stunning and she makes wonderfull projects so check out Poppyprint now!

Fall Quilt Swap

What a lucky girl I am - look at what the postman brought me! I took part in the Quilting Gallery's Fall Quilt Swap and Michi from Austria sent me this beautiful quilt - I absolutely adore it! The stitchery design is by Ursula Schertz and it so neatly stitched. Michi added hand quilted leaves in the corners and lovely wooden buttons as well as the appliqued leaf. It will take pride of place in my sewing room - thank you Michi! Take a look at Michi's blog too. (this only seems to ne working in IE to day and not in Firefox)

I sent my acorn quilt off to Canada at the beginning of the week - hope the recipient likes it!

It's Finished - well nearly!!

Here it is - the acorn quilt I started last weekend. I've cheated a little because the binding is pinned on the back but I couldn't wait to take a photo of it. I have sooo enjoyed working on it and I'm really pleased with the finished result! I can see me using the layout with the woven sections again using different applique pictures and different colours. It could become a regular thing.....

One Quilt Leads to Another!

My woven quilt sample

It started withsome paper weaving at college before Christmas and then Anne-Marie made some wonderful sample quilts using fabric weaving. She'd used techniques from this book:

 

I went home and put it on my wish list and Santa duly delivered it on Christmas morning. On Friday evening I decided to have a go. The result was the sample above which I was really thrilled with. I decided to use the technique in a slightly larger quilt so set about weaving some more! Here is my progress so far:

I made a larger panel of weaving and cut it into sections to surround the acorn applique. The acorn pattern came from 'You Can Make This'. This morning when I looked at it again I decided it needs something in the corners so I'm now cutting out oak leaves. I'm just making it up as I go along and it's great fun!

Free Projects

I'm back on track this week with my Wednesday Web to bring you links to some great sites which offer free quilt projects. First You Can Quilt This which offers this gogeous table runner design to download and several other free projects too. The site has hundreds of patterns for sale at very reasonable prices which are available as downloads so you don't have to wait for them to be sent in the mail. The sister site You Can Make This has other crafty projects such as children's applique designs, clothing and bags.

Another site with 24 free designs to download is Quilters Online Resource which features designs for applique and piecing. You can subscribe to the site for a year for only $15 and get access to all the beautiful and unusual designs.

Of course bloggers are very generous with their tutorials so I have to mention a couple of my favourite blog projects:

This Rocket Ship design from Don't Look Now is on my to do list for my nephew. Kelly has other fab tutorials too.

Kim has lots of great projects on her blog Bitty Bits & Pieces including this 'Itty Bitty Keeper' which is ideal for my new camera.

Kim has several of her patterns published on Moda Bake Shop too and that is definitely worth a visit. In fact it should keep you busy browsing  for the rest of the day if not the week!!