Cupcakes for Young Quilters

Do you know a young quilter or are you looking for projects for children and young people? Well I have a great website for you to visit. Pippa Wardman organises the Young Quilters Group in Yorkshire for the Quilter's Guild and has designed a new website with some lovely projects: Quilt and Stitch.

Pippa made these delicious cupcakes and has published a step by step photo tutorial for them on the site:

 There are lots of other machine and hand stitched projects to try and information for students taking textile courses.

Pippa also recently made this QR code quilt which has been featured on the Poppyprint blog this week. I have seen this quilt, as Pippa brought it to our group meeting, and I have to tell you: it is stunning! It's made of 414 little fussy-cut cupcakes on a white background and if you scan it with a mobile phone or tablet PC it will automatically link to Pippa's website. You can find more information about the quilt on Pippa's Flickr photostream.

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!!

Wednesday Web - Common Craft Show

Do you find yourself trying to explain blogging to friends and family? I find it really hard to get across to some people how blogging works and why it is such fun. Lee Lefever has produced some fantastic simple explanations of the wonderful web and things like blogging, twitter, online photo sharing etc. Just search on Youtube for the 'Common Craft Show'. Here's his take on blogs:

Also this week I've added a new free tool to my blog posts called 'Link Within' which shows links to some of my previous posts. Do you like it?

Wednesday Web- Picnic

Picnic is a free online photo editor. You can use it to adjust your photos for your blog or for printing e.g you can improve the colour, crop the photo or change the size.  It also has some fun special effects which I think are great to play around with to give you ideas for quilts.

The photo above is one which my sister in law took and is it very beautiful so doesn't need any basic adjustments, but here are a few effects I used:

 Pencil Sketch

I uploaded the photo and clicked on the 'create' tab and scrolled down to the 'Pencil Sketch' option. This is a great way to show up the outlines of the petals which I could trace to make an applique pattern. I also think it gives ideas for possible quilting designs. A useful feature is the 'Undo' button as you can go back to your original photo and try another effect.

Pixellate

Hex Cell

These two effects could be used as patterns to piece a quilt - if you are very patient!

If you like strip piecing try the 'Waterfall' effect to play with stripes using the colours in the photo:

Waterfall

Now I forgot to click 'Undo' after the waterfall and went on to try 'Smudge' - look what I got!!

I love this!

And finally for something completely different try  'Hypnotic'

Hypnotic

Wow that was fun!  There are more things to try out too - slideshows and collages and tons more special effects. You could pay to have more options but I think there is loads to keep me busy on the free version.

Try it for yourself by clicking here!

Kim's Dresden Plate Giveaway

Kim is offering a new giveaway on her blog Bitty Bits and Pieces - this gorgeous Dresden Plate charger. She has just had the pattern for this, a napkin and table runner published on Moda Bake Shop - clever girl! Visit her blog to see all her lovely projects.

P.S. I am planning a giveaway of my own in a couple of weeks time so come back here soon too!

Bloggers Quilt Festival

OK I know some of you have seen this before but the Bloggers Quilt Festival is running from today and to take part you have to blog about your favourite quilt. For those who haven't seen my previous post this is 'Peter's Stars' made for my special brother. It's a full sized twin quilt made with two blocks in a simple blue white and green colourway. I adapted it from a pattern by Karin Hellaby in her book 'Magic Pillows, Hidden Quilts'. Here's another view and a close up:

I free motion quilted the stipple and curved lines. This was quite early in my quilting journey so I was really pleased with the result and Peter loved it too!

Lastly here's the label I printed and sewed to the back:

 There are hundreds of beautiful quilts to see in the Quilt festival. Why not spend a while visiting the blogs participating:

Park City Girl: Quilt Festival - Fall 2009

Have you voted?

Have you voted in the nature's Best Quilt Contest? You can vote for one large and one small quilt over at Quilting Gallery. My friend QuiltSue entered a quilt in each category - go to her blog to see them by clicking here 
- not that I'm biased you understand!

Free Projects and Tutorials

It never ceases to amaze me how generous quilters are. There are so many willing to share techniques and quilt patterns online I can spend hours admiring their work. Here are a few of my favourites at the moment:

The Quilt Show - I've been a member from the beginning but if you don't want to sign up to watch the online shows you can still get free project patterns and watch free videos. Click here for a link to the Project page but also look at the Daily Blog and the Bernina videos even if you don't own a Bernina!

On 'Don't Look Now' Kellie has tutorials for some of her gorgeous designs including really detailed instructions of how she does applique and the patterns to print.

Nellie shares some projects on her blog 'Nellies Needles' including a fun fabric bird. Nellie is also a prolific art quilter and makes some wonderful embellished lanscape quilts which you can see in her gallery.

I discovered 'Tallgrass Prairie Studio' only yesterday and was enthralled by the stunning quilts. There are 4 detailed tutorials on the site and lots of lovely photos.

Finally for now 'Mel's Place' is a blog packed full of fun stuff including a stuffed owl pattern. Her 'Wonky Op Block' is definately on my to do list - I love it!

PS for a few dollars many sellers on ETSY will send you their quilt patterns as PDF files by email so it's quick and there's no postage to pay. There are some fabulous hand made goods on offer too.

More Dyeing Links

I am a fan of Patsy Thompson and have a couple of her DVDs on free motion quilting which I find really helpful. I recently discovered a post on her blog about dyeing. This looks great but I'll have to wait for some sunshine to try it out......
I also have a book by Robbi Joy Eklow called 'Free Expression: The Art and Confessions of a Contemporary Quilter' in which she describes her method of dyeing large pieces of fabric. Again I need a fine day to try this as I will need to hang the fabric over a washing line and pour dye onto it.
.... So according to the weather forecast tomorrow is not going to be good for dyeing. Instead I'm looking forward to a day with my Bernina and the dogs will keep me company stretched out on the bed in my sewing room!