:: giant vintage star quilt ::

i have been having a rather lovely vintage kind of week...

the very very lovely and talented Cathi sent me a big pile of her vintage fabric scraps...one girl's trash n all that...and i have been having copious amounts of fun with them.

i had a design brief for a magazine project (you know the one) that i thought my precious vintage fabrics would be just perfect for...you will see more of that in a couple of months and i am so pleased with how these pretty fabrics joined together to make heart-warming comforting items.

the big play though, in more ways than one, was the vintage giant star quilt i made...

my goodness i absolutely love this quilt.

i think it may even be my most favouritest quilt i have ever made.

it is based upon jeni b's gorgeous quilt and can obviously be made in a multitude of fab fabrics but seeing jeni's beautiful vintage one i knew it was perfect for my pile of vintage fabrics.

and even though it is a super large quilt (almost 80" square) being just 28 pieces sewn together it is obviously extremely quick to make the quilt top.

quilt top made, backing bought (a fresh orange gingham) i ventured on quilting this giant.

it took a while to baste but that gave me time to decide how i was going to quilt it.

now i am by no means an experienced quilter. i am quite a dab hand at simple straight line quilting, which i absolutely love, but this quilt needed a softer quilting to compliment the bold star. i was quite nervous about venturing with some curly loopy fmq...i could quite easily ruin the whole thing.

thankfully i didn't and thankfully it turned out even more magical than i could imagine.

to finish off i bound it with a scrappy binding made up of some of the leftover vintage fabric pieces which turned out subtle enough but with a little bit of quirky character.

my only sadness about this whole thing is hubs, whilst he wowed at it, said it was no way going near our bed...way too flowery.

i may just have to sneak it on one night while he is away...and just leave it there.

big thanks go to my lovely tall friend helen for modelling the quilt for me...she came round this morning for a run...little did she know. 

aurifil giveaway winner...

fantastic response to the aurifil giveaway although i am not surprised...i'd want to win it too!

but again only one winner i'm afraid...

 Katy said...

I've not been sewing long enough to have a huge thread stash, but I bought a variegated spool (code 4666) of 28 weight to hand-quilt one I made as a pre-birth present for my niece, and I really liked the feel of it. I keep meaning to try it for piecing too. Thanks for the chance to win some.

thank you for entering and well done, Katy.

 Please email me your mailing address and i 

will send off your aurifil goodies. 

x

:: the big one ::

i hinted last week that there was more good news to come.

after a week of being in various publications and hitting you from all sides this week has ended with being able to reveal the big one.

the week started with me getting very excited, possibly a little bit too, over a couple of new designs i have been working on and getting them onto screen sand printing up.

let me introduce to you flowerbeds and hexie plus...

i am really giddily pleased with these and can't wait to eek out some time to sew with them and print more colours and get them in the shop.

will keep you posted on that.

in the meantime the big one happened...

those of you that follow me regularly will know i have been harping on about a secret project for some time. 

the time has come to reveal...

MY BOOK!!

i am an author!!!

it feels completely and utterly surreal for me to say those words and even more to search screen printing at home on amazon and find this there! (altho please don't search 'karen lewis'...you will find some quite dodgy fiction that i swear isn't written by me!)

it is quite a giddy time at the moment...lots happening and i have a feeling the giddiness isn't going to go away just yet.

the book is due to be published at the end of July but you can pre-order it now on Amazon (a huge appreciative thank you for those who have done already x). Here's the link for UK and it is also available here on the US website.

more to come on it soon...i don't think you have heard the last of me!

wonderful wonderful aurifil...

 i am a big fan of Aurifil are you?

if so read on as there may be a little giveaway at the end of this post...

Aurifil 50wt (the orange one) has been my go to thread of choice ever since i was first introduced to it...particularly number 2600...the perfect shade of grey that goes with everything. 

i hadn't tried the other wts but was lucky enough to be sent a few recently to try.

now it would be fair to say that i am a little swayed by how things look. i like to be surrounded by pretty things...what's wrong with that? but they do need to have something to back up the looks and aurifil ticks all those boxes.

first of all not only are the coloured bobbins so bright and fun but they are indeed practical too...easy to grab what you are after without having small print to contend with and believe me at my age, being visually challenged, that is a huge plus.

on testing, 40wt - the green one - proved to be equally delightful and i particularly like the effect of how the slightly heavier thread shows up in quilting stitches.

the grey 28wt is a lovely thread to use for hand piecing. i am a bit heavy handed with hand piecing but no worries about snapping the thread with this one. it also works beautifully for machine quilting, a lovely bold finish.

then there are the threads for sashiko and hand embroidery...

12 wt - the red one - has a lovely feel and pretty sheen (you can see the stitches i did at the top).

and then of course the aurifloss, a 6 strand embroidery floss. 

this is one of those times that you can't ignore the prettiness...have you seen the wooden bobbins they are wound on??

but they do stitch like a dream too...

5 different types of thread, over 250 colours, they are the kona of the thread world. you really need to give them a try if you haven't already.

and to help one of you on your way i am giving away this set below of the 4 main threads and i will throw in one of the aurifloss too because they are way too pretty not to share and i am nice like that.

just leave a comment to be with a chance of winning. if you use aurifil already just tell me what your favourite colour is, which weight you prefer or something about it that you like. if you have never tried it just tell me that!

please leave an email where i can contact you if you are a no reply commmenter, should you win.

Good Luck!

dreams do come true...

 this week was a week where some of the secrets i have been hoarding have been spilling out...

the week started with my tumbling tinsel piece being featured in the fat quarterly scraps issue.

i really enjoyed devising this little quilt, using up precious scraps from previous projects.

i just wish i had had time to make a bigger version, but i guess we shall just put it on the ever growing to do list.

on friday my pixelated quilt, that i had been working on at the end of last year, achieved star status as this month's issue of love patchwork and quilting.

i obviously knew it was coming out, but to see my quilt and my name on the front cover of this fab mag was such a thrill! i am still recovering from seeing it!

and lp&q have done such a beautiful job on it. in fact they have done a stunning job on the whole magazine...the best edition yet i think. seriously if you haven't bought or subscribed to this new magazine yet, you really should.

i am very very proud of this quilt. 

i am very proud that it is on the front cover of a mag. and i am very proud of it being the first double size quilt i have made.

here's to many more of both!

this is definitely the year of hard work paying off and dreams coming true...

...and here's to seeing the big one coming true very very soon! 

:: wildwood ::

 i am setting myself up for a bit of a fall here now with 2 posts in 2 days...

don't worry i am sure it will be as many weeks before you hear from me again.

this week i have been working on a few pieces for dashwood studios with their most recent collection wildwood.

this collection is a case in point where things look so much better in real life. 

if you looked at this collection you would think it definitely wasn't me. it is more twee and busier than i would ordinarily go for.

having said that the thing that stops it being overly twee is the colour scheme. the rustic colours (that orange is much more rusty red in real life...i'm not sure what my camera was playing at) are just spot on and make it quite a sophisticated whimsical collection.

i am totally in love with mr fox. placing the taupe toadstools with it is genius making it a really versatile fabric.

i really enjoyed making a small quilt with the collection. i based the design on one of the first quilts i ever made way back in 2007. simple piecing was called for and i think this does allow all the detail in these wonderful fabrics to be shown off.

making the economy block cushion with solid outer sections had the same effect too...pops of colour but no clashing distraction.

i think my final piece for dashwood is going to involve some wonky star blocks with mr foxy positioned in the starring role of each one.

he is rather handsome don't you think?

resolutions...

 well hello...

how the hell are ya?

i'm thinking that there goes my first new year's resolution that isn't doing too well...the one where i said i would blog more.

let's see how i'm getting on with the others...

there was the one about not starting any new quilts until the unfinished ones on the pile were completed...

actually i'll have you know i'm not doing too badly on that front...if you ignore the  second from bottom one...that is next on the list.

i know i started this vintage giant star quilt before the other couple were finished, but there are good reasons for that...

first off, the very very lovely Cathi from down under sent me the hugest bundle of scraps and it would have been rude to not have shown my gratitude by creating with them straight away...

secondly, i needed a project to try out some of Lotta Jansdotter's Little Blomster fabric from her new collection Mormor coming out very soon. I am completely in love with this fabric and knew it would be the perfect background for the vintage fabrics.

and thirdly, having now started this quilt top it needs finishing as it is due to be heading inside the pages of a mag very soon. so you see, i had to play work on this one.

making a quilt as a gift is always a really really good excuse to start a new project, so it wasn't a completely altruistic gesture for me to ask my sis if she would like a quilt for her impending big birthday, but we will gloss over my needs and point out why i really must crack on with this quilt. after all a promise is a promise...

i actually feel guilty that i have never made her a quilt before and so i am obviously lavishing a lot of love and attention on making this for her now, by using up my most favouritest fabric pieces, coupled with beautiful oakshott fabrics.

sis chose the colour scheme but i hope she will love the quilt...i know she'll tell me if she doesn't...she's like that.

so this next quilt...

where does it fit in the new year's resolution let's-not-start-anything-new-until-old-things-are-finished-first line up?

it doesn't, but hey, a girl is only human and one little blip is quite frankly not at all bad going for someone who has a BIG problem with not starting anything new.

besides, hubs is still waiting patiently for a quilt for our bed having seen everyone else get one...yeh right and if you believe that you'll believe anything.

my excuse really was wanting to see how these little vintage scraps from cathi would look pieced with some of my fabrics and some of my favourite low volume bits n bobs...and it just so happened that it would be a perfect quilt for our bed...

my next resolution, like so many of us, is all about the fabric mountain that i regularly and unnecessarily buy and how i am determined to keep control on that.

now this resolution isn't about not buying any more fabric, because let's face it i would be destined to fail that even more than not starting anything new.

no, this resolution is all about not being seduced by pretty fabric that will just sit on my shelf without a use. i am only buying fabric for particular projects.

one such impending project is a liberty project. i haven't made a quilt solely in liberty and i would really like to rectify that and if i am going to do that then i really need to buy more liberties...all makes perfect sense doesn't it?

i did a trade with one of my IG buddies kate during the #greatukfabrcidestash at the weekend (boy that was fun!) and came out of it with this pile of beauties above.

earlier in the week i bought a couple of delicious reds from jo including this one below on the top. boy oh boy am i going to be needing more of that. i can actually visualise it in a dress...

keeping to my not buying any unneeded fabrics resolution, let me introduce you to 2 very much needed fabrics (did i mention that sometimes need and want can be intertwined and get in a right old muddle?)

both these are from the fab girls in aus who recently set up polkdotteafabrics. i am a bit of a sucker for japanese keis. they have a feel of tana lawns, you know all soft and buttery. the floral on the bottom is such a fantastic staple in neutral piecing and i bought it to piece some of the squares in my sister's quilt. ok so i only needed maybe a 10 x 10" square piece in total, but let's face it when you are buying from aus you really wouldn't to have to keep going back, so 2 yards later...

and the top green fabric?

i really needed that...as i say need? want? fine balance.

so that's me and my resolutions...how are yours coming along?