UK Quilters
Welcome to the first block of our month-by-month Puzzle Quilt. As explained in previous posts the idea of a puzzle quilt is to make two (or more) identical blocks but move the colours around so the blocks look completely different – the puzzle being to find the pairs. Each month the blocks will introduce you…
Those of you who have persevered with my ramblings here over the last few years (yes, it really is more than two!) will have realised that I enjoy footling about (as my mother used to call it) with pencil and paper or, these days, the computer. I like to take a traditional design and tweak…
I feel we all probably need something to sew, something to keep our minds and fingers occupied while locked down, in a high tier or whatever, wherever, we happen to be at the moment. To which end I have dug out the worksheets for the Puzzle Quilt class I should have been teaching at The…
I have a lot of books – and magazine ’specials’ – with a Christmas theme. Most of them were bought in my early patchworking years when I felt in need of ideas, inspiration and patterns and many were acquired second-hand. Later on they were useful to take into class with me to show students who…
Sometimes you feel an urge to design something different – an applique pattern or a quilting pattern perhaps – but where to start? As I keep telling everyone – I can’t draw; I never got beyond third year in art at school, let alone needlework, so I need to seek help in my book collection.…
Last time I just showed you how to draw and colour a straightfoward square before turning lots of these squares into a simple 9-patch block and quilt. If you haven’t read that blog yet you might like to read it first before trying triangles as I am likely to assume you know a few things…
You don’t really need expensive sophisticated programs to design a simple quilt – although they do help – as hidden in Word are a set of drawing tools. I’ve still got an older version of Word so my screen may look a little different to yours, but search and you will find the drawing tools,…
Having discovered machine quilting I felt there would be no stopping me. Except for one teeny-tiny thing . . . I can’t draw very well. Not only that but I don’t really ‘doodle’. I do sort-of doodle in that I fill in the loops of letters – the round bits of d and p and…
I have very few of these as hand-quilting is something I just don’t do. My hands just don’t seem capable of holding and manipulating a needle. Its probably because I don’t ever do it – except for hemming down bindings – if I can possibly help it. It also probably stems back to schooldays when…
So I’ll finish. . . or maybe not. I’m great at starting, just not so great at finishing. There are various reasons for this. I lose interest in a project usually once I’ve done the ‘interesting’ bit. Sometimes that is the piecing or the basic stitching of an applique; sometimes it is just the designing…
Last month I showed you my books on hand quilting and promised a peek at my machine quilting books this month. I think next month I will have to continue with quilting books – the ones with ideas and designs in them. But, for the time being, I’ll talk you through the technique ones. I…
The other day was fine – dry, warm, not raining – so a friend and I met up for a suitably socially-distanced picnic in my garden. I’d been over to visit Ann in her new garden (but not house!) just after the lockdown was eased and we had a picnic in her garden, wandered around,…
