Skip to main content

Beautiful Ambrosia

No - not custard!



You know when you just see fabric and think " I just have to have that" and "I have to do something with that straight away". Well, it happened last weekend. I'm busy making my sewing machine cover, when Nicola goes "have you seen the new fabric round the back - I think you'll like it". The fatal mistake was going and having a look, cause she was right. I posted a photo of the fabric on my blog last week. It's Ambrosia from Westminster Fabrics in really summery reds and greens. I added in an extra green and bought six fat quarters. Already a project was in mind.... Linda bought a new book a few weeks back called "Fast Quilts from Fat Quarters" by Barbara Chainey. The idea of the book is that you cut each fat quarter to the same standard cutting pattern that is designed to get the greatest yield from one fat quarter. You then reorganise the pieces into blocks. The design I chose was the first one in the book. It's twelve four-patch blocks made entirely from pieces from the cutting plan. Instead of doing a repeat of two blocks, I picked two others from the design library in the front of the book. Interestingly, despite following instructions, there were not enough of one of the shapes to make the quilt exactly as was in the book, without cutting additional fabric. I worked round this by adapting the blocks to the fabric I had. It took me three hours to cut the fabric and decide which fabric to put where and which blocks to make and then three hours this morning to piece all 12 8inch blocks - that is what I call quick.





Here is the result




I dashed out to the nearest patchwork shop once I'd finished to get some white fabric for the sashing. But in the whole shop she only had two white fabrics, so I shall have to wait till next weekend to continue my project. I also have enough pieces left that I can make key blocks for all the corners. I'm going to use 4inch sashing, so the finished piece shouldn't be too small.





This week I've also started doing the embroidery on the August Calendar Girlies (though I've only actually finished one) and I have completed one more of the Farmer's Wife blocks - this time I went for an easy one - #1 Attic Windows. Maybe I'll make a bit of a move on next week :)

So many projects, so little time! And just in case you havent' noticed - I've finally grasped some photo editing software!
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

365 Quilt Challenge 2016 [A finish]

I can't believe I've just typed that heading! When I made the block for January 1st 2016 I could not have imagined the journey this quilt would have taken me on. So make yourselves comfortable and grab a cup of tea, because this blog post may get lengthy! I'd seen the 365 Quilt Challenge on Facebook. I think every quilter on Facebook must have been aware of it. Loads of my friends had signed up and it kept popping up as a "Page you might like" thing. In the end, in November 2015, I joined the group, had a poke round. Decided it wasn't for me. One of the things that really put me off were the fabric requirements: you needed x amount of dark dark fabric, x amount of medium dark fabric, x amount of dark medium, medium, light medium, light, background.... I just couldn't get my head round those requirements. I'd looked at the mock ups on the wesbite and couldn't bring myself to pick a colour. I put it to the back of my mind. But I had obvious
6 comments
Read more

Hidden Agenda [A Finish]

This is very possibly my favourite ever finish - I know I've said that in the past, but this one is going to be hard to beat. This time last year, I attended a day long lecture/workshop with Tula Pink and it was inspiring. Having not really loved her fabrics in the past (but loved her patterns), I suddenly saw them in a new light, linked with my 2018 new year's resolution to try more fussy cutting). Fast forward 8 months and I confess that my Tula stash has expanded quite a lot. I found some UK shops with older ranges of fabric, splurged on a few destashes and found the odd piece of her fabric already in my stash. The plan was always (and remains) to make a Smitten quilt, but I'm well aware that I have plenty of fabric to make other projects as well! So when I saw the Hidden Agenda quilt pattern by Angela Pingle, this fabric sprung instantly to mind.... and we all know I love a rainbow! And what could be better than rainbowfied Tula? I was ably assisted by my friend Ti
3 comments
Read more

February Embroidery Along [A Finish]

I've really been enjoying my embroidery this year, after not doing very much last year. One of the challenges I set myself at the start of the year was to learn to colour tint my fabric before adding the embroidery - I love buying the pre-printed panels, but I'd like to do this myself as well. And the opportunity to learn this arose in February. Meg Hawkey of Crab Apple Hill Studio hosted a stitchalong to celebrate National Embroidery Month, and the first step was colour your fabric. I bought the pencils she advises,  the blending stumps, something called fabric extender and the pigma pen. And I gave it a go. My first attempt ended badly. Because the one thing I didn't buy was a new, clean paintbrush. So when I came to add the fabric extended, it went all bleary and muddy as, despite cleaning the paintbrush thoroughly, it obviously wasn't clean enough. It was unsalvageable so I started again, and I was so much happier with the results. The practice piece was, in
1 comment
Read more

Labels

Show more

Archive