I've moved

I'm now blogging at issabellasquilts.com and I'd love you to pop over and say hello.

I've loved this little space for a good few years, it's actually my blogs birthday tomorrow, but it seems the right time for a change.

Thank you for reading along with my sporadic posts I hope to see you again at the new place :) 

So Many Changes

It's been nearly 6 month since I last wrote here and so much has changed, quilts have been made and yarn has been turned in to crochet blankets. Halloween came and went and with it my health went too, some sort of arthritis kicked in to knock me on my butt. Ankles were bad enough but then my hands and wrists joined in... as many of you reading are crafters you can imagine how I felt about that! 
Doctors, rheumatology departments and a quick A&E trip later it seems to be settling down and I've had the ok to cautiously take up my day job again. 

Amongst all of that mess at the beginning of December a little happy chap came to I've with us -


 

 This little man, who at the time of this photo was small enough to fit in my pocket, is called Mac. He is a Cavalier King Charles spaniel.



He likes nothing more than sitting in front of the fire playing with his toys or getting cuddles, ok well he likes eating more than toys and cuddles but still he's very cuddly! 




Just before Christmas we noticed Issabella seemed to be out of sorts, those of you that follow me on IG know this story well but I will share a short version here none the less, My fur-shadow was sleeping even more than usual and looked to be breathing very quickly. After many vets visits and emergency admissions to the veterinary hospital she was diagnosed with dilated cardiomyopathy, heart disease. Fluid build up on her lungs, due to her heart not working properly, was causing breathing problems and the scans also showed kidney stones. My poor girl tried her best with the medication but it just couldn't settle her symptoms and in January she threw a blood clot and painful decisions had to be made. My loving, funny, bossy little cat crossed the rainbow bridge with me stroking her fur and it was one of the saddest days of my life. 

Over the next few weeks I will be moving my blog and changing the Etsy shop name, Instagram name etc but I will remember to pop a little note up here to let you know where I've gone. 

Thank you for reading along here for the last few years I really have appreciated every email and comment left for me.

Hugs
Sarah 

Pixelated Heart quilt

I received an order through my Etsy shop for a custom rainbow pixelated heart quilt. It is going to be given as a wedding gift :) I love knowing what happens to the quilts I make when they go out the door! 

So out came the Sizzix, and what felt like a million charms were cut. 213 to be truthful as I cut another set of two, no way I'd have done that with a rotary cutter and ruler! Him in doors was put on refolding duty as I make such a mess.

As you can see I don't press my fabrics prior to cutting them, 'nuff said about that. 

Popped them up on my design board and played with a colour layout I loved and then added in low volume squares for the background. 

I love sewing the columns together, you can really see the pattern emerging.

Basted with 505 spray because life's too short for pin basting right now.

As it was a custom order I had been asked to add some details, not all are shown in the photos, a little embroidery, some quilting-it was fun.

Then finally the binding, after an interesting chat on IG I think I'll take more photos next time I bind a quilt and explain my slightly cheating method.

And finally a finished quilt.

with a sneaky look at the Nani Iro sofa quilt I've been making myself too :D 

Etno Baby Quilt

This sweet baby quilt was originally whipped up to be a class sample for a beginners quilt making class that I was teaching at Sewing Machine Sales in Whitley bay The classes have gently wound down for the summer and will start up again in the Autumn, so this little quilt has made its way home. 

 

The fabrics are mostly Ento by Pat Bravo with a few complimentary prints thrown in and straight line quilting; simple and effective at letting the fabrics shine. 

It's a great class to teach as we cover all of the basics and students leave with a finished lap/baby quilt. If your local or just fancy popping up to the North East coast and would like to take a class feel free to send me an email for more information.

This quilt is now listed in my Etsy shop and I'm already planning a more Autumnal colour theme for the next class sample! 

Another Low Volume Lovely

I finished this quilt, frankly, yonks ago. December if memory serves, hence the muted winter colours in both the quilt and the photos.

That serpentine quilting stitch adds such a great texture to quilts.

I only have one progress photo of this quilt, I think I took it to check the block layout looked right at a distance; does anyone else do that? I find I can *see* better sometimes in a photo when blocks are too close to similar colours or if a stand out tone has slipped in there by mistake. 

Heres to sharing awful indoor lighting photos! 

I've added this to my Etsy shop it is listed here if you would like any more info about it or if you would like it to come and live at your house.

I have also finished my Florette quilt and a good few others but need to get some photos taken in good light.

I'm trying to catch up adding my finished quilts to the blog this week so sorry for the deluge of posts to come (given my record of blogging this year that made even me laugh!) 

Florette quilt

On the 14th I taught a lovely one day workshop at the shop, Jeni's Florette quilt pattern is a delightful quilt to make & I am totally smitten with it!  

Like the fool I am, I totally forgot to take any photos of the class so instead you get the treat of seeing the one I needed to make once I got home :) 

I knew I wanted a deeper tone to this quilt than a lot of my recent finishes, so I pulled out a whole lot of fabrics and started stacking.

I am quite happy mixing cotton lawn and quilting cotton with linen blends but your milage may vary. It felt like a safe thing to do for the flowers in this pattern as I am using quilting cotton for the sashing and hope it will stabilise the other substrates. 

The pattern its self is very beginner friendly giving options for both 12" and 15" blocks. For my own quilt I chose 15" blocks to show off the larger scale fabrics. On the topic of prints Him in doors has forever spoilt the top left print for me after pointing out it looks like Professor X finding mutants with Cerebo in the X-men movie *sigh* 

My original plan had been to make this quilt 3x4 blocks, to be a throw sized quilt, but once I'd reached that point I still had more fabrics shouting out to be used so figured what the heck and went bigger. 

I felt the need to back it with cotton lawn too for a really soft snuggly quilt. I went with Mystery food in Navy (one for the prints I've used on the front of the quilt) from  Sarah Watts Tokyo Train Ride collection and it feels Ah-mazing! 

With all of the soft textures and muted colours it really would've been rude not to add some perle cotton and hand quilting. 

 Hopefully after a few more seasons of Law and Order & The Originals   (highly recommended for Vampire and Werewolf teen drama) I'll have a finished quilt to show you! 


I thought I'd share some photos form my 5th beginners class at the shop (which I did remember to take photos of!) These classes have been going since November and are always great fun. We cover the basics of patchwork and quilting with the ladies getting to take home a project at the end of the class. This time we were making cushion covers from a 9 patch block with straight line machine quilting.

Perfect point matching first time! 

and a final photo of the students with their almost finished cushions, I believe hand stitching the binding down that evening with a glass of wine was on the cards for a few ladies! 

My next project is to sew up A Summer sampler quilt As we are hoping to offer this as a class over the summer holidays and someone needs to make a class sample :D 

Easter Holidays, Etsy, Four Winds quilt and a sulky cat.

We're only 8 days in to April but thanks to some time off from my day job I've managed to get some sewing done. I've been posting on Instagram rather a lot over the holidays but thought I'd best get back to my blog and share some pics here too. 

So here are some photos of my month so far, I hope you enjoy the peek.

 Easter days at the beach, we've been heading out for a walk a day over the holidays & the beach is my favourite place to go.

Three customer quilts just needing binding Eeek! I had a large customer order come through at the end of Feb, they are due out the door by this weekend. I. Can. Not. Face. Binding. Them.

Four Winds quilt inspired by Jaimes cotton & steel version & too big to fit on my design wall! This has been my "get away" project, the one I have been planning in-between the Etsy order :) 

Due to all of the time out walking and sewing I think Issabella was wanting some extra attention so she climbed in my scrap basket, she isn't normally allowed in my sewing room so I think this may have been a touch of kitty revenge!

Modern building blocks by Moda is now a brick short!

I will admit it, I jumped on the Moda Modern Building Blocks pattern like a pattern crazed, fabric hoarder when it came onto my quilty radar (months after everyone else had bought and started making theirs!) 

Lovely blog readers I paid £14 for a pattern, made one block out of it and stalled.

I do love the idea of this pattern so much and have loved watching all the progress photos popping up allover the internet. 

My problem has been...I really don't get on with that kelly green fabric!

 It has been a total revelation that one colour, in a project, can put my sewing mojo on hold to the point that I have to stop and re-evaluate the whole thing. So executive decisions were made, Issabella was consulted, and I have chosen to make the block into a "stand alone" baby quilt. To be fair its big enough, 36" square makes for a good sized baby/lap quilt so all hasn't been lost. It even managed a mix of machine & hand quilting And a funky backing fabric, I can't remember its name but I'm pretty sure its by Jay McCarroll. (I just know my bolt of britten nummer is in a huff)

So I'm now left wondering where I should place Modern building blocks on my list of "Must make quilts" It's quite a large list. so large in fact I'm thinking of giving it its own page on the blog...

Scrappy postage stamp quilt

This quilt started, unbeknownst to me, when my Sizzix arrived. I had ordered the dies I thought I would get the most use out of a 2.5" square and a 4.5" square (The collection has since grown!) and merrily and mostly without a clue what I was going to make with them started chopping up my scrap bin into useful shapes.

While the scrap cull was happening Heather of .House. of A La Mode popped a # up on instagram #scrappypostagestampQAL

The rest as they say was history, and several cups of tea.


Finished quilt details 
*It measures 43" x 43"
*Each square is 1.75" because I goofed up my 1/4" seam on the first few blocks and couldn't face unpicking!
*I backed it in Nummer by Ikea as I could't face piecing a backing together after I'd made the top (quilting truth)

It is now sitting happily in my shop waiting to go to it's new home.

If you would like to know what I'm making a little more frequently than my sporadic blogging allows I do tend to post to instagram a couple of times a week. 

New-ish year New focus

Well a whole lot of things have happened since Novembers post, not least of which was Him in Doors popped the question! I am now a fiancé, sounds rather grown up doesn't it! We've been pootling along merrily for years, with the odd sarcastic comment thrown in by me about my unwedded status when he finally took me out for a meal sans daughter and asked me to marry him, needless to say I did accept :D 

(I should've guessed something was up when the stars aligned to have a child free evening out together!) 

Now back to your scheduled program of sewing and quilting!

I made another picnic quilt, this one is a long time gone to it's new home but I love the fabrics in it and still wanted to share it here :) I whipped it together with mostly Tula Pink & Violet craft fabrics in a sort of rainbow. I had fun muddling up the squares to get the colours to flow from one to another, almost like watercolour paints.

It's true what "They" say starch sprays, which ever type you use, make for an easier and more accurate time piecing patchwork.

I did my usual straight line quilting on either side of the seam, I like that it allows the fabrics to shine while helping to frame them nicely.

I love All Of The Colours!!! 

I thought this photo was quite sweet as depending on which way the quilt is folded you can pick out different colours.

Quilt on holiday! 

Full frontal (Oooh-Err!) 

I decided to get a little more organised this year *Him in Doors stop laughing!* and actually make the time to try out new projects that have caught my eye. So we've had a bit of an overhaul (That obviously involved me buying half of paper chase in the process) 

Todo lists at the ready and a reboot of my diet with another Whole30  I'm ever so slightly hopeful that this year will have more focus on streamlining and working smarter rather than harder to get to where I want to be. 

Citrus rush!

After plowing through my scrap bin it turns out I had rather a few larger chunks of citrus-y type fabrics, so whats a girl to do but make a quilt with them! 

I adapted the Turning Twenty quilt pattern I love so much and used each scrap for only 1 or 2 of the pieces rather than use a FQ to make each block.

It's backed in another Ikea fabric I really like, some spiky graphic flowers :) 

The serpentine quilting gives it great texture! 

I love how the colours glow! 

And another photo of the backing fabric, because I like it That much! 

This one is listed in my etsy shop ready to head out to a new home. 

Later today I will be teaching a beginners patchwork and quilting class at The Singer sewing centre I'm looking forward to meeting local ladies that have caught the sewing bug, I'll let you all know how it goes! :D

Lots of Dots quilt By Green Bee patterns

As quilters we all know that when family or friends announce a new arrival, it's going to be a no brainer that the little one is getting a quilt to snuggle up with. 

Isabelle was no exception!

As soon as Him in doors knew he was going to be an uncle we started looking for bright, modern fabrics and a fun pattern to work from.

I knew I was going to be sewing with Cotton + Steel basics as the colours are fantastic and I'd been itching to break them out of the FQ bundle since they had landed on the door mat

and given that at this point I was pretty exclusively sewing the arcs on my single girl quilt I was happy to go with the curves when Him in doors pointed out the Green Bee patterns lots of dots quilt 

We had a plan! 

I have to say at this point I love this pattern. It is super straight forward, no enlarging of templates and space on the pattern to write notes to myself (i.e. 16 pinky-plumy-aqua wedges, 4 horse wedges, 4 rounded low volume L shapes. It made sense when I was sewing!)  It is a total win. 

The curves weren't too bad to sew, I use the "1 pin in the middle and wiggle the fabric under the walking foot" method. And Starch spray, lots of starch.

If I'd thought about it I would have tweaked the pattern to account for the fact I was using the same fabric for the centre circles, however in my excitement to cut onto the Mustang fabric I didn't think so spent a while worrying about horse butts, thankfully it worked out in the end - live and learn! 

The final layout and, again in my excitement to gift this quilt, the only photo I have of the whole quilt top. 

Backed in baby pink minky dots it is one soft, squidgy and warm quilt.

Due to the Minky doing exactly whatever it wanted while I was quilting it I ended up straight line quilting the whole thing to keep my sanity intact and my swear jar empty. 

The binding a a fun spirograph pattern on a blue background, rescued from a remnant bin without a selvedge so if you know what it is please shout out in the comments as I'd love to get some more. 

I did manage to remember to take a couple of photos of the "Dots" 

Gold, navy and raspberry is one of my favourite colour combinations

Aqua and pink is super sweet and I think the pops of navy stop it being too sugary.

Pink, plum and more pink in this one! 

This quilt was gifted to Isabelle for her birthday on the 10th of September and both Him in doors and myself hope she has many happy years snuggled up with it.