Welcome to Saturday Quilting Bring and Share. Bring along your project(s) and take a little time to dive into all the inspiration, tips and sewing room chat being shared by members of the Worldwide Quilting Community. To join in the sharing use the links below, read the blog posts and leave an encouraging, helpful addition to the conversations in the comments boxes.
How’s your week been? I had a busy time out of the sewing room. Progress on sewing projects has been limited although the I-Spy blocks have been slowly forming on the design wall. All those little pieces are gradually being matched-up, becoming larger and more uniform in shape. I did optimistically purchase ¾m of fabric for the border of this quilt – maybe in the coming week the patchwork will be completed.
Another purchase was a roll of Sew Simple Super-Soft EcoBlend 70/30 wadding. I bought a piece a few months ago just out of curiosity to see if this wadding, made from recycled cotton and polyester fibres (with scrim), is a ‘green’ alternative to similar wadding made from all new fibres. It feels a little softer than some other cotton/poly blends, is nice and even in texture, looks almost the same as other waddings apart from having a smattering of what look like short lengths of cotton thread visible on the surface(see photo below); and behaves like similar waddings when being basted and stitched. The label says to expect 5% shrinkage when it’s washed for the first time which may be a disadvantage compared to some others.
Close up of EcoBlend. To show the fibres I had to place the wadding on a dark background.
In the week coming, I plan to put the I-Spy patchwork together and prepare for the Workshop and Sewing Social I’ve organised for next Saturday. We’ll be using up scrap fabrics and wadding to make a stack of little baskets.
There are a couple of places available and with so little preparation required it’s definitely not too late to sign up! Talking of signing-up… Subscribers to my email list receive a free copy of each Workshop pattern so even if you can’t attend in person you can take part in the Workshop bit of the sewing day 🙂
Here are your links into the Worldwide Quilting Community:
Have you ever cut whole circles using Drunkards Path templates? Yvonne demonstrates how to do this in her video tutorial and also shares how to stitch a complete circle of fabric into a circular hole of fabric. I didn’t know that was possible!
How about making patchwork quilts without wadding and using fabrics other than medium weight quilting cottons? 🙃 Both Rachel and Suzy have recently shared their ‘out of the usual quilt box’ picnic blankets. Rachel made her patchwork using a mix of rayon and voile (her remit to make a light-weight blanket for gentle use) while Suzy went in the opposite direction using canvas to make her patchwork rug. Both share hints and tips for using these unusual fabrics to create patchwork.
Now you probably know that, with the exception of Scrap Vortex style I-Spy quilts, improv patchwork is definitely NOT my bag! I do follow Sarah Goer though as though I don’t aspire to form of patchwork I do admire her creativity. She has an on-line course titled ‘Creating a Scrappy Slab‘ if you would like to try out some of her techniques. Sarah suggests inviting some of your friends to sign up too so you can form your own Zoom group and follow the course together.
Do you have a collection of pretty salvage strips waiting for a project? Diann shares how she stitched some together to make a sweet pincushion for a friend.
Allison Harris’ new fabric range, ‘Clover & Dot’, has been released in the US. I’m hoping it will become available in the UK. It is bright and pretty with a kind of 1930s vibe that I really like.
If you like a bit of patchwork quilting chat then you’ll probably enjoy catching up with Rona and Lisa’s ‘Quilt Babble’ episodes on You Tube. Their next live session is Thursday 16th May, 7pm Eastern time. I watched an episode a while ago when they had guest quilt tutors from around the world giving their do’s and don’ts for learning machine quilting – it was interesting and a lot of fun!
Happy Stitching!
Allison
PS. Over on my Facebook page I’m taking part in a Challenge to post every day through the month of May. There’s a prompt for each day so it’s got me out of my usual comfort zone content! It would lovely if you could like the page – I am keeping most of the posts patchwork quilting related!
The batting you purchased looks interesting, and seems different than what’s available to us here in the US. I’m a die-hard Quilter’s Dream batting lover/user, though occasionally I’ll pick up a Hobbs batting to try – like the one that’s a combo of cotton and wool. Interesting that your batting contains threads, Are they attached? Or can they be plucked out, if needed? Looks like you have a nice variety of quilting topics and methods to try. Have you never pieced a convex circle into a concave hole? It’s not difficult, though most quilters pin, pin, pin, or use glue. It’s realy fun to make circles that way. And yay for trying improv quilt slabs! I learned about those about 12 years ago when the book “Sunday Morning Quilts” came out. Slabs was my first intro to improv, and I love making them. Seems like you’re having lotsa fun! Keep doing so.
Hi1 Linda. I like Quilters Dream waddings too – the fibres are always spread so consistently. The visible fibres in the EcoBlend look and feel like short pieces of cotton thread. Some are on the surface and can be lifted off easily but most are felted into the wadding. I think they are too thick to ‘beard’ through to the top of a quilt.
That batting looks interesting. I will watch to see what you think of it!