My Holy Grail Fabric Haul

I am willing to guess that you, dear reader, are a fabric lover. Am I right? Thought so. It takes one to know one. So, I am going to tell you about my greatest Ebay bargain, a black sack full of quilting fabrics which cost me about £7 plus postage. That was about 7 years ago and I have been looking for another deal like that one ever since.

The sack of fabric was massive and heavy, it had fat quarters, large pieces, medium & small scrap pieces and some yardage. I know, you probably don't believe me but its true, I hit the fabric stash jackpot. A lot of the fabric was very pretty, this person obviously liked maroon and autumnal colours but there was a wide range of other shades too, including 30's and feedsack repros, William Morris and liberty prints. I washed and ironed the whole lot as soon as I got it. It filled the washing machine and took me 2 days to process. I was in heaven. The bad news is I forgot to take a photo of this massive haul when it was all in one place. The fabric filled 3 drawers.

Fat Quarters.

Larger pieces.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. There were also some triangles that had obviously been cut for a project. They filled an ice cream tub.

 

The smaller scraps were put into my scrap bag and used as needed, until I got my Sizzix Big Shot machine and quilting dies about 2 years ago, then I spent a few days running the scraps through the machine. I'll tell you more about that in my next post.

 

A Whole Bundle, At Last!

Look at what jumped into my stash while I was looking the other way!

Its Vin Du Jour by Moda and I have a full pack of 40 fat quarters. I have never owned a full Moda fat quarter pack, I've wanted one for years but never had the money spare. Also, they are quite hard to get here in the UK. This little beauty was just £60 (about half price) so I grabbed it. This range probably wouldn't have been my first choice if I had a few to choose from, I would have loved Autumn Lily or Community or Comfort as I am really into Civil War fabrics at the moment but it is really pretty. Have a look:

I will probably split them up a bit rather than use them all in one quilt. I am thinking about it and looking through the rest of my stash to see what might go well with it. It never hurts to stroke look at your fabric for a few months before using it.

What would you do with them?

Sow's Ear From A Silk Purse

I mentioned in my last post that I can make more complex quilts than squares and rectangles and I promised to offer some proof of that. Before I do I want you to know that I hate the quilt you are about to see.
My niece Emily got married in March of this year and a few months before my mum suggested that we made a quilt together. My mum sews, a LOT but she is a dressmaker and quilts are a little out of her comfort zone, so she left the decisions and planning to me.
I chose some really beautiful fabric - Honeysweet by Moda.

Its gorgeous and I loved the colours and the patterns in it. We bought pre-cuts to save a bit of time (jelly rolls and a charm pack) but there was still a lot of cutting out to do.
For the pattern I decided that a Blackford Beauty, 16" block would be a good choice. Its a very pretty block.
However, it turns out that in quilt mathematics pretty fabrics + pretty blocks does NOT = pretty quilt. It is far too busy, it would probably have been much improved by some more solid fabrics, a nice cream fabric in every block would have calmed down all that "noise".
OK, here is the finished quilt, you probably shouldn't look at it for more than 5 seconds for fear of burning your corneas:

 As you can see, the fabric is lovely, just not when it is all put closely together.

 

 The back was very nice, though...

 

My mum paid for it to be long-arm quilted and I added a little label that I made on my sewing machine. The quilter did a very nice job, I will have to ask my mum who it was so that I can tell you, I know she lives in Sussex somewhere.

We put a lot of work into this quilt, there are a gazillion pieces but when the wedding day came and it was time to hand it over I was very tempted to drop it into a muddy puddle or conveniently "forget" it.

They were very grateful and a lot of people said it was beautiful but I know that I should have done better. Hopefully the keep it in a cupboard somewhere, maybe wrapped around their hot water cylinder for insulation. I would hate to think that they have it on their bed, imagine sleeping under that, it would give you nightmares.

Scrappy Checkerboard Quilt In Progress

Like most quilt makers I have a patchwork and quilting board on Pinterest. It is full of pictures of beautiful quilts made by other people. I find these quilts inspiring, the colours, the patterns, the soft, quilty snuggliness. I admire the complex piecing of quilts that draw the eye to the main focus of the quilt before it catches the secondary pattern hidden around it. I also love seeing the colour combinations people choose, the fabrics and the beautiful quilting.

Yes, I love my Pinterest board but I have to admit that simple quilts are more my thing. I love a good squares quilt, chequerboard, Irish chain, charm quilts - they all make me happier than chocolate ever could. I'm partial to the odd rectangle and half square triangle too but squares are my first love.

 

 

This is my youngest daughter Phoebe, asleep under her Central Park charm quilt.

 

 

Proof that I can quilt straight, even lines with my Pfaff Expression 3.0 sewing machine.

I don't think its because they are easier than complicated quilts, I have made those too and I didn't like them half as much (more on that in my next post). So, when I get the urge to quilt and I have nothing complicated planned I reach for my scrap stash and sew squares.

Here is a quilt that I have already promised to my niece Naomi, when it is finished.

Its made from 2 1/2" (2" finished) squares from my scrap pile, cut with my Sizzix Big Shot machine and the 2 1/2" square die. I love my Big Shot, it saves a lot of time. I chose the softest colours I had and teamed it with some white scraps, which I later discovered to be 2 shades of "white" but I have decided not to let it bother me too much, it is a scrap quilt after all.
 

I am in the process of quilting it at the moment but it is not going very well. I was given a vintage 100% cotton sheet with blue flowers and I am using that for the back and the binding. My 15m roll of batting is now all used up so I am using something called "Soft n' Crafty" from America which my machine absolutely hates. I have made several simple quilts with my machine and the lovely batting from my roll and all of my stitches have been perfectly even, not necessarily straight, but even. This quilt isn't running through my machine properly and I am getting patches of miniscule stitches. I am not happy but they are too small to rip out.

I will persevere and post some pictures when it is finished, just don't look too closely at the quilting.