Purples - discuss

Plum, violet, maroon, burgundy, lavander, lilac, amethyst, mauve, magenta and (my personal favourite) Cadbury. What do you think of as the colour purple?

But why are nice purple fabrics so hard to find? Any blog you read, even in the US, where quilters go through their stash the one colour they all are missing is purple in any significant quantity.

Unfortunately for me our bedroom is just such a colour so I need to do a super king size quilt with what I could scrape together to match. Do you think I've got it right?

The big flower in the upper left corner is the same as our painted walls. It's a hard colour to describe but is kind of a pinky white. I managed to get a solid the exact match in my local quilt shop! This is only amazing because they only stock about 20 solids. You can see it in the bottom of the picture.

This fabric is from the curtains and blinds. I had wanted to go with that really dark purple in it rather than the reddish pink

But since I had to buy off the internet, you can see the colours vary greatly. Purple seems to be very much a matter of opinion. I took out this Alexander Henry. It just kept sticking out. What do you think? Have I got it right? Any others you would take out?

I also bought a lot of fabric designs that are just so-so. Not my favourites which is a shame as it will be one of the few quilts I will keep.



So instead of showcasing the fabrics I thought I would choose a big impact design. This was one of the first quilt patterns that I saw and printed off when I started to quilt. Now I will actually get to use it. It's called Java Stars from the Moda Bake Shop website. I will just have to super size it up to super king and maybe leave off the boarder.

I hope it will all come together when all the purples are cut up and mixed together. So what do you think?

Excuse # 101

This is the reason that I haven't been posting all my wonderful progress lately. How can you take good photos in light like this? This was the view last night from my sewing room window.

Yes this is the summer here. It has been pretty much like this for the last month!

Another excuse is not having my camera at the minute so just iPhone snaps.

My sewing space went from bad to worse with all the WIPs going on.

But now hopefully there is light at the end if the tunnel. Here are some pics of the progress.

And a lovely one of organised WIP of the beginnings of 3 bags.

Does anyone else's workspace look like this??

At the minute, I have all these piles of fabrics lined up and ready to go. All I need is the time to get sewing!

I have been commissioned to make a baby quilt and as they don't know the gender yet, I want to give the recipient lots of choice. I also need simple designs so that I will actually be able to produce said goods on time. Lets' face it, the baby won't wait for me!

This is the first quilt to go - I'm thinking neutral could go either way. I am using a half square triangle simple pattern for this one. The backing fabric (the bottom one) was going for a song at my local sewing shop. The girl was throwing it in the scrap bin and literally hit me with it as I was hoking through. It was meant to be. It worked out about 60p per metre!

This is for a girl quilt but not too girly ie. no pink! Just going to go with basic charm squares for this one.

This is the more girly version.Not sure of a pattern yet but perhaps 9 patch of the Oh Fransson! variety with the plain pale turquoise as the alternate squares.

And to celebrate the "Jubilolympics" and just about every other British thing that seems to be happening this year - a red white and blue rail fence for a boy.

Many of these fabrics I purchased in Spain so are a bit different from all the usual designers that you see. If you are interested I have a few pieces on my Etsy site for sale.

I think that covers all my bases as I also have another boy's and girl's quilt in progress - did I mention them already???

The other bundles are for me to make myself something - when is that ever likely to happen??!

First WIP of 2012 - handkerchief corners

Here is a bunch of fabrics all cut up and ready to go.

I can't wait to dust off my machine and get sewing.

A Christmas WIP

I'm glad to have started one of my Christmas presents. This is a quilt for my nephew's "big boy" bed. He is mad for dinosaurs. Here it is all cut out and ready to piece.

The layout is going to be 3 panels across by 8 panels down of alternate colours. The large dinosaurs panel was meant to be fussy cut but I realised I don't have enough material for that. Too late to order more from the States. It means that some of the squares are a bit random in the placement of the dinos as can be seen below with 4 random heads.

But once it's complete I think it will give the overall impression of material. I hope anyway!

The material is of course the gorgeous Oh Boy Dino Print by David Walker for Free Spirit.

I may post a tutorial for this quilt if I get round to it - or get a lot of requests - or any requests really as I am hardly pulling a crowd... yet! ?We'll see how the Christmas shopping goes first.

A sneaky peak

I love these colours now that I have put them all together. This is in the process of being quilted. It is a special request from a friend in work. You can see a bit of her green carpet that the rest of the quilt has been planned around.

I laid out the material first before cutting.

Some of the more well known fabrics are Isabella by Lila Tuller is the fabulous big green flower, and also a little mini flower one.

Terrain Dahlia in Moss by Kate Spain is the pink flower one - I love her colour combos. There's also some Pop Parade in pink in there too.

I can't wait to finish this quilt and post it for all to see.