What's New at TCQ - Wild by Bethan Janine

 

This cute collection is designed by Bethan Janine for Dashwood Studio. I'd been umming and ahhing about whether to stock the collection, but the large panel print in the collection was too good to say no to. Aren't the animals lovely?

Each square in the panel measures just under 14" square, so the whole panel measures about 44" square.

I thought I'd make a quick quilt to showcase the fabrics. I like making this style of quilt where you can show off a large-scale print, or the panel squares in this case, and use the co-ordinating prints to create an ombre effect.

You can buy the fabrics and panel on the website. Or buy a kit to make The Wild Quilt! 

The Wild Quilt!

Finished size: 52" square

Requirements

• 1 Wild panel (WILD1919)
• Fat quarter Pink Cameos (WILD1921)
• Fat quarter Owls in Flight (WILD1922)
• Fat quarter Bear and Fox (WILD1923)
• Fat quarter Bounding Woodland Creatures (WILD1924)
• Fat quarter Rustling Hedgehogs (WILD1925)

Step 1: Cut the Wild panel up into its separate squares and using a large ruler, trim each square so it measures 13.5" square.

Step 2: Set aside the Pink Cameos print and cut up the remaining four fat quarters into 3.75" strips as show below.

The fat quarters are cut like this because of the directional nature of the prints

Step 3: Take one of each of the longest print strips and arrange them light to dark. Join the strips together along their length. Press the seams in the same direction towards the darkest print.

Step 4: Cross cut the joined strips into five, 3.75" cross cut slices.

Step 5: Make a second strip set with the second set of longest strips but arrange the strips from dark to light. Cross cut into five cross cut slices as before.

Repeat with remaining sets of strips, arranging half the strips from light to dark and the second half from dark to light. You'll be able to cut 3 cross cut slices from the shorter horizontal strips and just one slice is needed from each of the shortest strips.

Step 6: Cut sixteen, 3.75" squares from the Pink Cameos print.

Step 7: Arrange the panel squares into three rows of three squares and add the sashing strips so that the prints run from light to dark and back again both horizontally and vertically. Add the pink squares between each sashing strip.

Step 8: Join the strips and squares together in rows and then join the rows together to complete the quilt top.

Not sure how I'll quilt my quilt yet. You'll need approx. 60" square wadding and backing (2.75m), and 50cm fabric to bind it.

Joanna

Story of a Quilt - The Nebulus Quilt

I fell in love with this quilt as soon as I saw a picture of it. It was designed by an American quilter, Giucy Giuce, to accompany his Inferno fabric collection for Andover Fabrics. As I was stocking the full collection, Makower (the UK distributor of Andover Fabrics) offered the project to me for the magazine (British Patchwork & Quilting) and I jumped at the chance to make it.

And then I realised how big it was!

It's a *BIG* quilt - approx. 110" square - that's big for a king size quilt even; well, by UK sizes but it looked simple enough to make, so I made a start. 

First off, I realised the image and instructions didn't match how the fabric was printed, which actually helped as it made it fat quarter friendly; something that is always easier to kit than cutting long quarters. The instructions also suggested Giucy Giuce's Spectrastic Black fabric be used for the background but seeing as about 7m was needed, I felt this was an expensive option so have used a solid, Kona Black.

There were long seams involved as it's made in vertical strips and it would have been a fairly quick make if I hadn't been distracted with my house move. But it came together nicely working on one strip at a time and I soon had a large quilt top that needed quilting. I would have loved to have hand quilted this quilt but time pressures of needing to put it in the magazine meant that this wasn't going to be possible. Nor was attempting to quilt it on my Janome Atelier, even with its bigger throat space. So I sent it to Trudi Wood and she did a fantastic job quilting for me; exactly how I would have quilted it had I been able. I was so happy with the result.

The quilt backing is made from three different ombre fabrics from the Fresh Hues collection from Robert Kaufman (3m of each!) and Trudi quilted it in assortment of Aurifil threads. The wadding was a Hobbs wool wadding as I wanted this to be a special quilt to go on our new bed. I made a pieced binding by cutting 2.25" strips from the leftover Inferno fabrics and because of the length of the sides, tried machine binding for the first time.

The quilt appeared in the Autumn 2021 issue of British Patchwork & Quilting.

Joanna

What's New at TCQ - Paradiso

Sometimes you just see a fabric, or a collection of fabrics, and you know you just *need* them!

And this is how it was with Paradiso, a psychedelic collection designed by Sally Kelly for Windham Fabrics. Sally also designs fabrics for Liberty of London and you can see hints of that in the designs in this collection.

I first came across Sally's fabrics with her Solstice collection but by the time I saw the collection online, the time for ordering them had passed. So I was determined not to miss out this time.

It's a small collection of just five prints. The main print, Xanadu has so many little vignettes to tempt you with fussy cutting, or centring in the middle of a block, as does the second main print, Avalon.

These prints are complemented by the Galactic and Flower Bed prints.

As Paradiso is digitally printed, these are available for £18 a metre on the website.

Enjoy!

Joanna 

What's New at TCQ - Starflower Christmas

After a (unintended) break of nearly eighteen months, I think it's more than about time I start blogging again about what's happening at The Crafty Quilter.

A *LOT* has happened since I last wrote a blog post, not least a relocation to Kent to start the next chapter of my life. Quite a few fabric collections have come and gone in that time too but now I'm feeling more settled after my move 'south of the river' and able to get into more of a daily routine!

Part of that routine, is writing in a bit more detail about new fabrics. We all love seeing new fabrics, don't we? The first of the most recent deliveries was this painterly collection designed by Laura Muir of the Create Joy Project for Moda.

Starflower Christmas is a festive collection, without being too festive. The main print, the Starflower is a poinsettia type flower and comes in a white or navy background.

This is accompanied by Merry Berry, again with a white or a navy background (Note the navy print is still to arrive as I write this post) and Winter Pines, delightful fir trees on a white, aqua or navy background.

Laura also has a couple of 'basic' co-ordinating prints available within the collection - Flow and the awesome Northern Lights print.

The collection is available on the website at £15 a metre.

Enjoy!

Joanna