End of Term Report - 2014

So, another year has just zoomed by! More than a dozen quilt shows and group visits all over the country from Ardingly in West Sussex to Northumberland, Llangollen in Wales and Edinburgh in Scotland! It's been great seeing so many familiar faces throughout the year too.

 

There have been some really wonderful fabrics delivered this year; my fave being Terra Australis direct from Australia. I'm still the only shop stocking it in the UK, available by the metre or in fat quarter bundles.

 

 

Outback                                      Eucalyptus

 

And just delivered this week are the latest Bali pre-cuts from Hoffman. Super yummy as usual; my fave is Cockatiel I think

 

 


I have these as 2.5" Pops, 10" Crackers and 5" Snaps and they are already on the website.

 

Another pre-cut collection was released at Quilt Market in Houston featuring the 1895 collection of batiks in lovely colour combos. I may just have to order these.........

 

Looking forward to next year, I have some big plans that I am working on. Having dithered about them all this year I think 2015 is the year to be decisive and do them, so keep an eye out for news on this!

 

Joanna

 

 

Ardingly Quilt Show

Finally found a bit of time to report on the first quilt show proper of the year at the South of England Showground in Ardingly, West Sussex. It's always a great feeling getting back out there and meeting customers again!

This show is also a difficult one though because the access for traders on setting up day and breakdown after the show is via about eight steps, especially for me as I don't feel I am strong or tall enough to try and push or pull a laden trolley down them! So this means carrying things down the stairs which all adds to the time it takes to unload and load again.

 

However it's a great show and there were some great quilts on display. I particularly loved this year's journal quilts with the theme 'Little Landscapes'. Some of them are truly wonderful!

 

 

The show was as successful as usual and I'll be back next year. The Bali pre-cuts were especially popular (well they are lovely colours) but I think it helped having the quilts hanging behind the stand.

 

Also excited to tell you the Peacock colour way of the Lumina Ribbon panel arrived in stock this week.............and its super yummy!



 

The other two colours almost sold out at the show, so get them while you can!

 

Joanna

Disappearing 9 Patch Mini Quilt Tutorial

Here's a quick tutorial for this traditional pattern.

 

All you need is a Hoffman Snap pack and 50cm of a zinging
co-ordinate fabric and it makes a quilt 29" x 36".

 

 

I've used the brown Caramel Snap pack for mine and a hot orange. You can buy the Snaps here.

First up...........open the packet! Its always the hardest thing for me to do.

1. Split the pack up into five sets of eight squares. Ensure you have a mix of light and dark colours in each set.
2. Cut one, 5" strip from your zinger fabric and sub cut five, 5" squares from it.
3. Take one set of eight squares and arrange them around one zinger square.

4. Join the squares into three rows of three. Press seams for each row in alternate directions. Join the rows together to make a nine patch block with the zinger square in the centre.
5. Press the block and then cut it into quarters.

6. Repeat with each set of squares to make a total of twenty quarter squares.
7. Lay the quarter squares out into five rows of four squares. Rotate them as desired until you like the arrangement.
8. Join the squares into rows and then join the rows together to make the quilt top.
9. Cut four, 2 1/2" strips from the zinger co-ordinate for your border and add to your quilt top, opposite sides first and then top and bottom edges.
10. Quilt as desired. I quilted mine in spirals and my favourite wave wiggle which is really easy to master and is great for filling pre-cut strips.

11. Double bind the edges. I use 2 1/4" strips.
12. Add a hanging sleeve.

A quick and easy quilt in twelve steps!

Make it in pink or blue for a cosy cot quilt or how about the Liquorice  colour with a zingy red? 

The New Bali Pre-cuts are Here!

They actually arrived last week and the only way I have managed to find the time to get them uploaded to the website is to get up early this morning!

Things have been so hectic the last few weeks what with attending a local group exhibition at Wye Valley Quilters, the Open European Quilt Championships in Holland and the last couple of Autumn Quilt Festivals at Malvern last weekend and Duxford this coming weekend. In fact I only had the chance to take a look at these new pre-cuts properly at the show in Malvern.

 

And what can I say? They are as yummy as always! And as usual, I'm torn between which ones are my favourites.

First we have Pacific, lots of lovely blues

 

 

Next up its River Rock; subtle browns and blues

 

 

Then we have Seaholly which seems to have been the most popular so far

 

 

Not far behind in popularity is Tidepool

 

 

The brightest one in the group is Splash

 

 

And finally we have Volcano

 

 

As before each of the colours is available in 2 1/2" strips (Pops), 10" squares (Crackers) and 5" squares (Snaps).

 

So which is your favourite? Comment on this post telling me which is your favourite and why for the chance to win a Bali Snap pack. Don't forget to leave your email address otherwise I can't contact you!
Closing date is 6pm GMT Tuesday 5 November

  

Anything Happening?

I guess its about time I updated you on what's been happening now that I have recovered from the Festival of Quilts.

The show was really busy and was the best show I've done there. It was so busy that for the first time I didn't get to see all the quilts! I usually manage to have a quick whizz round them first thing in the morning but this year I only managed to see about half of them. And as for the galleries, well I haven't taken a look at those for years.

 

It's always nice to have some new fabrics in for the show and this year I managed to get some great new texture prints in from Robert Kaufman. It was touch and go whether they would arrive in time but I'm so glad they did.

They are called Fusions Textures and are really rather yummy.

 

 

Twenty eight colours are in stock and on the website.

 

I also introduced a few new patterns at the show, all showcasing the batik pre-cuts.

 

First up is Strip Race Interrupted, a really quick quilt to make from a Bali Pop.

 

 

Next we have Snap Pop Squared which uses a Bali Pop and Snap pack.

 

 

And finally we have Square Up which uses Mini Treat pack from Timeless Treasures. These offer different design possibilities because they have two of each fabric in each pack.

 

 

I love working with these pre-cuts now and am working on a couple more designs at the moment. The next Bali collection from Hoffman is due for delivery in October, which is all of just over a month away now!

Bali Pops are Coming.........

Yes! Exciting news! The 6th Bali pre-cut collection is on its way and is due for delivery on Wednesday. This is all the more exciting due to the hiccups and problems I have had getting these in stock, but that's for me to moan and grumble about to myself :-)

 

This sixth collection is made up of Hoffman's wonderful #1895 pattern so they are mainly marble type prints but this means they are easier to mix and match.

 

 

And they will also be great for landscapes or applique.

 

As before they will be available as Pops (2 1/2" strips), Crackers (10" squares) and Snaps (5" squares).

 

My first pattern using pre-cuts should be available at Quilts UK in a couple of weeks............assuming I have finished quilting the quilt by then! Actually the quilt is almost quilted so I just need to add the binding..............oh and sew in all those ends!!!

 

New on the website is Essential Gradations from Benartex. These fabrics are really yummy!

 

 

So lots of exciting things coming up..........

 

Finally!

Finding the time to blog seems to be my problem at the moment. I was all set to write a post about 10 days ago but somehow the time I had found to write it, suddenly evaporated.

But here I am. It's the beginning of November. And I know it's been ages since I blogged again!

I have been tweeting quite a bit recently so why not follow me there for quick and regular updates on what has been happening at The Crafty Quilter.

I am becoming increasingly frustrated with Facebook. I have over 400 followers on the CQ page and yet less than 25% of them ever see my posts. I could of course pay to promote my posts but that is just not a viable option for a small business. On the FB profile I use for quilting purposes, I have so many 'friends' that I have made a couple of lists of people or fabric companies whose updates I really want to see and yet when I was working my way through the updates in one of my lists the other day, I needed to refresh the page at one point and as I scrolled through  the updates I had already read, I found there were some that weren't there a minute ago. What was that all about? The whole point of making lists is NOT to miss any updates from people!
And so this is why you will find me more on twitter these days.

So what's new at The Crafty Quilter?

A few weeks ago the 5th Bali pre cuts collection from Hoffman arrived. These are now available in 5" squares, aka Snaps, and 10" squares, aka Crackers, as well as the original 2 1/2" strips - Pops. I really love these. I didn't order a large quantity of the new Snaps and Crackers as I wasn't sure how they would be received so have sold out of quite a few of them already. More are now on order and they will hopefully arrive later this month.
The most popular colour so far has been Brown Sugar, which is rather yummy.

My favourite is Parfait, although this has been the least popular so far!

The other new delivery just before the quilt show at Malvern was the first few fabrics from the Florentine 4 collection from Robert Kaufman. Pretty amazingly, I managed to upload the fabrics to the website the same day as they were delivered!
There are four colourways to this collection but I have only ordered these two subtle colours; Dawn and Mist.

I'll see what quilt kit I can design when the rest of the fabric arrive.

The last few weeks have been very busy with back to back quilt shows at Malvern last weekend and Duxford this weekend. Today is the last day of my last show this year, although I am working at an area day next Saturday too.
It will be nice to have a break and get some quilting done and to that end I have just bought myself a freemotion foot for my machine and plan to teach myself to machine quilt.

Anyone want to learn along with me?