Fabric Club 2016

Karen Lewis Textiles Fabric Club is into it's 3rd year...amazing!

With the release of my Blueberry Park Collection with Robert Kaufman, I was unsure whether to continue with the club but I have been told it is very different, by receiving new designs throughout the year with carefully put together colours, it makes it a perfect add on rather than an either or. 

2016 sees a slightly different slant on the club. For those of you familiar with it you will still get a carefully selected bundle of fabrics, screen printed onto Kona with varying designs but to add a bit of spice to the club I have asked some wonderful peeps to join me and curate a bundle each month.

What has resulted is 6 amazing bundles this coming year, each reflecting the personalities of these 6 fantastic people...oh and there's a surprise 7th coming as an extra later in the year...more about that as the year goes on.

First up in January is the awesome Giuseppe. 

Giuseppe is better known as Giucy Giuce on Instagram and is quite simply a rainbow delight and his chosen bundle is a true reflection of his colourful personality! I can't wait to print this up!

As ever Fabric Club bundles are limited so if you want a piece of the action go and sign up and order yours right here. You can sign up for the individual bundle or receive a discount by joining up for an annual subscription. Perfect Christmas present don't you think?!

Edinburgh Workshops...

Morning! Now I have remembered where my blog is and hot off from my visit to Edinburgh this weekend, I thought I would revisit and share all.

This is my second visit up to Edinburgh this year...boy those ladies like to print! I love my visits up to Edinburgh to Jo's wonderful shop, My Bearpaw. Firstly Jo is there...and her lovely husband Jonathan and it's such a treat to manage a weekend to visit them.

When I went up this time I had the extra treat of being met by Blueberry Park bundles as I entered the shop. Seriously I don't think I will ever tire of seeing my fabric out in the wilds.

Jo has an amazing clientele for workshops. She has worked really hard to build up a hugely successful vibe up there with people craving her workshops, so it was wonderful that she filled 2 days of attendees...with still a waiting list for more wanting to learn to print...I think I will be back again soon!

When you walk into My Bearpaw you don't realise the Aladdin's Cave space behind and with the walls covered with Jo's beautiful quilts, it is the most perfect inspiring space. The eagle eyed of you won't miss seeing the Blueberry Park Lone Star there...what a beauty and what a joy for me to see.

We set to work designing and cutting stencils to use in our printing. I love this part. I love the silence due to the utter concentration and being thoroughly absorbed. I love the following WOW moment...the moment when the designs everyone has worked on suddenly become alive!

I used to be a secondary school teacher in my former life and trust me those wow moments were few and far between. Screen printing workshops give that wow moment every single time and it is so wonderful to see. 

I love being surrounded by amazing people and seeing all their creativity coming out. I love that every single workshop is completely different from the one before. 

I love that every person comes up with something completely different from the next person...and I love that everyone is so enthusiastic about the thing that I am so passionate about and can not wait to do it again.

Thank you Jo for having me and thank you to all 20 of you ladies for being so amazing and enthusiastic and I can't wait to come up again!

Quilting From Every Angle Giveaway...

Since posting about Nancy's awesome book last week I managed to finish the Desert Bloom Medallion quilt top. I am so pleased with how it has turned out. 

Now I have the decision to make as to whether to turn it into a wall hanging or keep going, adding some more borders to turn it into a quilt for our bed.  may leave it hanging for a while to see.

In the meantime you are probably wondering who won my giveaway....drum roll please...

Number 12...Farm Quilter!

Congrats, I will be emailing you with details of how to get the digital copy.

Thanks to everyone for entering and I hope you have been enjoying the rest of the blog tour. x

Quilting From Every Angle...

Title: Quilting from Every Angle
Author: Nancy Purvis
Publisher: Interweave
ISBN: 978-1-63250-086-1

Welcome to Day 3 of Nancy's book tour!

I am delighted and honoured to have been asked by Nancy to be a part of her book tour...have you seen the list of incredible quilters on there?!

I have known Nancy for quite some time via Instagram and have had the pleasure of having her and her lovely family come and visit me. I have long since been a fan of Nancy's work. She is on my Top 10 favourite quilters...actually higher than that but I don't want her blushing too much.

Nancy's style is bold, graphic but with a limited colour scheme...exactly what I am drawn to in a quilt design.

Nancy's book, Quilting From Every Angle, is a true reflection of her style and is consequently one of my favourite quilting books ever. I do love a good quilt book but in truth they are normally lovely eye candy full of wonder but with maybe 1-2 projects that I would actually want to make. Quilting From Every Angle is full of quilts I want to make...every single one of them.

Not only is the book full of quilts that I would love to make but it is a great resource too. I love the initial chapter, Inspired Quilting. It is so interesting to read about where Nancy gets her inspiration from and also to read invaluable tips on where we should look to for quilting and colour inspiration. Nancy goes on to give such great information on techniques she uses...I am definitely going to give glue basting a try...thanks Nancy!

The projects themselves are written in a very clear way with fantastic diagrams to go alongside. Actually I have to admit to sometimes just using the diagrams to construct the quilt I made, they were that good. What can I say I am a visual learner...words baffle me!

Because I truly love all the projects in the book I struggled to choose one to make for this review but I settled on the Desert Blooms Medallion Quilt, mainly because I have always wanted to make a Medallion quilt so this was the perfect opportunity.

I was inspired by Nancy's colour scheme to make this quilt as I thought the bold design could take it and would highlight the details of each border to the best effect. 

Unfortunately with my recent house move completing the quilt centre and first border was as far as I got but having said that I think it stands alone beautifully and would make a lovely mini for the wall as it is. I will finish it however as I want to see how it looks in full.

If you haven't yet got your hands on a copy of Nancy's book you really should. I am also pleased to let you know that I am having a giveaway here of a digital copy for one lucky reader. Just leave a comment here to be in with a chance of winning. I will draw a winner next Friday, 20 November. Good luck!

Don't forget to follow the rest of the blog tour, where there are other chances to win a copy of the book. Details of all the wonderful peeps are here...

11/10- Michelle Wilkie of Factotum of Arts
11/11- Hillary Goodwin of Entropy Always Wins
11/12- Karen Lewis of Karen Lewis Textiles
11/13- Anna Graham of Noodlehead
11/16- Rachel McCormack of Wooden Spoon Quilts
11/17- Tara Larson of Rad & Happy 
11/18- Jennifer Mathis of Ellison Lane
11/19- Holly Hughes of Holly Gets Quilty
11/20- Nicole Daksiewicz of Modern Handcraft
11/23- Pat Bravo of Pat Bravo Fabric Design and Jesse Maloney of Art School Dropout
11/24- Astrid Slagle of Red Red Completely Red
11/25- Holly DeGroot of Bijou Lovely
11/26- Christopher Thompson of The Tattooed Quilter
11/27- Spoonflower

In the meantime if you would like to purchase a signed copy of Nancy's book then go right here.

Also just to mention, as in all books some errata aren't picked up in the editing process. To be kept up to date with errata that have been rectified go here.

Thanks for stopping by and enjoy the rest of the tour!

p.s. I have to apologise for Nancy's pictures being so small...when I enlarged them they were too blurry...I need to find a way to fix that so you can really see how wonderful they are.