Summer Sampler 2017 - Week 9

Welcome to my turn on the Summer Sampler with my highly unoriginally named Curved Block! 

You have found me out...I am absolutely rubbish at thinking up names for blocks and quilts so this had the working title of the Curved Block and I am afraid it stuck!

I did toy around with calling it Platform 9 1/4s...but I thought that was perhaps stretching the connection a little too randomly...so Curved Block it is!

I hope after a couple of other curve blocks you are feeling confident and happy with curves and will enjoy making your block.

I have done a little playing around with my favourite Layout App with seeing how, if you were inclined to do so, you could have a lot of fun building up an entire quilt with it, or derivations of it.

I hope you will enjoy making yours and I can't wait to see all the different variations everyone will no doubt make!

Don't forget to post your blocks in the Facebook group here!

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?!

July Fabric Club...

It's that time of the month again...getting ready for the next Fabric Club edition.

I love producing my Fabric Club bundles. It gives me an excuse to play around with fabric and paint colours just for the hell of it, rather than trying to pick fabrics for a certain project. That is fun too, but this is just full on play with no strings attached.

This month I wanted to do something a little bit different and use coloured ink a bit more, rather than simply printing in white. That's always good too, but I was in the mood for something different.

 I had chosen a Baby Blue Kona to print on, to go with some orange and peach colours, and wanted a grey blue ink to print on top of it. Normally I am drawn to the teal and sea colours in the blue spectrum but they were too loud competing with the orange.

I started off with Wedgewood, one of my favourite pre mixed grey blues, but it was a little bit light and a little bit bright. A hint of grey later and I had turned it into the most gorgeous grey blue that can hold its own perfectly with the loud orange, without competing with it.

And so now with the perfect freshly printed blue panels, I am itching to devise a project to sew with it for!

July Fabric Club bundles are available to order on the website, so if you like what you see click here and order yours now. This is just a little bit of what will be in the bundle...

the rest...for now...is a surprise!

Scandinavian Oakshott...

Several week ago I was sent this fab bundle of the Scandinavia collection by Oakshott. I had been chatting to Michael and we both agreed we would love to see how my prints would work over Oakshott shot cotton fabrics.

I printed over them before I had thought out what I was going to do...that's normally my way...I used my Flowerbed design as I wanted to print a design that would leave a lot of the beautiful Oakshott fabric showing through.

I kept them on my desk a while until I was sure what I wanted to do with them. They were far too precious to make a mistake and cut into with the wrong decision. I have done that too many times before.

As soon as I came across this beautiful Kaleidoscope block in Joyce Gieszler's book Then and Now Quilts, I kneew this would be perfect.

It is a paper pieced pattern which is a process I have actually grown to love. Once you get your head around the back to front piecing it really is quite ok. What's more, being a rather slap dash piecer I would never ordinarily get such precise piecing without paper piecing. As long as you follow the lines you can't go too far wrong.

Joyce's layout with the Kaleidoscope blocks is so lovely to watch as secondary and tertiary patterns emerge.

The next decision was how to quilt this mini. IG peeps gave great suggestions but they were either beyond my quilting skills, or took too long with suggestions of hand quilting...I'm way too impatient to see something finished for that.

I settled on the idea of a matchstick spiral to accentuate the general circular pattern that the design made. This turned out to be a good decision as the spiral shape not only kept the quilt nice and taught, preventing it getting misshapen, and also flattened any suspect piecing.

Final decision was binding...I printed up the remainder pieces of Oakshott with my new Smock Top design. Not being able to decide which to use I just printed up the lot...the remainder will always come in handy for other projects I am sure.

After some umming and ahhing, possibly making it scrappy and using a bit of each, I eventually decided to keep it neutral and use the Uppsala. I was so pleased I did. It is such a gentle, but interesting, non threatening colour.

I only had a small piece of the fabric so I used Kerry's fab tutorial for single fold binding. I think I may be a convert to this method...it used half the fabric...what's not to love?

All in all this was a thoroughly enjoyable project. I don't often use other people's patterns, but I really loved doing this one. I had reduced it from the original template to make a wall hanging and I am thinking about enlarging the template next time to make a wonderful double bedsize throw. My Robert Kaufman collection is due to land here any day now and I am thinking this pattern would be perfect to showcase them.

As for the original bundle of Scandinavia shot cottons...what a dream they were to print on and sew with...I will certainly be doing that again.

Beyond Measure...

Hello!

It's a week later and I am blogging...hurrah!

Miracles do happen!

You may have seen these beautiful wood turned pin cushions that I have been waxing lyrical over on Instagram.

This is one of those projects that I am so honoured to be part of.

I first met Grace, the owner of a new stunning online store, Beyond Measure, at GNCCF late last year.

We chatted a lot and Grace was keen to use my fabrics in her new pincushions. I wasn't sure at the time what they were going to be like but was more than happy to sell her some panels and waited to see how they turned out.

If I tell you I could have fainted on the spot when I first saw the pin cushions, it would have been no exaggeration or lie. Then when I received one...I couldn't help myself...I ordered one on the spot...they came to life so much more. The wood turned base and lid, made by an artist in the Czech Republic, is so tactile and beautiful, you don't want to let it out of your hand.

If ever there was something that was both beautiful and useful this was it.

Not unsurprisingly Grace can't make these quickly enough. This current lot she has in stock are from these 3 panels that I printed up for her last week. I actually need one of each.

Go check them out in her shop here and while you are at it see all the other special items Grace has sourced for her gorgeous shop. She certainly has a good eye. Everything is so stylish. 

...and you can currently get £2.50 off shipping by using the code 'post40' on orders over £40 until May 10

...but be quick...these pincushions don't hang around for long!

News...

Hello!

I know I know, my blogging is quite catastrophic! 

I am not going to lie...I won't ever get back to blogging how I used to but I will do my upmost to blog weekly and keep you up to date with news and what is going on around these parts.

I do post regularly on Instagram to give you snippets of what I am up to but I do know a lot of you would like more insight and I promise to do that at least weekly.

There I have said it!

As ever, work life is full of exciting projects and wonderful things.

I wanted to share with you a couple of exciting projects I have recently been involved with.

The first is this gorgeous rattle by The Milk Collective. 

Paula and Jaz, the clever ladies behind this fab brand, contacted me a while ago to ask if I could screen print some of their designs. I love it when unexpected things come up. It is so inspiring.

I prepared a screen and printed up the panels and they made this wonderful rattle. 

How cute! 

The Milk Bottle is available to pre order now on their website and they are offering 15% off with the code MILKBOTTLE at the checkout.

I am currently working with Martina of Ava & Neve, a beautiful online fabric store based in Australia. Martina mainly stocks Liberty fabrics but also has a penchant for hand printed and wanted to stock my fabrics to work alongside.

We have worked together to produce 2 collections that will work well with the Liberties she stocks.

I am so very excited to be in Australia and hope the fabrics will be really successful for Martina. So if you are that side of the world and want to be kept up to date with Pre Orders go and leave your details with Martina.

So with my promise of blogging weekly, I guess I will see you here next week!

magic!

Don't you just love it when you discover something really clever that is really simple?

I am quite a lazy quilter...there I have said it...in the sense that I like things to be done quickly. I'm impatient what can I say! It's probably why I like simple piecing.

I am pretty lazy when it comes to pressing too...it's time I could be sewing quite frankly. The downside to that is that it actually takes me longer to sew the pieces together in the first place as I have to align things up more carefully. The conclusion is, there is no such thing as a short cut!

However I was intrigued when I came across this link on Pinterest of Tips for Flatter Blocks.

It is brilliant!

I have never had such flat blocks!

And sewing them together was a breeze, which is no mean feat when most of them were on the bias.

Go check it out for yourself and you will be pleased you did!

And while we are at it...what are your Go To magic tips for making quilting easier? I would love to know!

Quilting...and a giveaway...

One of the reasons for the change of name with my business is due to my actual name being in print.

If you have followed me from Blueberry Park you will be well aware of my book, Screen Printing at Home, that came out in the summer and also seen various projects that I have been commissioned for in Love patchwork & Quilting magazine.

Seeing my name in print more and more and seeing Blueberry Park less and less was the start of sewing the seed for me for the need to change.

It is time to hold my head up and embrace being me rather than hiding behind a label.

I have been loving all the commissions I have been lucky enough to score for LP&Q and this latest one, made with Cotton and Steel fabrics, alongside my own, was such a joy to make.

It came home yesterday and I was so pleased to see it!

When it came home 3 copies of Issue 15 that it is in accompanied it and what better way to start my new blog than to offer you a giveaway!

I will post these 3, accompanied by some of my fabrics that I used to make the quilt...and maybe a selection of others...because I have probably run out of most of the ones in the quilt!

I will ship anywhere in the world, all I ask is that you are a follower of my new blog. Just leave a comment, any comment, to enter and I will draw 3 lucky winners on Saturday.

Good luck and thanks for being here!

xxx