Use Your Treasures Part 2, and Quilt As You Go

I joined our local quilt guild fairly recently, and yesterday the guild had its monthly meeting, which I attended. There was a special theme this time: to learn a 'quilt as you go'-technique. I brought a bunch of my hand dyed fabrics that were basically just samples of different techniques, which have accumulated over the years. Some of them were pretty unsuccessful as a whole, but had potential if cut up. And I'm on a mission to reduce my stash! I was reminded again of how nice it is to dye your own fabrics, because by using and mixing the same dyes you always have a collection of fabrics that automatically go well together.

The technique was a form of foundation piecing, where you sew down your fabric piece onto batting and a backing fabric, and quilt it before you sew down the next fabric piece, which you then quilt before moving on to the next piece. This means that the quilting will go in different directions, and disappear under other fabric pieces in the process. I was tempted to free-motion quilt different patterns and colours, but felt it would have been tedious and time-consuming to keep changing presser foot and thread, so I stuck to straight lines and one thread colour. But with two sewing machines you could have a lot of fun with this! One for piecing and one for quilting. I'm sorry that I don't have any process images, but I was on a roll (and in a hurry) and forgot.

At the guild meeting I made a quilt sandwich for a pouch, which I finished at home,

and later in the evening I couldn't resist making a pot holder too. But that one is foundation pieced first and quilted after the piecing was done.

Here are a few more shots of the pouch:

I think a cover for my tablet is coming up next. The poor thing has been very neglected since I bought it this last autumn!



Thanks for visiting my blog!

Purses and Pouches Galore

It seems I've been into bags, purses and pouches lately. I've produced quite a collection for different purposes, even on commission. Here are some of them.

Paper fabric purses for an upcoming mixed media class (in September):
(i Nykarleby: så håll korpgluggarna öppna för mera information, ni som bor i området!):

To create the paper fabric, I've used the methods described by Beryl Taylor in Mixed Media Explorations and Kelli Nina Perkins in Stitch Alchemy. There's more to explore, so I'm sure I'll return to this subject later in the summer.

A waist purse to hold my keys while I'm out jogging (much needed, and accomplished at last!):

A batch of coin purses to sell at a craft fair this summer (the fabrics are my own hand dyed fabrics):

 

And a pouch for smartphones, also for sale at the fair (again, my own hand dyed fabric). So far I've only managed to finish one of these, but I'm probably going to make more now that I've worked through the original construction method and made some improvements:

That's all folks! Have a great weekend, and I hope to see you again soon! - Annika