Cutting Garden featured in Homespun - and a giveaway!

If you've never had the pleasure of reading Homespun Magazine from Australia, I hope perhaps my latest quilt pattern will encourage you to order a copy! This has always been one of my fav sewing publications due to the varied projects (quilting, embroidery, sewing, collaging), gorgeous photography, matte paper, designer biographies and glimpses of quilting life DownUnder.  I wish it were easier to find in Canada. If you search online there are a few retailers in North America from which you can order copies.

 

Here's the adorable cover and a little detail of my quilt on the contents page!

The story of Cutting Garden is kind of a long one. You may recall that last year I worked with many neighbourhood friends (as well as others from my local quilting community) to make a Scrappy Sprouts quilt for our friend who was diagnosed with cancer.  The quilt we made was inspired by a quilt my friend Tracey made with sewing buddies the year before for her friend with cancer.  We both feel that the block is sweet and hopeful and I know that both quilts brought so much joy to their recipients. 

The location photos in the magazine are just stunning and make me so proud to have a project included!

Well, the editors at Homespun saw a photo of my quilt online and approached me to create a similar one, but they wanted a design with more flowers and a darker "ground".  I first asked Tracey if she wanted the gig, after all, it all started with her block design and quilt.  The timing wasn't right for her, but she graciously allowed me to go ahead with a quilt using a smaller version of her block.  Because of Tracey's generosity and the origins of this quilt, I've donated my modest design commission to cancer research - that just felt right.

The scale of a dresden plate flower didn't work with these smaller sprout blocks, so I designed some folk-art inspired flowers that are made up of two pieced quarter circles, some bias tape applique stems and machine appliqued circles.  I love how they look on top of those pretty rainbow sprout stalks.  It is really difficult to showcase the scrappy low-volume background fabrics in photographs, but trust me, there are tons of prints in there!

One of my fav things about the quilt are the two Heather Ross bumble bees on the flowers (Briar Rose fabric line).

This quilt is a fabulous scrap-buster. There is a lot of piecing, so it takes a while, but the results are so pretty. I cut the squares from pressed scraps using my Accuquilt GO!Baby cutter, which saved lots of time.  I have a little stash of leftover HST's, squares and stems that I saved for one lucky follower along with a copy of the magazine if you'd like to make this quilt yourself.  

Please leave one comment below for a chance to win. Your email MUST be linked to your comment, or appear in the comment itself, in order for you to win.  I'll choose a random winner next week on my birthday: July 22nd. Good luck everyone!

ETA: comments are now closed. Congratulations to comment #74 chosen by the random number generator! The Rx Quilter, you've won!! I'll email you for details on how to get your prize to you.

It is October, right?

Travelling over a change in month can be so disorienting. How is it mid-October already? Since returning from Italy, we have celebrated B's birthday and Thanksgiving. Next up is Hallowe'en!

The Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild often holds a block raffle at our meetings (one completed block = one raffle ticket to win a set of blocks). Every year I make tons of Hallowe'en blocks to enter, because I really want to make a Hallowe'en quilt! Alas, I've never one the Hallowe'en lotto. This will be my 4th attempt, so wish me luck.

I spent some time over the long weekend playing with scraps. Here's one of the blocks I made using some Oakshott Colourshott scraps from my Chess on the Steps quilt (speaking of which, go look at the incredibly playful All the Colours Quilt Leanne made using my pattern!).

I used a 1/2" hexy to start and pieced 3/4" strips log-cabin style in rounds. So fun!  Our blocks have to be in size multiples of 6" finished, so this one is actually 6 1/2" square, but I've zoomed in on the pumpkin for the photo.

apologies for pretty awful night time phone pics - it's dark and stormy here today!

For this 6 1/2" x 12 1/2" block, I first pieced some strips together and then cut out tumblers using my Accuquilt Go!Baby for some scrappy candy corn. I liked this so much, I made three more similar blocks. The meeting is next Monday night and I will let you know what happens.

I'm slowly making my way through holiday photos, editing, labelling and uploading. I'll be able to post some soon!

Pillow Party under the Tree

If you are my sister, or my SIL who is also a mother to five children AND you don't want to see what your children will be getting from me for Christmas, then make a hasty exit now please. No paging down first.

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For the rest of you: they are done! Seven quilted reading pillows for all of my nieces and nephews (yup, one of my brothers has 5 kids and my sister has 2). For specific fabric lines used, click on the photo and it will take you to flickr where I wrote that info in individual photo descriptions.

All 18" pillows except for the pink/purple dresdens in the bottom left corner, which are 20". You can see the pictures individually once you get to my flickr photostream - they're all there.

I didn't use any specific tutorials to make these pillows, but I got the idea to use my GO!Baby tumbler die for the boy pillows after seeing Katy's. Check her Tumbler Pillow tutorial at Fat Quarterly. If you want to try a dresden plate there are several free tutes I found via the google searching wonderdog here and here. Or if you want a hybrid tumbler/dresden pillow, check out this tute! For my dresdens, I used a 22.5 degree ruler made by Nifty Notions, but you can use any dresden ruler. To know how many blades you need to complete the circle, just divide 360 degrees by the number of degrees in your ruler's arc.

I like dresdens with long blades and a small centre circle (trying to use up my scraps after all), but chubby dresdens can be very cute, too. Nova just published an adorable pattern that is a chubby dresden pillow with a pocket in the centre circle. Brilliant!

On pillows for the younger kids I did a simple envelope closure for the back (plus I ran out of long zips. Note to self, an 18" pillow requires a 16" zipper, not an 18" one). I covered the couple zips I did use to protect furniture and long hair. There are different ways to cover a zipper, one is here and another here.

Next up, gifts for grown-ups.

Scan Me Full Frontal

Possibly my naughtiest post title ever. Love it.

My guild held a summer sew-in today and I was able to complete the quilting and binding of my QR Code Quilt. I kept scanning it along the way to make sure the quilting stitches and the blue binding would not affect the scan-ability of the quilt. You can even scan this photo of the quilt with your smart phone and it works! Pretty cool. Thanks to my GO! Baby I was able to cut all of the 2" squares I used to construct this quilt in about 20 minutes (I did cheat; some longer strips were used wherever there were more than 5 squares of one colour in row. I'm not that obsessed with piecing!).

I quilted the entire quilt in a simple grid pattern using King Tut Superior white, 40 wt. 3-ply thread. The batting is bamboo/cotton blend. Check out the cheeky backing:

Perfect foil for a totally functional, mod quilt, don't cha think? That's a hunk of Alexander Henry's "Home Sewing is Easy" that I got on sale as a bolt end here last fall.

If you would like to make your own QR Code quilt, I've done a tute here. If you would like to WIN a GO!Baby, then enter your comment here before Thursday, July 28th.

Go ahead, scan it! You know you want to!

This is it Baby. GO! Giveaway

Today is my birthday (like you didn't already know) and I can't think of a better way to celebrate than giving one of you a present. When Accuquilt offered me the opportunity to try out one of their adorable GO!Baby cutters I was very happy to accept because it meant I could then share one with one of you. These are expensive tools and not necessarily something everyone can just run out and buy. It feels nice to be able to gift something like that!

You can read more about my escapades with the cutter here and here see a tutorial for making your own QR Code quilt on my flickr sets here. I've only used my GO!Baby to cut 2" squares so far. I have been getting a lot of ideas of what else I could use my new tumbler and chisel dies for, though. Luckily I have two willing assistants who think rolling the dies through the cutter is a super fun job (it is!) so when I'm ready to tackle one of those projects I know who to call.

I've had some inquiries about whether an Accuquilt cutting machine would be helpful for someone with arthritis in their hands. Well, I have arthritis in my hands that is mostly in remission, but easily flared by repetitive strain. I can say this: you have to be able to grip, both the top handle to stabilize the cutter, and the rolling handle to turn it. A flat hand over the top would work for holding the machine steady, but a full grip is necessary to turn the crank. The dies did flow VERY easily through the machine with 3 fabric layers so you don't necessarily need a tight grip...any more than 3 layers require more general arm strength and a tighter grip. Also, unless you are using scraps, fabric preparation with rotary equipment is still required, so this is not a replacement for rotary work by any means. I don't believe any auto-cutting system is.

The good news is that the GO! Baby is just plain fun to use, and very safe (the blades are super sharp, but if a grown-up places the fabric and cutting mat on top of the die safely, then a smaller helper can roll it through the machine for you). Or a big man helper, whichever you happen to have on hand.

For your chance to win a GO!Baby and three dies of your choice, please leave ONE comment. Your email address MUST be linked, or written in your comment for a valid entry. If you blog on a platform other than Blogger, your email is not linked, please leave it in your comment!!

This giveaway will be open until Thursday, July 28th at 6:00 pm PST

ETA: comments are now closed, thanks for entering. Winners will be announced when I return home the week of Aug.1st.

Now, before I received my GO!Baby, I had entered a lot of giveaways trying to win one myself. I know what a bummer it is not to win, so with that in mind, I'm going to offer a very small consolation prize to three more Poppyprint readers.

You can choose your favourite colour of my poppy-printed fabric and I'll send you a piece!

Ok, if you are here for free stuff, go ahead and leave a comment. If you are curious about the good-luck birthday story I mentioned the other day, here you go.

I had always thought I was lucky that my birthday was on the 22nd, because that meant I would be old enough to do something really cool on my "good luck" birthday. You know, turning 22 on the 22nd. Well, I did do something really cool that day. In fact, it was something I NEVER would have dreamed of. Turns out, that summer of '89 I got a job in South Africa through recruiters at my university. Gold Fields, a South African mining company, had a program to bring over foreign geology and mining students for their summer term and give them 'a job' to experience the mining industry there. The hope was that you'd return after obtaining your qualifications. As a geology student, I was able to work at the mineralogy lab, and live in an apartment in Johannesburg (most of the mining students remained out on the mines in staff housing). Over one two week period, I had the opportunity to work at a field camp just north of Swaziland - there I rode my mountain bike amongst ostrich, wild boar & zebra since we were just inside of a soon-to-be-game park. Pretty cool. Fortunately I never encountered a Black Mamba, which apparently had been found in the shower shack the week before I got there!

Here's the birthday part: turns out King Mswati III of Swaziland turned 21 that summer and he decided to celebrated on the 22nd, even though is birthday is in April. Now, he's turned out to be a not-so-great guy for his country because of all the money he blows through, and I'm not sure how his 14 wives feel about him, but for his 21st birthday, he threw an incredible party! I drove down with a South African geologist and another American student and we camped out at this amazing field (Woodstock style, but with less mud). There was an incredible concert including Eric Claptan, Joan Armitrading, Johnny Clegg & Savuka all playing on this massive outdoor stage, while the King circled overhead in a helicopter. At the end of the night there was a stunning fireworks display. BEST. BIRTHDAY.EVER. The photos are in a box of slides somewhere in my crawl space....maybe one day I'll dig them out and share.

So, my friends, there you have it. Another year. I still am having a very hard time believing that concert was 22 years ago and that I am twice as old today as I was then. I'll leave you with this beautiful bouquet, dropped off by the incomparable friend Double NN Dianne last night.

Good luck in the giveaway and thanks for stopping by for my birthday party!

Create A QR Code Quilt!

After receiving word that a GO!Baby Accuquilt cutting system was coming my way, my son decided that the 2" square die I ordered would be perfect for creating a QR Code quilt. A quick google search showed us that others have already crafted QR Codes in various fibre media, including quilts, cross stitch, embroidery and knitting.

QR Code Quilt basted

I've written a tutorial explaining how I created my 37" square quilt using my GO!Baby cutter. It's a pictorial tute on flickr with the instructions appearing in each photo's description. Just click through each photo and read the descriptions below. As always, be sure to read the entire tutorial before starting as there are time-saving tips that appear under each photo.

This particular quilt was created for the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild. I thought it would be so cool to have this modern quilt to hang at public events. Anyone with a smart phone can scan the quilt and they'll be taken directly to our website for more information, membership details and inspiration!

I was quilting my QR Code yesterday at Vancouver's first Mini Maker Faire and the response was fantastic. People thought it was pretty awesome (I was a good mom and made sure to give T credit for the idea). I kept having to remove it from the machine so people could scan it!

I already wrote a bit about the preparation of this project. Based on some of the comments I received on that post, and subsequent email correspondence with friends, I think the kids and I were a bit ambitious cramming 8 layers of fabric through the GO!Baby. Next time, I'll limit it to 4 layers. I did find that the fabric shifted a bit and some squares (very few, but some) were skewed and unusable.

The other thing that wasn't ideal for me (being a bit of a perfectionist) is the fact that the die blades have to pass through the machine at a slight angle to the roller. This means that square shapes with right angles will have edges slightly off grain, resulting in some fraying. Normally this wouldn't phase me, but when working with black and white it's frustrating to have all of those little black threads shadowing through the white fabric. I tried trimming, but it was a losing battle! NEXT time, perhaps I should orient my fabric so that the grain is parallel to the blades on the die, instead of making them parallel to the edge of the cutting mat. So really, it seems that this issue is more of a newbie-operator error. I would appreciate feedback from some experienced Accuquilt users here....

The good news is that the QR Code Quilt looks super cool, and it is totally functional! Worked every time someone scanned it. I still have more quilting to do, so hang tight and I'll be back later in the week with a Full Frontal!

I'd like to thank the Accuquilt company for making it possible to cut 400, 2" squares in 20 minutes. And for making quilting 'cool' for my teenagers.

Accuquilt has a new offer for people that sign up for their informative newsletter; you will instantly receive 22 free quilt patterns as .pdf downloads! Click on my sidebar button to sign up. It's FREE and who couldn't use 22 new patterns? An Accuquilt cutter is not required to make many of them, but it sure would speed up the process!

Baby, Baby, Baby.....Ohhhh!

I can't help it. I'm living with a 12 y.o. girl who has a chronic case of Bieber-fever. If that last sentence, and this blogpost title mean nothing to you, consider yourself lucky and just move on to the next bit.

As alluded to last week, my GO! Baby Accuquilt cutting system arrived safe and sound. I'm not sure who was more excited, me or my kids. When I told my family about the Accuquilt company's generous offer to share a GO!Baby with me, and another with one of my readers, everyone was keen to see this miracle machine in action. I told them about the three dies I'd chosen: the chisel, the tumbler and simple, 2" squares. Only moments later, my son came up with a super cool idea for the first project I should make. We immediately decided to do it.

Before the cutter arrived, I had my fabric and a plan all set. Following the suggestions printed on the package of the 2" squares die, I cut 7" strips from the width of my Kona Black. I then folded that strip, accordian-style, into 5" sections. This yielded 8 layers of fabric.....hmmm, I thought "is that really going to squeeze through the cutter?"

I pressed the stack, thinking it would help to keep the fabric from shifting as it passed through the cutter.

Both kids were really excited to try rolling the die/fabric/cutting matt through the GO!Baby. Here, my 12 y.o. daughter manages to do it (now, she has particularly strong hands and arms from all her circus work....it was a little tough in the very middle but I think that was mostly due to her height and not being able to exert enough downward force to stabilize the cutter on the table). For my (much) taller son and I, it was no problem to crank through the 8 layers of cotton.

Below, you see the layers emerging from the opposite side of the cutter....the cutting matt is sticking up as it's other end is still firmly squished under the cutting roller.

And how precise are the squares? We only ditched 2 out of 194. I'm not sure why they were distorted. Maybe because we paused as the die was rolled through, or maybe the edge of one of the layers of fabric was too close the the blade edge and didn't fully fill out the square shape of the die? Not a bad waste ratio, all things considered.

A lot has been made of the waste involved with using this cutting system. I can tell you that it took a VERY casual hour (including walking up and down stairs, taking a drink of water here and there, pressing fabric, cutting & folding the 7" strips) to cut almost 400 two inch squares. The picture below shows the waste from one set of 48 squares.

I don't consider this usable fabric for the type of projects I do. I figure this amounts to about $0.25 in wasted fabric cost. Since my time in invaluable, I'd say the GO!Baby is totally worth it because it would probably have taken me twice, or even three times as long, to cut that many little squares accurately with rotary and ruler. The Accuquilt company claims it's machines are 90% faster than rotary or scissor cutting. In the case of simple squares, this is a major exaggeration, but if you think about hexes, flower shapes, stars, or their other intricate die shapes you can't do with rotary equipment, then they may just be right!

Once all the folded fabric stacks were ready to go, it took the three of us about 20 minutes to cut almost 400 squares with the GO!Baby.

What's T's cool project idea for all of these squares? I'll be sewing them together to make this, the ultimate modern quilt!

If you have a smart phone, you likely recognize this as a QR Code. It's a scanable image that links to any IP address (a spot on the internet), including a website, photo, video or blog. If you do have a smart phone with a QR scanner app loaded, go ahead, scan away. See where this takes you! You can create a QR code for just about anything here.

I'm off to my sewing room to begin construction. My plan is to have the quilt complete and ready for an exciting event on Saturday, Vancouver's first ever Maker Faire. I'll be volunteering with my friends at the VMQG booth. Hopefully, this quilt will be hanging there to provide participants with a link to all of our online activities!

I'll be back soon with a tutorial on how to turn the above image into a quilt. I'll also let you know how the Accuquilt-cut squares sew together....I am a little concerned that the squares are cut on a slight angle to the fabric straight of grain (according to the product literature, this is because the die blades cannot be at perfectly right angles to the roller, I assume because they would literally get stuck under the roller). Will the squares be stretchy? Will they distort? I'll let you know.....

How do you like your odds?

If you were a betting quilter, you might want to visit Talin and enter her Accuquilt GO! sponsored giveaway for THREE Accuquilt dies.

Don't have a GO! cutter to use those dies on? Aww, that's too bad. Me neither.

But tomorrow, that will all change for me. You see, I'm expecting a Baby and I didn't even have to go through the hideous barfing part, or swollen ankles, or maternity clothes (ugh!). No, all I have to do is open the front door for the UPS man when he knocks.

Photo courtesy of Accuquilt.com

And then, a couple of weeks after tomorrow, it could all change for one of you, too. You might want to clear a tiny, Baby-sized space on your sewing table. It's always good to be prepared when you've got a little one on the way (nudge, nudge, wink, wink, say no more, say no more!).

Are you a betting quilter?

And friends, don't forget that Thursday is my day for the Cotton Floss book tour party! C'mon by for a cuteness explosion (AND ANOTHER GIVEAWAY!) here at Poppyprint!