Patches of Destruxion

 Hi everyone! First off, an apology for saying I was going to blog more regularly and then going silent for months. But in my defence, I haven't been procrastinating for stupid reasons, I have taken on a real-world job which is taking up all my time. But I have still been sewing! And I have not only finished this quilt, but entered it into the Festival of Quilts, so everyone can see over the next few days. Here is my finished quilt using my blocks from the 2023 #focuscuttingsewalong. I have called it 'Focussed Rainbow'. Here's what's been going on with the finishing process! After finishing off the final blocks I needed, I added a border to square off the edges. My initial plan had been a plain border with white or black, but when I put the fabrics against the quilt they didn't look right. Instead, I decided to emphasize the rainbow effect and continue the colours of each row of blocks into the borders. Thanks to the lovely people of Instagram who almost unanimo...

Hello everybody! Last weekend I went to a short workshop making EPP Christmas ornaments, here in my current home city of Coventry. We were at St-Martin's-In-The-Field Church, which was a very nice venue, providing excellent tea and cake in the café. We were in a heated marquee due to building work, but I really didn't find it that cold (note: I was the only one with this opinion. None of my fellow classmates took off their coat like I did). Our tutor was Jane Cobbett, a local textile artist, collector and quilt restorer. She started by giving us a talk on how the Victorians used to make Christmas decorations using fabric scraps, often selling them to raise money for good causes. She brought in this lovely late Victorian Moravian star from her collection (maker unknown). Isn't it lovely? A lot of the fabrics are silks, and you can make out some brocade designs. The beads are held in place by pins. Jane also showed us this version of the same pattern she made herself. Then we...

 Hello everybody! This is a story of a quilt that I have not only completely finished, but am exhibiting at the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham! This story starts on 25 March, when my Maths Professor Dad posted an article on FB about some as yet unpublished research into the discovery of a new shape given the name of 'einstein hat'. The is the first shape discovered by mathematicians that can aperiodically tile a plane all by itself. It was instantly obvious to me from the picture in the link that this could be made as an English Paper Piecing quilt. In particular, the small subdivisions of the shape marked out are kites - the exact same shape I was using for last year's #focuscuttingsewalong - and I still have a ton of the papers left over. So straight away I taped together 8 of them to make myself an einstein hat template. I spent the next two days making more paper templates and starting to baste them. I had initially assumed that all the tiles were identical in every w...

Hello everybody! At the end of term, the lovely Reception class teacher at my kids' school left to go to a different school. She has been amazing with my kids, so I decided at the last minute she needed a handmade leaving gift. So here is the cushion I made her. I had a clear idea of the design from the beginning. I have seen several patterns with pencils on Pinterest and similar, but for this I decided to design my own, so it would work with my stash. It turned out when I pulled fabrics that I had a lot fewer solids left than I thought I did. And only one low volume fabric for the backing that I had a suitable quantity of. Here's my sketch. I pieced the main panel together by hand. I then got my kids to write their names on it and embroidered over their writing. I decided to add embroidery to the couple of false start pencil scribbles the kids did, because I thought it added to the effect. When it was finished, it was clear it was too small for the cushion inserts I had, so I ...