Plenty of Plusses

I've been looking at arranging my Plus blocks:

Staggered?

Wide sashing?

Thin sashing?

 I'm a bit short on the blue so the thin sashing is looking promising!!

I spent a fab afternoon at Chertsey museum yesterday - after the fake cathedral windows last month we started on real ones this month

 

Didn't they do well?

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Copied Cathedrals

A few weeks ago I wrote a post about various methods of achieving Cathedral Window blocks, and showed some samples ready for a class I'm teaching.

A friend, Janet, saw the post and decided to have a go.  I saw her blocks yesterday and realised this was a method I hadn't covered either in the previous post, or as a class sample!

Janet's blocks (pinned together *very* roughly by me) inspired me, so I decided to copy:

 

I had a pack of a dozen batik charms from Plum for Christmas sitting on my work bench, and the black from the cars quilts was still there, so I had a play this afternoon

I drew, with my trustie Flixon pen, 5" circles onto the batik, and cut them out, then placed each one on a black square, and stitched them together, all the way round

I cut out the black circle too then cut a 1" slit in the batik near the edge, and pulled the fabric through.  I shaped it and pressed it, then drew a 3" square in the centre of each circle (the best fit of an edge to edge square)

I pinned the strips together making sure I matched the lines back and front

I stitched the seams, then pressed the petals open.  Can you guess the " deliberate" mistake?  Yep, all the frixon marks have now vanished! 

Luckily the frixon pen leaves a slight scratch mark on the batik - usually a pain but this time it was an advantage so I was able to stitch the rows together, then press the new petals open too.

I rather like the scollopd edges but I hadn't thought it through and and some of the turning slits are at the edges, so I had to press over the outer petals too - luckily I rather like it like this too

Not sure what will happen to this next, but for now it's a very pretty sample for my class.

Thank you Janet, and thank you Plum

Copious Cathedrals

I'm teaching Cathedral windows, and variations, on Friday afteroon, and continuing on a Friday afternoon in March.

I thought I'd start with an easy variation, then move on to the real version!

I'm posting about it now so I then email all the bloggers I've used for inspiration and check that they are OK with my links!  These links all take you to a tutorial, not mine, but I have used them and they all seem well written

For a really simple idea which looks similar to a CW block but is much quicker, Ozzypip cut circles of denim, stitched together, folded and top stitched

 From Sue comes another easy method:  This looks similar to above, but no raw edges and each unit is made individually, then can be stitched to others.  Gather, press, fold, stitch

From Christina, at A Few Scraps we start using the bias roll method - this is a fairly simple block, with a whole load of variations.  Just fold, press, stitch, roll back and stitch

And then finally, I guess by March I will teach the real thing!  I've found lots of versions on the web, but I'll be using a combination of these three:  Press down the edges and hand sew,  press down the edges and machine sew, or just machine sew

Chertsey Creations

I didn't take any photos of the making we did at Chertsey Museum on Friday as there really wasn't much to see - but Show and Tell in February should be very exciting!

We were working on Proddy Rugs - being taught by one of the students, Ann.  Given that she had made this she was deemed to be well qualified!

It's made from 3.5" strips of fabric, so is about 1.5 inches thick - really lush and tactile

It even looks fab from the back!

So we've all started - lets hope ours look as good!  We've got an old fashioned Dolly Peg - albeit slightly modified - as our proddy

We also made some plans for the next few sessions: February and March will look at Cathedral Window blocks: the real way, and the easy way

April will be a chicken (or patchwork) basket/bowl

May will be a felted fairy (dry or needle felting)

with help from Kaye, and this book

While June will be felted flowers (wet felting)

 

And in July we are going to have a go at painting hessian bags, like this one that Stephanie brought in:

And finally a few more photos - a bit of Show and Tell from Christmassy making: (well done ladies)