green tea and sweet beans
Showing posts with label green tea and sweet beans. Show all posts
Simply Sew'In 🌷 green tea and sweet beans quilt progress
I had the most amazing, inspiring, relaxing, fun weekend at the Simply Sew'In retreat. Thank you to Justine and Lisa from Simply Solids for inviting me to teach and for organising such a brilliant weekend!
I met so many fabulous women, including my roomie Jenny - who I laughed and cried with, she's so lovely, honest and talented. I got to spend time with wonderful Trudi, we had good chats and hugs! I am so grateful to her for her wisdom and inspired by her strength and compassion. It all got very deep and these friendships and bonds are so precious to me. It was such a great atmosphere at the retreat and everyone could really be themselves. Like the hilarious Kay, who is so sweet and I felt like we were already friends! It was great meeting friends from Instagram and being able to 'real life' sew together for the #saturdaynightcraftalong!!
Every one there was lovely and of course so creative, I was blown away by all the gorgeous makes, secret swap gifts and projects in progress, check out #simplysewin2017 to see some of what was made and the shenanigans!
I taught a couple of sessions of embroidery, so those that wanted to could embroider a panel to be made into a pouch. I asked people to chose a phrase or lyric that had meaning for them, it was fun seeing what they came up with and hopefully they will smile at these words whenever they use the pouch:
Then I gave everyone the A Piece of Me pouch pattern and talked through the steps, letting them borrow Cher to round the corners. Here are some of the pouches, finished and in progress - though I think they were all finished by the time we left - you can see them here #apieceofmepouch!
I love the different ways they were quilted, the fabric combinations and the unique pouches!
The pattern for A Piece of Me pouch will be released tomorrow and will be available from my Payhip shop or Etsy.
And here are the maker models themselves:
There was a delicious goodie bag from the retreat too, with lots of lovely fabric and useful notions! I also bought some cork (in the background) because I just want to sew with it, it looks so cool!
While I was there I of course did some sewing of my own! I finally managed to finishing hand piecing my Green Tea and Sweet Beans quilt - pattern by Jen Kingwell:
It was hard to photograph because it was windy, despite also being very sunny! Thanks to sweet Kelly for the helping hand I quickly took these :)
I did change some of the original applique blocks, I used English Paper Piecing to create different flowers for the three flower panels.
I am also going off pattern with the borders too, opting for some curvy bias binding, using Liberty binding from The Weavers Mill:
The weekend really invigorated my love of sewing! I have another A Piece of Me Pouch planned already, dreamed up on the drive home. It may involve that cork.
scrap love
I had so much fun making these Bee A Brit Stingy blocks for Di. This year we started with a hexagon, a triangle and a square, every 2 months we are making each other triangles and squares. You can see my starter blocks in this blog post. It's such a great design, I love Di's colour scheme and matched it as best I could from my stash:
So here's how her quilt looks so far:
I've also been working here and there on my Green Tea and Sweet Beans quilt. I've finished section 2:
Tonight I'm hosting the Saturday Night Craft Along, so if you're on instagram come and join in the party! Just tag me @charmaboutyou and add #saturdaynightcraftalong to your picture.
just some filler...
Time for an update on my Green Tea and Sweet Beans quilt! Here's the blocks laid out almost as they will be:
All hand sewn - hand piecing, English Paper Piecing and appliqué. There was one large block missing and the pinwheels and filler blocks still to make. I want to add some darker navy into those filler blocks but on the whole I'm really happy with it.
Good job I got that picture when I did because the wind nearly carried the lot away:
Now I have lots of little pieces to cut up and sew. I will probably hand quilt it too so it will be a while before I have a truly finished quilt! A labour of love and a fabulous skill builder.
I'm working
The other day I hit a creative wall. What I was doing wasn't really working, I felt like I had no vision left and it was really frustrating. One of my biggest dislikes is feeling uninspired. It's so meh.
Then I taught a class at Patchfinders, making embroidered needle cases, and I enjoyed it so much. I had a lovely group and it felt nice to focus on the stitches. My demonstrative piece came home and I worked on it more, not worrying about perfection, just enjoying making a naive watermelon.
The bright pink of the Story by Carrie Bloomston print brought me cheer and made me start thinking about fabric.
So I pulled out the stash for my green tea and sweet beans quilt and picked out fabric for my remaining four larger blocks. I'm trying to include prints I really love because the end is in sight. I have other projects to do before I get time to make them all so I had to write a post-it to myself to remind me what I decided on! I do this A LOT and only once have I switched things around. It's kind of nice to follow my own instructions.
This is the current block I'm working on (hand pieced), there are three of these Double Drunkard's Path blocks in the quilt:
Of course this is all procraftination to avoid working on projects that need to get done but at least my creativity has had a boost and the slow stitches give me a breather.
flowering
I finished my third and final appliqué block for my green tea and sweet beans quilt.
The flowers were English Paper Pieced using Mini Hex Den papers and then hand appliquéd.
I didn't really like the appliqué flowers in the green tea and sweet beans pattern book so I decided to make my own and used three different epp shapes:
It is just over a year since I finished the first one and nearly as long since the second one! I knew it would be a long project!
I love seeing these blocks together and it's making me excited about the quilt as a whole! I'm really happy with the background fabrics too.
I still have a few more blocks to hand piece so it might take a little while longer before I get this one done :)
There are some great deals to be had on fabric this weekend...
You can get a discount on Green Fairy Quilts new arrivals with the code LOVE, including Vintage Picnic and Aria
There are lots of temptations at Fluffy Sheep Quilting, the Blueberry Park charms are a great way of getting a selection of Karen's beautiful prints!
And a huge stack of fabulous prints have been added to the Pink Castle Fabrics sale section, no coupon needed just stock up before they sell out!
Hope you all have a LOVE filled weekend!
linking up to finish it up friday at crazy mom quilts
my stumbling Clam Shell block, discounts and a winner!
It was a beautiful sunny day today, I sat and stitched in the garden and finished the Clam Shell block for my green tea and sweet beans quilt. I had to give it a quick rinse with cold water to get rid of the pen marks (I use this Sewline Styla pen and really recommend it!) and then hung it to dry in the sunshine.
I traced the clam shell template on to the fabric using my lightbox and then used needle turn appliqué to stitch them in place.
I used some of my very favourite and special fabrics on a pretty background of Lilium, Gossamer by Sharon Holland. The repro and modern mix brings me joy.
This was my 'stumbling block', the one I was scared to try, but was really fine. I think no templates, no papers, no real guidelines was the frightening aspect but actually the outline of the clam shell shapes provide all the guidance needed. I would not necessarily recommend it as the first block you do if you are new to needle turn appliqué but if you can appliqué a circle you will have no trouble!
What is the block or pattern you are or were most scared to try? Let me know your stumbling block in a comment!
If you're on instagram show me a picture and tag it with #stumblingblockquilt, I would love to see what you made despite the fear :)
If you're on instagram show me a picture and tag it with #stumblingblockquilt, I would love to see what you made despite the fear :)
On to the winner of the Sew & Quilt paper pieces giveaway...
Congratulations Fiona! I have sent you an email :)
Finally if you are wanting to add to your stash or need some notions, there are some amazing discounts to be had...
Green Fairy Quilts currently have 40% off all their notions and 40-50% off Fat Eighth Bundles, with free US shipping and discounted international shipping it's a great time to stock up (no code necessary). With greats like the Sewline Glue pens and refills, wonderclips and rotary blade refills you definitely don't want to miss it!
Pink Castle Fabrics have 20% off all books and magazines with code BOOK20 and they also have crazy low prices in their sale section, with some fabrics at just $4 per yard! (oh yes I snagged some of those!)
Fat Quarter Shop are having a sale with 20% off Cotton & Steel fabrics with the code CS2015 until Sunday 4th October at 11:59pm CST. I find I'm using Cotton & Steel in almost all my projects, such gorgeous prints and colours!
Wishing you all a happy Friday!
Linking up to finish it up friday at crazy mom quilts
blooming
It's been a productive week and I'm happy I managed to sew anything with the crazy kids around!
I finished this Bee A Brit Stingy row for Nicky. The blocks are Castle Walls by John Q. Adams from the book Fat Quarterly Shape Workshop for Quilters
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I switched out the arrangement of grey / white squares so the row would have more movement, which Nicky requested.
Also managed to finish two more hand pieced flower blocks for my green tea and sweet beans quilt:
I adore that little Cocoland cat!
The next block is clamshells, which I have never done before. I'm going to do needle turn appliqué because I'm feeling brave. Here's my fabric pull for the clamshells:
Wish me luck!
sweet stitchings
The best feeling when I'm sewing is loving the process. Enjoying each stitch, seeing my work come together and loving the result. Sewing satisfies me for different reasons and I enjoy machine projects but hand sewing is another level for me. It has a comfort and calm to it, my hands working away while my mind relaxes. It feels so good to get back to working on my green tea and sweet beans quilt.
I finished the appliqué on this Berry Basket:
And I hand pieced the first Flower Block:
The other two are cut out and ready to go, I couldn't resist this adorable cat:
I'm looking forward to putting these together :)
it's all good in the sewing department
Seems like having a deadline is working for me. I finished, quilted and bound my epp project. The reveal will be when my class is scheduled :)
I also finishing piecing another top for teaching, which I have now quilted in Aurifil 12wt. (with 50 wt. in the bobbin). I LOVE how this looks! I just have to finish burying all the threads, I use a self threading needle for that job and it makes it so easy.
As a reward for my progress I picked up my green tea and sweet beans and started on this basket block:
It's normal to reward good sewing with more sewing right?!
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