Author: 3and3quarters

Modern Quilter & Fabric Lover. Blogger & YouTube Creator. Florist & Foodie.

Craftsy Block of the Month

Craftsy Block of the Month 

Join me in The Craftsy Block of the Month!

‘Learn fun quilting techniques, make new friends and create a one-of-a-kind quilt with the FREE Craftsy Block of the Month! Each month, Amy Gibson will guide you through a specific quilting technique – half- and quarter-square triangles, appliqué, string quilting, paper piecing and more. Then she’ll teach you two nifty 12-inch blocks using what you’ve learned. Some are brand-new designs, others fresh twists on traditional favorites. Along the way, you’ll make 20 blocks from fat quarters, then assemble them into a throw-sized quilt.’

I’ve just recently finished my first two blocks for the month of January and found it so easy to make after watching Amy on the video tutorial.

I’ve teamed my blocks up with pure white cotton homespun (one of my favourite fabrics!) along with some retro and contemporary printed fabrics. I plan to use some of the small quarter and half metre cuts of fabric that I’ve bought and just added to my ever growing stash of fabric.

So being my first ever online class, I pretty excited about getting started and being involved in the conversation pages on the website and recieving feedback about my blocks etc. I’m looking forward to learning new techniques, especially sewing curves properly and what string quilting involves aswell as having a lovely sample-like quilt at the end of it!

I’ll post up my blocks as the year progresses aswell as all my other sewing and quilting projects. Gee, it’s not even the middle of January and I’m already busy planning and blotting for the rest of the year!

Happy Sewing!

Cheers, to a Creative New Year!

Before I begin: Merry (belated) Christmas and may you have a safe and very creative New Year!

So after a while away from my sewing machine and me, horribly neglecting my blog, I have made my return!

A few projects have been going down: I made a sweet little cot quilt for my third nephew, Noah, who was born 22nd December. It features a lovely jungle/animal theme and a simple square block pattern that incorporates different colours and prints. 

This photo is of the quilt mid construction and not the finished product – but you get the idea of how sweet it is!

Now that I’m holiday from my studies I’ve had loads of time to play around with some quilt tops, experimenting with line, shape, colour and texture.  At the moment both are unfinished but (I think) have potential to either be sold or even entered into some local quilt shows(?).

In my ever growing fabric stash, I have this full bolt of a very yummy, vibrant and juicy allover blackberry print fabric and I’m trying desperately to figure out what I can do with it! So here I’ve paired it with a plain white homespun and a matching green-on-green leaf print fabric and simply just played around with shape and line to achieve a sort of contemporary quilt top design. I’ve used the blackberry print as the backing and will possibly use it for the binding as well.

I love spots! Anything with delicate, sweet and ornate white spots with a contrasting coloured background I just adore! So rumaging through my endless stash of spotty fabrics I discovered these wonderful deep coloured spottys and thought they really complemented each other paired with some white homespun (you can never have enough or use enough white homespun!). I’ve began to sew 2.5inch strips of the spottys together to make a very trippy striped backing fabric and will finish it off by binding it with the greeny/teal spotty print.

I wanted to find the right kind of block pattern that would really show off the vibrancy of the colours working together next to each other and think the ‘Rail Fence’ design suits it very well!

So that’s it at the moment. Amongst all the festive prep and celebrating, I haven’t had much time to dedicate my time to my sewing machine. However, as usual, there are many more ideas ready to be explored and much more inspiration to be discovered!

May this year be even more creative as last year!

‘Purple Rain’ – The making of a Quilt….

So, a few months ago my cousin in the U.K asked if I could make her quilt…and of course I said yes…

So here’s a very quick way of how it was made!

Sally (my cousin) wanted purples and lilacs in her quilt, so I set off first finding the best block/quilt design that jumped out at me and gave me an insight of how to work and manipulate her colour choice. I found a great picture in google images of this quilt using shades of green blending in to neutral and white toned fabric. It was titled ‘Jungle Rain’ and it was exactly what I was looking for!

These are the fabrics I chose that I thought best suited and that Sally would like as well as the original picture of the ‘Jungle Rain’ quilt I followed from.

After figuring out all the correct measurements and cutting all the pieces, I started to assemble the quilt top by laying out the coloured squares, following my picture guide, from the lightest toned fabric up to the deepest. Only then I started to realise just how big the quilt would eventually be and mentally prepared myself for the task ahead…

Once I was happy with the placements of the squares, I started sewing! I added cream sashing to the opposite sides of the squares to make 15 long strips. This then started the process of framing off the squares, allowing them to stand out and make a bold statement on the final design of the quilt…

After sewing all the sashings on and sewing the strips together, I began to add the border to finish off the quilt top. Only now I could really start appreciating the graduation of colour and tone between the purples, lilacs, neutrals and whites. It’s easy to say that I was mega pleased with how it was coming on and just how awesome it was looking!

So now it came to the step of quilting I hate with a passion: basting! This quilt is close to queen size and it took all of my safety pins plus extras that had to be bought to baste this baby up! But with alot of persistance, patience and alot of cursing, I did it and started the mammoth task of quilting it.

I chose a really simple but effective straight-cross quilting that gave a tradtional and elegant feel to the quilt. And added great texture to the front and back!

Finally onto the finishing touches, binding, in which I chose to use one of the deeper purples to bring all the colours together and tie it all up and……ta-dah!! The finished result!

And the back…..which I think is as awesome as the front!

And that’s it! Now it’s ready to be sent over just before the cold winter months come along in the U.K….

Hello world!

Whoo! Hello World!

First day of my brand new shiney blog!

I hope to be able to share with you, the world or who ever wants to read about my rantings, my love and passion about all things patchwork, quilting, sewing, fabric, colour, pattern, line, embroidery, photography and even food! But mostly it’ll be about patchwork and quilting…YAY!!

I’ve read a fair few blogs over the years and find them great sources of information, attracting my attention to some awesomely talented people in this lovely world. Hopefully I can give some back to the internet/blog world and inspire others to take out their sewing machines, buy some beautiful fabrics and create something that they’ll always be proud of! Hopefully after that they would’ve caught the sewing bug and keep going!!

So, recent projects that are happening at the moment are I’ve just finish (literally only a day ago) a stunning quilt I made for my cousin in the U.K. She wanted purples and lilacs to feature in the quilt and I ended making a queen sized quilt titled ‘Purple Rain’. I’ll post a photo up in the next few days along with a photo timeline of the quilt slowly coming together!

Also in the works is a cute little cot quilt for my third nephew who is due Christmas Day!! I’ve chosen a sweet little jungle themed print and matched coordinating coloured spots, stripes and checked fabrics to accomany it – photos to come! xx