New... Six Packs

I've had a brainwave... Don't roll your eyes, it's a good brainwave!

For all the years that I have been stocking and selling fabrics and notions... and surprisingly that's now totting up to over 8 years, I have never been a huge fan of the pre-cuts... I have liked a few, but not many... whether they be Jelly/Strip Rolls, Layer Cakes or Charm-ish packs... lots of companies call them different things but, at the end of the day... I still aren't a big fan of them... even though I know a lot of you love them. 

I don't carry many in my stock any more. I find most packs have a few fabrics in them that I don't really like or fabric colours or designs that I would prefer not to put together... this is my personal opinion and you can have your very own, that's fine.

I usually have a few Charm Packs in my shop, Moda ones. Some people like to make a quick project and the stitching together of 42 x precut 5" squares is perfect for that job... or is it? 

The resulting quilt, with the addition of a 4 or 5 inch border is still a little small in a practical way... a size just for the smallest laps! ha ha ha. 

Two Charm packs stitched together, plus a border or two however, makes for a fairly decent sized Lap quilt or Sofa throw though for any sized knee/lap.

So... back to my brainwave...

I decided to trial Six Packs... Each pack containing 42 x 6 inch squares of fabric. 21 designs and two of each of them. 

I have been cutting and cutting and arranging and packing for days.

I cut red and cream Six Packs first of all... it was so funny, while I was cutting the squares, customers were pre-ordering Six Packs so that got me to thinking... 

"This might be a good idea after all"

Having sold out of the red and cream ones in the first day. I decided to cut more.

I am racing to make the packs up into quilts to show how fabulous they can look... 

Red and Cream Six Pack sandwich

Black and Cream Six Pack sandwich

I also have Blue with Cream Six Packs ready.

I have Eye Spy Six Packs... at the moment they are 30 piece packs, I have a cunning plan in mind for those packs in the future as well.
So, that is my most recent shop news... but today is Sunday... I usually allow myself a bit of quality time in my very own Quilty Quarters... so I am off to do just that...
Have a great Sunday won't you?

Fabulous And Finished

This was the first photo retrieved from the perfect purple camera
Rose's Hare's made using beautiful Batik fabric and a pattern from Monkey Buttons but not following it exactly... PMS (pleasing My Self) Rose loves the idea of 'winging it'... and 'Wing It' she does... It is one of those projects that looks great in a picture but in real life it is even more fabulous

Wow look at the back... Never any waste when we play with the backing for our quilts... Also you can see that Rose did a little Free-Wheeling for her quilting, some stitching done using the walking foot too. Toot toot toot Rose, your quilt is truly amazing!!! Uttoxeter Quilt show?

Fran Cupcake battled her way through the instructions for the Changing mat and bag pattern from ByAnnie... a full Changing Station. Is wasn't easy... but then lots of things are not easy when you don't know how aren't they? All the supplies are available in my very own shop too!

This is the bag and mat opened out, obviously! Zips and mesh pockets so you can see everything you packed and everything you forgot! ha ha ha. Fran says she learned lots of great and useful tricks and tips and methods while making the Changing Station so she will most definitely make more. Toot toot toot Fran, a fabulous finish.

Merrily's amazing quilt, a lovely story. In brief though... This is a very personal quilt.
All of the white bits were made from her daughter's wedding dress... Both ladies had made the dress many years ago and, as many people probably do, the dress was used for the one wonderful day then stored way. Daughter was inspired one day and she and Merrily came up with the idea of cutting it up to make this amazing quilt. All of the blocks mean something to the family, scottish connections etc. I hope they write the information in great detail to be kept with the quilt, it's all so very interesting and, when we are all just dust.... new quilters will want to read it.
Toot toot toot Merrily... what an amazing project!

My customers make the most amazing projects...
It makes me feel so very proud to know that my wonderful little Patchwork & Quilting shop can help so many of them with all these fabulous ideas!!!
Toot toot toot for my fabulous... but never finished little fabric Shop! ha ha ha

Festival Of Quilts 2017

Finally, I have had time to look at the pictures I took during our pilgrimage to the Festival Of Quilts. I don't really take too many photos because I want to enjoy being there and really look at the wonderful things with my very own eyes. I find if the camera takes the front seat I miss too much detail. I might not remember everything I see, but the moment was wonderful at the time... and I remember that I saw wonderful things... that's enough to get me back there every year!
So, here are some I did want to remember so the camera came out of my bag...

Not a quilt but information I want to follow up on.

The coach is already booked for next year!! yeeeeeha!

Stitching News

This will be a bit brief because it's Festival Of Quilts, Pilgrimage day!!! 

The coach will be picking us up at 9am (with a few ladies already on it as they got on at the coach's source in The Meir!! 

The first sandwich of the day was my very own, it's a shop sample. I made this quilt to show all the fabrics that are included in our new 6" square packs. 6 x 7 block setting will make a very good sized lap quilt/ sofa throw with the addition of a 1" cut inner border and 4 1/2" cut outer border. The quilt will need 1.30m WOF length for the backing. I only have 3 packs of this colour way left already (I will cut more though) as customers were ordering them as I was cutting the squares. I've also got 6" square packs in blues and creamy lovelies, well I will have on Monday as I didn't quite get them finished yesterday...  because I had to look after customers... hoooray!

Margo will hand quilt her huge sampler quilt.

Norma will machine quilt her beautiful Batik, Hidden Wells 

Sporty Sue needed one more fabric strip of fabric for her inner border treatment and we got to see how it's coming along... Thank you Mr. Knott for being so helpful!

Just Edna has started to join her melons... the first few were tricky but Edna soon 'Got It' and each one took a little less time, and more pins! We are all watching Edna's process...

Alison popped in to show us her two Handy Tote bags. She attended Sue's workshop a couple of weeks ago and is so please that she's going for a third Tote! Toot toot toot Alison, fabulous and finished times two!

Last Minute Treat??

Have you been pondering whether or not to go to the
 http://www.thefestivalofquilts.co.uk/ this year?

Fortunately, I have 3 show entrance tickets available for the Festival Of Quilts.
They are £12.00 and each is good for any day.

Need transport to get there on Sunday 13th?
I have seats on our coach too for £15.00... good when parking is £12.00 per car!

Want to go with us on Sunday 13th?
You could come on our coach and include an entrance ticket ... £25.00 per person.
Email Angie angiequilts@gmail.com 
or
Call Angie 07807530441...

Stitching News

All Day Di had a few tricky junctions joining the first two rows of HST's
(Half Square Triangles) and had to a bit of fudging... Then, much to her disbelief, all of the other rows were perfect and needed no fudgery at all...
She was amazed! It's looking lovely Di.

Fiona Too stiched her last two beautiful Batik borders in place then spied the empty table... a perfect opportunity to get her sandwich made ready for the quilting. The beauty of a small project is that sandwiches are easy on space and quick to pin.

Luna Lena 'invented' this little Gym Bag with matching wallet for pennies... It's going to be gifted. The main reason she made the project was to play with her fancy, decorative stitches and the  alphabets and numerous fonts... Toot toot toot Lena, a fabulous finish.

Sporty Sue arrived with all four quarters of her Trip Around The World quilt stitched together with the addition of a single row of squares to tie the 'Trips' to the world! ha ha ha. The border will be needing a few more trips and we had to figure out which way to go... It was easy, and obvious, once we got started.

AnnBacan came to make this fabulous sandwich... as did quite a few others but I forgot to take pictures because none of the fabrics were from my shop!!! ha ha ha This is only the centre of a huge quilt Ann is making. It will be quilted as is and the borders will be added later. Don't worry, we know what we are doing! 

2 More Beginners... Hooked!

Our next beginners basics workshop will be on Saturday 2nd September.
angiequilts@gmail.com

Stitching News

Starting with a fabulous and finished project made by our Rose... She's thoroughly enjoyed making this gifting quilt and you know... we have all enjoyed watching it come together. The little black Prairie points are such a great idea... baby will love playing with those I bet...

What a fabulous way to back a quilt...
I know we could buy extra wide backing fabric ...
but where is the fun in that?... Gone!
Toot toot toot Rose, it's a truly fabulous, fun finish.

So, I decided to add a Cathedral Window Workshop to my quite neglected workshop list... (which has now been updated, finally... so no more reminders please! ha ha ha) 
The Monday ladies didn't want to wait for the workshop date so we made Cathedral Windows in class... 

This is Norma's, she couldn't decide what colour fabric she wanted to use for the centres so, I sent her home to search in her scraps.... she came up trumps! (what a funny thing we say... I wonder why or where it came from?) Doesn't Norma's cushion front look great with lots of different fabrics.

AnnBacan made her Cathedral Window cushion front twice. The first time she tried the 'completely made by machine' method.... but it didn't work for Ann, she wanted more accuracy, so.... she un-machine-stitched and hand stitched much more accurately... just those little join-y-centre bits... it didn't take long and it was worth it. The binding really finishes off the cushion too. 

Lady Judith put her Hidden Wells blocks to one side again because there's another baby coming... My goodness those babies are coming from every direction! I think we must go looking for them so that we can make small and very cute little projects... They (baby quilts and play mats) are the only ones Judith doesn't make into massive quilts too! ha ha ha. I absolutely love the spotty black and white background fabric Judith chose.