A Summer Top in Oakshott Cotton

Last week I finished not only the batik top, but also this rather smart version in pale blue.  It is made from one metre of Oakshott Calluna Herringbone in harebell blue.  The only differences between this top and the batik top are firstly that I cut the armholes a fraction lower for extra comfort - somehow the finished batik top felt a little tighter than the test in calico, probably because the finished armholes were bound - and secondly I had a little more fabric to use so I could take the pleats right to the centre front.

This was the first time I had used the Calluna Herringbone, so I was interested to see what it would be like to work with.  Before cutting out I washed and ironed it.  There was a tiny bit of shrinkage and no dye run to speak of.

The herringbone weave gives a real vintage look, and choosing the buttons and narrow ribbon for trimming was serious business.  I spent a ridiculous length of time in the shop, but it was time well spent.  The check ribbon is really delightful, and the way the buttons reflect the light gives them a two-tone appearance which goes well with the ribbon.

Because the herringbone is a twill weave, there is a definite right side and wrong side.  The paler blue warp threads give a slightly ridged effect, emphasising the paler colour on the right side.  The darker blue weft threads predominate on the wrong side, and the surface is flatter. 

Having a stripe in the weave gives all the same advantages as working with an obvious two colour stripe.  It saved time when finding the straight grain of the fabric for cutting, for folding the front overlap, for lining up the buttons and buttonholes, and even measuring the width of the pleats.  

Here is the inside, with not a raw edge in sight.

After putting in the darts, the first seams I did were the felled seams at the shoulders...

... followed by French seams at the sides.

To finish the neck and armhole edges I used narrow bias binding...

... and the seam attaching the pleated frill was finished in broader bias binding in the same shade of blue.

For all the machine stitching I used the 1949 Singer 15K hand machine, except for the buttonholes, where I used the 1936 Singer 201K treadle and the unidentified buttonholer.

The quality of this cotton is quite exceptional.  It is soft to the touch, and is a medium weight, so cool for the summer, but with sufficient texture to give a good insulating layer in winter.  From the feel of it before cutting out I knew that it would drape and gather well, so I decided to test how well it would hold a crease.  Nothing short of perfect, as you can see.

Finally, here is my in-house model very sportingly wearing a colour that doesn't really suit her.  It looks far better on her old mum - not that the colours on this photo are accurate anyway.  The joys of taking photos in natural light indoors in cloudy weather.  

Every time she moved the neckline went out of shape on her because the shoulder seams were adjusted at the calico stage to fit me exactly.  

Also there was a fair amount of Muv and Daught banter going on.  I pay her her modelling fees in cake, and she was angling for macaroons.  Not the cheap and cheerful English sort made of coconut with a glace cherry on top, no the posh French sort.  She has expensive tastes.  At her age I would have been more than happy with a sticky great slab of lardy cake.

Linking up today with Connie's blog Freemotion by the River for Linky Tuesday

Doll Quilt - Dressed to the Nines

This is the quilt I sent to Lee, my August partner on the Doll Quilters' Monthly swap.  The theme was "Dressed to the Nines" with the suggestion that the quilt should incorporate nine patches.  Well, this isn't strictly a nine patch, but almost.  Lee said she liked bright colours and modern designs, so I took the opportunity to play around with colours I don't usually use.  My daughter says it looks very 1970s, which her generation thinks of as vintage.  She doesn't know the meaning of the word, she is a mere babe.  This quilt is modern.  The 1970s are about as modern as I can manage.

I haven't done much piecing recently, so I enjoyed the change.  I had a good dig in my bag of Oakshott fabrics and pulled out twenty different fabrics for the top and binding.  I went to a sale at Oakshott's showroom near Gloucester last November, so I had quite a few gorgeous colours to choose from.   I particularly liked this salmon pink and olive green stripe, so it went into the centre square...

... and this dark blue stripe and the yellow centre worked well.

All the squares had either a stripe or a squared weave for the outer section, and all but one of the centre squares were a shot cotton...

...except for this one which is a pale blue stripe.

It was a great pleasure piecing all these beautiful fabrics, but then I came slightly unstuck with the quilting.  I used my 1949 Singer 15K for the piecing, straight line quilting and the binding, then I used the 1945 15K treadle for the free motion quilting in the border.  Both machines behaved perfectly, and I thought that the alternating horizontal and vertical parallel lines were just the ticket.

Until I got it wrong, so I had to ad lib these shapes and pretend it was all part of the plan.  It was interesting discovering that I would much rather not work with straight lines and regular patterns. They just aren't my forte. 

So all told, this quilt was a pleasure to make, and Lee likes it, so we are both happy.  

Thank you for being my partner, Lee!  

Linking up to Leah Day's blog for Free Motion Friday
and to Sarah's blog Confessions of a Fabric Addict for Whoop Whoop Friday
and to Nina-Marie's blog Creations... Quilts, Art... Whatever for Off The Wall Friday so you can visit lots of other blogs.

Doll Quilt - Butterflies and Buddleia

This is the quilt I made for Liz.  These butterflies have had a long flight and have now arrived safely in Oregon.

The theme for the February on the Doll Quilters' Swap was "Something I Love".   There are few things I love more than watching butterflies on a buddleia bush - the colours, the movement, the scent of the flowers - so I did my best to turn it into appliqué.

The butterflies are decorated with beads to give them a bit of a sparkle.  

This big yellow one is based on the shape of a brimstone.

The butterfly on the flower has machine stitched legs.  I decided that doing his tongue sticking down into a flower would be just a touch too much, but I can't help imagining it.  The little purple pearl buttons were ordered specially for this project and came in the post from Hong Kong.

The free motion quilting was done on the 15K treadle, and all the rest of the machine stitching was done with the 1927 Singer 99K hand machine.  All the coloured fabrics are shot cotton from Oakshott - as always, the perfect colours for what I had in mind.

Now I have to get on with the little quilt I am making for my partner in Tennessee...

Doll Quilt - Canal Roses

Karen in Ontario has just received the little quilt I made for her.  The theme on Doll Quilters Monthly for January was snow.  Karen posted lots of beautiful pictures of snow on her blog Bungalow Bay Quilts.  One look told me that wallowing in the mud that is England (2012 being our wettest year on record) there wasn't an awful lot I could tell her about snow.

Karen was delighted to discover that I grew up in Wolverhampton.  It turned out that Karen's mum had gone to Canada as a war bride and was from Dudley, about 6 or 7 miles from Wolverhampton, and Karen had been to Dudley a couple of times when she was young.

A while back I made a quilt based on Wolverhampton, which I posted here on the blog on 1st December.  Karen liked it, so there was my challenge - make a quilt for Dudley.  What was Dudley's claim to fame?  It has a famous canal tunnel.  Canals and tunnels aren't particularly pretty, but a narrowboat (barge) with the traditional painted decoration is a wonderful sight.

I needed to scour the internet for pictures, and spent ages looking at different sites.

Canal Art by Julie has plenty of pictures of her work (including a pub interior!) and an interesting video in which Julie explains the brushwork technique.

Canal Junction has plenty of information about the history of canal art.

Chester Canal Heritage Trust has beautiful photographs, and also shows how the roses are painted in layers of colour.  

Looking at all these photographs helped me work out a design with two layers of colour in the appliqué roses, and shaping the top layer like bold brushstrokes.  Fortunately I had plenty of gorgeous colours to choose from, having a bag of Oakshott Colourshott cottons to rummage through.

While I was working on the quilt, Karen posted on her blog about her mum being diagnosed with Alzheimers.  This made me want to make the quilt as beautiful as I could, and started me thinking about my own mum, who died in 1993.  I used three different machines on this quilt.  I did the binding on my 1927 Singer 99K hand machine.  The other two were connected with my mum; I did the machine appliqué and the stitched detail over it with my 1897 28K hand machine, which had been her machine and which I had learnt to sew on; I did the free motion quilting on my 1945 15K treadle, which my mum had bought for me from a neighbour. And the little infill flowers made with star shaped blue pearl buttons are forget-me-nots, which my mum loved.

So in the end the quilt was made in honour of Karen's mum and in memory of mine.

Thank you Karen for being my partner.  This quilt turned into a very special project.

Jubilee Rose Appliqué Pattern

This is the rose panel on the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Quilt.  The pattern for this rose is the first pattern which is available in the online shop at Lizzie Lenard Sewing Designs

It was this time last year that I was busy drawing the patterns for the appliqué panels for the quilt. This rose, to represent England, was the first one that I drew and the first one to be sewn.

In March I took a quick trip up the motorway to Gloucester to visit Oakshott Fabrics and chose the colours for the quilt.  I had in mind a rich, deep red for this rose, and I found just the shade I wanted.

The flower is one large piece, with the petals outlined in machine stitching.  For this I found that the best colour for the contrasting thread was a rich shade of peach - no other colour worked quite as well.

I would love to see this rose worked in different colours - deep red for romantics or English patriots, pretty in pink for a girl, yellow for a Texan, or perhaps white in memory of a loved one.  

A large double bed sized quilt with nine roses in different colours would look great.  Who wants to beat me to it?

Welcome to Julie, the latest follower.  Thank you for joining!

Tuesday's Top Tip - Test Strips

There is always the fear that the dye will run and that all your hard work will be ruined.  Even when fabric has been washed, a dodgy dye can still catch you out.

Once I had bought my collection of colours from Oakshott Fabrics I cut a tiny strip from the edge of each piece and then sewed the strips to a piece of white cotton.  Then I washed and dried the test strips, ironing them while damp, to see if any of the colours ran.

I made one test strip before I had washed all the fabric pieces, and a second test strip after washing the fabric.  So on one test strip the tiny strips of colour were being washed for the first time, and on the other they were being washed for the second time.  The third test strip is of a few additional colours from Oakshott fabrics and a strip of the selvedge of the backing material I used for the Diamond Jubilee wall hanging.

Only one of the colours, one of the dark reds, ran ever so slightly.  But I wasn't worried by this, because I had subjected the test strips to some serious abuse - pouring boiling water over them, standing them in the hot water for an hour or so, giving one of the test strips a blast in the microwave to heat the water back up again, leaving the strip lying soggy on a plate for hours.  I worked really hard to get that red to run.

So all told, provided the finished quilt is never left in a leaking attic, I am confident that the colours will hold fast.

The strips are also jolly handy for colour matching when you go shopping for threads and matching fabrics.

Perfect Fabrics for Appliqué

For a long time I was looking around for a fairly lightweight cotton in a good range of colours suitable for appliqué.  In the end I found exactly what I wanted at Oakshott Fabrics.  For me the added bonus was that they weren't that far away - a quick zip up the motorway to Gloucester, and I spent a happy hour or so picking the right colours for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Quilt.

Here are the colours I have used, together with the two shades of background fabric I bought elsewhere.