New designs in wider fabrics

Image: Pixabay

Who doesn't (at least sometimes) like the convenience of being able to make the back of a larger quilt without having to join the fabric? So it's good to see an increasing choice of wider width fabrics on sale. Have you seen these recent releases?

Riley Blake Designs, each in two-colour combinations, multi-colours and a few monochrome prints

• Chevrons, 108" wide
• Spots 108" wide

Robert Kaufman Fabrics

• 'Spot On' in 8 colours, 108" wides

Moda makes a variety of wide fabric, including

• Bella solids in 6 colours, 108" wide

All of these are available from Australian suppliers, and online.

What would be your '100 things every quilter should do' ?

A little idleness for the possibly idle days between Christmas and New Year ...

This list of '100 Things Every Quilter Should Do', compiled by Dianne Harris at Quiltmaker Blog, has been circulating the internet over the last few weeks.

 How would you tweak it as an Australian quilter ... or would you leave it as is?  How many have you already ticked off?

Free online tutorials ideal for summer holidays

Visit Fresh Lemons (a blog by Faith from Chicago - a quilter, writer and designer) who along with her quilting business services, is involved in community projects and offers a range of free online patterns, and quilt-along activities.  Two that might catch our interest at this time of year are:

• Solstice Stars Series - 5 block tutorials for new star block designs (originally posted in January - February 2012)

• Summer Sampler Series - a quilt along based on 12 blocks in Barbara Brackman’s book The Encyclopedia Of Pieced Quilt Patterns (originally posted June - August 2011)

More classes for 2014

More teachers and quilt stores finalising their class schedules for next year. 

This week's postings:

Quiltsmith - Annandale 

Kim Bradley Creations - Castle Hill 

And last week's, in case you missed them: 

Material Obsession - Drummoyne 

Lisa Walton - Dyed and Gone to Heaven

Quilts ... circles ... curves

There's been some talk and photos about circles in quilts and curved piecing on this blog lately.  Of course we are not the only ones interested in piecing outside the square, curves featuring in quilts through the ages, and across the spectrum of utility to art quilts.  Here are some recent striking examples of quilters' fascination with curves ...

• Terry Aske's art quilt
• New York City Modern Quilters: Double Wedding Ring Challenge - winners

• Natalie Sabik's blog about her Modern Category winning quilt in the 2013 NYC Mod DWR challenge (above)

• 'Circle of squares' quilt block tutorial - a bit of a red herring, there are no curves here
• Empress of the Nile -  free pattern  from the American Quilters Society, featuring an interesting use of curves 

It's all relative ...

Phil Plait's graphic explanations of this example of the Cornsweet Illusion  and this this blue and green spiral will resonate with quilters, and anyone working with colour, values, tones and tints.

Take the simple test and see how our eyes (or is it our brains?) deceive us in the Cornsweet example. We've all seen the Cornsweet Illusion at work in quilts.

More diary dates/events for 2014

Is your 2014 diary filling up already?

• Material Obsession's list of classes, workshops and special events for 2014 are now on their website, here.

Some new classes have been added to the program, including machine quilting with Deborah Louis and screen printing with Saffron Craig. 

• Lisa Walton (Dyed and Gone to Heaven)'s teaching schedule for 2014 is available online here. Events include face to face workshops and online courses, beginning in January 2014.

2014 Pantone colour of the year

Pantone's Color of the Year for 2014 has been announced - it is PANTONE 18-3224 Radiant Orchid. 

Radiant Orchid blooms with confidence and magical warmth that intrigues the eye and sparks the imagination. It is an expressive, creative and embracing purple—one that draws you in with its beguiling charm. A captivating harmony of fuchsia, purple and pink undertones, Radiant Orchid emanates great joy, love and health.  Pantone, December 2013

Previous colours of the year are here.

New fabric range from Australian designer

Victorian designer and quilter Emma Jean Jansen's first fabric range, Terra Australis, for fabric company Ella Blue, is due to be released in shops this month.  There are eight designs, each in up to six colourways.

You can see the designs on the Charles Parsons website here, and on the Scrapbag blog here.

Photos of sample quilts made from the range are on Emma Jean Jansen's Facebook page.

Emma Jean Jansen has added a page listing Australian shops stocking her fabric and patterns, to her website here.

20 + 3 = 23

Those twenty community quilts ready to be delivered before Christmas just grew to twenty three with some unexpected finishes from the very productive team of Lynette and Dawn, who rarely let a deadline stand in their way. We don't know how they do it, but we are very grateful that they do.

Lynette found this batik panel and the outer border fabric in the community stash.  She enlisted Dawn to quilt it and bound it, all in the very short time since since our last community quilts day. 

The third small(ish) quilt re-engineered from a much larger one that was surplus to Lynette's requirements - the geometry of how they emerged from the original remains a mystery. Its scrappy binding is a perfect compliment to the charm-square blocks.

These pretty and calm disappearing four patches were a loose collection of blocks last time we saw them on Lynette's work table at that last community quilts sewing day. Lynette has echo quilted the seam lines, and bound it in a toning blue print.

Catvent quilt-along: 'It's like an advent calendar . . . with cats.'

Just because so many quilters seem to like cats, here is  Catvent, a quilt-along from Elizabeth Hartman at Oh Fransson!  that might interest you.  Scroll down to 29th November for the first post.

It is planned as one small pieced block each day during December, but it will remain on the blog so that you can pick it up later if life is too busy now. Maybe during January if you are in Australia and are lucky enough to have a long summer break?

Modern Christmas Quilts 2013

A post of modern Christmas quilt links is now customary here, having been very popular with readers for the last two years, so here is  our third annual selection from this year's blog surfing:

Modern Quilted Christmas Runner, So Fresh Quilts

Christmas in July, A Quilting Life

Modern Christmas Quilts (from a traditional quilter), Stitch This)

Modern Patchwork: Winterkist Rapid City Quilt Finished, Oh Fransson!

I'm in the mood for green ..., Simply Miss Luella

Christmas Row Quilt, Piece N Quilt

Dotty Christmas Quilt, Piece N Quilt

Friendship Star Quilt, A Bright Corner

Christmas Leftovers Quilt, On the Windy Side

Christmas Tree Wall Hanging Tutorial, The Crafty Quilter

That might be enough for now ... if you enter 'modern Christmas quilts' into your search engine and select the 'images' option, you will find many more.