Another 1:12 scale project

Another member of one the dolls house groups on Facebook listed this Honeychurch house for sale a few weeks ago.  I already have two other Honeychurch houses, both shops, and they are very well made houses, made from plywood rather than MDF.  The company stopped making houses a few years ago, but occasionally they come up for sale - there's a kit of this on eBay right now, if you would like to build your own. They are quite compact houses and the rooms are not very large, but the lovely detailing on the front of this one, with real stone 'slips', caught my attention.

The inside is also beautifully detailed, with 3-D dado panelling in the main room and a wonderful fireplace and ceiling rose by Sue Cook - very grand for such a small house.

All the decoration is so well done, I will keep everything apart from redecorating the 'bathroom'.

Such a nicely detailed house needs some quality furniture, so here are some of the pieces I plan to use.

I bought the Elf handmade kitchen second hand for another house, but I think it will look better in this one. The dresser is also handmade and another second hand find.

No time to do anything with it just yet, as I am finishing off instructions for my next project for Today's Quilter.  Luckily for me, the house was 'collect only' from an address on Teesside, where we were last weekend, and it fitted easily onto the back seat of the car.

My next patterns in Today's Quilter...

My contribution to issue 5 of Today's Quilter is Sarah's Triangles, a throw sized quilt inspired by the Sarah Wyatt quilt at the V & A.  Mine has much wider borders, so I couldn't resist some extra details in the quilting, and I finished it yesterday.  If you'd like to make it, start looking for two charm packs for all the half square triangles... Think antique/reproduction fabrics, with browns, madder reds and creams, with a touch of pale greyish blue.  Issue 5 will be on sale on 7th January.

Lulea Log Cabin will be in the next issue -

Yuza Sashiko quilts in Tokyo

Quilts by Yuza Sashiko Guild members were shown at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum this week, as part of the Japan Handcraft Association's Teachers' annual exhibition.  Here are some of the works shown.  Enjoy!  Many thanks to Yasuko Ishii for letting me share her photos.  I hope my sashiko course students will find these photos inspiring.

I don't know who made which quilt, as I can't see the labels in the photo, but I wondered if the one below might be by either Reiko Domon or Chie Ikeda?  They have both made quilts where the sashiko patterns are distorted and arranged in innovative ways, like this.

 

We saw this quilt as work in progress when we visited in September last year.  The seigaha (ocean wave) clamshells in applique at either end are an interesting detail.

Cinnabar and Nutmeg pattern is published

The pattern for Cinnabar and Nutmeg is out in Today's Quilter.  I can't wait to get my copy!

If you'd like a quicker and easier make, this very easy foundation pieced patchwork is also in the magazine.  I've called it 'Down Memory Lane'.

 

It will be fun seeing readers' versions of these quilts.

Sashiko and Quilts trip deadline for applications

I've had a chat with Kathy at Arena Travel today, as we need to know if we will have enough people to run the Sashiko and Quilts tour in January 2016 as soon as possible - ideally by the end of next week.  So if you are thinking about joining the tour, now is the time to book.  We need to make a decision before the end of November so we can confirm details for the classes we would like to do and, if we don't have enough people to run the trip this year, we will postpone it until January 2017.  Click the highlighted link to go to my previous post about the tour, which has links to Arena's website.

Miniature quilts

This weekend was another City & Guilds session, this time with Mhairi Matheson as our tutor, who specialises in miniature quilts.  We made various samples on Saturday and on Sunday we looked at foundation pieced miniatures.  I started on what I hope will be my finished miniature piece for my C & G assessment.  I am mostly using Liberty Tana lawn prints, because the fabric is very thin and tightly woven, but I am also including two Japanese patchwork prints which I have fussy cut for the kimono and kamon crest 'blocks' - mini cheater fabrics.

I am using a finished strip width of approx. 3/16in, so the squared paper above is 0.5cm squares, which are the same size.

It took most of Sunday to make two mini braid strips.  Foundation piecing is not my favourite thing, either life size or in miniature, but it seemed the best way to make the braid patchwork I wanted to include for this quilt.  I find thinking as a mirror image and working from the back very confusing.

I also made one square in a square block but I think I will remake it with solid red in the middle, as there wasn't enough contrast.  The fabrics also include some very fine stripes from Oakshott. 

 

The quilt is inspired a little by 'Kamon' from 'Japanese Quilt Inspirations' -

After my C & G course finishes, I will use it in one of my 1:12 houses, probably as one of the display quilts for the quilt talk scene in my mini village hall.  The left hand downstairs room is going to be set up for a quilt group meeting, with a workshop set up on the top floor and a kitchen (with mini cups of tea ready to go) on the right.

  I thought about making an improvisational patchwork with the bits left over, something like this -

The pieces I've got left over would also work for a mini version of Super Strips. The 2in wide finished strips in 1:12 scale would be about 3/16 wide, and the design would adapt rather well to stitch and flip foundation piecing on very thin Vilene.

This is the only other miniature piece I have made so far, using leftover bits of Japanese tsumugi cottons, which are really a little too thick for miniatures.  It is only 4 1/2in square.

Mhairi gave us a lot of tips and techniques for miniatures, including miniature applique.  I have done very tiny needleturn applique on full size blocks, so I don't think it will be too tricky, such as the 3/8in circles in this one.

 

I also did very narrow needleturn on the hairpins on 'Kyoto Dreams'. I don't think I'll include mini applique on the plait quilt, but I would like to make a mini version of the vintage Japanese fabric quilt we use as a table cover at shows, which has a version of Dresden Plate as the block, so I would need to use mini reverse applique for that.

It was a fascinating weekend, but miniatures seem to grow more slowly than full size quilts, at least for the first time...

Let there be light!

I did the last outdoor quilt tacking of the year today.  It is the top I made mostly from charm squares, based on the Sarah Wyatt quilt at the V & A, but a bit scaled down from the original.  Mine is approx. 60in square, while the original measures more than 90in.  It was just a fraction too long for the tapes on the quilt frame's shorter pole set, but I managed to do it without having to put the much longer poles on the frame.  We could do with making a third set of poles around 90in long.

The quilt will be appearing in a future issue of Today's Quilter magazine, but I don't know which one yet. Cinnabar and Nutmeg will be in issue 3 which will be in the shops on 12th November, along with the pattern for this very easy spiral Log Cabin, which I've called 'Down Memory Lane'.  It was my second quilt, so it is definitely an easy make.

Glyn has been getting on with the electrics for the summerhouse, wiring in the overhead light with a temporary fitting for a single light bulb. After we have painted the ceiling and clad the interior, it will be having a five arm purple chandelier...

Glyn found a use for the hole in his jumper... Good thing he hasn't darned it!

Light!