Shimacho quilt from Canada

Linda Stephens, who I met when she came to Scotland last year as part of the Celtic Quilt Tours group, sent me a photo of her Shimacho quilt from 'Japanese Quilt Inspirations'. She wrote -

This was a great project to work on and to use some Japanese fabrics.

I love the fabrics in this quilt too.  The cool, turquoise blues, the greys and reds give is a very Mid Century Modern/contemporary look, which really works.  Lovely choice of long arm pantograph pattern on it too - all over leaves (click the photo to see more detail).

The group did the Sashiko on Tartan class with me at the Black Watch Museum and we had a fun time together.  Hope to see you at Festival of Quilts Linda!

Kinchaku sashiko bag workshop near Stockton

 

Pieceful Days quilt group spent a busy but relaxing day on Thursday learning how to mark and stitch several sashiko designs on panels for kinchaku (drawstring) bags - shippo (seven treasures), nowaki ('grasses'), asanoha (hemp leaf) and ganzezashi (sea urchin stitch).   We were at Egglescliffe near Stockton for the workshop and at Worsall village hall for the talk the night before, so I met up with a lot of quilters I know - I'm originally from Stockton.

As well as working hard on their sashiko, especially Brenda Cupryna who turned out to be a super quick stitcher on her nowaki panel, some of the quilters brought projects they had made from my patterns.  Here is a version of my first Sensu quilt, from the pattern that appeared in Popular Patchwork, by Margaret Hughes.  This quilt was the predecessor to the Sensu design from 'Japanese Quilt Inspirations' which had larger blocks and fewer strips.

 

Margaret chose some fabulous fabrics for this, including a great batik for the strips, with a grape vine design.

Jane Neal has been making bags as a charity fundraiser and adapted this block from the Retro chapter in '130 Little Quilt Blocks'.  Very effective.

Maybe they'll have their kinchaku bags finished soon too?

Furoshiki quilt

Christine Linton sent me the photo of her version of the Furoshiki quilt from 'Japanese Quilt Inspirations'.  It is very similar to my original quilt, but I like the lighter blues she included in the border - it gives the quilt a lighter feeling than the original, which is much darker with lots of reproduction traditional Japanese fabrics around the edge.  Her photo also reminds me that I must make a smaller version of this, using 1/2in finished strips, as I have a 20in version of the same furoshiki - when I can find where I put it!  Christine writes -

I thought you might like to see this, shamelessly copied from you! I've made it for our local scout group to give as a parting gift to our student scout leader, who graduated from St Andrews today and is off to pastures new. Tonight is her last scout meeting with us, and about 60 scouts have signed big labels in the back of the quilt. I hope she will remember us when she uses it, and that the rabbits will bring her luck! Thanks for such a lovely design.

Here's the original, when it was on tour with the rest of the quilts from my book, at the Great Northern Quilt Show at Harrogate in 2011.  It looks much better where it lives now, on a friend's bedroom wall.  I got the furoshiki from Gary Bloom's shop - he's got some rabbit designs in his eBay store, but the large size of this design is discontinued now.

Spring Quilt Festival, Edinburgh - next weekend

Preparations for the Spring Quilt Festival at Edinburgh have come around so quickly, and I haven't had time yet to write up Quiltfest or the latest sashiko session at the Studio, Loch Lomond.  I have lots of photos of both events, and hopefully I don't have so many that the computer will take forever to read my camera card, as I want to post those as soon as possible.

This afternoon, I started cutting packs for my 'Shimacho' quilt from 'Japanese Quilt Inspirations'. It should probably be called Shimacho II, because the first Shimacho (literally meaning 'stripe book', a weaver's scrapbook) is a cushion I made about twelve years ago, with a different design and no sashing between the pieces.  The random effect makes a lovely quilt block design, so I went back to my original idea and used a different arrangement of squares and strips for the quilt above.  It is actually made from nine giant blocks, one of which was used to make a big cushion (in use on the sofa at the moment).  I got lots of lovely gold prints from Quilt Gate when I was at Quilt Week Yokohama, so I decided that packs for this design would be a fun thing to do.  The fabrics are very similar to those in the original, although with purple rather than turquoise.  One £6 pack makes one huge block and you just add a sashing fabric (or fabrics) of your choice (the one above is Makower's Rondella print), so nine packs would make the quilt as shown above, plus sashing, or your could mix in some of your own fabrics with mine. Alternatively, just make the cushion version.  It is ideal for pantograph long arm quilting. The pattern was also featured in 'Quilt Essentials: Japanese Style', a bookazine by D&C, altong with a selection of projects from 'Japanese Quilt Inspirations' and my two sashiko books.  It is great value at just £6.99, and I will have some for sale at the show. 'Shimacho' will be displayed on my stand.

'Irori' is another quilt I will have on display, but it will probably be draped on my demo table as there's not a lot of space for big quilts.  This quilt was designed to use a selection of striped cotton tsumugi my friend Hiroko sent me, combined with some fat quarters of Japanese quilt fabric.  I bought a lot of striped tsumugi on my last trip, so I have a great selection of different stripes and colour combinations at the moment.  Half metre pieces will make three blocks for this quilt.  I will also have some of my popular sashiko kits back on sale, as they use the same fabrics.

The workshop this time will be 'Mini Mariners' Compass in sashiko. We started playing around with a Mariners' Compass design as a sashiko motif at the Scottish Quilt Championships in September and it worked very well as a sashiko design.  I have the early workshop slot at 10.45, so book as soon as you arrive.  The £3.50 price includes a sashiko needle to take home.  I used to just loan needles for the workshops, but so many people wanted to keep theirs, I have factored the cost into the workshop fee.

There's still plenty to do, so I'd better get on...

Great Northern Quilt Show, Harrogate

 

Although I couldn't attend the Great Northern Quilt Show to teach and demo this year, as the house move spilled over into my show prep time, we managed to get down to Harrogate for the day on Saturday.  I think this might be the first time I have been to the show as a visitor.  Certainly I've been demoing and teaching there at every show since 2001.  It was very enjoyable seeing the show from the other side of the table and having more time to look at the quilts.  Unfortunately I forgot to take my camera, so the photos I'm showing here have been taken by friends (don't know how I managed that!)


There were many wonderful quilts both in the competitions and the invited exhibitions, with Ferret's quilts in particular seeming like old friends after Quiltfest 2012, but the one that was the Overall Winner aka Best in Show was my friend Di Abram's latest sampler quilt.  The photo at the top shows her with the quilt - thanks very much to her husband Mike for sending the photos.  She scooped seven awards in all - Machine Quilting, Machine Applique, Sampler, Large Wallhanging, the Sue Belton Award (for Region 13 Guild members) and a Judge's Choice from Jane Rollason, as well as Overall Winner.  Wow!  Di's work is always exquisitely done, with perfectly selected fabrics for the project, very clean machine applique and loads of metallic threads (which always seem to have been on their best behaviour on her machine). Quilt as you go is one of her favourite techniques for her sampler quilts, but I like the way that Di always properly integrates the narrow sashing into the overall quilt design - there is another good example in my 'Compendium of Quilting Techniques' (aka '200 Quilting Tips Techniques and Trade Secrets), as her Celtic sampler is illustrated in the section about quilt as you go.  She really is a perfectionist in her work and it has paid off.

 

Here's a few details, from Fiona Garth's photo review on her blog -

 

Di contributed a three panel wall hanging to my 'Japanese Quilt Blocks to Mix and Match' book. Sorry I couldn't find a better photo of it, but this one shows it on the far left of the 'Kamon' section at Quiltfest last February.  You can see a much better image of it in the book of course - it is in the 'Inspiration Gallery' section at the start.

Glyn entered 'Welcome to Scotland' and 'Mission Impossible', winning a Judge's Merit for the latter.

 

I'll do a second post when I get some more photos, as there were two quilts made from patterns in my books, one using some of the kamon crests from the Japanese block books and the other incorporating the 'Irori' design from 'Japanese Quilt Inspirations'.  Next time I'll remember my camera!

Quilts UK at Malvern etc.

Quilts UK was in the middle of this month and, as usual, it was a lovely show.  Although the weather forecast was for rain every day, we were pretty lucky and it even got rather warm down in the marquee.  My stand was in the usual spot, at the bottom of the ramp. Here's one of our visitors with one of the backpacks from '21 Sensational Patchwork Bags' made using Sweetwater's 'Pure' collection, in tranquil blues, creams and browns.

 

This lovely version of my 'Super Strips' quilt was started at one of my workshops. The shaded blues look wonderful and I hope I'll see a photo of it quilted.

 

This year I was teaching a one hour sashiko workshop every day (Sashiko in Circles) which was in great demand and sold out quickly.  I then had to push through the crowds in the main hall every lunchtime to get to the spacious and quiet new workshop area upstairs, but it was worth it!  I'll be teaching the same workshop at the Great Northern Quilt Show at Harrogate later this year.

Next year, I won't be at Malvern as I am planning to do the Loch Lomond Quilt show instead, but I'll be back in 2015.

There were a few quilts made from my patterns in the show.  This version of 'Sakiori' from 'Japanese Quilt Inspirations' is in luscious red berry shades. It is called 'In the Pink' and was made by Pamela Bradley.  The light squares in the centre of the square-in-a-square 'masu' blocks give lovely little highlights, while the overall low colour and tone constrasts make it look very different from the original.

The treatment of the circle appliques was very attractive.  Each one has a different embroidered landscape, stitched on silk.  Aren't they gorgeous?

Joan McAllister's 'Japanese Quilt' uses blocks from 'Japanese Quilt Blocks to Mix and Match' with a border quilting design in the black border inspired by Kumiko Sudo's designs. I'm sure Joan showed me this quilt top at Malvern a year or two ago, when she was looking for border and backing fabrics.  The golden brown colour scheme is so effective.  The quilt in the background is 'Piilani' by Pippa Moss, which won the Hand Applique award - you can see a better photo of it here on her blog.  It looks rather red in my photo, but the colour is more of a marroon.

My Judge's Choice award went to Joanne Colwill's 'Reds in the Bed'.  This quilt caught my eye right at the start of the judging, when I like to look around all the quilts before I even start marking (a good idea to get an overall impression of the standard at the show). It is a very attractive scrap quilt - Joanne must have a lot of red and neutral scraps for it to be so coordinated!  Little details like the stripe used for the narrow border and the bias binding, and the very pale main border, give it a very faded elegance. It was longarm quilted by Sandy Chandler at the Quilting Company in stunning designs which look wonderful in real life - I'm not sure I could capture it very well in the photos.  There's a simple criteria for Judge's Choice - you just pick the quilt you'd most like to take home.  While that can be a difficult choice to make when there are so many lovely works entered, I find I often return to the one that captured me first, so long as another quilt judge hasn't beaten me to it.

There were some excellent invited exhibitions this year (i.e. not competitive quilts) and we especially enjoyed having the treat of quilts by Sally Bramald (Feather on a Wire blog) and Gwenfai Rees Griffiths in consecutive aisles.  Some of the best machine quilting and hand quilting shown together - amazing.  Sally's quilts will also be shown at the National Quilt Championships at Sandown Park next month, but I think Gwenfai's have now finished touring.

As we needed to pick up some furniture we'd bought on eBay while we were at the show, for the first time we had a van rather than bringing the car.  It made packing up a lot easier, even if it looks like there is way more stuff than usual!

A couple of days after the show, we met my friend Reiko Domon and her daughter in Chester, where they were for just a few hours as part of their holiday tour of English gardens and cities.  It was lovely to see Reiko again.  She gave us some beautiful wedding presents, including an antique dish with a hand painted mountain scene.  I'm looking forward to seeing what she makes with the hand dyed threads and fabrics I gave her - the same threads we used in the sashiko workshops at Malvern.  We photographed a lot of patchwork and design inspirations around Chester too.  As their trip ended with a day at the Chelsea Flower Show, I expect Reiko will be making a very colourful quilt next!.

We also went to Stockton for a family party for our wedding reception.  Glyn made this little fish plaque, only a few inches long, which was thrown into the Tees from the Infinity Bridge to mark our wedding last December.  It has our names, the date and place on it.  The 'wedding rings' attached to its tail are two brass plumbing olives, polished up.

Another version of the 'Irori' quilt

 One of my readers sent me some pictures of her recently completed 'Irori' quilt.  She writes -

I am a new quilter so this was quite a journey.  When I bought your book from the shop at the Quilt Museum in York back in 2009, I promised myself that I just have to do this design.  Fabrics were purchased in New Zealand, Australia, South Africa (shweshwe) UK and USA.   Thought you might like the feedback...

I like the the explanation about where she got the fabrics.  I always think fabric is the best souvenir and I love to look at a quilt where I can remember where/how I got all the fabrics in it.  The original version of Irori (further down this post) is a bit like that.  When I look at it, I can pick out fabrics sent from Japan by my friend Hiroko, some of the early fabrics sold by Euro Japan Links, a piece of textured plaid I got from a small quilt shop in mid Wales and the block centres which all came from our local quilt shop.  Full of memories.

When I looked closely at her quilt, I spotted that we even had at least one fabric that we both used - the red seigaiha wave -

 

 

I like the way she has used this wide printed stripe to frame the block centre -

 

The first photo shows my quilt when it was just quilted in the ditch.   This is how it appeared in the Inspiration Gallery in 'Japanese Quilt Blocks to Mix and Match' - the block was included in that book.

When it appeared in 'Japanese Quilt Inspirations', I added extra big stitch quilting, in cream so it was very much ' sashiko style'. This spinning curve pattern was always intended to be added, I just never got around to it :-)  I think it looks better with more quilting, but then I usually do!

The second version I made for 'Japanese Quilt Inspirations', which we actually used as the main colourway for that chapter, has two red prints used for the block centres.  My reader's version uses florals for the centre squares - it doesn't have to be plaids in the middle of the block.

 

This version was pantograph longarm quilted with a Chinese clouds design.

 

It looks like this one was also longarmed - 

    

Thanks very much for the photos of this lovely quilt!

New & most popular patchwork workshops roundup

Here's a roundup of some of the newer patchwork workshops, and some of those that remain firm favourites on the workshop circuit - hopefully the photos will help groups decide which workshop to choose!

I'm teaching 'Japanese Fans' (above and below) at Purely Patchwork in Linlithgow on Sunday 15th July.  This is a workshop based on my 'Sensu' quilt in 'Japanese Quilt Inspirations'.  The fans are done with machine sewn freezer paper applique and the worksheets for this class are preprinted freezer paper templates, ready to cut out so there's nothing to trace off (I have the master drawing used in the book of course). It's a good workshop for newcomers to freezer paper applique. Each student will be given enough templates to make the quilt as shown (the templates can be reused once), but it's one of those workshops where you can work at your own speed and there's no pressure to keep up.  By the end of the day, everyone will have made a number of blocks, and the really quick ones may have finished the quilt top! The fans are a good project to show off large scale prints, including yukata kimono cottons (as above) and Japanese style gold prints (below).  Contact Purely Patchwork if you are interested in attending.

 

There are several quilts in 'Japanese Quilt Inspirations' that work well as day workshop projects, partly because some of them have their origins in things I used to do with my beginner's class years ago.  'Igeta' was originally designed as a class project and uses 9 print fat quarters and a half yard of each main colour - the first one uses red and black and the second blue and cream.  The idea is to use prints where the background colour is a close match to the plain fabric, so the block borders merge slightly with the background to the igeta motif . As you can see, the red, blue or cream prints aren't always a perfect match for the plain backgrounds, which makes the quilt a little more lively.  If you are wanting to get an exact colour match, it is possible and you could try using more than one plain fabric in each colour to achieve this, in which case you wouldn't need a half yard, but several colour matched fat quarters instead. 

'Igeta' - that's the thing that looks like # by the way, and it's the Japanese kanji character for 'well curb' - the grid that stops you falling into an old fashioned well.  Igeta is a popular motif for kasuri ikat and as a stencilled motif it appears on kimono.  It used to be very popular for little boy's summer yukata, which is where the colour inspiration for the blue quilt came from.  I am going to remake the red and black one, as the original was sold last week. I called the red and black version, which was actually the first one I made, 'Matsuri' (festival) because the colours echo the happi coats worn by Yuza Taiko drum group and other festival ensembles.

 

'Sakiori', also from 'Japanese Quilt Inspirations', is made with three different blocks - a simple strip block, a square in a square and a freezer paper applique circle.  The pink one was made with a 'Honey Bun' from Moda's 'Wonderland' fabric range, with the applique backgrounds cut from some Layer Cake squares from the same range - some of the leftover strips went into the other blocks.  The multicoloured one below is a scrap quilt and the circles made a good place to feature a very large Japanese crest motif print. The pink one was longarm machine quilted with a crest-like design in each appliqued circle, which would also make a good place for a sashiko motif. You won't get all the blocks made in one day but you'll get started on each set.  The layout could be adapted to have more or less of any of the blocks, depending on those you most enjoy making. Sakiori means 'rag weave', so you can be as colourful as you like.  The workshop would require precutting 1 1/2in strips.

 

  

The fourth workshop I'm offering from the book is 'Irori'. This features a part sewn seam block and is a great design for directional prints and stripes.  The red, green, brown and blue quilt was made with a coordinated fat quarter bundle plus several stripes and longarm quilted, while the blue one below has more stripes and a bigger assortment of block centre fabrics.  Again, only the speediest stitchers would get towards finishing off this quilt top in a day, but you'll learn the technique of the part sewn seam block.  The block 'Irori' featured in 'Japanese Quilt Blocks to Mix and Match' as well and means 'sunken hearth', like the traditional fireplace in a tatami mat room.  The blocks are 9in square, so it is a relatively quick make.

 

  

If you are interested in the part sewn seam technique but want something a little more complex, 'Shimacho' (stripe book aka a weaver's scrapbook) could be for you.  This scrap quilt also features the part sewn seam technique to add the individual block borders (just 1in finished width), but uses differently sized scrap patches so you can showcase your larger scraps without cutting them up.  This workshop would also require precutting 1 1/2in strips for the patch borders.  The quilt is actually made of 9 giant blocks made up of individually bordered pieces, so as a workshop we would concentrate on making one block in the day - I made a single block into a huge 22in square cushion.

  

'Time and Time Again' is a jelly roll workshop based on my quilt pattern 'Time and Again'.  One of my workshop samples is at the top, followed by quilts by Charlotte Cogbill and Daphne Ford made at The Royal, Bridlington earlier this year.  My patchwork was made with a Robert Kaufman batik roll and Daphne's with a Moda Jelly Roll.  Charlotte cut her 2 1/2in strips from her stash.  Once again, the technique involves the part sewn seam block, but with less cutting out - if you use a Jelly Roll of course.  Daphne gave her quilt an extra column to make it wider, and changed the borders for a squarer quilt, but it is still just one Jelly Roll.

 

'Super Strips' isn't a new workshop, but it is one of my most popular patchwork workshops.  Once again, it uses a Jelly Roll or 2 1/2in strips. The first quilt below (tacked and ready for quilting) was made by one of Dyffryn Clwyd Quilters (if it's yours, can you remind me who made this?) using a batik roll, the second by Christine who came the first time I taught this at Bridlington with a Sandy Gervais Jelly Roll by Moda, and the third and fourth are Fiona Garth's second and third versions of the design - Fiona cut her own strips for these two.  I'll be back in Bridlington for another residential course at the end of October - a sampler quilt course based on my two Japanese quilt block books. There are lots of previous workshop photos of this design - just click on 'Super Strips Quilt Top' in the label list on the right.  It never ceases to surprise me just how different this design looks in different fabrics - or even when made from the same jelly roll - no two quilts are the same!

 'Spinning Squares' is another precut workshop, this time for Layer Cakes or 10in squares, although it works just fine with squares down to 8in - the blocks just come out smaller.  Learn how to deal with triangle and wedge points so the centres match up, either on a 60 degree angle or a variable angle (more fun IMHO).  The first quilt is mine (I've entered it for the Great Northern Quilt Show in September, so you may get to see it in person soon), the second by Charlotte Cogbill and the third by another quilter who came to the Bridlington workshop earlier this year.

 

 

And finally, the patchwork workshop I've been teaching for nearly 10 years and still remains one of the most popular - Japanese Circles and Squares.  It uses seven fat quarters and an eighth for the applique circles.  I guess one reason it remains so popular is that it uses fat quarters and also seems to work in just about any fabric combination! The first one was made by Lorna Henshaw and the second, showing the quilt top turned through 90 degrees, by Bev Anderson when I taught in Lincolnshire last October.  It is a quick quilt to make once you've got the hang of the very economical cutting layout for the fat quarters...

 

I hope you've enjoyed the eye candy and perhaps these quilts will help you choose a workshop for your group?