January 2023

It's halfway through January already and I can tell by my email inbox that quilters have recovered from the busyness of the Christmas season and are turning their minds back to sewing! If you have a project with a definite finish date in mind that you are wanting my help with, you may want to let me know so I can schedule you on my calendar.
This year I'm giving myself permission to explore new quilting techniques, which means actually scheduling time for this in my work week. The first technigue on my list is 'Improv' quilting - considering how fun it is, it may take all year to explore it! Each month I'll show a picture of something pieced in this style, check out the picture below of the first Improv attempt from December.

Following on from my podcast links last month, thanks to Alison Tranter for this suggestion:

'Haptic and Hue'
Haptic & Hue explores the creation of fabrics and the stories that lie behind them.

https://hapticandhue.com/tales-of-textiles-series-1/

Happy sewing,
Sarah Jane.

Have you tried Improv quilting? Despite thinking about it for a long time I only started exploring this quilt method last month in December 2022 and LOVED it. This year I'm setting aside time each month to explore this technique, and I'll share my progress each month.
Because I love curves, I jumped straight into piecing curves. The picture above shows the first test squares I pieced and have partially quilted. NO rulers involved in piecing the blocks, just roll the rotary cutter wherever you want. A ruler can be used to square them up when joining them together. Do the pieces have to be symmetrical? No. Do the curves need to be smooth? No.
I did discover an important step to ensuring you get nice curves though:

The different sides of the curve have to 'mate' - overlap the pieces of fabric you want to join then cut through both layers at the same time.

Switch the layers in one pile around so you are sewing together the fabrics you want to join (in this case a grey piece and a white piece). Sew and then press the seam to the side. Keen to have a go? I'd love to see what you make, or if you have any questions let me know.

After cutting a curve free-hand, switch the layers of fabric on one side and join together.

Purple Beauty

This quilt was made by Sue Gardner. Sue chose gorgeous purples for this quilt to be gifted to her granddaughter once the room was painted to match! The pillow shams are the perfect finishing touch. Wool batting provides great depth / dimension to showcase the custom quilting.

Quilt made by Sue Gardner.
Custom hand-guided longarm quilting by Heritage Art.

Quilt pattern is ‘Wensleydale’ by Jen Kingwell.
Quilt made by Anne Rankin.
Hand-guided longarm quilting by Heritage Art, pattern is ‘Bubbles’.

I'm happy to say that this quilt was gifted at Christmas to my son. Thanks to Helena for the pattern and Wendy for noticing that some wings were upside down (thankfully BEFORE quilting). I'm not going to say how many times it took me to sew them on correctly, let's just say 'more than it should have'!