Hot Bolt of the Week #5

I think I forgot to do something yesterday, with so much happening Hot Bolt of the Week slipped my mind. Sorry to everyone who has been waiting for it. This week's Bolt is Twice as Nice Red Floral at the special price of $10 a metre. Be quick to order some, it won't last long.

Now you know I having been doing something with the selected fabric to highlight it, this one I used recently for the backing and binding on a Fully Stacked project. So here is a little sneak peek of the quilt.

You will have to wait until the beginning of October to see the whole quilt. Fully Stacked will be running between the 3rd and 5th October. It will be a full weekend of fun online and in store.
More details coming very soon.

Until Next Time

Keep Stitching

 Cynthia

Blogger's Quilt Festival 2015

It is that time of the year when Amy runs the Blogger Quilt Festival over at AmysCreativeSide.com. She does this twice a year. So this time I have selected my last completed quilt for the Small Quilt category. This is 1 block out of 9 I made.

It is my Castle Wall Quilt. I still haven't thought of a proper name for this quilt. The range of fabric I used was Twice as Nice by The Quilted Fish for Riley Blake Designs. Any suggestions for a name would be considered! Anyway I used the Inklingo Castle Wall collection to help me piece this quilt. Printing the block shapes on the back of the fabric help out heaps when I am hand piecing. I suggest you have a look if you haven't heard of Inklingo before. There is a link in the right hand side toolbar. This project has been everywhere with me over the last 12 months as I pieced the blocks followed by the triangle borders.  I hope you like it as much as I enjoyed making it.

Don't forget to vote for your favourites in each category starting the 22nd May 2015.

Here is the main link to the Blogger's Quilt Festival 

Until Next Time

Keep Stitching

Cynthia

My Castle Wall Quilt is Finished.

Finally after weeks of been busy I finally finished the binding on this quilt. This quilt was made using Inklingo castle wall collection and I used fabric from the Twice as Nice range by The Quilted Fish for Riley Blake Designs. There is a little bit of the range still available in the shop if something takes your fancy. My favourite is the paisley floral print I used for the outer border and my favourite bit of the quilt is the triangle border I made using the bonus triangle in the 9' Castle Wall Collection. I can see me using it again somewhere.

 It was easy to hand piece as I could chain piece the triangles together. Of course you could machine piece them but I love hand piecing as it is a portable project. It is just when things are busy I can pick up my hand stitching for 5 minutes and if that is all I can manage that day at least I know I got a little sewing done. In this quilt I hand pieced the blocks and triangle border but the rest was done on the machine including the quilting.  
Here it is all done and ready to be hung on my stand at The Stitches & Craft Show on the 7th-9th May Wayville Showgrounds Adelaide, South Australia.

 Now I need to piece my Inklingo star blocks together so I can finish this one off too.

Then there is another hexagon project after that. I am running low on hand piecing, so I better prepare my next Inklingo project. One problem, which one do I want to make next.

Until Next Time 

Keep Stitching

Cynthia

My Castle Wall quilt update.

I have been wondering how to quilt this quilt for over a month. It is something I have trouble working out. What quilting design to use? Finally it came to me. I decided on large rectangles diagonally through the blocks using the truck octagons as a guide and turning when I reached the inner border. Since I discovered free motion quilting straight lines last year it has become my favorite quilting technique. I still have the wobble every now and again but I have a wobble when I stitch in the ditch so what the hell.

I wanted to quilt the triangles but in the end I stitched in the inner border and just stitched in the ditch between the triangles and paisley border.

A couple of close up of my quilting and that just leaves the binding which I plan to use the same red as I used for the red border. Looking at the quilt after quilting I wish I had put an extra red border between the triangle border and the outer border but I was worried there would be too much red. It is a very bold colour. Never mind.

  The fabric in this quilt is from the Twice as Nice range by The Quilted Fish for Riley Blake Designs and can be found in my www.cynthiasark.com.au  I used the Inklingo Castle Wall collection for the piecing which I hand pieced.

Until Next Time

Keep Stitching

Cynthia

My Castle Wall Quilt borders.

I have been working on this project for a while. I have been making this quilt with hand piecing and machine piecing using Inklingo. I have been using Inklingo mainly on my hand piecing projects over the last 18 months so doing some machine piecing I have found some extra benefits for machine piecing with Inklingo for me.
The inset seams were a lot easier to get correct .
Though I hand pieced the wedge border as I was short on hand work and when I machine pieced those borders on  I couldn't see the points on my wedges due to seam allowances, as long I stuck to the printed line I was spot on and no points were cut off.

You can see what seams I have hand pieced and which ones I machined.

 So I am going to do more machine piecing with Inklingo in the future.

This is the completed top with the last border on. So it is ready for quilting.

Until Next Time

Keep Stitching

Cynthia

Castle Wall Project

The Castle Wall block collection was released by Inklingo earlier this year and there has been a number of Inklingonists working on their Castle Wall projects out there. I had picked my fabrics out a few months ago but have been short of time to get going on it.

 I have played around with the block in EQ7 so I knew what my block would look like before I printed the shapes on the fabric as I imported my fabric choice into EQ7. It is a great resource. I am hand piecing these blocks as I am ready for a new hand piecing project for my lunch breaks now my Farmers Wife Sampler blocks are nearly completed.

Once I was happy with fabric placement I printed my fabric ready for cutting and sewing I did fussy cut the centre octagon as it would have been a waste not to.

I was surprised how quickly my first block came together when I sat down to sew it. Pressing was a trickly to start with but once I got going I was able to do it. 

If you haven't seen Inklingo before, Linda's blog is a great place to start your Inklingo journey

Until next time

Keep Stitching

Cynthia