Quilt fabrics and cupcakes in Saltaire - oh dear!

 

 

Oscar Wilde famously said

 'I can resist everything except temptation' 

Not sure he was talking about quilt fabric or cupcakes,

 but I know exactly what he means...

 

 

Just spent a very happy Saturday in Saltaire

helping Lesley O'Brien get 

BARLEYCRAFT FABRICS

ready for its grand opening on

Monday June 3rd

 

Stash-wise, this is very bad news . . .

Lesley has several lovely things that are sure to end up

in my over-stuffed fabric drawer -

but the prices are too good to miss.

 

Priced from £3.50 to £10.95 a metre,

There are patterns, plains, children's fabrics, jelly rolls,

fat quarter bundles, and a variety of 

60-inch wide fabrics just right for backing quilts

 

 

Oh, and buttons, braids and batiks . . .

 

You'll find Barleycraft Fabrics just behind

KFC on Bingley Road, Saltaire.

It's open 9 to 5 every day except

Wednesday and Sunday.

 

There's parking just behind the Co-op.

The first 20 minutes is free, but it's very cheap

if you need more time - and you

will need more time, cos

Jeanette's Cakery

is just round the corner.

This tiny tea-room is a gem, and the Wurlitzer in the corner

takes you straight back to the '50's

- church fetes, felt skirts, ankle socks,

Tennessee Ernie Ford, Summertime Blues . . . 

All the staff, and even some of the customers dress the part

 

 

China cups, real tea, great coffee (won an award for it!),

cucumber sandwiches, cupcakes - oh dear . . .

 

Add Salt's Mill and other delights and you have

the makings of a really fun day out,

and of course, the makings of another lovely quilt!

 

 

54 down - 18 to go...

Only 18 blocks left to quilt - hurrah!

 

Seems months - it IS months! - since Esther cut the
 batting (wadding) for her Odeon quilt and we sent it
to be machine basted 

I can't recommend enough having the layers
tacked together by machine, particularly if

you're a hand-quilter with bad knees or a bad back.

It's worth its weight in gold!

 My quilting friends offered to do a Team Baste, bless 'em,
but some of them aren't good after leaning
 over a table, so this seemed a very good option.

By the way ... 





Look at this lovely little stained glass wall hanging -

A perfect match for my quilt, or what?

It's by Shards of Glass and I found it on Etsy last week. 

Couldn't believe how similar it was in colour and style


"EQ - what?"

Those who've never seen Electric Quilt 

 in action might be interested in a brief view of how

 the programme helped me design the Odeon quilt

For the basic layout I chose a 9-block by 8-block

horizontal grid and added vertical sashing and a border

Next I added quarter log cabin blocks,

inserting them right across the grid and flipping some

horizontally to get a mirror image.

Colouring the block is easy - just the touch of a button.

EQ comes with libraries of blocks, fabrics, applique
 patterns and basic quilt layouts, and new fabrics are
added free every month.  You can also download

 ranges you like direct from the manufacturers website.

For OdeonI just used library fabrics that were roughly
the colours I wanted and refined the choice later.

EQ6 planning page

Esther wears jade a lot and loves browns and creams,

so those seemed a natural starting point. I've never used batiks,

but the more I thought about the more it seemed the way to go.

Bought most of them at the wonderful Web Fabrics at
Purcellville VA,and then trawled the web to match a
 lovely gold scrap I found in my stash.

  Must've looked at HUNDREDS of sites, but eventually found it at

Batiks Etcetera in Wytheville VA and had it shipped to the UK.

The fabrics shown in this layout are not batiks, but

they gave me the yardage needed in each colour

Number of patches and yardage

EQ6 is great - it works out fabric yardage (above) and prints

rotary-cutting patterns, templates or foundation piecing patterns.

Rotary-cutting diagram

Templates with 1/4" seam allowance added

foundation piecing template preview

These were the final fabrics

My grandson's quilt (see Something old - something new)
has applique in it.  If you're interested I'll add a post with
a few pics to show how the applique design tools work.

Would love your feedback -
it's so nice to meet people through comments!

Art Deco - so inspiring!

Remember Saturday matinees at the Odeon?

Or am I the only one who admits to being that old?

Few of us had a TV, so matinees were a real treat.
 Queueing at the door, the rush for the best seats,
Pearl & Dean adverts, ice cream, cartoons -
it was all very exciting...

And getting chucked out when my cousin dropped

stink bombs in the gents was quite exciting too.

It seemed a very long walk from this very
screen to the exit, herded along by an angry usherette...

Toilets on right, out of shot.
Wonder if the air has cleared yet?

Odeon design must have been burned on my brain
 at that time, because the name that immediately sprang
to mind when I designed this quilt was

'ODEON'

Art Deco or what!

These colours and shapes show up in art deco

architecture, lighting, upholstery, glass, pottery

- so many different things.

Look at these fabulous tiles from

the Regent Theatre in Mudgee, New South Wales

photographed by Michelle of Barnhouse Antiques

And this art deco wall light from Coventry Technical College,

taken by Pete Zabulis is just so evocative of the era

Inspiration everywhere!

Coming next - a Clarice Cliff story

that will make you art deco fans weep...

Something old, something new...

New grandson = new quilt

Been seeking inspiration for a few weeks now...

When Hector was born, the family dogs

 seemed just the thing to feature on his quilt,

 but what to do for Meyer...?

Was at a loss until a dig through the

 family archive produced this little gem...

I've always loved this delightful drawing,

created many years ago by Meyer's daddy.

It was the perfect centre for the quilt -

but I needed three more figures

to complete the family group 

To clone or not to clone...?

Decided not to clone.

Decided to try doing more drawings in the same style -

which turned out to be harder than it sounds.

Drawing kid-style is difficult when you're an adult -

we can't help making things too perfect.

Fancy having a go yourself?  Then try this -

If you're a Righty, get a massive felt tip,

hold it in your LEFT hand and just go with the flow on a B-I-G sheet of paper.

It feels odd, but adds lots of naivety to a drawing...

so here are a couple more.

Using Electric Quilt software I created basic

 borders and a large central panel.

Then the drawings were scanned, imported into

the programme, and traced using the mouse.

It took a while as I haven't used the drawing programme

for months and it's amazing how soon we forget...
If you're finding EQ hard to get your head round,
hang in there and experiment - it's worth it.

Here's the result.

It's a work in progress, but I quite like it so far.

Now comes the interesting bit -

chasing up the right fabrics at Patchwork Chicks ,

plus a detour to the Alma for lunch of course.

I can think of a few people who'd be up for that...

First Quilt - driven by the arrival of a cute little boy

Nearly five months old in this pic - and very cute. 

Seen here admiring his new quilt at close quarters and making a few helpful suggestions. 

'The stitching's a bit uneven in parts, Grandma.'





Cleo posing near her picture - and not a bad likeness, though I say it myself...

Quilt designed using Electric Quilt software - marvellous! -and fabrics from Patchwork Chicks and the Skep.  Hand-quilted by Yours Truly

Next job - knit Debbie Bliss's cute dufflecoat.  Back to t'Net for a wool search...