Sail Away

After starting this quilt at the beginning of the year, it is now on its way to Norway to my relatively recently arrived great nephew. 

I initially planned this to be a square quilt and found an ideal sea-like background fabric in the bargain baskets at Abakhan. Somewhere along the planning the process I added in an extra row which meant that when it came to cutting the background fabric, there was only just enough.

The quilt is backed with fleece and the binding is a rainbow dotty print (both from the bargain baskets at Abakhan). It is quilted with Aurifil 40wt - the boats are outlined with stitching in the ditch and I used preset wavy line stitches for the waves. 

 

The pattern is available for free from Quilt Mag, should you wish to make one.

Flying the Flag (a Pattern for an EPP Union Jack)

A few posts ago I blogged about my competition entries for the Uttoxeter Quilt and Stitch Village. The Union Jack made of EPP hexagons was for the special category of British Royalty celebrating the longest serving monarchs, hence the inclusion of the royal cyphers for Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth II.

By the magic of Photoshop, I can show you how the flag would look without these cyphers (much easier than making another!). 

 

If you would like to make one yourself, details of the number of hexagons, finished sizes, and the pattern for this English paper pieced Union Jack can now be found in the projects/tutorials section of this blog. The pattern was designed so that it remained as true as possible, when using hexagons, to the correct aspect ratio of the flag and also to the relative widths of the various sections (if you want to know more about this, click here). You may wish to modify the pattern so that is is more suited for snuggling under than flying from a flag pole.

Fast Fabric

This is just a quick post to share with you the excellent service shown by Oakshott Fabrics (and the Royal Mail). After seeing some Oakshott fabrics at the quilt show in Uttoxeter, I decided it was better to bite the bullet and order some sample swatches rather than try to guess colour matching from online images. I placed my order yesterday and the swatches arrived this morning!

As Oakshott have shimmery effect which is difficult to photograph, the swatch packs will be very useful and are really rather good value. Most, I think, come with a money off voucher for future purchases and some include a mini charm pack. To find the swatch packs on the Oakshott website, just enter "sample" in the search box.

(Please note, this post is written purely because I am so pleased with the service from Oakshott and not because I have received anything other than my order from them.)