Surface Design with Shiva Paintstiks

Quiltworks Studio is now OPEN and we've already had our first workshop!!

Our first set of students spent a Saturday morning working on the first block of our Tweets & Twinkles Block of the Month and everyone seemed to have a great time!!

Our next workshop is this Saturday and I'm super excited because we are going to be designing our own fabrics usually Shiva Paintstiks!!

We are going to use lots of different techniques such as stenciling and rubbings.

If you can't join us on Saturday, but are curious about paintstiks, there are lots of instructional videos online that show you how to use these amazing products!

I'm hoping that we'll be able do a series of different workshops that focus on different products for surface design such as paintstiks, Inktense pencils and Tsukineko inks! Hope you'll be able to join us!

Follow our Quiltworks Facebook Group to get the most up-to-date info about our workshops and other events!

Final New Beginnings Block of the Month block now available on Craftsy

December block now available!

I can't believe that December is finally here! It has been a great year full of creativity for me and I'm so happy to share with you my final (and maybe favourite) block for our New Beginnings block of the month program.

The December block ePattern is now available for download from Craftsy.

I managed to keep track of my cardboard markers ALL YEAR LONG and they are still super helpful for keeping track of what fabric is what when I get to the sewing machine

My finished block looks awesome and I'm so looking forward to getting all of these blocks together in my quilt.

In a couple weeks we'll be posting two different patterns that can be used to sew all of your BOM blocks into a quilt!!

October block of the month now available on Craftsy

New Beginnings Block of the Month - October

I can't believe that October is here already! But that means that our newest block for the New Beginnings BOM is now available on Craftsy!!

For my version of our block I'm using some of the new fabrics that I bought last week!!

My little cardboard markers are still coming in very handy for keeping track of parts of the block and the fabrics used.

 Here are my little half square triangle sections for the block.

Here is my finished block.

All of the New Beginning blocks are available on Craftsy for immediate download. As you finish the blocks, please share a photo on Craftsy for a chance to win our grand prize - a quilt kit featuring Northcott fabrics!!

Machine quilting my QUILTsocial Mystic Garden (Mountain View) quilt

In July on QUILTsocial I used some of Northcott's Mystic Garden fabric to make two different quilts. By the end of the week I had finished machine quilting the first quilt - a lap quilt that used large sections of the main Mystic Garden fabric with flying geese sections made three different ways.

For the second quilt top I used our Upper Canada Quiltworks' "Mountain View" pattern. and substituted the main Mystic Garden fabric in place of the panels.

 I found the PERFECT thread in my stash for quilting this quilt top. Vibrant purple, teal and lime green variegated King Tut thread!!

Here is my quilt loaded on the Gammill frame and ready to quilt!

I LOVE that striped fabric in the inner border and did one of my favourite loop-de-loop designs to quilt it.

Finding a nice design for quilting the flying geese is sometimes a challenge, so I experimented with this design:

Here is the finished quilt - all it needs now is the binding!