New quilt pattern now available

Savile Diamonds now available

Nellie and I have been so busy since returning from Houston! This morning though I was able to find some time to get one of our newest patterns up onto our website and onto Craftsy. Here is Savile Diamonds:

Savile Diamonds - blue version

Savile Diamonds - brown version

This one is a "manly" quilt as it uses Northcott's new flannel line of plaids prints called "Savile Row". and our pattern gives directions for both colorways. But look what happens when I use the magic of EQ to try out some other fabrics:

As you can see - it gives it a whole new look!!! If you've got a focus fabric that you would love to use in a quilt, give this pattern a try!!

Look for it on our website: Savile Diamonds

Or on Craftsy: Savile Diamonds

Sewing adorable wool felt animals

 Leisure Arts recently sent me the cutest book to review - "Crafty Critters" by Vickie Clontz of Annie's Keepsakes.

This fun little book has patterns for purses and pincushions, coasters and magnets and lots more projects. The directions are well written and easy to follow.

The hedgehog pin cushion is my absolute favourite! Look how cute it is with pins sticking in it!

If you've got an outdoorsy little girl on your Christmas list, there are two adorable purse patterns - this little fox purse and a raccoon one too!

  

This book is available in print or as a ebook right from the Leisure Arts website or look for it at your local bookstore or craft supply store! Have fun sewing up a zoo full of adorable wool felt animals!

Turtle Hand Batiks from Malaysia

Nellie and I attended International Quilt Market in Houston, Texas last weekend and we came home with many, many treasures and so, so inspired!! This year we found Quilt Market to be even more "International" than ever before. There were vendors from the US, Canada, Australia, Britain and many, many more countries. We came home with wool embroidery kits from France, the cutest buttons EVER from Brazil and my personal favourite, beautiful Turtle Hand Batiks from Malaysia.

We stopped in Tina's booth to admire her fabrics and ended up working out a way that we could partner with her to help promote her wonderful business! Tina imports these one-of-a-kind hand painted fabrics from families in Malaysia and follows ethical trade practices to help these artisans to make a better life for themselves. 

I managed to bring a few pieces home with me to see what I could create for Tina. One of her ladies made these fat eighth bundles secured on a trivet so I HAD to bring a couple of them home!

Fat eighth bundle from Turtle Hand Batiks

Tina's most amazing fabrics are her art panels like this dragonfly panel that I brought home with me. They are all beautifully made and the colours are so saturated!!

Dragonfly art panel all ready to be made into a quilt or bag

 Her line of fabrics has quite a selection of colours and designs! She sent us home with one of her swatch packs to help get the creative juices flowing.

Check out these hand made buttons from one of her suppliers - a husband and wife team that make buttons from coconut shells after the juice and meat has been consumed. What an awesome way to recycle!!

Hand made coconut shell buttons

Needless to say that Nellie and I are super excited to be working with Tina and can't wait to start creating with our samples of Turtle Hand Batiks from Malaysia!!

November block of the month now available on Craftsy

New Beginnings BOM - November

Wow - it's November and we are almost at the end of our New Beginnings BOM  series!! If you've been following along, make sure that you post pictures of your finished blocks on Craftsy so that you can be entered into our draw for a quilt kit!!

Here are the fabrics that I chose for my November block. I'm just loving the navy, teals and orange/fuschia fabrics together and can't wait to see what all of my blocks are going to look like together!

Here are all of triangles ready to sew together:

And here is my finished block!!

Check out all of the New Beginning blocks that are available on Craftsy! Next month we'll post the final block AND two different patterns for using the blocks to make a quilt!

Making a quilt as you go (flip and sew) striped tote bag

52 Week UFO Challenge - Project #39

After finishing my Flying Geese quilt for QUILTsocial I had a whole pile of leftover striped fabric (that I had trimmed away from the flying geese). There was NO WAY that I was going to throw them out, so I had to find a project to use them in.

The quilt-as-you-go method can be used for all types of projects, but I like to use it most for small items such as table runners, place mats and tote bags.

For this bag we aren't going to have any batting, so it's technically not a "quilt", but the same technique and steps are used.

I'm using a medium weight interfacing to "quilt" on. This will give the bag some stability, but won't make it really heavy.

The first step is to draw a straight line across the interfacing. I like to do this line on an angle so that it's not as noticeable if some of my strips down go down perfectly straight. Next you lay down one strip of fabric right side up along this line and you keep adding strips until you have covered the entire piece. In my picture I have already sewn a few strips to the interfacing but you can see that they are on an angle and the seams are nice and straight.

The next step is to place your next strip on top RIGHT SIDE DOWN and pin in place with one raw edge lined up along the edge of the strip underneath.

 You sew your seam through all three layers and then FLIP your strip over and press.

You then add your next strip and pin, sew, flip and press. 

I alternated one striped strip and then one plain blue strip.

I had one flying gees strip left so I used it for the front of the bag.

The next step was to trim the two sections so that they were the same size.

I used some of my Northcott fabrics to make a lining for the bag and some of the leftover black polka dot fabric to make handles.

Here it is - the finished bag!

Well, that was a great use for my little striped strips of fabric!! This is all I had left from my pile:

The quilt as you go (flip and sew) method is super easy for making quilted items. Try it out with some of your leftover strips of fabric. I'm happy to say that another UFO is complete. I've got this little bag for sale in my Etsy shop - check it out at fairfieldroaddesigns.