2015 Pantone Challenge - Marsala - what even is that?

When Pantone announced that their colour for 2015 was Marsala, I was very surprised.  I looked at pictures of Marsala, but I couldn't even really describe the colour - was it brown? dark red? burgundy? what was it?




















I now know that part of the problem was that I didn't know Marsala was a type of wine! I'd never heard of it. We make a lot of wine in New Zealand, but we can't make Marsala because it's a name that can only used for wine that comes from near the village Marsala, in Italy. I guess our wineshops and supermarkets don't feel the need to import Marsala when we have other alternatives grown locally.  Once I realised that Marsala was a type of wine (and not a type of curry known as Masala), the challenge became slightly easier.

Adrienne from On The Windy Side had said that the judges would be quite lenient on the colours used in the challenge, so I picked out a few of the deep red (wine coloured) fabrics that I had on hand. I'd seen some colour charts on another site where they combined lime green with Marsala, and I that idea appealed to me. So I put some lime green in with my Marsala fabrics, and started to play around with them.

I decided to make a cushion out of my Marsala fabrics.  I added some hand stitching to the giant Gerbers on the beautiful Jane Sassaman fabric in the centre panel, and outlined the green leaves with Perle 8 too. I then did some rows of machine quilting across the cushion top.  The back is just a piece of brown fabric I had in my stash, but there is a zip so it can be washed if necessary.

So now I have a nice Marsla cushion which can be used indoors or out.

I loved the Pantone colour of the year in 2014 - Radiant Orchid, and really enjoyed making a lap quilt for that challenge. You can read about that quilt here. I wonder what colour they will come up with next year!

Celtic Snow is framed

My Celtic Snow is back from the framers and hanging on the wall. I'm really pleased with how it's turned out.  The frame looks like brushed stainless steel. It's very simple, but it lets the embroidery shine.

It was hard to get a good photo. That darker section in the bottom left hand corner is my reflection.

The beads look even better now that the linen has been stretched.

Although it's possibly a Christmas piece, I'm going to leave it on the wall for a few months now. We're going into our Southern Hemisphere winter, so it's not too out of place.

You can read all about this embroidery in my earlier post from a few weeks ago here.

La Passacaglia progress

It's been a few months since I showed you my la passacaglia quilt.  This is how it's looking now.

I really didn't touch it in February and March. I made a concerted effort to finish other projects during that time.  I'm back into it now though, and once again almost overwhelmed by the possible fabric combinations.

I started Easter by re-organising the fabrics I had set aside for la passacaglia. I pulled them all out and regrouped them by colour. Of course the blues and greens dominate, with a touch of purple thrown in for good measure.

I have decided to just make the 30 odd centres required for this quilt at the moment. I was going crazy trying to plan the stars as well. I can cope with choosing 3 colours at once, so I went ahead and selected groups of 3 fabrics that gave high contrast. The la passacaglia quilts that I like the most have strong contrasts between the light and dark fabrics, so I'm aiming for that in mine.

I'm using zip lock bags to store my chosen groups of 3 fabrics into bags. This will avoid everything getting muddled up again. Funnily enough, the very act of sealing a bag reinforces the fact that I have chosen these fabrics and they are not to be changed. It's a way of telling myself that I liked those fabrics together at some stage, so just leave them alone, they will work.

Over the past 10 days I've made 5 new centres which are included in the photo below. It's looking very green at the moment, but there's more blue coming to balance it up. I'm going to think about the stars at a later date once I've got an idea of the final layout. I'm viewing them as the connecting pieces, almost like sashing on a quilt.

I'm linking up with Sew Cute Tuesday, Esther's WOW and WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.

2015 Finish a Long - Q2 goals

It's time to think about what I want to get finished in Q2. Mmm, so many options.

I'd already decided that 2015 was my year to work on WIPs and I'm going quite well so far. I finished all 4 items on my Q1 Finish a Long list, and although I have started some new projects, I am exercising restraint and not plunging into everything that looks appealing.

So Q2 - what's it to be?

1. Finish my crochet ripple blanket which is almost done. This blanket is about 1.7m tall so will cover me nicely in bed (yes - it's just for my side of the bed).  I still need to do a few more rows and then there are 3 rows of border right around it. I think the border will stop the sides from stretching so I do want to do a border.

2. Crochet another smaller blanket to have on my knees in the evenings - does that make me sound old?  Or just cold?  I think I might use a different pattern this time - maybe the Cosy Stripe pattern by Attic24. I'll also be using some different colours of the same wool I used above. I want to use up all the scraps, but also inject some new shades.

3.  Finish "Your Place or Mine?".  The long armer can't start work on it until Mid May, but I might have it back by early June, and that gives me time to put the binding and a label on it before the end of Q2 on 30 June.

4.  Stacks of Colour.  This one is a stretch goal, and probably not going to be achievable, but my thought is that if I write it here I will at least start on it this quarter. I want to hand quilt this quilt with Perle 8 in a water drops pattern - overlapping circles. That quilting pattern seems quite appropriate because it's been raining for 3 days now. It can keep me company as we go into winter.

I think that's enough for one quarter. Of course I've got a lot of other things on the go, but I don't think any of them will be finished by 30 June. I do aim to make progress on them though so some of them can join on my Q3 list and be finished by 30 September. I already know that my top priority for Q3 will be my Haunted House which simply must be ready for Halloween.

Happy Easter

I hope you're all enjoying an Easter break. We're having a lovely time with my mum and dad here for five days.

Yesterday we took a trip up the Kapiti Coast and went to Te Horo. It's a very stony beach with lots of driftwood, but funnily enough just 10 kms down the road there's another beach with beautiful white sand. I think the other beach is protected by Kapiti Island so there's less debris washed ashore.

me and mum

We also went to Ruth Pretty's Cooking School for coffee and cake. I love Ruth's Christmas cake, and fortunately they were still selling it by the slice in their garden cafe shop. We sat in the little green house for morning tea.

see the tea cosy they use!

Of course there's been plenty of sewing going on too.

What you see above turned into a one hour basket - yes, I followed the trend and got mum to whip one up based on the pattern by Kelby Sews. I bought some Soft and Stable on Wednesday so we used some of that for the stiffening.

Here's what it looks like now:

Mum bought me down some more of the beautiful California wool because I'm going to make a second ripple blanket. The second one will be slightly smaller than the first, and I will use it in the lounge on winter nights. We do have a heater, but I feel the cold more than the rest of the family. The second blanket will be more scrappy, incorporating all the remains from the first blanket, plus a few new wild colours called Circus and Macaw which you can see above.

Here's our progress to date and it's only Easter Sunday morning. Mum and Dad don't leave until Wednesday afternoon so there's plenty more sewing time yet.

In fact I can hear my machine whirring now because mum is making a second one hour basket for my niece, her granddaughter. I'll be sure to post a photo once it's finished.

"Your Place or Mine?" top is finished

I'm delighted to say that I have finally finished the top of "Your Place or Mine?'.

These are the best photos I could do by myself - it's too big to hang on the clothes line!

and another photo taken with a different camera - it's very hard to capture the colours accurately.

I took this before I sewed the borders on, but it really shows how vibrant the felt is in this quilt. I love how the Kaffe fabrics complement the felt too.

Here's how it will look on our bed eventually:

I did have some hesitation about the borders, but after discussing it with the very helpful ladies at my local quilting shop, I've decided to stick with what was provided in the BOM. We did agree that the binding should probably be a deep blue colour to finish off the edges nicely. 

That last border looks different in different lights, but it is growing on me and I'm sure it's going to be fine. I think I just got a bit of a surprise when I first put it on!

So why did it take me five months to finish the last installment of this quilt? There are a few reasons:

a. I was worried that the pieces weren't going to fit together, and it wasn't going to be square due to my sewing and all the diagonal seams. I didn't want to face that problem so I ignored it!  Turned out I didn't need to be worried after all.

b. New and exciting things like la passacaglia came along. Fact - it's always more exciting to start something new rather than finish an existing project.

c. A part of me didn't want this to be over - I've been working on it for 18 months and I've now become known as the lady who's making that colourful quilt with all the felt. I get asked about it at local quilting shops, my stitching group and guild meetings. I'll need a new identity now that it's finished.

I'm going to get this quilted professionally. I usually hand quilt my quilts myself, but I think this quilt will look great with stippling on all the flat surfaces. It also wouldn't sit properly in my hand quilting hoop with all that lumpy felt.

I've had many questions about this quilt, so here's everything you might need to know:

1. The design is by Wendy Williams (not me - I'm Wendy Welsh). Wendy Williams lives in Sydney and works with Kathy Doughty at Material Obsession. Some of Wendy's designs are available through their website.

2. Wendy also has her own company called Flying Fish Kits and they also sell patterns and kits online.

3. Wendy has a book called Wild Blooms and Colourful Creatures and there are similar patterns in that book. It's available at Amazon and other book sellers.

4. "Your Place or Mine?" was a Block of the Month from Material Obsession that started in August 2013 and ran again in 2014. You can watch out for their Block of the Months in July 2015.

5. The BOM included all the fabrics, the felt, the templates and some Perle 8 threads. They are generous with their felt so I have quite a bit left over.

I have loved making this quilt. As a number of people have said, it reflects my personality and style, even though I didn't design it. Maybe it's something to do with people called "Wendy"?

I'll be sure to post more photos when I get it back from the long arm quilter.


Finished size 86" x 86"

Flower Garden Table Runner

One of the reasons I started my blog was to create a record of my quilting and embroidery. Here's something I made back in 2013 before I was blogging.

It's a Flower Garden Table Runner and the pattern is by my favourite designer, Wendy Williams of Flying Fish Kits.

The pattern is in her book called "Wild Blooms and Colorful Creatures". In the book it's called "Clamshell Garden Runner".

I went to a class to learn how to make this quilt. Each year in Wellington we have a big event at Queen's Birthday weekend (first weekend in June), called Hand Made. There are many classes on offer and subjects include sewing, knitting, jewelry making, cheese making, etc.

Back in 2013 Wendy Williams was one for the guest tutors and she taught a class on how to make this table runner. I was already aware of her work and loved her style, so I rushed to enroll, along with my friend Sue.

We had a great time at the class, but didn't get a lot of sewing done. We studied all of the other beautiful quilts and objects Wendy had bought with her, and snapped up lots more patterns and brightly coloured felt.

However, we'd done enough to understand the techniques involved, and knew we could finish our quilts at home. This technique is wool felt applique where fabrics are fussy cut and then hand appliqued onto felt. The felt shapes are them attached to the background panel with coloured Perle 8.

It was at that class that I saw "Your Place or Mine?" and just knew I had to make that too. I'm really hoping to get that top finished this weekend.

This quilt was one of those very rare things that when I came home and I just continued sewing until it was finished. I loved every step of it, The clam shells were a pain to get straight, but I do love the colour of them, so they are forgiven.

I especially love the Kaffe border.  It's hand quilted with blue Perle 8. There's minimal hand quilting within the panel itself. The flowers already stand out and I wanted them to be the feature.

I wanted to put Kaffe on the back too, so I chose a bright and cheery print, with plenty of purple and lime green to match the front.

This quilt hangs above the bed in the spare room and really brightens up that room.


Finished size: 21" x 50"
Design: Flying Fish Kits
Date: 2013