One Hour Basket with Renaissance Ribbons

As promised last week, I'm back to explain how I used my second Renaissance Ribbons velvet ribbon. 

I learnt from the bags I made last week, and decided to try a different way to get the most out of my black and red velvet ribbon from Stitch Witches.  

I pulled out my One Hour Basket pattern from many years ago, and made a few changes to it to ensure that I showed off my velvet ribbon to maximum effect.  (The One Hour Basket pattern used to be free, but now it's for sale on Etsy.)

I cut my Soft and Stable slightly deeper than the original pattern because I knew I wanted to see ALL of the velvet ribbon on the side of the basket. I put a strip of black quilting cotton at the base of the Soft and Stable so my velvet ribbon wasn't on the base of the basket..  

I wanted the 1.5" bird ribbon to be at the top of my basket, but I needed to allow a seam allowance at the top, so I sewed another piece of quilting cotton to the top of the Soft and Stable.  

I used a 70 needle and monofilament when I attached the bird ribbon to the Soft and Stable.

So I mucked around for 3.5 hours making a one hour basket.  But good things take time, and I'm very happy with this basket.  I think it show the velvet ribbon beautifully, and I only had 7" of ribbon left over.  I might even find a use for that yet.  

So here's my little family of bags made from Renaissance Ribbons velvet ribbons.  The bags from last week fit perfectly inside the One Hour Basket to demonstrate the relative sizes.  

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Renaissance Ribbons Bags

I tried something new this week and made these cute bags with Renaissance Ribbons velvet ribbons.  The lower part of these bags is covered in velvet ribbons - the big flowers on the blue background.

I had seen photos of the velvet ribbons on social media, but when I saw them in person at Stitch Witches in Dunedin I was quite surprised at how luxurious they were.  They colours are very deep and rich, and of course the velvet feels beautiful to touch.  

I couldn't decide which ribbon to buy, so I bought two.  I decided to work with the blue one first, and made two pouches from the accompanying Renaissance Ribbons Bags ByAnnie pattern.  Annie has carefully worked out how to get two pouches out of the 1 metre length of velvet ribbon in each pack.  

I purchased the optional add on video from the ByAnnie website and it was very helpful.  I've made other ByAnnie bags without the videos, but I just couldn't face reading every step of the instructions six times and I thought that the video would make it easier.  It sure did! I just paused the video as I completed each step and happily sewed along with Annie.  

I'm pleased with my bags, but feel that the small one really is quite small.  It doesn't open all the way to the end because the zip end is tucked in. AND, I was disappointed to lose so much of the velvet ribbon across the base of the bigger bag.  I wish I had realised that was going to happen because I would have cut the Soft and Stable bigger, and put quilting fabric across the unseen bottom of the bag. 

So, I decided to change things up with my other ribbon and considered making two bags of equal size.  But then I had another bright idea.......

You'll have to wait until next week to find out about my other idea. 

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Licorice Allsorts

Material Obsession in Sydney, Australia sent out the last package for the Wendy Williams Licorice Allsorts Block of the Month last week.  

 

So naturally I decided it was time that I actually started stitching this quilt before the next round of Block of the Months get released in July.  

Don't get me wrong - I love this quilt, and I'm very keen to make it, but I just had too many other things on the go at once.  Even I have a limit of how many things I can juggle at the same time. 

I love that this quilt combines hand embroidery with quilting.  Each month there was a motif to embroider, and some blocks to piece on the machine.  It's taken me 3 evenings to embroider the first month's motifs, so I imagine I can do the hand embroidery quite quickly, but some of the machine piecing looks a bit tricky, and I will have to be very careful with the cutting out.  I may even make some test blocks!!

I decided that I needed a new project bag to store my blocks for this quilt in, so I whipped this one up using a very interesting fat quarter I bought at Stitch Witches in Dunedin. 

It's got Soft and Stable in it so it will keep my blocks nice and flat.  Each time I make a bag I try to use a different quilting design, so this time I did a variation of a equilateral triangle design in Jacquie Gering's book, Walk 2.0.  

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Quilts for Ukraine

Look at what we've done! Eleven quilt tops and 140 loose blocks are heading to Germany today. 

Thank you New Zealand and Australian quilters. (Full sized photos at the end of this post.)

Two months ago I decided to make a few blue and yellow blocks for Ukrainian refugee quilts. I never imagined it would grow to this.  We've made 360 blocks in total.  I received blocks from:

Tauranga Patchwork and Quilters 

Capital Quilters

Howick Quilting Friends (both groups)

Glenys in Auckland (the kiwi blocks)

Marina in Feilding

Jeanette in Australia

Vivienne in Napier

Mary in Ashburton

Sue in Auckland

plus kind people in Dunedin and Lincoln.  

As I received more and more blocks, and saw how many Claudia was receiving every day in Germany, I decided to make up some quilt tops to ease the load on Claudia.  As the blocks rolled in I made more and more quilt tops.  I started to run out of fabrics for the sashing and borders, so Jenny Hunter from Plume Art + Stitch very kindly donated some blue and yellow fabrics and that allowed me to finish 11 quilt tops for Ukrainian refugee children. 

Four different people have kindly contributed to the cost of postage.  So it's been a real team effort. Thank you everyone.  Claudia is a very busy lady sorting all the blocks, quilt tops and donation events, but if I see photos of our finished quilts being donated to children I will be sure to share them with you.  

Here are some close up photos of each of the quilts.  If you donated blocks I hope you can see some of your blocks in these quilts.  There are another 140 loose blocks that I'm sending over too.  Every block is going to Germany. 

Thank you everyone.

Number 1

Number 2

Number 3

Number 4

Number 5

Number 6

Number 7

Number 8

Number 9

Number 10

Number 11

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Wool Felt Applique

A few weeks ago I was invited to teach wool felt applique at Stitch Witches in Dunedin.  My good friend Sue Lucas is one of the owners of Stitch Witches.

The inspiration table

I had a great time and met lots of lovely ladies. It's always interesting to see everyone else's ideas, and I was inspired by the woollen blankets and woollen suiting fabrics that some of them bought along to the class. 

I had a quick look in a local op shop, but they only had plain green blankets and I wanted pattern and texture (of course!).  I think woollen blankets are possibly more of a Dunedin thing, even though it definitely gets cold here in winter too.  

So I ordered a gorgeous bundle of Sue Spargo's woollen pieces from the Ribbon Rose.  I spent Mothers' Day play with my new woollen pieces and I started the bouquet of flowers above.   

I don't know what this is going to be yet, but that's the beauty of a small piece.  It could be the start of a bag, a cushion or even just a mini quilt.  I'll see what I think as it develops.  

I loved seeing all the autumn leaves in Dunedin, and exploring all the tempting items in Stitch Witches.  The classes were held in the classroom at the shop, so we could just run back and forwards if we needed a slightly different shade of thread or felt. 

They've said I'm welcome to come back next year, but I just need to think about what I can teach next time.  

Now it's time for the Peacock Party.  Feel free to link up a recent blog post below:

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Floral Bouquet

It's finished! 

I'm proud to reveal "Floral Bouquet" made from Kaffe Fassett's "Starry Night" pattern in Quilts in an English Village.  

 

I loved the Starry Night pattern, but I wanted to use some of my lighter floral Kaffe Fassett Collective fabrics, so I teamed my fabrics with Tula Pink's pastel solids for this pattern and I love the result. 

The Cactus Flower print has some great motifs that are just crying out to feature in large blocks like these.  

The Y seams were a little tricky, but I wrote a post back in February showing how I dealt with them.  You can read it here.

I no longer have time to hand quilt every quilt that I make, so I must thank Rayna Clinton from Tui Song Quilting for quilting this quilt for me.  I chose a Baptist Fan design and a variegated pastel thread, and I'm very happy with the result.  

It was fun to make a summery quilt during our summer months here in New Zealand. I started with the intention of giving this quilt to my mother in law, and she has received it now and loves it. 

Finished size: 75" x 75" (because it has 4x 4 = 16 blocks where the one in the book has 5 x 5 = 25 blocks)

Backing: Millefiori wide back in pastel by Kaffe Fassett

Now it's time for the Peacock Party.  Thank you to all the loyal people who keep linking up week after week.  Feel free to link up a recent blog post below. 

  

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I'm teaching at Quilt Symposium 2022

 

Yes, the Lecture and Class information has been published, and I'm teaching at Symposium in October 2022.   You can find all the details on the Sympoisum website here. 

I'll be teaching Raindrops are Falling on my Head (2 day class):

Dancing Cheek to Cheek as a one day class:

Finish your Millefiori Quilt workshop (one day class):

This class is for all the people who have started a Millefiori Quilt,
 but need help forming a plan to finish it.

and finally, Social media for quilters and quilt guilds.  

So, I'm going to be a busy lady because there's also the opening and closing ceremonies, happy hours, fancy dinners and lectures to attend.  And so many people to meet! 

Usually we have international tutors at symposium, but due to all the COVID-19 uncertainty, we're only having Australian and New Zealand tutors this year.  However, there's still 45 different tutors attending and a wide variety of classes to choose from.  

So dive in, read the Lectures and Classes Information Ebook, and if you can't come to Lower Hutt for Symposium, just dream about what classes you would do if you could attend. 

Now it's time for the Peacock Party.  Feel free to link up a recent blog post below.  

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