Tag Archives: liberty

Liberty Stars Quilt – In the beginning

Last year I signed up to Liberty Club #2 with Polka Dot Tea Fabrics, and I could not be happier with the variety of beautiful Liberty prints picked each month by Danielle and Jeannette. I’m getting fat sixteenths which measure approximately 10″ by 13.5″ (or 25cm by 34cm), the Liberty fabrics are 54″ wide so the cuts are more generous than your standard cottons. There are currently Liberty Club places available, you can sign up on their website.

Liberty Stars Quilt - Stars 001-008
Liberty Stars Quilt – Stars 001-008

I’ve been a bit scared to cut into my Liberty stash but I thought maybe just a little bit off each piece would be a good start and a great way to showcase my collection over time. I’ve been wanting to start a slow-go project to, particularly eyeing off 60 degree / 6 point English Paper Pieced stars. It’s a perfect match and so my Liberty Stars Quilt project was born. I’ll be posting progress shots on Instagram using #libertystarsquilt or you can follow me @pescapresents to.

Liberty Stars Quilt - Star 009
Liberty Stars Quilt – Star 009

I’ve chosen 1½” 60 degree diamonds, each side of the diamond is 1½” long, the angle of the acute (pointy) end is 60 degrees, and it takes 6 of the diamonds to create a full star: 6 x 60 degrees = 360 degrees, a full circle – woohoo maths! As shown in the picture below, the stars measure 4½” across and about 5¼” top to bottom (tip to tip through the middle).

Liberty Stars Quilt - 60 degree / 6 point stars
Liberty Stars Quilt – 60 degree / 6 point stars

I cut 2, 2″ strips (less than 1/4 of each piece) from which I could get 8 diamonds, you only need 6 for the star and I’ve saved all the spare pairs for more mixed stars.

Libery Stars Quilt - Stars 010-012
Libery Stars Quilt – Stars 010-012

I cut the fabrics for my first 20-30 stars and pieced the first 8 stars while away for a long weekend in December 2014, it’s a nice easy take-anywhere project and it’s intended to be a slow project, just a few here and there and while I’m away. I haven’t decided on a layout or background fabric yet but I’m sure that will come with time, I don’t even know what size I’m aiming for, something decent between large lap and bed-ish size I guess but I haven’t done the math to calculate any rough requirements yet. I’m just enjoying making stars and having a close look at each and every one of these beautiful Liberty fabrics.

Liberty Stars Quilt - Stars 013-016
Liberty Stars Quilt – Stars 013-016

I wish I knew what each and every fabric was, I don’t have it to hand but if there’s one in particular you like I should be able to find out.

Sunday Stash – Amitie Textiles

Happy New Year everyone!

Considering the rapid intake of fabric over the holidays, all technically purchased or received in 2013,  you’d think I was partaking in the Fabriholics Anonymous fabric fast of 2014 and doing some last minute stashing. I’m not, at least, not intentionally, though there is always the vague intent to use what I have and only buy what I need for a particular project.

My latest additions have come to me in different forms:

  • a particular line & coordinates I purchased for myself “for Christmas” that I’ve been holding out on for months
  • fabric received as a Christmas gift
  • fabric purchased while visiting specific stores while on holiday (different state, doesn’t count right?)
  • and a few on-a-whim scrap packs purchased via an Instagram sale from the lovely Ms Poppleton (she has great taste, these scraps are so yummy!).

Today I’m going to share some of my holiday purchases from an amazing store called Amitie Textiles. We popped down to Melbourne for a few days to ring in the New Year and as a bit of a significant birthday present, so of course I found a few fabric stores highly recommended by fellow bloggers to visit, and Amitie was at the top of my list.

It’s a fairly quick and easy train ride from the city and a short walk from the station, so totally worth the trip. They have a gorgeous store stocking so many beautiful fabrics, patterns and notions but by far my favourite was the range of Liberty prints in store. I could have stayed there just running my hands over the fabric for hours. It was a tough choice, but I couldn’t go past some of the new season prints…

Liberty Prints from Amitie Textiles

Liberty Art Fabrics Tana Lawn, L-R: Juno’s Garden C, Eve C, Willow D

Liberty Fabrics from Amitie Textiles

Liberty Art Fabrics Tana Lawn, L-R: Older print not sure**, Isabel Susan A, Heidi Maria A

**I know that the print on the left above is not from the new collection, and I haven’t had any luck finding it yet, if you know what it is I’d love to know!

I picked up the pattern for the Gypsy Wife quilt by Jen Kingwell after seeing the real live quilt in store, so had to grab a couple handfuls of fat sixteenths to start me along on my scrappy way.

Amitie Textiles - Fat Sixteenths

Top Row: 4 Liberty print fat sixteenths | Bottom Row: 10 randomly picked fat sixteenths

I can’t wait to show you some of my other recent stash additions, but it’s all a little too much for one post so I’ll be linking up with Molli Sparkles for Sunday Stash over the next few weeks.

Sunday Stash with Molli Sparkles

Christmas Presents

*blink* I totally missed that, where did the last couple months go?

During November I was mostly working hard and travelling all over the place including two cycling trips down to Bright, VIC which is the most beautiful place and highly recommended! December has been… interesting. I’ve had to put on my nurse cap after the other half broke his collarbone in a race on one of said cycling trips. The plus side of that has been that he’s home more (not always out riding) and I’ve naturally retreated to the safety of home and doing the things that bring comfort – like working on quilts and other sewn gifts for Christmas.

Most of these items were finished just in time to be gifted, so I didn’t get a chance to photograph them properly, but was able to get a few decent pics on my phone & up on Instagram. So here goes… Insta-Christmas!

It was the year of the zippered pouch, I think I’m up to 6 so far and had a great time choosing fabrics and matching threads from my Aurifil suitcase (best prize ever!). I love this tutorial by Make it Perfect for zippered pouches, and I finally mastered which way to fold the zipper for nice neat ends, woohoo!

Choosing Aurifil threads for Xmas gifts

Below is one of the finished zippered pouches. The front is a screen printed panel featuring the Eye of Horus, I printed a stack of these as part of a 2 day screen printing workshop with the delightful Saffron Craig back in October with the Wollongong Modern Quilt Guild.

Xmas zippered pouches with screen printed panels

A quick collage of some of the items I made for presents.

  • Top left & bottom right are three of the zippered pouches I made, these went to my three closest friends filled with goodies.
  • Top right is one of the cushions I made for my nieces. The side shown is part of a panel from the Magical Lands line from Saffron Craig from a couple years ago (not that I was hoarding it or anything). Both pillows have this on one side and the other side uses different prints from the same line, with each of the girls initials added using raw edge applique, to help prevent any fights about which cushion belongs to who. These finished at about 12″ square and have a hidden zippered in the bottom.
  • Bottom left is a log cabin pin cushion made with Liberty fabrics for the Wollongong MQG Kris Kringle swap. This finished at about 6″ square.

Xmas Gifts Collage - Zippered Pouches & Cushions

And finally, I may have gone a little overboard with washi tape, but how cute are those trees!

Xmas gift bags decorated with washi tape

Here’s hoping you had a wonderful holiday season with family and friends. So long 2013, bring on 2014 and all that lies in store.

Tea Cup Block

Back in July one of my favourite quilters, Sarah Fielke, put out the call on her blog The Last Piece for tea cup blocks for a birthday quilt-a-long. The tea cup block is from her pattern All That and the Hatter from the book Hand Quilted With Love.

I was immediately drawn to this quilt when I saw it in the book, and loved it even more when I got to see it at the Sydney Craft & Quilt Fair, there’s a picture of the full quilt on Sarah’s blog. The amount of piecing involved seemed a bit daunting. Making this tea cup for Sarah was a perfect way to try out a single block that would go to good use. I also made my first cut into one of my pieces of Liberty. That was a bit scary but oh so worth it.

Tea Cup Block

If you’d like to see more of the blocks, Sarah has been posting pics on Instagram tagged with #birthdayquiltalong to show the many beautiful and varied tea cups she’s received so far. I can’t wait to see the quilt top when she gets to making it.