JoyofQuilting

 Thought I'd give a progress report on the Winter Village Quilt I'm currently working on. It's Called Winter Village by Edyta Sitar The Pattern can be found at  Laundry Basket Quilts but it is also in Edyta's Book  A Season In Blue I started working on this Quilt in April 2024 I made a good start following Edyta's YouTube instructions. But then like the Blackbird Crafter I am got sidetracked by lots of Shiny Little Projects... In between these Beautiful distractions I stitched a few Houses here and there over the months. There were 23 Blue Houses in total. Although I did make a rouge Red One just for the fun of it I have Built all the Houses now. And have made a start on the Quilting. Lots yet to do. Including some Appliqué Branches and Birds. What do you think of it so far?

Time To Catch Up Wow! I knew I hadn't blogged for a while but even I was shocked to see it's been almost TWO YEARS! So a Catch Up is called for me thinks 🤔  I haven't been busy. In fact for about Six Months I didn't pick up a Needle or Hook. But I'm back in the saddle and Stitching again  Yay! So I thought today I would step back into Blogging slowly.  I'm going to post some pictures of my Stitchings without too much explanation just to get things rolling again, and give you all a taste of what's been occurring. Above Humphrey The Giraffe Appliquéd onto A Piece of Welsh Wool Blanket  My Little Welsh Sheep. Appliquéd onto wool fabric from an Old Welsh Wool Blanket   Crochet - Beach Walk Blanket Pattern by Marion Mitchel Me and My Wool Felted Crochet Bag Quick Serger Bag Native Indian Bear Outline Stitching  Hope you have enjoyed seeing some of my Stitching.  I'll give you more info on some of these pics in future posts.  But I wonder... Which of m...

 Hello there my Stitching Friends. Today I want to share with you my latest Boro Inspired piece of work.  I find this Traditional Japanese style of stitching wonderfully relaxing. It's based on need rather than decoration but still manages to produce a visually strong finished piece of work.  I'm making my piece of Boro fabric into a Bag. But technically that's the wrong way around! Boro traditionally didn't start It's life as Boro. It slowly became Boro over years of daily use and mending..... Boro is filled with lots of lovely Hand Stitching called Sashiko in thick thread often  contrasting the fabrics it covers. (Think basic running or quilting stitches.) This simple stitch intended to be functional also creates a fabulous visual impact. Read my post on Boro Needles and Threads  Here The bag I'm making came from this   Boro Bag link I've thoroughly enjoyed the project. So much so that I created a YouTube Video showing how I created this piece. You c...

My grandson has this week discovered the Joys of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. A little cabin in the woods that I made for my granddaughters about fifteen years ago. I really enjoyed designing and constructing The Three Bears Log Cabin.  The Three Little Quilts were a bit of a challenge. I enjoyed choosing the fabrics for the curtains, night sky and wallpaper. I made the mattress on Daddy Bear's Bed Too Hard Manna Bear's Too Soft And Baby Bear's Just Right. It really was a lot of fun working out how to make The Three Bears, Goldielocks, the fire, carpet, picture, table and chairs and of course three bowls of porridge. I'm very proud of my efforts in this project. Why not Check Out My Other  Social Media Links

I wanted to let you all know that The Quilters Guild of the British Isles Talking Quilts Project is now live on-line. I was involved both as an Interviewer and an Interviewee  (is that a real word?) Here are a few pictures of my YK2 Quilt which I was interviewed about. The link below will take you to the  Wales page which is where all the interviews I took part in are. You can either read or listen to the interviews and look at pictures of the quilts. http://www.talkingquilts.org.uk/interviews/wales/ ENJOY! And then check out my  Social Media Links

Quilt as you Go  Quilt Binding  As our  Sampler Quilt Blocks  have all been made and we start stitching them together, our thoughts turn to finishing our Quilts. And that involves squaring off, making the binding and attaching the binding. All these Quilts were made using the Quilt as you Go method.  Find out more about joining  Quilt as you Go Sampler Quilts  Below are the first three finished Quilts. Then scroll down to the bottom of the page to see my three videos.  1. Squaring a Quilt.  2. Making Quilt Binding.  3. Attaching binding to your Quilt.                                Heulwen' s Sampler Quilt Mary's Sampler Quilt Yvonne' s Sampler Quilt How I Square Up A Quilt  This first video shows how to square up your quilt. Marking Quilt Bindings This second video shows how to make quilt binding Attaching Your Quilt ...

A few people have been asking how to make my Block Keeper.  So I thought I should repost a link to my Video Tutorial. First some pictures of said Block Keeper. Sew - here is my Quick and Easy Block Keeper Video Tutorial And here is a link to  My Social Media Links I'm particularly enjoying Instagram at the moment. 

Quilt as you Go  Sampler Quilt Blocks For all of you who want to know how I put together my Sampler Quilt Blocks.    This was a good Quilt to make to help my group expand their Patchwork and Quilting skills.  Each Block was a complete piece of work. With the top wadding and backing and Quilting. This meant we were only ever dealing with a small piece of work. This Tangled Star proved quite a challenge for many. Even I had to have quiet and really concentrate while making it! I do like the echo Quilting on this Block. Nice Socks included with this Block! The Bow Tie was a lovely Block to make. I felt mine looked like a Box of Milk, White and Mint Chocolates! Yum Yum! And here it is finished and displayed on my sofa. The Binding I quite enjoy making and attaching my Quilt Binding. It signals I'm coming towards the finishing line of my Quilt. And what a difference visually once the binding is on a Quilt. Find out how I  Make and Attach My Bindings Quilt As Y...

Can you spot the mistake? - it's quite a major one. This is what sometimes happens when us quilters get over exited working on a project. I finished putting this quilt top together and laid it out to consider how I wanted to quilt it. Um......that's a strange way I've put those colours together I thought.  Why did I put all the pink on one side of the quilt? That was an odd thing to do. Then it hit me - I pieced the top in two halves - In my excitement to get the top completed I'd stitched and joined them together the wrong way around - Oh My! There's no way I'm unpicking it - all the letters have been heat n bonded and stitched down.  And there is hardly any of the fabric left to make new So on to plan B  I did have some flowers I'd cut out earlier and not used.  I needed to bring some pink over to the left side. I only had two Pink Flowers but visually odd numbers are better.  So I'm using a yellow one as well.  I...

Yey - had a lovely play day today working on my own little project. Inspired by a photo I took of my Grandson and dog last year. It's lovely to take and have pictures.  But sometimes I feel the need to commit a memory to fabric. Using some fabric I had hand painted,  some freemotion quilting and appliqué - and a touch artistic licence (I changed the direction Daisy was running in). Some scraps of fabric for the binding. It's all finished and hanging proudly on my wall. Again, I quick printed out this picture so I could use it to make templates. Choosing fabrics to match the picture I Appliqued William & Daisy onto a fabric background.  Added some wadding, machine stitched wavy lines. Added a colourful binding.  An another Memoty Picture Finished. This takes me right back to when William had his first walk on 'Our Beach' Aberavon Beach, Port Talbot. See my other  Social Media Links

As promised, my little video on the Three Step Zig Zag Stitch.

And now my dear Quilty Friends, following hot on the heals of my How to make/cut a quilt binding , I give you my How to Attach your Binding to your Quilt Video I'm thinking it would be a good idea for those of you new to this technique to make up a sample piece. What do you think? I could talk you through that if you wanted. Let me know. Yours in Stitches, Joy

OK my Quilty Friends, as some of you are ready for binding your quilts, today I give you my How to cut/make quilt binding video Nothing more to say about that really, except if you have a any questions please feel free to ask them in the comments section. And now hopefully, you'll want to find out how to Attach your Binding to your Quilt.  Well - Just click here.  to find out. Yours in Stitches, Joy 

Good Monday morning quilty friends. Today I’m going to talk about machine quilting using your Walking Foot. Last week I put together my H alf Logcabin quilt top, and now it’s time to quilt it. Sew, let’s talk about quilting. As I said, I’m machine quilting this quilt. I’ll be using straight line quilting, some what I call ‘three step zig-zag stitch quilting’ and just a little machine decorative stitch quilting. Let’s take a look at some examples: This first one is machine quilted in the ditch. You can’t really notice the quilting. This second logcabin block is machine quilted using a zig zag stitch – so the quilting stands out.    This flower is straight line quilted diagonally. Below, I’ve used straight line quilting either side of the ‘free motion’ quilted leaves.   And finally this block has been ‘crosshatch’ quilted with additional vertical lines. Now don’t worry if I’ve used some quilting terms your not familiar with. I’ll be showing you each...