Tula Pink-tastic!

Such a miserable day today - it has rained non-stop and is cold too - so it is a pleasure to be writing about a much more colourful world than the one outside my window: the world of Tula Pink! 

I am sure lots of you will know all about Tula already, after all she has been designing fabric for twelve years and has just brought out her 25th fabric collection.  Ask me how I know this, and I will tell you that ten days ago I attended a lecture by Tula at Denbies Wine Estate which was organised by The Quilt Room in Dorking.

I didn't know at all what to expect as I knew something of Tula's fabrics but wouldn't have classed myself as a fan particularly.  However I was completely won over by Tula's warm personality and sense of humour, and the generous way in which she shared some of her history, process and approach to designing fabric and making quilts.  

Actually that's what won me over right from the start - the fact that she told us she sews every day, often for 6-8 hours, and that she makes all her own quilts, partly because she loves to sew, but also because she then knows how the fabric works when it is cut up.  The whole room responded to this - we were clearly all quilting addicts and recognised a kindred spirit!

It is this information feedback loop wh Tula gets through sewing which she feels makes her a better designer, so we get even better fabric to use ourselves as a result of her dedication to her craft.  She also knows that, although she makes quilts which use a single fabric collection, we make our quilts from older stashed fabrics as well as new, so she takes care to ensure that fabrics from all her collections work together.

Another other useful design tip, which I shall be passing on to my perfectionist students, is that you are allowed to have bad ideas when you are trying to create.  Allow yourself time to get all the bad ideas out of the way (scribble all over the first page of your brand new sketchbook, so you don't have designer's block) and then the good ideas can come to the surface.

We learned so much about many aspects of the quilting industry as well as Tula's unique style.  If you ever get the chance to hear Tula speak or to take a class with her, I would urge you to sign up immediately.  It was a privilege to have been there and I would definitely call myself a fan now!

I am looking forward to buying Tula's new book which is a collaboration with Angela Walters: the piecing and the machine quilting look sublime!  So I have laid in a supply of Tula's new line called All Stars which includes 22 fabulous solids, and some glorious spots and stripes as well as some of the detailed prints for which she is famous.

Many thanks to Pam and Nicky at The Quilt Room for organising a great morning which had me buzzing with inspiring ideas all weekend.  And if you want to get your All Stars fabric in advance of everyone else, have a look on the Quilt Room's website or pop into the shop.  You won't be disappointed!

Wednesday 14 Feb: So sad, and rather shocked, to learn today (see this announcement) that Free Spirit Fabrics is ceasing to exist with pretty much immediate effect.  

I really hope that the talented designers including Tula Pink, but also Amy Butler and Kaffe Fassett, Anna Maria Horner and Denyse Schmidt, who have been with the company for a long time and who have produced such interesting, innovative and unusual fabrics over the years, find a new home so that they can continue to create and make their marvellous designs available to us.

Meanwhile, The Quilt Room does have bolts of All Stars and other Tula fabrics, buy now while stocks last!

Friday finish - Sampler Block Shuffle

Hi everyone - well into February already: how did that happen?

I managed to quilt and finish quite a few quilts in January (four, including the Giant Four-patch Star blogged here) but we have had such poor weather I have only just been able to photograph some of them for you.

As I am so far behind with things to show, there will be lots of photos in this post.  I hope it won't be too indigestible... here goes:

First of all, my Sampler Block Shuffle quilt from 6" block patterns supplied by Moda via the Fat Quarter Shop on a weekly basis back in 2015/16: here is the link to the patterns.  

Looking back through old posts I find that I last blogged about this project back in February 2016 (two whole years ago).  Here is the link if you are interested.  By that date I had made all the blocks except the two applique patterns (which I chose not to do), and as I had made extra blocks to try out  colour and value variations, I had 60 blocks altogether.

I am a little bit surprised to find that I didn't blog about putting the blocks together. The last few months of last year are a bit of a blur if I am honest, but I think that at some point last summer I must have decided it was high time I finished this project, as the blocks had spent the intervening 18 months 'resting' quietly!

What took time, as usual, was deciding how to set and finish the top.  I was pretty sure I wanted a straight set and narrow sashing, and that I wanted to make the flying geese border using scraps of all the fabrics to help visually tie the blocks together.  Sixty blocks weren't quite enough for a satisfying layout, so I made an extra four blocks (of the simpler designs, I wanted a finish before too much more time had elapsed, after all).  That gave me a nice square set, eight blocks by eight.

Eventually I decided on a 'barely there' sashing which wouldn't take attention away from the blocks or impose too grid-like a structure.  And I had the perfect neutral fabric in my stash, a narrow cream stripe, and also a good backing fabric, both earmarked for other projects, needless to say!  [Backing is Prairie Paisley II by Polly Minick and Lauri Simpson for Moda].  Binding was scrap, a very old soft green with random pink and blue speckles, but just right, I felt - hooray for being able to 'shop' one's scrap and stash!

I thought you might like to see how I made the flying geese: I used a paper foundation by the same company as makes Triangles on a Roll, as it was important that the geese didn't stretch since the borders would help to keep the quilt top straight and true.

The technique is basically stitch and flip but because you cut the pieces the right size first it is not wasteful.  Once you get the hang of where to stitch and where to fold, the length of perfect geese emerges quite quickly from under your sewing machine needle.  The slow part (joking!) is removing the paper foundation afterwards - tweezers really help with this task!

I made square in square corners from two pieces of flying geese foundation paper overlapped.  Not rocket science but I got a buzz from working that out.

The payoff came when I attached the geese borders to the top and they fitted perfectly.  So satisfying.  I got particular pleasure from this as I am famous for usually having to fudge or even bodge to get a good fit....

The quilt finished at 62" square.  You can see the quilting in the two closeup photos here: I did it all on my home sewing machine, putting the ditch lines in first and then the flowing design alternating in the blocks.  As the quilt isn't huge it wasn't too bad turning it and I got into a rhythm.

OK I think that's probably a long enough post.  Alfie certainly looks as though he has suffered enough.  Hope you have a good weekend and I am linking to Crazy Mom Quilts for Finish it up Friday (even though it's now Saturday!).

The rest of the finishes and my current WIPS will have to follow, plus my recent Tula Pink experience - tantalising!