Inspiration

Sometimes we quilters need to take a break and do something that doesn’t land on a bed. One way is to dig through our closets and see what we’re not using anymore that is just begging to have a makeover. And not necessarily a makeover to a different piece of clothing!

One of our customers, Julie C, shared her inspiration from the closet:

“We all have those inherited old fur coats and leather jackets that were too good to throw out, but will we wear them?  Nope.  

This is my late mother’s leather car coat that didn’t fit any of us, but it was her favourite and we didn’t have the heart to give it away.  My great niece, Norah (aka little bear) & my mother’s namesake, is a special needs baby and she turned 2 on the weekend.  I took my mom’s coat and turned it into a little bear for “our little bear”.  She still needs to be dressed up but I think she turned out pretty great for someone that hasn’t sewn anything in about 20 years.  

I’m really happy with how she turned out.”

Wow, Julie, how cute is she! We bet Norah loved her little bear. Reminds Deb of when her cousin turned Deb’s grandmother’s cloth coat into toys for the nieces.

How have you worked your magic to sew clothes into something completely different? You know we love to share so send us your stories and your photos to cobwebsandcaviar@gmail.com

Quilt patterns are a wonderful way to tackle a project. All the measurements and fabric requirements are laid out for us. The instructions are right there, just waiting for us to get started. But have you ever wanted to try designing your own project? Ever had someone ask for a special quilted item and you just can’t find the right pattern?

Time to jump into the deep end! Will there be mistakes?….best way to learn. Will there be cursing?….that can even happen when you have a pattern. Will you feel a sense of accomplishment when you’re done?…absolutely!!!

When you’re jumping in to the Designing pool for the first time, you don’t have to tackle a whole quilt.
Laurel’s Inspiration came from patterns she’d collected during a Row by Row event (remember those, they were so much fun!). She had collected a variety of row kits and decided it would be nice to include a row depicting her family farm as it looked at 122 years old. Her reference was a painting done by her mother. Laurel went for a closeup view which she drafted onto graph paper. A pencil and an eraser came in handy 🙂 and voila, this lovely row was created. It integrated very nicely into the whole quilt.

Judith L’s journey started when her grandson requested a Rubik’s Cube Quilt.
“After unsuccessfully shopping for material printed with the pattern, I started trying to imagine how I would put this together. I had just finished the Shattered Star Pattern and decided that a part of the star was the angle I needed for the centre cube. It was not perfect but whatever. I went on line and watched You Tube videos for Tumbling Block pattern and decided to use this pattern as it did kinda look like a cube. Then decided to accent the blocks with a bright colour. He is pleased.”

And our final Inspiration is from Deb W. When her great nephew was due, her niece decorated the baby’s room with a cool roadway graphic. Deb saw a few photos on Pinterest that fit into that theme so she got some paper and combined different elements from the photos to make one overall design. Then she dug through her scraps to find fabrics that would make the quilt fun for a little one! Trial and error of course played a part, especially since it was an applique project but Deb is pleased with the end result.

So…take a deep breath….and jump into the Designing pool! As Judith said, it doesn’t have to be perfect.
We love to share so send us your projects and the stories behind them.

Dream Big Dance! A gorgeous digitally printed panel, designed by by Jeanie Sumrall-Ajero for Hoffman Fabrics.
And it IS big…approximately 46″ x 42″. Just dream of what you could do with all those beautiful swirls!!!

Janice Payne, a long arm quilter, had lots of fun, planning and quilting her panel. So we asked her if those of us who quilt on a domestic sewing machine could quilt this one too.

“Yes this can definitely be done on a domestic machine.  In fact this is something I wanted to try as well.  

The key for me is planning out what I want to quilt and having a visual helps me.  I have a drawing app that I use and draw on a photo of the quilt.  (Cobwebs: we’re thinking you could also take a photo, print it and draw right on it, without an app). There are so many ways this can be quilted. Echoing the arches/swirls would be awesome. And by echoing, I mean quilting on the arch then echoing the same quilted arch by quilting a 1/4” away from it. This gives dimension. I’d also have some areas heavily quilted and others not, again giving dimension.

For quilting on a domestic machine, basting the layers together whether with pins or thread is a must and using gloves when sewing would be ideal. Once basted, use a water soluble pen to mark the panel with any quilting designs you want.  This is a good way to do feathers until you get good doing them free hand.  Using stencils and a chalk pounce is a great idea too. 

It is quite a big panel so working from the middle out will definitely help with any fullness.  

The advice I’d give anyone would be to just go for it.  There is no right way or wrong way to quilt this panel.  Matching threads will help hide the oops and using a busy backing will also help with that as well.  Playing with threads and quilting designs is fun!”

Here’s Janice’s result (her panel had borders added):

At the time of this article, we have the panel in three colourways AND on sale so grab one and unleash your imagination! Remember to send us your finished project… you know we just LOVE Show n Tell. Here’s a link to the panel and some of the quilting aids that Janice mentioned:
Dream Big Dance panel
Machine Quilting Gloves
Basting Pins
Pounce Pad