Creating a Handmade Childhood: Log Cabin Pillow

I am so pleased to get another nursery project finished! It's getting harder and harder to get on the floor to measure and cut fabric these days. I actually did the design for this pillow over a year and a half ago then stuffed it in a draw.  It's funny to think that one day it was to end up as an accessory for a nursery. 

Log cabin is the pattern and it's a lovely one to try, especially if you are new to quilting. You don't need a template or even a rotary cutter. Here are some good resources on doing log cabin from about.com. The pink fabric with cocktail olives is one of my own designs, and you can by the fabric at Spoonflower.com, it's called 'Cocktail'

Creating a Handmade Childhood: Patchwork Baby Quilt

The first baby project to be completed! It's a crib 'quilt'. Technically it's not a quilt because I didn't quilt it. It's a good feeling to create something for the little sprout, it's as if we are building a welcome for her.

The pattern is from Joann Fabrics. I will warn you that the instructions are a bit vague so if you're new to quilting, it may be difficult to follow. I used a natural grey linen to incorporate the zakka aesthetic I want for the nursery. I will be using the same linen for throw pillows and other accents which I hope will give the nursery some feeling of unity while allowing for me to play around with prints and patterns.

The fabric came from all over the place, Etsy or Fabric.com are good places to find some that may either be similar or indeed the same. The design of multicolored Spirographs is from Ikea. Once the quilt was assembled, I backed it with a type of quilting batting that doesn't need to be covered, you can get it here. It's beautifully soft and makes for a lightweight quilt.

New Adventures in Free Motion

Sometimes the practice is a pleasing surprise. Free motion embroidery or quilting is NOT supposed to look like this, but still - interesting!

For more on free motion sewing go to this really amazing website: The Free Motion Quilting Project. She has all you will ever need.

The De-Stash Project

It's time. Time for what? A massive de-stash.  I am terrible for holding onto fabrics for some future time. Well it's time.  I am going to be bold and try and use up as much of my stash as I can with different projects - pillows, table runners, throws etc.  Watch out for new items, tutorials and a new Etsy shop.  Yes, ANOTHER one!

Pimping My Boudoir 2: Throw Pillow

It's true, throw pillows are probably the cheapest and most effective way of giving your decor a facelift!  My sister-in-law is obsessed with them and has passed that obsession on to me.  I don't have a zipper foot for my sewing machine yet so decided to do a sleeve instead.  It worked well enough, but in the future I would make the overlap larger as the pillow is a little visible at the back.  Anyway, this is all good practice for making items to sell. 

Spring Update

Our living room, photo taken from the balcony above.


It seems as if the only time I post on my much-neglected blog is to explain why I have been away for so long! Yes, my life has been through various transitions over the last 3 years, multiple moves, jobs and plans.
Now I am finally, finally settled. No more renting, or living out of boxes. No more work spaces in closets and struggles to start a craft business.

My husband and I firmly ensconced in the house of our dreams, truly, and in the process of making it our own. Given the travels from UK, to Zambia (Africa), to here: Asheville, NC, US, settling and getting the house exactly as we want it is going to take some time. But isn't that part of the fun?

The house we have bought is spectacular (there, I have said it) open plan, LEED certified and beautifully modern. More pictures to come. The slightly industrial and minimalist style matches our taste and we have been happily buying vintage pieces to give it that mid-century modern flair.

It is this new house and our homemaking that spurred me to give this blog a bit of a make over. So 'For the Love Of' has been retired, to be replaced with the somewhat flamboyant name of 'The Modernist Craft Movement'. Why? Well as much as I love crafts, it is hard when quilting, embroidering and whatnot to create pieces that are contemporary and not-quaint. So I am on a mission, to embark on craft projects that I love as well as create things that I would have happily in my own house or on my own body!

Think of this blog as a work in progress (aren't all blogs?), an electronic notebook that I am sharing with whoever drops by. Please leave comments if you are inclined, it's nice to know that one is not typing into cold cyberspace, only to be lost in the millions of other craft sites out there!

kimono Silk Patchwork

I love kimono silks and my love of paper piecing works great with them because they are so thin and floppy to work with. The paper templates are a great way of stabilizing the material.

As you can see I am using them for a fan block, the completed one is a Dresden plate block which I made years ago. These are good blocks for kimono silk pieces which I buy and are not always all that big.

Return to the Blog

I know it has been ages since I posted anything here. I have been overtaken with trying to finish my quilt before cold season, and basically failing. I know Africa is supposed to be hot, but it is so cold now! I am still working on the quilt but I think I will use it as a throw for our living room now.

If you are wondering what I have been up to all these months, then check out these blogs. Mainly I have been writing and working at the gallery. I am also now heading up a team that is planning on publishing an art paper for Lusaka and Zambia. So if you want to know more about that, go to this website.

I will try and be less negligent, but I think my posts will have to be once a week as I am considering a new Etsy shop that will be a radical departure from Phyllis B, but with some of the more crafty elements.

To be honest I have been taking this time to work out a new direction for myself, knowing full well that some ventures don't work out and then I have to find a new obsession! However I must admit that I am extremely lucky to have this time grow creatively.

My Pennant Quilt Progress

I am still squirreling away on my paper pieced quilt and about half done with the top. Superbowl weekend I laid my first lot of strips out and found one doesn’t quite match in size which is a little irritating and also mystifying, but I am sure I will come up with a way make it work. I have made a new template to add straight edges to each end of the pennant style triangles so that I have a straight rectangular quilt to work with when the strips are sewn together.

Quilting Plans

Even though I lived here before, I have seen so much in the time since we moved to Lusaka in September. I can’t pretend it has been easy, and coming back has made me realise I could never make Africa my home, but I also want to use my experience creatively. I have been mulling over ideas for a while now, but have come up with an idea in particular which I think might be the best. I want to try and document my time here with a series of quilts. In the past quilts were sometimes used as kind of pictorial journals but mainly in one quilt, with each block depicting an important even. I would like to try and make a number of quilts using different methods – appliqué, patchwork, embroidery, crazy patchwork.

It’s a big venture and I am always coming up with crazy and over-ambitious ideas, but I am going try this one out. Stay tuned for more.

Studio Dreams

Those of you who have been following my blog will know I had a nice little room back in the UK that I used for quilting. To be fair I only used when machine quilting and for storage and spent a lot more time in the living room working because there were comfy chairs and more space.

Here I don’t have a room at all, I have a box that I work from and a chest I stuff things in. My dream is to one day have my own workroom, but rather than it being a room in the house, I would love a little studio out in the garden of wherever we will end up settling. I have a bit of a shed obsession, I just love them, they can be large or small, cheap or expensive, quaint or modernist. When I was visited some artists friends of mine here in Lusaka they showed me their studios. For more on these studios and my work with artists here in Zambia check out my other blog Scrapbook.

The opposite side has more glass for light, unfortunately the studios are being eaten by termites – a big problem in Zambia. I keep this picture as something to work towards, what a great space it would be especially if we treat the wood to stop insects devouring it.

Paper Piecing How To

I know a few months ago I gave a few pointers on paper piecing but I don’t think there is any harm in going over them again.
I generally use paper piecing for basic repetitive patterns but they can also be used for patchwork blocks. In particular if you have a block you want to copy but you don’t have the measurements, method etc. Paper piecing makes this easy because you don’t need to work out seam allowances.

You will need:
Cardboard for your template/s (for example old cereal boxes)
Scrap paper (magazines or newspapers work well)
Scissors
Tape
A thick pen
Needle and thread
pins
Scraps of fabric

First make your template:
The triangle I am using I made by using a rectangle of cardboard, placing it lengthways, find the middle then drawing to lines from the bottom two corners on the shortest sides to the opposite side dead centre.

If you are making a number of templates for a block, number them and then number the block you have to make it easier to work out how to place them.

Tape the edges of your template so that when you draw around it, you don’t soften the edges. Alternatively you could use template plastic, which is available at quilt stores – or use plastic from packaging. I am trying to use as much recycled materials as I can, plus I don’t have a quilting store here!

Next, use your scrap paper to make the paper pieces by drawing around your template with the thick pen and cut out. Make a stack so you don’t have to keep going back to make more.

Pin the paper pieces to the wrong side of your fabric, leaving about ¼ inch space. Cut out the piece a ¼ inch away from the edge of the piece – very important, do not cut flush with the piece!

Fold the excess fabric over your paper and sew with a large tacking stitch to the paper.

When you have enough for all the stages or patterns you want, you can start assembling.

Place the fabric covered pieces right side to right side with the edges lines up and sew together with a small slip stitch. Check carefully that you have your pieces lined up correctly.

Keep going until you have your quilt. Easy!

New Adventures in Paper Piecing

I was feeling kind of down recently. It’s hot here at the moment and after Christmas I felt quite homesick, seeing all that snow and knowing my family is so far away. Nothing improves my mood than working on a craft project, especially sewing, I find it very therapeutic. So I decided to start a new quilt and luckily I have tons of new fabrics to work with (some of you regulars will have read about my love of chitenge material). As I sorted through my fabric stash and bathed in all the colours and shapes, I immediately started to feel better. I chose paper piecing again because I wanted to hand stitch my quilt and I find the slip stitch used in paper piecing super-strong. I also love the whole process of paper piecing and love the feeling of keeping alive this old method.

Considering how important precision is in quilting it’s a bit ironic that I am not a very thorough person, for example I never washed my fabrics when quilting back in the UK. Modern methods of dying mean you don’t really need to pre-wash fabrics, but the chitenge material here often runs, so I did wash them this time. Look how lovely they are with the sun shining through them on the line and the wind blowing them.

The design I am using is very simple, an acute triangle repeated alternately in cream fabric and the various patterns. I think this design will look really elegant and the cream fabric sets off the patterns well. This is a very good method if you want to use up scraps. Watch out for my method of paper piecing for you to follow coming up in the next few days.

Life Etc.

uiI know it’s been a while since I posted, settling in and trying to find some ways to occupy myself kind of took over. The house is more or less how we want it now, and I really love our little nest. I am now helping out an art gallery here in Lusaka with promotion and consulting with them on how to create crafts and merchandise. It’s all voluntary but I really enjoy it and the people I work with are great, I am learning so much, there’s more on the gallery on my other blog Scrapbook and Lusaka Art Scene. On top of that I have started to do some freelance writing which was kind of an accident, I write for a local magazine and then decided that if this magazine liked my writing, maybe others would too! All of this would be fairly straightforward if we had internet at home, but we don’t because it’s just too expensive in Zambia, so every time I want to send a piece, it’s off to the internet café. The lack of internet is really driving us both crazy. Regardless, I am coming up with lots of new recipes and articles and my food blog – So Eat is going strong, not enough visitors to monetize it yet though.
I think a pretty big issue for me has been trying to stay motivated when not working, I suppose it has made me resourceful and since we are in a country with very few craft supplies and we are trying to economise, it has been a great challenge to my creativity – in a good way. I also want to use this new landscape as inspiration for quilting and other needlework projects. Time to get back in the saddle!

Beginnings

Here are a few snapshots of our new living area. I love the wood floor and stairway. As you can see, we have a door that opens onto a communal garden, but we also have a little raised bed of our own where I want to start a small herb garden.
We are here quite temporarily so we don't have huge plans for the house itself, but we do want to make a nice living area. We recently got the first season of Mad Men on DVD and love the 1950s style offices with the dark colours, clean lines and the artsy prints and we are using that as our inspiration. As you can see the floor is an excellent start.
It's a lovely big space and I am not a fan of clutter, I am considering a scatter cushion area in the future though, with a mat. Anyway, we'll see.

I also want to make some quilt tops. You can get batting here but it isn't cheap. I am wondering whether to make patchwork covers for blankets in the cold season - a little like a duvet cover.

The Wedding Quilt

The wedding day came so I can now share with you the quilt I have been secretly working on for the last few months.

The block is maple leaf, mostly hand stitched and completely hand-quilted. The names and date we added by transfer because I didn't have time to embroider them, the flowers are embroidered. The photos were taken in Charleston South Carolina the day before the wedding.

Retail Therapy

Today I bit the bullet and went to the Birmingham Social Networking Cafe. I am not very good at these things, but met a lovely lady and we talked for ages, I should've thanked her for allowing me to latch on and dominate her attention.

After, as I was in the area, I went looking for supplies in the wonderful indoor market. Found a fab haberdashery stall, where I got tons of supplies. Also found a great fabric stall at the outdoor market where I bought some rather lovely floral cotton for 1 pound a metre. I rounded off my trip with a visit to the Fancy Silk Store where I continued to feed my fabric addiction.

When I got home I found the fabric I'd bought off Ebay had arrived!

I put the floral flavour down to Spring and the fact I am reading Proust - pretentious moi?

The Meditating Frog

It's my brother's birthday at the end of this month, so I made him this card, based on a postcard from Japan a friend sent. He's a meditating frog. I think he's very cute and I will miss him when I give him away.

A Room of One's Own

We originally decided to rent a 2 bedroomed flat so that we could have visitors and also use the second bedroom as a study for my fiancee. However, it seems my fiancee prefers not to use the somewhat pokey spareroom we have and it has gradually become a storage area for the various flotsam and jetsam of living.

Well, not any longer. After looking in despair at the mess our living room has got into, with scraps of cotton and thread re-upholstering the lovely cream carpet, I decided to take action.

These photos show my new workspace complete with table (with enough space for the sewing machine and cutting mat), storage area for fabric and a makeshift book shelf on the window sill - I have no idea what I will do when it gets warmer and we need to open the window!

At the moment, my fabric is in a variety of bags and boxes which serve their purpose, but don't look very stylish. I have been looking longingly at Jessice Jones's wonderful storage bins made from her fabulous materials. Perhaps I will spoil myself next month... Check them out at her shop at Etsy

On the window are a couple of my favourite craft books including DIY Bride (I'm getting married in August) and Folk Cross Stitch (great for making last minute gifts).

The folders are form my inspiration scraps, projects I print off the net and other bits and bobs. They are the only concession to aesthetics I have managed so far, as they are a lovely soft pink and duck egg blue colour, and I think they might create the key notes for any other additions I decide add.

The photos also remind how tidy the room looked, I know it won't last long!

Indian Inspiration

In honour of the success of Slumdog Millionaire at the Oscars, here's a little colourful inspiration.

The 'zipper' quilt picture is by kind permission of Mellicious at Flickr, and the lightning bolt quilt picture is by kind permission of Button Pom at Flickr. Thanks guys!

I have been a lifelong admirer of Saris and finally got the chance to wear one this week at a friend's when I was invited to dinner. She is from New Delhi and was generous enough to allow me to wear a very expensive silk one in magenta and gold. Pictures soon to come.