Exciting News!

I am super excited at the moment because... I've had my first ever quilt commission! I was showing some of my quilts at Tootopia back in September and a lovely customer asked about some of my designs. Last week I got an e-mail asking if I could make a commission quilt featuring some owls and foxes for her expected niece/nephew. I found a few options and we put this combination of fabrics together:

When I actually got the fabrics I realised that they needed something a little extra to stop them from being too busy and mind-boggling so I tempered them with some plain lime green fabric as well. My lovely customer was quite specific about the quilt being non-gender specific so I used green instead of blue which would have been the more natural match in my head. As a finishing touch, she wanted the quilt to feature some stars as well so we used some red fabric with white stars as the binding. What do you think of the finished product? It has a stripy backing as I couldn't find another suitable backing material (which is insane considering how many colours are featured!) so I've used the same fabric as the stripes in the main quilt. It still needs me to sew on a label and finish off some of the threads, but other than that, it's done and ready to go. 

Busy Quilting Bee

What's happened to all my craft projects? It would appear that I have totally neglected them over the past few weeks. But that's not actually the case - I just haven't been blogging them very much recently. I've been working on lots of textiles, of the quilted variety. You might remember that after my nephew was born, I made him a quilt out of some gorgeous fabric by designer Dan Stiles (you can see it here). 

So I decided to make some more! I've found some gorgeous fabrics over the past few weeks and have really enjoyed putting some of the colours and patterns together. Some of these have already been listed in my new online shop (click here!) and hopefully the others will be listed in the next week or so. What do you think? 

Love the little elephants on this

Possibly the most traditional one I've made - baby blues

OWLS! STRAWBERRIES! How cute are these fabrics? 

And as I loved the first Marine quilt, I thought I'd make another one... 

I seem to have caught a bit of a quilting bug at the moment... at the last count there were six new quilts and I definitely have plans for more. But I might have to take some time out of quilting for a few weeks because sadly it's time to get started on the next projects... I'll reveal more soon! 

By the way, if you are in London this weekend why not come to the Library Bar on Upper Street, Islington on Sunday? It's time for A Glamourous Affair again and I'll be back with some of the others from 12-5pm. And they do Thai food...

A few designs

The last few weeks have been quite busy really but I've had a chance to finish a few bits and pieces in the past few days.

First of all: the mosaic commission! It's based on the rainbow drinks coasters I make and sell at my craft fairs. I was asked if I could use the same colours but that the actual design was up to me. I decided to make a series of concentric circles with a glass pebble in the middle. It always amazes me how different mosaics look before and after grouting them. Look:

In the process of making the mosaic

Finished mosaic - it's much darker now and has lost the vibrant glare.

Sadly the only photo I remembered to take of this was taken late at night when my camera decided it didn't really like taking photos after all so it's a bit blurry. Sorry! Anyway, do you like it? I'm quite happy with how it eventually turned out.

Secondly, I finally got around to changing a cushion cover. I've had a cushion for years and years and it was beginning to look pretty worse for wear. It was clearly beyond another tumble through the washing machine so I took the plunge, found some old scraps of material and made up a new cushion cover. You might recognise the material from the insane city quilt I made last year. It was actually surprisingly easy to knock together and probably only took about half an hour. In fact I am considering making some other new cushion covers with other scraps of material as I quite like the effect. I have some reds and pinks left over somewhere....

This week I'm going to work on some more small mosaics for the next craft fair I'll be doing (10th June, Keston Lodge, Islington for those who might pop in to say hello.) And I need to make a few more penguins as I'm beginning to run low on stock!

Cute Quilt Project

I found some really cute material a while back which was perfect for a quilt. So what have I been up to? Making a baby quilt of course. This one was much quicker and easier than the last crazy City Quilt.  But isn't the material the cutest? I love it - and not sure I want to give this one away!!! The material is from fabric designer Dan Stiles' Marine collection. It was released earlier this year and I bought it in May. However, when I realised I needed some more blue bits I had a real issue trying to find some more - it's apparently a limited edition. It's backed in a turquoise lightweight cotton and padded with Heirloom cotton wadding.  I kept the actual quilting fairly simple as I wanted it to be all about the material as opposed to all about the quilting stitching... and I haven't mastered exciting swirls as yet! This quilt is truly One of A Kind as I can't get the material again! 

The front. 

The back

What's next? I've got some lovely red and green materials... I'm thinking something Christmassy... 

Being a Grown-Up Crafter...

Do you consider yourself a 'grown-up'? I've been a teacher for nearly 9 years in total and yet I still don't think of myself as an adult. When kids say 'miss' it's fine, when they say 'Miss Phillips' I get a little freaked out. But I am beginning to come to terms with being a proper grown-up and have taken some steps into adulthood: I now have my own business cards! Yes, I know most people have had them for, like, ever but I've always thought of them as being what proper adults have and I have never really thought that I am a proper adult. But as my craft sales are beginning to take off and my printer doesn't like me very much, it seemed about time to get some. Actually I didn't - the lovely Andy designed and bought them for me. THANK YOU!

I was soooo excited when I opened these for the first time I nearly clapped my hands like a little girl (see I TOLD you I haven't grown up yet!) Aren't they great?

Now that I've got my business cards, I guess I really should start getting busy for a craft fair or some more Etsy sales. Please feel free to look at my etsy store and take your pick!  

But before I can prepare for a craft fair there is something I need to get on with first. Remember all that material I bought? Well it's been going to good use here at Creating Trouble HQ... It's time to reveal part II of the grand project. This bit is looking a little more complete and I guess that some of it is beginning to take shape. Can you guess what the whole piece is going to be yet? 

That Friday Feeling...29/07/11

As I'm sure most of you have worked out by now, the reason you haven't seen much of my work on here recently is because I'm working on a grand project. A quilt! It's not actually taking me as long as I thought it might do - the last one I attempted took the better part of a year. This is it by the way:

The colours really didn't come out - it's a wine red, fairly royal blue and bottle green!

Thanks to now owning a sewing machine, the present attempt has been moving fairly quickly... well it's only been a month so far! I thought that as I'm about to reveal part of the design (yes watch out for tomorrow's post) today's Friday Feeling would be dedicated to quilts.

Recycle your denim with this great quilt by Original Cloth

How great to have a scrabble quilt? Brilliant idea from BarbMalm

And I really like this quilt bag by Hoganfe too.

There's a totally unfounded myth that quilts were used on the Underground Railroad as signals for slaves escaping from the south to the north in the U.S. It's a myth. 

Hand-sewn quilts are considered more durable and better quality by professional quilters. I can see why - they take HOURS to make by hand!!

Quilting started to be considered as an art form from about the 1960s when abstract art came into fashion.

Quilts were important to those in the early American colonies as fabric was expensive so scraps were saved, sewn together into larger bits (blocks) and eventually into quilts. 

Oooh oooh ooh!

I've been really bad and ordered a whole load of fabrics and felts recently... and they all arrived today! How excited am I? Ridiculously so. So I thought I would show you why I'm so excited:

First up - felt from Lupin on Etsy - I've got 30 squares in my own choice of colours! I think I forgot to get brown which was a bit of an oversight on my part, but looking forwards to some Christmassy felt projects (and other top secret ideas too...!) Hooray! 

Love the batik effect of these blue and purple fabrics from ForgetMeNot Fabrics. And can I just point out that they have FANTASTIC customer service: I had also ordered a blue bundle which they had sadly run out of - they went out of their way to try and get it back in from their supplier and refunded immediately (including changing postage costs) when they weren't able to. Thank you!

And finally I went back to Seamstar for a new red fabric bundle and found this cute blue daisy bundle too. Hooray!

So I guess I need to reveal why i need so much fabric? Well.... here's the beginning of it:

I can't really reveal the rest of this yet but I'm sure you can see what it is the beginnings of. For those of you on Twitter - these are the 'project #' s I've been tweeting about. It's recently had a huge design upheaval but I'll reveal more when I have done more of it...