With a little help from my friends

As I’m sure most regular readers are aware I run a small business, The Thread House, along with my two quilting friends Lynne Goldsworthy and Karen Lewis.

Being a self employed crafts person can be quite a lonely business, especially during this current crises, so having friends to turn to and share any problems with is an absolute life saver. We always have each other’s backs and are there for mutual support, feedback and cheerleading.  I really don’t know how I would have coped without them this last year.

So it’s wonderful to have a chance to do a good turn back and support my friends with their new endeavours.

We’ll start with the wonderful news that Karen has designed a new fabric line!

It’s with a brand new manufacturer, Figo Fabrics, it’s called ‘Hand Stitched‘, it will be hitting the stores in July, and it’s absolutely GORGEOUS!

I’ve had to keep this fabric line a secret for around a year so when it finally got announced a few weeks ago I couldn’t wait to get started on a project using it!  Karen had kindly sent Lynne and I a small piece or each design a few months back and I have been mulling over what to use it for.

The answer was in the fabric!  One of the designs is a clamshell worked in sashiko style running stitches and I took this as my inspiration for a new clamshell panel. But this time I had extra plans for it.

First of all I needed another panel and this time I chose some EPP. This is a version of my waterlily EPP block that I designed as part of my A Month in the Country BOM quilt for Today’s Quilter a few years back.  It’s missing a couple of points so that I can use it as a rectangle. Yes I am making a new pouch!

Once the EPP had been appliqued to the background and the clamshells were finished I quilted the panels, using Aurifil 50wt and matchstick quilting on the machine. I then added extra lines of hand quilting using Aurifil 12wt wool thread.   I just love the texture this adds.

Lastly I added some tendrils to the clamshells! I cut out much smaller leaves than I usually use for class samples.

Finally, after I had tortured this poor fabric enough I made it into one of my project pouches.

Of course some idiot got the EPP panel upside down… sigh… at least it’s on the back.

I am sure you will all love using this beautiful Hand Stitched as much as I have. Make sure you tell your LQS about it and ask them to order some!

So what has Lynne been up to? Well Last year she produced a pattern full of paper templates for making HSTs.

Super Speedy HST is an incredibly useful toolkit containing nine templates to create super speedy sets of HSTs from ½” to 4 ½” together with two bonus quilt patterns – each in three sizes: 36”, 48” and 72” square.

Having tried them out during the Starlight Express block for our Folk Dance BOM I was keen to explore them further and decided to make a new version of the block I used for the Pop Art Block Keeper in my book, New Patchwork and Quilting Basics.

I reduced the HST size by half and chose some bright happy solids from the new Pop Solids range by Dashwood Studios. The 1 1/2″ HST template gives you 8 per sheet so I had a few left over and created another little block for the back. You can buy your own copy of Super Speedy HST by clicking here.

Yes, yet again I am making a pouch! But this one is a little different.

This time a quilted a grid using my walking foot and Aurifil 40wt thread.

Here is the back. It’s a flat pouch with no gusset. Since I learnt how to make a gusset on a pouch about 5 years ago I don’t think I have ever made another flat one!

But I just thought the design would look better without a gusset and also I wanted something to keep art materials in, including a notebook.

At some stage in the future I will be able to leave the house again and take part in group activities, go to retreats, go on holiday or even meet my two best quilting friends again IRL! When that day comes I will be very pleased to have this nice flat pouch 🙂

Sending love to you all, I hope you are all staying strong while we get through all this.