Completed Twin Twins!

They are done! And they are sent off!! They will travel half way around the world before arriving at their new home in Australia!! I hope that the lovely girls they belong to love them as much as my little girls love their quilts ;)
These Twin twins took approx 3 weeks to finish, and I enjoyed making them a lot. This was my first sale from etsy!! super exciting!!

A photo of a Rose.

A wonderful fiend of mine from school days recently sent me some photo's of flowers in her garden. I'd been playing around with the idea of producing a new range simply called Floral Bouquet. The problem was how was I going to do it. i thought of dyeing the whole background and then painting a flower or two on top...but that's too similar to my animal blocks...and this time I wanted the white of the fabric to be incorporated into the flower...if needed...so I couldn't pre-dye the fabric...hmmmm dilemma!

Then as I said...this photo arrived and hey presto I just knew what I was going to do.....

Just look at that! Stunning it is.
So now I'm going to be painting each block ..first the back ground then one or two flowers that are crisp and clear. This is something new and for me very exciting. I'm going to be using a fine woven cloth .....100% cotton of course that I have already washed and shrunk.

I'm going to do Roses, Iris's, Pansies, Sweet peas, Lily's,  actually whatever grabs my fancy.....I'm also thinking of doing an African Wild Flower range too. :-D

Creations that inspire me.

I'm always browsing through books and magazines, looking for ideas and inspiration. Sometimes it's a photo of a hummingbird sipping from a flower or I walk past a bird who is staring intently into a puddle, seeing it's reflection. When I see these things I hopefully have my camera on hand and I take a photo. later I can look at it more closely and garner ideas.
A friend of mine had this wonderful book on manipulating ribbon to create flowers.  It immediately got my attention and I wanted to stop everything right there and then and start learning how to do this. Well of course I couldn't. The book wasn't mine and I think it's now out of print, so I can't buy it unless I pay collector prices...which I can't afford....so I live and dream. What I had done though was to take a photo of one or two photos of examples in the book that caught my eye.

Of course you can't just go ahead and twist ribbon expecting it to turn out like this! you'd have to, most certainly go and buy a book :-).

There are other examples of peoples work that have caught my eye over the years..one is of a quilt made by dyeing the background and then using different coloured thread to 'draw' the design on. brilliant idea I thought. Of course I've seen it in monochrome but this was the first one I'd seen in colour. I truly gives me a boost when I look at it.

The hours of work that went into this! I'm sure it wasn't much faster than making a traditional quilt.
Then there was another quilt I saw somewhere..can't remember when or where, but I took a photo and look at it occasionally. It holds me in awe...so beautiful, I hope that one day I can produce something somewhere close to this creation.

 I hope you enjoyed the sharing and that it gave you some inspiration too. ;-)

Welcome!! to Solar Threads !!!

Solar threads has just joined us. Becky is new to Etsy.com and has made her debut with kindle bags..they are really beautifully made. :-D

I have put an advertisement of her shop along with the us all down the right hand side of the blog. Go and have a look at them..

Once again !!! pa parah pa parah toot toot... welcome to Solar Threads...drum roll .. :-D

See ya all
Sylvie

WELCOME! to Sticks N Stones Gifts.

Welcome, welcome to Stick N Stones Gifts! This is a store run by sisters and they are making all sorts of different things. You've got to see them...Anyway they have decided to join this blog, Yay!, and post some interesting stuff for us in the near future. Wonderful!

Remember guys..you can post any time you like..just put your shop name in the Label space down at the bottom of your post and all your posts will be linked together.

Okay nuff said..have fun and lets boogie!
Cheers
Sylvie.

Who am I and What am I up to

Just exactly where have I sprung from...why haven't you seen me before? Yes, I realise that I seem new to you but in actual fact I have been on this earth for at least 50 years and have been involved in Fabrics for about 30 of them. It's just that I haven't tried blogging about it before.

I grew up in Africa, in Zimbabwe in fact, and am now traveling around the world on a yacht. While I'm doing this I decided to see if I could create something of interest for quilters worldwide. I used to dye fabric by the meter and sell it at quilt exhibitions local to South Africa and international too. I studied for three years at college finishing 3rd in my class and majoring in Textile Design. I've worked for many years in different factories getting experience.Thing is, the yacht is too small to hold yards and yards of fabric and frankly my partner would have a fit....so :-) I came up with the idea of Quilt Blocks. The one in my profile pic is a center piece for a quilt that is to be hung in La Paz, Mexico.

My shop is on Etsy there is an advert on the right hand side of the blog or you can click HERE.

To show you what I'm up to here are some photo's.

 The Sea Horse Block. They are all 7.5" square.

 The Butterfly Fish.

 The Swimming Crab.

The Turtle.

Oh yes.....the writing across the picture is just to protect the photo.













This is an Immature Spider Conch Shell.

 The Jelly Fish.

 (saucer)

 Moorish Idol.....such a beautiful fish. I saw my first ones in the flesh whilst snorkeling off the coast of Mexico on and island called  Isla Isabella. There were hundreds of fish there, the most I have ever seen in one place on this coastline.

Long Yellow Jelly.









I want to be able to get feedback from other quilters, who may have a request for something that they might like to see me produce. I am quite willing to add items to the pool.

So drop me a line and let me know what you think.


It was brought to my attention that I do not have any info on what can be done with these blocks that I dye and paint...I wanted to decorate the saloon on our yacht and so I made these panels and a scatter Cushion...

Butterfly fish.

I did Crazy Patch as I find this to be quick and easy, less exacting than other more rigid methods of patchwork.

Immature Spider Conch Shell..

The Long Jelly.

The Moorish Idol.

 The cream fabric is the same that I used to cover the seating in the saloon.

This is the scatter cushion cover..sitting on the seats I covered.

I also used some of the rusty coloured Faux Suede to make another cushion cover, so that the two compliment each other. All the fabrics are washable in a washing machine.

Scatter cushions on the newly sewn Saloon seating.

If you're not sure how to do Crazy Quilt Patchwork, have a look at this site.


It teaches you how to do Crazy Quilt Patchwork. I found it on the internet... happy sewing.

I hope that this gives some of you some inspiration... :-)

Work in Progress

I thought that I would share a project I'm currently working on. It's for someone on etsy who contacted me about getting two twin quilts, for two lovely girls. ( I've dubbed them "The twin twins") Up till now every quilt I have made have been unique, with the exception of my own daughters quilts. I started these quilts almost two weeks ago and have been working on them in much of my spare time.

When I start making a quilt, I first cut all the fabric into 6" X 6" squares, and the cotton batting is next. I start sandwiching them with the same pattern on the top as on the bottom. I have seen most people use one colour fabric on the back and have wondered if they do that because they get that fabric cheaper, of if they think it looks better.. I like the quilt on the underside to look like the top!

Then After I have them all sandwiched and pinned, I sew the traditional X threw every square and start to lay out my squares in the pattern I want. After I've gotten it the way I want it, I start to pin the squares together in vertical lines and take them to the machine to sew!

I start sewing the verticals lines together as I go lining up seams carefully! (because I use the same pattern on the top as bottom, sloppiness will show!) Then its on to the border! I machine stitch all the way around the blanket twice to help ensure longevity of the quilt.

Then the part that takes the longest!! The snipping! Every seam gets a snip every 1/4 inch!!

Here are some photo's of my progress so far.. there are two quilts here, one on top of the other. So that i don't get them mixed up, whatever I do to one, I do to the other!

Bottom pic is before snipping occurs!

Sorry for the bad lighting, I wish I was a better photographer!