Bits and Bobs

I got a free quilting kit with my sewing machine at Christmas, but before now I've only really used the walking foot (which I love). I decided at the beginning of the week that it was about time I tried a bit of free motion quilting. I've watched a few YouTube videos and read a few tutorials so thought, ''Sod it I'm ready''! I got a couple of scraps out of my fabric stash, created a batting sandwich and then just went for it - no plan of action at all!

I was actually quite amazed at the result. I know it's not perfect, my stitch length is all over the place and in parts the curves are totally off, but actually who cares? Nobody is except me is going to notice. Practise over, I started on the quilt (it's my Kaffe Fassett Patchwork Quilt). It's really big but that's okay as I don't think I'll do very dense stitching (mainly because it's a bit baggy in the basting - see here as to why!). I'm happy so far, I'm just doing regularly spaced flowers. I'm not sure red stitching on green fabric was a great idea for my first free motion quilting project, but at least it is fairly well hidden on the quilt top (this is the back).

 

The backing fabric I chose is by Moda, its called Dottie in the lime colourway. My quilt is overly large so this fabric is perfect as it is 108'' wide, specifically designed for quilt backs. I bought it from M is for Make. It was my first online fabric purchase and I was really pleased with the speed of service and the price! The fabric really is a beautiful lime green, I'm not sure my camera has captured the true colour.

 

Speaking of green, I had to travel to Kendal yesterday with work (I know, the hardship!). It was such a beautiful day. Yorkshire was looking particularly lush on the drive home. Yay Spring!

 

 

...finally!

 



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Clematis Cake

My good friend and colleague is retiring tomorrow so I've tasked myself with making her a retirement cake. She is a keen gardener and her computer wallpaper is this beautiful clematis she grew in her garden (I sneakily took a photo of her computer screen when she wasn't looking - ha). Soooo, that's the theme of the cake...

 

I'll admit here to being well out of my sugarpaste comfort zone with this project, I usually only do very simple cake designs. Luckily, I found this great sugarpaste clematis tutorial online and bought all my supplies from Imaginative Icing in York.

 

In the end I made five flowers consisting of seven petals each and wired the individual petals together with florists tape. I also made some loose petals - they were handy for filling in any gaps and also for hiding some of the bodges in the icing on the sides of the cake.

 

 

To get the right colours I used a combo of three craft dusting powders - Foliage Green, Pink and Dusky Pink. I used a paint brush to dab on the colours - Green for the centres, Dusky Pink for the tips and Pink for the petal centres and edges. You can be quite rough at this stage as the next step is to brush on pearl lustre powder and that really seems to blend the colours and make the petals look more natural. The stamens were bought. -  I wired a few together to create the flower centres and coloured them green with the dusting powder.

 

 

Happy Retirement Yvonne, I hope you like the cake!



Sally

xxx