This is one of my latest creations, we've been at the Festival of Quilts (hard work, but fun) and this quilt was to show off the Shabby Chic Collection by Rachel Ashwell. They are soooo lovely and soft to sew and even better to cuddle up in.
This quilt was made by sewing rows of large squares together, then hand appliqueing smaller squares on point at the cross sections to turn the squares into octogons. I pieced the back with squares and a lovely soft cotton I found in the shop!
I machine quilted each octogon, which has hard work having to feed the whole quilt through my poor machine again and again!

Well, life seems to be getting busier by the day, and I'm happy to say the main reason for this is quilting! The pics below are some of my latest creations, all of which I've made to display in the shop where I work. The Union Jack is hopefully going in the main window soon, and should stay there for the rest of the summer!!

I have to the say, the Union Jack must be one of the trickiest designs to get right, serves me right for not  foundation piecing! Anyway, I'm quite pleased with the outcome.

This next quilt is made from a jelly roll (2.5" strips) from Amy Butler's Soul Blossoms range, each strip was a different design, so I thought making each one into a square block surrounded by a gorgeous white on white would show off the bright colours beautifully.

I also had fun with the leftoever strips on the back...

This is another quilt using a jelly roll, again a simple design with great effect.

A friend recently introduced me to a wonderful technique for paper piecing that takes so much of the faff out of hand-sewing hexagons. Since then I have been working on some instructions in order to share this wonderful obsession! I also finished my first ever hexagon quilt, which I am very proud of, and don't really want to let it go just yet! You can find all this in my How To Guides.

I have also added my own instructions for a Beginner's Quilt. In my job I find that so many people are wanting to learn to quilt, and need somewhere to start. This is a manageable size, fairly inexpensive, and hopefully easy to finish. And as those quilters out there know, once you have your first quilt under your belt, quilting truly does become an wonderful addiction!