Juniper Flower Garden Pot

It’s been a long time since I’ve blogged but rest assured we have been super busy!   This is our day on the “Juniper” Instagram Blog Hop – welcome!

When my quilty pal, Jessica Van Denburgh from Sew Many Creations asked me to make something from her new fabric collection,“Juniper”, I of course said yes!   Quilty friends are the best and it’s always a pleasure to help out a friend and at the same time get to make one of our patterns with new fabrics.

 

 

Jessica’s new fabric collection, called “Juniper” for Windham Fabric is oh-so-cute and filled with delightful little flowers and flying creatures like beautiful butterflies, majestic dragonflies and some very cute snails.

Once I saw the fabrics, I knew our Garden Party pattern was the perfect project.  I set out to make one Garden Party flower pot !  The Garden Party pattern is available in our Colourwerx shop and Jessica’s new fabric line “Juniper” will be arriving to shops this month so be on the lookout!

First off, I cut the background piece, added borders and layered my batting, backing fabric and the quilt top together in a quilt sandwich.  Using my favorite Aurifil 40wt Gold thread – #2975 – I curvy quilted the background.  This is just a regular straight stitch and keeping the feed dogs UP (like regular stitching) ,  I moved the quilt from side to side creating gentle undulations down the quilt.  It’s fun and relaxing and always looks so “artsy”.

Hint, hint!- You may have noticed that I am machine quilting my quilt BEFORE I place the applique shapes in place – that’s because I’m not very good at free motion machine quilting, On smaller pieces such as this, I like to machine quilt the background first before fusing and stitching around the applique shapes.  That way the piece is quilted and I don’t need to worry about machine quilting in and around shapes.  So far, no quilt police have shown up at my door demanding the piece be handed over- lol!

Once the background was quilted I cut out and began to fuse and applique stitch my shapes in place.  I started with the stem and leaves – centering them on on the background piece.  I love to use my decorative stitches around shapes like these to texturize and embellish the applique – I find the decorative stitches enhance and add an extra dimension of fun and whimsy to the pieces.

Next up – the large pot.  I used the widest zigzag stitch around this shape.  My Bernina 750QE can go up to 9mm so that was the perfect choice.

Then the large flower head.  I used my blanket stitch (aka buttonhole stitch).  These pieces took the most time as there were lots of inner and outer curves to negotiate – my patience game definitely had to be ‘right on’ for these pieces.

Finally , the flower center .  I used my most favorite decorative stitch from the Bernina  – this is stitch #419 – you may have something similar on your machine.

Lastly, and because Jessica designed so many cute little creatures in her fabric, I placed some fusible web on the wrong side of scrap fabric leftover and fussy cut out some super cute flower circles for the pot and lots of cute creatures to fuse buzzing around the flower pot.

I even added a little extra flower growing near the bottom.

 

That was super fun !  Be sure to check out all the other projects made with “Juniper” on the Windham Fabrics Instagram feed.  And also be sure to enter your name for a giveaway on September 3rd by following all of the “Juniper” bloggers and also Jessica’s Instagram page at Sew Many Creations!

Until your next colour fix~
L&C

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

…Just exactly what do you guys do?…

For the trade only – Quilt Market happens just twice a year and it is ‘the place’ to preview the newest fabrics, patterns and notions that will be arriving at your local quilt shop in the coming year.

Like most Quilt Markets it was exhausting but very energizing….  The ‘exhausting’ is in the designing, making and preparing all of our quilts for display, coming up with a new look for our Colourwerx booth (see below for a couple of snaps) , designing and printing handouts and brochures, and the final step – hoping that it all arrives (including us and the quilts) in one piece to the venue and on time.

The ‘energizing’ is actually just being there – being able to view and or try out the latest fabrics, notions and patterns, seeing a vast variety of quilts all made with different techniques and styles, and lastly and most importantly catching up with friends and colleagues and meeting new ones. Here were a few of our favorites:

Amy Butler’s Booth

Sew Many Creations’ Booth

Tula Pink’s Booth

We were also thrilled to see several of our ‘secret sewing’ designs hanging in the Free Spirit Fabric booth and Quilt Gallery.  ‘Secret sewing’ – meaning we were not able to reveal them to you until now because the fabric had not yet been released.

Which brings me to this important note:  We get asked alot “….just exactly what do you guys do….”  – well, aside from the obvious fact that we sell patterns for our original designs and make quilts (and we make alot of them!), we also design quilt patterns and make quilts for many well known fabric companies.  Hence, the term “secret sewing”.

For example, a new fabric collection is due to be released in the next 6-9 months but the fabric designer may be a well known painter or illustrator and know very little about quiltmaking…so that’s where we step in….we are contracted by the fabric company to take the fabric collection and design several patterns highlighting that collection…then we are asked to develop one or several of these designs further by writing a pattern and actually making the quilt for display – it is great fun but it is also ‘top secret stuff’ as we can’t reveal to you what we are up to until the collection is released.

Back to Spring Quilt Market, we designed and made five quilts that were on display at Spring Quilt Market, and these were fairly “top secret” until about 2 weeks prior to Spring Quilt Market.  Some of these designs had been in the works since January so it was mighty hard not to tell you what we were up to….

We’ll highlight these designs later but here’s a short preview of them hanging in the Free Spirit Fabric Gallery of Quilts.  And we must give credit to our dear friend Teresa at Quilting is my Bliss – she custom  quilted all of these and did just an absolutely fantastic job!  If you see a quilt you like, then jump on over to the Inspiration page on the the Free Spirit website to download the free pattern  – some of these are available now and some are coming in a few weeks or so, plus there are loads more free patterns there by other fellow designers that are super terrific, so check it out!

Mystic Gold

Hat Boxes

All Stacked Up

Easy Sunday

Racetrack

And finally –  Colourwerx (meaning Carl and I)  designed and debuted three new patterns which are now available at your local quilt shops – they are also available for purchase on our website!   PDF versions of these are in the works and should be available by the end of June!  (drum roll….) They are: ModCats, Mod TV and Mix It Up!  All are super fun patterns and incorporate the slash ‘n sew method we love!

All in all, a great time was had by all and now we’re turning our thoughts towards the Houston Quilt Market in October (yes, October already!)

Thank you to all for following along with us, and until your next colour fix~
Linda & Carl