Sew Cute Tuesday: Needle Down

So, remember how last weekened I surprised my parents by popping down to Adelaide (a 3-hour flight for the non-Aussies)? Well, I was woken up at 6am on Saturday by my bedroom door opening… and my husband walking in the door! Yep, the husband who was supposed to be in Japan for 10 weeks. He’d secretly booked a 3 day trip while booking our original tickets during a sale. So needless to say, I haven’t done an ounce of work for 3 days, so this is a little late getting up. Apologies!

Hi there, this is Ali from Needledown standing in for Alyce this week. Here in Christchurch (NZ) we have been having the most stunning Autumn weather with temperatures like late Spring and glorious colours putting on the prettiest displays. I am feeling very inspired to make a quilt in russets and oranges, but first I need to finish the five or so projects I already have on the go!

Having avoided all things “sewing and cooking” at school, I began to appreciate the beauty of textiles when I moved to Asia and so I bought a machine and signed up to learn at a local quilt shop (Quilts and Calicoes in Tanglin Mall, Singapore – hi Ira if you are reading!). It became quite a hobby but when I moved country I found all my time taken up with a full-on job and a toddler to wrangle. It was a decade before I caught the bug again, and this time, with more time on my hands, I have really gotten in deep.

My style is quite broad, and I love both traditional and modern styles, probably sitting right in the middle of that spectrum. I enjoy following online classes and find that I learn a lot of technique from some of them. Some I buy through Craftsy and others directly from the blogger. The Penny Sampler above was a class I did with Rachel at Stitched In Color and this really pushed me with new techniques that are now everyday for me. Rachel ran another class all about triangles and diamonds and I made the Tangential quilt using all the techniques we learned. This is a huge quilt, well over king sized and I love the geometric nature of it.

I have been blogging for just over a year now mainly to record my own progress and share tips and tricks that I learn along the way. I was largely motivated after completing the infamous Gypsy Wife quilt by Jen Kingwell. I found some of the instructions a little bit tough to follow and got much needed assistance from the few blog posts I found online. When I completed it I realised that others out there would be keen to learn from my efforts and so I wrote two blog posts about this. They are my most visited pages and even if visitors only read these posts I will feel I have been successful as a quilt blogger!

Another of my favourite quilts is the Shimmer Feathers quilt I made from a pattern in Love Patchwork and Quilting. The method to make the feathers left a lot of waste that was already sewn together in stripes, and being a bit of a frugal person at times (Ha ha! Tell that to my husband when fabric orders arrive!) I made several buckets and pouches with the leftovers.

Do you use up your leftovers? I often make hot water bottle covers from mine, almost like each quilt comes with a matching hottie cover! They are so easy and quick to make and are very much appreciated as presents.

Right now I am working on a new Jen Kingwell quilt, her BOM Long Time Gone quilt, and this time round I am finding the instructions much clearer! Maybe she became a better pattern writer or maybe I became a better quilter, who knows… I am also making a quilt I am designing myself as I go. It’s a modern medallion style, made with the delightful Cloud 9 Cirrus Solids, which have the softest hand due to their cross weave and are in beautiful subdued bright colours. So far I have completed the centre and the first ring and I am very much enjoying the process of running the maths for the design I am aiming for and selecting what comes next. I am not sure I will write a pattern for this, but watch this space!

So that is enough about me, it is now time to link up one of your posts from this week! It could be a finished quilt, or your latest quilting bee blocks, or a cushion, or anything else quilty related. And did you know you can link directly to an Instagram pic too?! So if you want to link from there, you can do that too – link up as normal, and use #sewcutetuesday and @blossomheartquilts and @kellyfairy on IG to help us find you from there too.

[inlinkz_linkup id=629728 mode=1]