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Tuesday 28 January 2014

Snowy




Hey everyone! We are finally into real winter here, and seeing all white through the windows is somehow so strange to me. But beautiful to look at. :)

bobice2


Obviously, kids are really happy about the possibility to enjoy  some activities on the snow, at last.

I am working on some new, exciting projects and can't wait to share them with you!
xo, Katarina

Friday 10 January 2014

Half square triangle quilt tutorial

Finished HST lap quilt

Remember this post ?
OK, so this is the tutorial for the quilt or at least my process of creating it.
Hope that you will be able to follow my directions and that they will be useful for your projects;)

Art Gallery fabrics

I started with this beautiful bundle of some of my favourite Art gallery fabrics.

Art Gallery fabrics

As the world of quilts and quilting is still very new to me, at the time, I had only one ruler available and that was the Olfa 2.5" ruler.

half square triangles

I created my first quilt without any ruler-I have just used the plastic nursery plate and a regular school ruler;)

half square triangles

So I just started with cutting the selected fabrics in 2" wide strips x WOF (in regular fabric 44/45"length-114 cm).

half square triangles

I had total of 52 strips.

half square triangles

So, I saw this technique on some blogs, called also tube quilting and I was delighted as it seemed like a quicker way to obtain more half square triangles. I realized that there was even the special ruler for this, called "strip tube ruler", but you can always use some square ruler, rotated 45  degrees
and mark your seam allowance line (with some masking tape eventually) according to the desired size of the triangle.

HERE, HERE and HERE you can watch even the great videos about that technique.

half square triangles

So the principle is this: just place 2 strips, right sides together and sew on both sides with 1/4 seam allowance.

half square triangles

Cut along as you go, re-positioning your ruler from one side(one seam) to another.

half square triangles

From each fabric strip (44-45" wide fabric), with this cutting method from selvedge to selvedge, I obtained the 20 (eventually even 21) 2 1/2 x 2 1/2" HSTs.

half square triangles

I had total of around 600 HSTs.
Open, press and trim them.

half square triangles

Now you can play and create so many different blocks, here are some of our thoughts....

WIP - HST quilt

half square triangles

half square triangles

half square triangles

But, than I decided to do the simple repetition, by doing the 9 patch block and rotating it on  45 degrees.

Here is the construction of the block- in simple, 2 color diagram:



I also decided to play a bit with the colors and shades, rather than doing just random color patching.

half square triangles

What I did with the colors is to divide the HST(before making the blocks) in 5 groups:

1. palest shades
2. pale shades with some medium accents
3. medium shades
4. medium shades with some dark accents
5. darkest shades

half square triangles

half square triangles

I also organized the blocks in the same groups once they were made.

half square triangles

As you can see, by the end of my process, I got a new ruler to help me with cutting the fabric excess from the final
almost 6 x 6" nine patch block.

WIP - HST quilt

I love this happy pile of the blocks: there were around 70 blocks at the end.

WIP - HST quilt

I just played with organization of the blocks, creating the final result-quilt.

half square triangles

Luckily, I had a great, experienced assistant along the way to help me with my process;)

half square triangles

Eventually I decided that it might be good if I use some numbers and calculations to realize the size of the final quilt.

So, I ended with this scheme that is using 60 blocks-total.
( I am using just 4 variations of the colored block as  easiest way to show the rows of blocks and cutting directions for edges):


 So, you may see that you need to cut 5 blocks horizontally an 6 blocks vertically to obtain the edge pieces.


And this is some kind of variation in shades-giving the effect that I wanted to achieve here. Obviously, with more saturated colors:)

The finished size of the quilt is approx. 37 x 43".
Great size for my little helper:)

WIP - HST quilt

WIP - HST quilt top

Here is my finished top and the finished quilt.

Finished HST lap quilt

There are lot more of pictures in my flickr set and some more info in my previous post

Finished HST lap quilt

Hope this was helpful.
If you have some project to share using this or any of my tutorials or patterns, please post them to my flickr group.
I would love to see what you'll create:)
Katarina :)

Friday 3 January 2014

Buy, buy 2013 - Welcome 2014!!

tulle skirt

Happy New Year everyone!!!
Hope that this 2014 will ROCK!
I just did a little flickr mosaic with some pics from 2013 and it's so fun to see what have we been up to in 2013!!!

2013!

PUNK We attended some great events, exhibitions and shows - and luckily, some of them were held in our street ;)


We did a lot of designing, (especially fabric designing), crafting, sewing, photographing, painting, eating, filming, dancing and we went back to school!!! 
When I say WE - I mean me and my family (because without them and without all the support I have in all the aspects, I wouldn't be able to make neither half of the things)
We did a lot of tutorials this year, and this is something that I am most proud of and I hope to create a line of my own PDF patterns soon...that's my 2014 resolution!

bianka designing

In 2013 I wanted to create some quilts, and I did that (and I am so proud of the two quilts I made) and can't wait to make some more in 2014!!!

Quilts-2013

I have really big plans for this year and I hope that I will be able to realize them!
Hope that you will be with me in this year too! :)
Thank you all so much and lots of love,
Katarina