Nicola Foreman Quilts - BLOG

Vintage Sewing Club - Month 10

6/12/2019

Ohhhhh I was nearly giddy when I arrived home from work yesterday evening and opened a little parcel from Cross Patch - these gorgeous variegated Cottage Garden Threads were inside my parcel, and they really are wonderful for hand embroidery. These are from the Vintage Sewing Club, and each month I've received a pattern and 4 skeins of thread. The colours are beautiful - Vintage Rose, Mapel, Heliotrope and Bluegrass. These will be added to my CGT collection - my thread box is almost bursting at the seams!

A Crafty Day

3/12/2019

I've had a very creative day today at KIS Quilting Ltd with Alex Waylett making fabric boxes and festive cards. This has been so much fun! The morning was spent layering fabrics and lots of machine embroidery to make a large piece that we could then trim to make some cards - these were then embellished with some bling. The afternoon was spent making these gorgeous fabric boxes, which where trimmed with some cord in a contrasting colour. I shall definitely make more of these!

Another GORGEOUS Kit

2/12/2019

Are any of you taking part in this BOM by Buttermilk Basin? It's the Thimble Blossoms BOM, and uses lots of appliqu to make 12 beauiful blocks. When the ladies at me local quilt shop, KIS Quilting Ltd in Ipswich showed me the pattern, I knew I couldn't resist it! They've now made some beautiful kits, and I collected mine today. It won't be started just yet as I'm way behind on a few festive stitching projects (where oh where has the time gone to?) and I need to finish a couple of other things first, so it's going to be a 2020 project along with several others!

The Happy Stitcher - Completed

30/11/2019

Here it is - The Happy Stitcher (pattern by the Australian designer Natalie Bird of The Birdhouse Patchwork Designs is all ready to display in my sewing studio. This has been hand appliqued using the Apliquick method, and hand embroidered using Cosmo stranded embroidery threads. It was a bit tricky trying to photograph this, as it's very long an narrow, measuring approx 12" x 32" - and this picture was taken with it laying on my sewing table...

...these pretty fabrics are mostly from the Katie Jane collection by Makower UK and were leftover from my Hearts and Happy Flowers quilt. The quilting was kept very simple, just mostly stitch in the ditch, and around the circular applique shape...

...if you click on the photographs, you'll enlarge them so you can see the detail. Once the wallhanging had been quilted, the hexagons were appliqued into place...

...I've added a narrow sleeve on the back, ready to display this fun wallhanging on the wall of my sewing studio. I've also added a small hand embroidered label - embellished with a few hexies that were surplus to requirement!

Handknitted Socks

27/11/2019

My lovely talented sister Ericka Eckles knitted these GORGEOUS socks for my birthday last month and I totally forgot to share a picture of them. My tootsies are super warm and cosy in these! She's got lots of amazing knittied goodies on her Instagram page if yont to have a look!

Hearts and Happy Flowers Labelled

26/11/2019

While I was away recently on a quilting a retreat, one of my projects was making labels for my Hearts and Happy Flowers quilt. This seemed very appropriate as I was piecing some of the blocks for this quilt last year when I was at the retreat too! I used the designs from block 10 of the pattern (Leanne Beasley always includes great ideas for quilt labels in her patterns) and wrote out the words freehand. The initial design was sketched with a pencil, when I was happy with the finished design, I drew over the lines with a very fine black Sharpie pen. The design was then taped to my light pad, and I traced the design onto a piece of fabric, using a Micron Pigma pen. This ink is permanent so you do need a very steady hand. Then The design is hand embroidered - I used the same colours of Cosmo embroidery threads that I'd used for the front of the quilt...

...it's a bit time consuming, but it's the final part of the quilt making process, and I like to put as much effort into making the label as I've put into making the quilt! These have now been appliqued into place on the back of the quilt, and I've added a couple of hearts that were surplus to requirements when I was making the quilt blocks a few months ago.

Layering Up The Happy Stitcher

23/11/2019

Are you having a sewing Saturday? I've been stitching the scalloped borders on my "Happy Stitcher" wallhanging. This will be spray basted and machine quilted very simply, just stitch-in-the-ditch. This pattern is by the Australian designer Natalie Bird of The Birdhouse Patchwork Designs and is available from Cross Patch in Wales...

...the fabrics for this are leftovers from my Hearts and Happy Hearts quilt, and are mostly from the Katie Jane collection by Makower UK. The hand embroidery is stitched using Cosmo stranded embroidery threads, and the applique has been completed using the Apliquik method. Once the quilting has been completed, I'll applique this little group of hexies into place. I made a few extras, and these will be used to embellish a small label for the back of the wallhanging.

The Happy Stitcher - Applique and Embroidery

20/11/2019

The Happy Stitcher pattern by the Australian designer Natalie Bird of The Birdhouse Patchwork Designs (the pattern was, as usual from Cross Patch, an online shop based in Wales, here in the UK - and yes, it IS my favourite online shop) was one of my stitching projects while I was away on a quilting retreat at the weekend. The applique (all made using the Apliquick method - I gave a few demonstrations of this while I was away too) has been stitched in place and the hand embroidery has all been stitched using Cosmo stranded embroidery thread. The fabrics, and threads, were left over from my Hearts and Happy Flowers quilt - the fabrics are mostly from the Katie Jane collection by Makower UK and really are very pretty.

Hearts and Happy Flowers Revealed!

17/11/2019

Here's my Hearts and Happy Flowers quilt (pattern by the Australian designer Leanne Beasley) that I collected earlier this week from J-Quilts. Janette has worked her usual magic with free hand custom quilting and it really is very pretty The binding is now on, and this had it's first reveal yesterday evening when I was doing a "show and tell" at a quilting retreat I'm on...

...and here are a few close up pictures of the freehand custom longarm quilting. If you click on the pictures, you'll enlarge them and see the amazing work that Janette does. And all of this freehand too! I'm absolutely thrilled to bits with it. The kit for this quilt was supplied from Cross Patch, (an online shop based in Wales here in the UK) using fabrics from the Katie Jane collection by Makower UK. The hand embroidery was all stitched with Lecien Cosmo stranded embroidery threads.

Binding my Hearts and Happy Flowers Quilt

13/11/2019

So this evening I'm hand stitching the binding in place on this beauty that I recently collected from J-Quilts Longarm Quilting. Janette has been working her magic with freehand custom longarm quilting, and it it lovely to have my quilt back home again. This Hearts and Happy Flowers quilt is designed by the Australian designer Leanne Beasley and is made with a variety of techniques - machine piecing, hand applique, EPP, and hand embroidery. I've used Cosmo embroidery threads for the hand embroidery - these threads have a beautiful sheen to them. Most of the fabrics used for this quilt are from the katie Jane collection by Makower UK, and were supplied as a kit from Cross Patch, an online shop wased in Wales, here in the UK.