Step text and Photos by Brooke Veale of Starr Lane Quilting Pattern used “Reaching” by And Sew I
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Large Format Pattern Files & Printing – UPDATE
HOW TO FOUNDATION PAPER PIECE, UncategorizedSee the original post here
One of the UK places recommended in my previous post (www.netprinter.co.uk) has now gone out of business.
Other UK printing options:
www.fabulosew.co.uk – used by a friend who received great service.
For those of you not in the UK, good news is pdf sewing patterns for clothes have becoming more common place in the last two years so ask anyone local to you who sews clothes or your local sewing shop as they should be able to give recommendations. If not there are a few suggestions at the bottom of this blog by Helen’s closet.
Lastly if you really can’t get large format copy shop prints done – follow the steps on this blog post to print at home on A4 or US letter paper. This is not the recommended way as you will have to accurately stick 100’s of pages together accurately.
Printing Large Format Files at Home
UncategorizedIf printing at a copy shop is too expensive or not easily accessible, you can follow the instructions below to print at home the large format pages but I do not recommend you do this as standard.
It does mean you will have to stick/tape lots of pages together accurately, which will take quite a bit of time. If you are not accurate lining the pages up the sections may not join correctly when sewn. Together these reasons are why I recommend printing the large format files at a copy shop.
You will need an up-to-date version of Adobe Reader and you will be able to print an A0 sheet from my patterns on A4/US letter or any other paper size your printer can handle.
HOW:
1.Open the file in Adobe Reader, and go to the ”Print” dialogue (File > Print…)
2.In this dialogue, select “Poster” under the heading ”Page Size & Handling”
3.Ensure the tile scale is set to 100%
4.Select print “Cut Marks”, and set to 0.5 – this makes it easier to remove the margins from each page. If you are printing all pages at the same time I suggest turning on labels too (it gives row and column locations on each page).
5.Press “Print”. I recommend printing one large sheet at a time so you know all pages you have are part of the same sheet. Each A0 page should print on 25 pages of A4/ US Letter, so ensure you have enough paper on hand.
6.Trim the pages to cut marks with a ruler and an old rotary blade on one half of the pages you are joining so there is an overlap of paper, and using washi tape to join as it is easier when tearing out the paper later. When you cut the sections apart make sure sections are well taped.
7.If a lot of lines or mall areas meet where the paper over laps you may want to trim the paper down.
8.Sew pattern as per instructions.
Do you wanna make this HORSE?
UncategorizedWhen I got this message from someone who had bought my Unique-orn Pattern and wanted help to make of of the mock ups I has included as inspiration in the instructions, I was really happy to help. This mock up is truly one of my most favorite I have created.
This is the mock-up referred too. Isn’t he beautiful!!
I would suggest using the same fabrics for the body of the horse as in the main pattern. The mane is actually simpler using 4 fabrics only but repeating them in several sections.
The Kona fabric colours I picked to reflected my favorite gradient of orange, pink to purple.
Below shows where I put each fabric and the fabric quantities have been adjusted to suit this layout but remember we all FPP differently so you might need more than I suggest.
I absolutely can’t wait to see this made and will share the pictures of it I have been promised when they arrive.
I hope this show how easy it is to change the look of this horse with this pattern. And feel free to ask if you want help to work out how to create your vision.
Also maybe I do NEED to make this version too…
Pattern Correction – Saturation Quilt Pattern
UncategorizedI have just been made aware the templates for pre-cutting the fabric for areas C1/H1 and E2/K2 are slightly incorrect. Please find below the replacement pages to download if you require them.
…want to channel my inner Frida Kahlo…
UncategorizedI wrote this 2 years ago and never got round to posting it! Its not finished or edited but i’m going to share it as it is because this is me! I can’t wait to get to some galleries soon.
Last week baby and me escaped the house with my granny for a trip to the V & A for the Frida Kahlo exhibition – ‘Making Herself Up’. I know a little about Frida Kahlo and liked the strong colours and self portraits which I wish I could do! I really enjoyed the exhibition easy to chunks to read and just enough detail. The items were also well displayed. I enjoyed rediscovering and finding out more about her difficult life. I do now wish I had bough the exhibition book.
I didn’t realize quite how ill she had been all through her short life and how much that had impacted on her art. I know I should not but I wish I was bed bound to be able to do nothing but my art. It was the objects they had on display I found most interesting maybe as they are more easily absorbed when holding a wriggly baby or because I am the type of person.
photos of corsets (i now can’t find and this was pre IG account)
The idea that she had the guts to wear clothes that suited her requirements and not what was popular or socially the norm. Long skirts to hide the effects of polio on her legs and large tops to hide her medical corsets. Makes me wonder if I should have more confidence to wear what I like and not what is normal on just physically fits. Obviously I need the time for practice making clothes, adjusting patterns to suit my body shape mainly. I have been toying with the idea of making a set of long corded stays. A mixture of something which would go under a Jane Austin style dress and something made up in my head to smooth my double c-section tummy and nicely shape my huge post baby feeding boobs. Anyway I’m rambling. Look at these examples of Frida’s clothes. ALL THE COLOURS!
I of course I saw a quilt pattern where only other quilters would, this time in the exhibition backdrop.
It was lovely to get out the local area and wonder round London. I would have killed (not literally) to be baby free and be able to stop and sketch and do as I wished in my own time. Baby was fairly good! She drew in the crowds everywhere we stopped and always smiled or cooed appropriately.
After Granny went home me and baby ventured on the underground by ourselves with the big buggy which was not as bad as I feared! We went to meet the hubby at his office. on the way we walked through the Temple area of London. Wow… I never knew that such pretty Georgian/ Victorian lanes were just over the river from Waterloo. I felt like I could just step back in time. I could imaging my swishing skirts and holding a much better posture in a corset especially having a quick look round the fashion gallery before I left. In this heat it would have been unbearable.
After some baby appreciation at the office we walked to Covent Garden to go to my favorite restaurant – Flat Iron!!! If you have have not been you are missing out on the most amazing steak and chips. If we are ever in town its where I always want to go! Baby was very good until we almost arrived at our station and she woke up and ended up staying awake till 10 but the disruption did seem to help get over the bottle strike she has been on.
Overall a lovely day out combining my interests of art, architecture, costume, history and food! I must do it more often!
THE SATURATION QUILT
UncategorizedIt’s been a long time! Sorry for that – I’ve had 2 lockdowns, more home schooling and life just like the rest of you I’m sure, since the last post. I have been busy; if you follow me on Instagram you will know and I suck at writing more than a few lines so these longer posts I keep putting off. I will do some catch up blog posts soon but for now I want to tell you about the Saturation quilt!
The Saturation idea developed way back in September 2020. I saw some stained glass in my Instagram feed – having done a glass course a few years ago and have a box of bits, it made me want to get them out and play. Stacking the glass but rotating the layers gave a cool effect and straight away all I could think of was a quilting block in solid fabrics.
That night I had a block drawn up and a cool blue sea/glass mock-up got me very excited but I needed to be sewing up my fractured skull sample and pattern for Halloween so it was put to the side.
Once I was able to return to this embryo of an idea, I’d decided I would test the block trying a freezer paper technique – something I had wanted to try for a while but the pieces in my previous blocks were too small to be accurate. I made a sample and gifted it to my mum as her birthday present. I bought 4 FQ’s in a colour gradient I knew Mum would love and one metre of cream background fabric.
Well, the birthday present turned into a Christmas present and was it was duly gifted. It looked great and I had really enjoyed experimenting with freezer paper (though the very acute points had been difficult to maintain) and with some different straight-line quilting.
Before New Year I did some proper planning and had scheduled my year with Saturation being my first quilt pattern to be released… then everything changed again! I had to home school for 3 months and after that I need to recuperate! After re-energising, sewing other people’s designs and projects (posts to follow), I cracked on writing the saturation pattern up, finding some testers and decided to release in mid-July.
Now with EQ8 software at my fingertips I created mock-up after mock-up and realised how incredibly versatile the pattern would be. Knowing there are loads of amazing creatives out there I got more and more excited about the pattern’s potential.
I wanted to support my friend Helen Steele , who screen prints her own fabric, with the launch of her first ever co-ordinated bundle – Lush collection. I suggested a collaboration and for me to make a saturation quilt in her fabrics which she could take to Festival of Quilts for her first ever stand there.
After seeing a mock-up of how the quilt could look Helen and myself adjusted the bundle and settled on these beautiful prints.
I couldn’t wait to start sewing and pre-cut all the sections as soon as I got my hands on the fabric. While Helen printed some more of the background fabric I used the photo of the double curved block already made to play and generated these layout options which were popular on Instagram. Opinion was split between the 2nd and 4th from the left.
In the pattern I recommend using freezer paper for at least the A sections of each block type to significantly reduce the amount of printing and cutting and sticking you do. All sections can be done in freezer paper but I found reusing the smaller acute angled triangles lost some of the accuracy as they lost their stickiness. Being accurate with this pattern really pays off as the matching points really made the design. Don’t worry about getting the points spot on, it is not difficult and I recommend if not experienced with freezer paper piecing to use standard or specialist foundation paper for all sections other than A. Below is a video where I show you how to use the freezer paper for this pattern.
Here is the finished quilt! I quilted it similarly to the one for my mum but with white thread so it didn’t standout. I bound it using strips cut from the … For the eight single curved blocks, Helen specially printed me pieces slightly larger than her normal panel size and I only needed one panel of each of the other colours.
I’ve been really pleased with the response to Saturation and had some great reviews. Any creative will tell you we are in it for these kind of comments and not the money. Your makes and words really do mean the world!
As Natalie mentions, the Saturation pattern has 6 pages of alternative layouts with a basic breakdown of how to make them and fabric requirements to help those less experienced quilters and illustrate the versality of the pattern.
I’m taking a few paper copies of the pattern to festival of Quilts at Birmingham NEC next weekend and will be on stand G56 with Helen Steele for the majority of the show.
I have a bed size version I want to make so I am planning a sew along at some point – maybe starting in November 2021 as the fabric I want to use is not yet out and I might have something I need to work on for Halloween.
Fractured Skull Sew Along Prizes
UncategorizedThe first prize I’m going to award was not even a prize before today. I felt the creepiest and spookiest (to me) of the skulls needed some recognition. @_mrsfish’s panel not only has all the bones and skull fabric, a beetle in the mouth and blood spattered fabric as the background, but when it was pointed out the skull was on a coffin a shiver when down my spine! So @_mrsfish a skull pin and maybe some other little bits will be flying over to you in Australia as soon as possible.
So now to start with the original prizes – @robotsmumsews unicorn thread gloss is going to go to this beauty!! My biggest daughter loved the ‘fire’ background of @sew.ari.sew ‘s version. I was super impressed with the fussy cut on the forehead, the home ice-dyed fabric which went into it and colour pallet I wouldn’t normally go for. Well done Ari, fantastic effort for someone relatively new to quilting.
Next is the bundle of fabric and scrap pack from @oliveandflohandcraft which goes to Carol @therunninghare as I love the pink and would never have put this soft green with it. Combined with the accurate piecing and fussy cut bugs in the eyes I couldn’t resist.
The next prize is the Karen Lewis £30 voucher donated by @patiagnesd. This goes to @nathaliedelesse who blew me away with her beautiful scrap colour wheel skull. I’m a massive sucker for a colour wheel/ or gradient and this is just stunning and something I would never have thought of!
So you know I said I was a massive sucker for a colour wheel or gradient I’m afraid that is why I couldn’t resist @xole’s Giucy G fire skull. The neutral background really let the dominant skull burn into my mind. The gradient really is perfect to me. Xole gets an electrinic copy of her choice of Lou Orth’s quilt patterns which should suit your style down to a T.
Lastly (well almost), is the electronic copy of the Fraktal quilt pattern, Modern Quilt Club’s collaboration with Paula Steel. This goes to @pattiknitsandsews for her perfect skull. This panel is a better version of what I originally envisaged with the skull design. I love the simplicity of the grayscale skull offset with the orange background. Made perfectly halloweenie with the spiders. What nailed it for me was the quilting which looks like the spiders webs over the skull, the straight line quilting which kind of looks random but well thought out and beautifully symmetrical.
Finally, I wanted to do a completely random winner so all those who participated were written on a bit of paper and popped into a Disney frozen bowl and on my Instagram ‘live’ I pulled out @finecityquilting. So you also get a Lou Orth pattern of your choice.
Picking winners was really difficult there are so many skulls which look amazing and others you could see the effort which had gone in. Thank you all so much for participating in my first sew along I hope you have enjoyed it as much as me.
Helen xxx
Fractured Skull Panel SAL Finishers Gallery
UncategorizedThank you everyone who took part! First a special shout out to those who took on my bit of fun spooky picture challenge:
@thebeveleh Chris Ostenstad
Patricia Dunham
Now for a gallery the finished skulls. I have tried to get everyone but please message me if your missing. They are in no particular order:
From left to right : @mopheaded1 , @pattiknitsandsews, @maikahaza
From left to right : @nerdynquilty, @ma1anie, Margaret Pannell Vachon
From left to right : @therunninghare, @missmerrycherry, @ringaringarosie
From left to right: @nathaliedelesse, @tish.dunham & @freakymysty
I love the diversity of all of these and have no idea how I could possibly pick just 5 prize winners! Honestly thank you so much all of you for making my first Sew Along ‘sew’ much fun!
Helen xxx
Fractured Skull Sew Along Week 2 Round-up
UncategorizedSeeing these the face’s come together is amazing. They look amazing even when they are not sewn together!
From left to right: @moonlightquiltsco, @slater.chloe, @missmerrycherry @maikehaza
From left to right: Randi Curtis, Margaret Pannell Vashon
And Sew I ... 