Marimekko Jenny Haynes River Quilt Top

After attending the Improvisation Quilting workshop with Jenny Haynes at the Village Haberdashery I had such a lovely time I booked myself on another workshop. This was a more advanced quilting workshop based on a technique called the drunkards path. Here is a great video from LoveBug Studios that explains how to sew this style of quilters block.

Jenny Haynes has made some beautiful quilts using the Drunkards Path technique; the Sunflowers quilt and the new River Quilt.

Jenny Haynes Sunflower Quilt (Image Source)

Jenny Haynes River Quilt (Image Source)

To make the full River Quilt you need 1.5 metres of three different fabrics. I already had all three fabrics I wanted to use already in my stash (although not quite enough so I had to buy a metre more of each colour).

The colour scheme of the guest bedroom where this quilt will eventually live is grey, white with highlights of yellow. I have already made some bold Marimekko cushions in the Rasymatto and Unikko prints you can see below.

The first part of the workshop was spent cutting out the sections of the Drunkards Path blocks. Jenny provides the acrylic templates and to make things easier I cut everything out using a rotary cutter. Then onto sewing the curved blocks, ironing and then cutting down to size using the square templates provided. 

When I got back home I laid out the quilt blocks so I could get an idea of how the final quilt will look. As well as the three main fabrics; Grey Essex Linen, Marimekko Rasymatto Cotton and Black Kona Cotton I used a number of scraps of spotty black and white fabric from the stash. There is also an addition of Yellow Kona cotton to continue the punctuation of yellow found in the Marimekko fabric. 

The gaps in the quilt above are left for the Marimekko fabric which I had ordered but unfortunately it didn't turn up in time for the workshop. I have also added a black spotted cotton in some of the sections of the black area of the design but I am still undecided if I will add this in the final quilt top.

What do you think fellow sewists?

I'm looking forward to sewing this together and then the long task of quilting. I think I will do a combination of machine and hand-quilting to add a range of textures.

Check out lots of other cool crafty blogs at #handmademonday organised by Julia of Sum of their Stories.

Stash Busting Fabric Storage Box

I have been on a self-imposed fabric diet (unless I don't have anything suitable in the stash to complete a garment) which has made me much more aware of what I have in my stash.

As you know I LOVE pretty much any Marimekko print and made myself some lovely cushions last summer. Due to the expensive nature of the fabric I kept the few scraps of Unikko leftover from my cushion making.

Enter this little project. You can make one of these little storage units in under two hours. If I make another one I would use some iron-on interfacing to strengthen the sides of the box.

I cut the squares to fit the fabric. 1cm seam allowance throughout.

1. Cut 5 squares of fabric for the outside of the box and 5 squares for the lining.
2. With right sides facing, sew four squares onto a central square. Start and finish the seam 1cm away from the edge of the fabric (this is so you can sew the edges together to form the box).
3. With the right side of the fabric on the inside of the box, pin the edges to create a box.
4. Sew the edges of the box together

5. Clip the edges of the corner seams so they turn in easier.
6. Turn box so the right side faces outwards. Iron to set the seams and sharpen the box edges.
7. Repeat steps 1-6 for the inside of the box lining.
8. With right sides facing, pin the two fabric boxes together around the top.
9. Sew around the top of the boxes leaving a little gap so you can turn it out.

10. Turn the fabric box out to the right side and top-stitch around the outer edge to finish.

I found out that turning the fabric over creates a nice effect and offers a little more structure to the fabric. If I made a larger size fabric box again I would definitely use a iron-on facing to add more strength.

Stash busting with the last of my favourite fabric! They would make great presents for friends and family.

Marimekko Unikko Cushions

After two years of major house renovations cushion making has been on the back-burner in terms of priorities. Enough time for me to collect a decent amount of fabric stash in the form of my all-time favourite print the Unikko from Marimekko.

A bit of good fortune and good timing meant that all the variations of Marimekko fabrics were purchased on sale (this hardly ever happens with Marimekko fabric). The big red / green print was a limited 50th anniversary edition from the Marimekko store at St. Christopher's Place in Marylebone purchased at 50% off during their closing down sale : (

The large yellow and blue print came from Skandium in Marylebone at 30% discount and finally all other versions were from the John Lewis sale earlier in the year at 50% discount!

Overall some pretty epic savings over the course of a year..... 

Onto cushion-making. After a little bit of internet research and studying cushions I already own I came up with the following process:

First I measured the fabric I bought and split it into equal sections to accommodate as big a cushion as possible including the usual 1.5cm seam allowance.

  

Wrong sides together, sew one seam allowance on a basting stitch (which will be for the zip). Iron the seam allowance open and measure where the zip will be. Sew using your regular stitch length either side of the zip including securing stitches at the start and end point.

Pin and baste the zip into the required position.

Turn the  cushion wrong sides together and secure the zip into position using the basting stitches as a guide. After looking at some shop-bought cushions rather than sew 'around' the zip I sewed straight across the width of the cushion on both sides of the zip.

You effectively now have a continuous loop of fabric. The bonus here is depending on where you want the placement of the zip on the back of your cushion you can change the placement of the print depending how the pattern looks. With this bold design, just a few centimetres made a big difference to the aesthetics of the front of the cushion.

After securing the zip in position, use scissors or an un-picker to remove the basting stitches so you can open the zip. Open the zip a little, turn the cushion cover right sides together again and then sew up the side seams.

After completing the final seams use the small zip opening to turn the cushion the correct way around and steam iron to fix the seams in position.

Here are the final cushions below without the cushion pads. I used an online company for the cushion pads called Cushion Warehouse. They sell an excellent range of cushions pads of all sizes and filling types at very reasonable prices.

I would highly recommend the products but the delivery time was long (10 days) and the customer service not so brilliant.  I used the 27" pads with luxury cluster fibre for £10 each. Cushion Warehouse advised to use the next size up for a cushion pad (ie. if your cushion cover measures 26" then go for the 27" cushion pad) for a better look and fill. 

I was so happy to finally use my precious Marimekko fabric and totally chuffed to bits with the end result.

Have you made anything for your home that you are particularly proud of?