Tilkunviilaaja®

My quilt studio has been unusually quiet since mid-August. First, I spent a relaxing summer vacation at a cottage/villa by a small lake, then had a short mini-break in a hotel, and then my first working week included a lot of activity and a few long days. The first quilting project by the lake was a hand-sewing one. I made hexagons out of scraps using the English paper piecing method and cardboard shapes that I've made many years ago. Though most hexies don't have a specific role yet, some are already attached together into small pieces that I’ll later use as details on my zipper bags. Here’s one example: Of course many of the hexies will become the end pieces for the zippers in pouches that I make for my Open series. Second quilting project. Back at home, when I finally had the energy and opportunity, I worked tenaciously to finish all the nine-patch blocks that I still needed for the quilt surface. I cut squares, sewed nine-patches and pressed. Here are the last 16 bl...

Today, I will share some of my “quilt thinking” and reflections on one of my earlier quilts. This is one of my first quilts, and it’s called Winter Apples / Talviomenoita: I was inspired by a quilt-along that Crazy Mom Quilts started in the spring of 2009. The quilt-along made me wonder if I could make a quilt if I followed her lead and sewed one block per day until I had enough for a quilt top? Turns out that I did! Though I did not sew one block per day along the quilt-along. This is the first picture of this quilt project, and one of the few that I took: I didn’t have a blog or a proper digital camera, and quilt photos were thus a rare thing for me back then. When I look at the quilt blocks now, I would like to re-do some of my nine-patch blocks so that they would all have enough value contrast. Especially the ones that look more like a “square-in-a-square" blocks! The centers of the nine-patches are of an extremely long piece of fabric that I bought in 200...

In my previous post less than a week ago, I introduced a surprise project – and now the project is finished! I wanted to see if I could create as nice a zippered bag as I’d done a few years ago. Here are the two bags side by side: Sliver/Lastu on the left and the new Rumba shoulder bag on the right – you decide how they compare. For me, they look surprisingly similar on these sides, and are equal in charm. Before I share more photos of the finished Rumba bag, here are a few in-progress shots. First, one surface piece when quilted: And the other piece after quilting: Although I have many other go-to quilting patterns, easy enough to do and suitable for smaller surfaces that I quilt on my domestic sewing machine, I decided to use the same pattern that I used on the Sliver bag. I got the idea for this quilting pattern of intersecting arcs from my long-time IG friend Alfhild @alborve and it has become my favourite. Where the two arcs intersect, a crosshatch patte...

Are you planning to make your first quilt – or perhaps dream of making one? Go for it, but please don’t make the three mistakes that I made! When I decided to sew my first proper-sized quilt in the mid-1990s, I made three big mistakes - but I was able to finish the quilt: Be smarter than I was and learn from my early experiences! Mistake 1: Cutting with scissors. In the mid-1990's, quilting became visible in the sewing magazines that I subscribed to. I fell in love with the modern, colourful look and decided to make a quilt for our new bedroom. But because I wasn’t sure if quilting was going to be a lasting thing for me, I also decided NOT to buy any special tools. They were expensive, and I already had the cost of fabric to consider. And anyway, what was the use of investing in tools that I might only use for one project? So, what did I end up doing? I’d selected a relatively quick pattern based on strips. Meaning, it would have been a quick make if I’d had pr...

Happy Saturday, and welcome to meet the latest make from my sewing studio! This is a modern quilting blog focused on patchwork, scrappy quilts, zipper pouches, quilted bags, colour theory, and practical quilting tutorials. Today’s entry in the quilt studio diary introduces a finished project: a quilted zipper bag called Tribal. Dear Daughter suggested the name because she saw in something tribal-like in the pattern in the narrow strip just below the half-square triangles on this side: I can also share two process pictures. First, the surfaces just after I’d put them together. You can see that they aren’t even properly pressed yet: All of the half-square triangles in the surfaces must be leftovers from making the Busy quilt, for which I’ve also released a pattern. A week after taking that photo, I had quilted the surfaces and trimmed them to size. I chose intersecting curves for quilting pattern. I got the pattern idea originally from my IG friend Alfhild @alborve and it is ...