Tilkunviilaaja®

I’ve shared many tips and how-tos lately because I love to be helpful. I hope that you readers have found my posts helpful! Today, though, I’m going to share the quilting projects that I’m working on in my sewing space. If you tend to have several projects in progress, you’ll be able to relate to this studio diary post. Here’s what’s currently on my table (and slightly off it): Unfinished quilt projects Two – no, three! – quilt projects are waiting to be completed. The first one is my flimsy that combines Xs and four-patches-in-squares. It's waiting to be taken to long-arm quilting. After I took its sunny pictures earlier this month, I folded it and set it down on a sofa. Now I see that it’s accidentally been taken in with two folded quilts, turning them into a sort of pillow. It will have to be re-pressed after this treatment! The second unfinished project is the one with Kaffe Fassett squares surrounded with a lot of scrappiness. I've shared the beginning of th...

This post is part of my Splendid colour tips series, where I share helpful information to help you choose fabrics and colours with more confidence. In this post, I share my thoughts and practical tips about the use of purple in quilting and use my own quilts and quilted items as examples. In this post you’ll discover:  how different purples can behave next to blue, red, yellow, green and turquoise common colour-contrast problems when sewing with purple (and how to avoid them) reliable ways to combine purple fabrics successfully in your own quilts  Purple is a colour for queens, kings, and royalty. It represents success and wisdom. It has traditionally been associated with wealth because the colour was difficult and expensive to produce. Only the richest could afford purple garments. In quilts, purple isn’t a symbol – it is a colour that has its own characteristics. What to watch out for when using purple in quilts Certain purples can look brown in the finished quilt, so wa...

Today’s post concentrates on brown colour in quilts. It may not be the most exciting colour, but it can be very useful! You will get a tip or two on what to watch out for and many examples of how to use brown fabrics in your quilts with success. Brown is a colour in its own right, even though it is not one of the colours of the rainbow. One can also think of it as a very dark orange. In the CMYK colour model, brown is created by mixing yellow, magenta, and black. I remember the carboard palettes of watercolours at school: one got brown by mixing red, yellow and blue. The result was usually an ugly brown. And the water used for cleaning the brush became rather an unattractive shade of brown after one had dipped the brush in it a couple of times. Wikipedia mentions that both European and US polls reveal that brown is the people’s least popular favourite colour. (Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown ) What to watch out for when using brown Too much brown may make the quilt ...

Greetings from the Tilkunviilaaja studio! May I introduce to you my first quilt finish of 2026: Serious quilt (Totinen in Finnish). She is basking in the wintry sunshine on the snow that is full of children’s footprints. We were doing the photoshoot on the top of a small hill where children come to go down it on their sleds. I saw a quilt like this in completely different colours and decided to make a version with a very dark background. My 16-blocks would also feature certain coloured squares from corner to corner. I knew that I would find enough fabrics for this quilt in my stash. These were the first blocks sewn, early in October 2025. At this point, I was very inspired! Indeed, I had no shortage of suitable fabrics for the squares: And yet, even with a sizeable stash, I could not help but buy an exciting mystery bag from the local quilt shop Tilkkunen. I happened to see that a limited number of such bags was available and I just could not help myself. This is what the bag looke...