Tilkunviilaaja®

Hello hello! Welcome to have a peek in my sewing studio! Lately, I’ve been busy sewing patchwork surfaces into quilted zipper bags, and this post introduces the first of those finishes. I’ve called it Legato, which is a music term meaning “tied together” – that the notes are to be played or sung smoothly without a silence between one note and another. I used to play the piano in my childhood and youth, so the notation and the term became familiar to me. Legato felt like the right name choice because of the way the petals of the coneflower blend into the neighbouring reds in this surface. The other side of the Legato quilted zipper bag is constructed in a similar way – around a focal fabric piece – but the orientation is horizontal: Both surfaces are a rarity for me because I built them using the quilt-as-you-go method. The surface ends up looking as if it has not been quilted though it has, and I’m not sure how I feel about the look. In some earlier projects, I have added qu...

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...

Choosing only five quilts out of the nearly 100 that I’ve made was easier than one might think. In this post, I share the chosen top five and one bonus quilt. If you enjoy scrappy quilts and bold colour combinations, you may find ideas and encouragement for your own projects. All of these quilts are examples of how value contrast matters more than colour choices. What makes a quilt become a favourite? My favourite quilts have all evoked a specific feeling in me. Surprise, delight in discovery, satisfaction of applying a gained insight, accomplishment, joy, and pleasure. 1. Empress Ramandu – strange blocks turned into a surprisingly lovely quilt Empress Ramandu quilt is one of my favourites because it surprised me so pleasantly. When I was sewing the blocks for my quilt Empress Ramandu, I honestly began to worry about the result. The fabrics looked strange together, and I thought that I would have to use the eventual quilt as nothing more than a picnic quilt. At the same ti...

Grey is one of the most – if not the most – versatile neutral colours in quilting. It is a softer colour than black, and it will help your highlight colours stand out. In this post, I share practical tips about the use of grey in quilting using my own quilts and quilted items as examples. Grey represents neutrality, simplicity, peace, future-orientedness and logic. Grey is not an emotional colour, and it is associated with technology, industrial activity, control, professionalism and even with elegance. Not all greys are colourless – a pure mix of black and white. There are all shades, ranging from yellowish to purplish and brownish: And then there is the special brown-grey colour called taupe. Taupe is the colour that is just as brown as it is grey. The word “taupe” comes from the French word for mole whose fur is of that colour. It may be that quilters find taupe more interesting than other people because Japanese quilters use it abundantly and in very chic ways. They are maste...