Nightshade pillows

Since I first saw Nightshade fabrics by Tula Pink, I knew I have to sew something with them. I ordered some in the Vapor Palette. Two fabrics I like in particular - Coven and Spider Blossom. I decided to sew some gothic/Halloween pillows (there will be more projects made with those fabrics soon). 

The only tricky thing is, that the portraits of Von Black sisters on Coven have oval frames and there is not much background fabric between them. It's difficult to cut out one portrait without destroying the frame of another (if you want to use just the portrait, not the yardage of fabric). But the portraits and the frames themselves are so cool, that I had to find the way to do it ;)

I prepared a block template in EQ7 with an oval center, matching the size of the portraits and sewn the ovals in (they are not appliqued), just like I'm sewing the circles (anybody interested in such templates?):

Kiedy po raz pierwszy zobaczylam nowa linie materialow od Tula Pink - Nightshade, od razu wiedzialam, ze bede musiala cos z nich uszyc. Zwlaszcza dwa materialy z tej serii mi sie podobaja - Coven (portrety dziewczyn w ramkach) i Spider Blossom (ten material w kwiaty z tylu poduszki). Materialy sa w trzech wersjach kolorystycznych. Ja wybralam linie Vapor (ciemny turkus). 

Jedyny minus materialu z portretami jest taki, ze sa one bardzo blisko siebie i trudno jest wyciac pojedynczy portret z ramka tak, zeby nie naciac nastepnego. Ale... dla chcacego nic trudnego ;) Jedynym sposobem bylo wyciecie owalu dookola ramki (elementy bloku zaprojektowalam w Electric Quilt, bo to duzo latwiejsze niz rysowanie recznie :) i wszycie go w panel poduszki (widac uzaleznilam sie od szycia po luku, haha):

The pillows are now listed in my DaWanda shop.

I covered the seam with a thin black lace (just to add a bit of a character to the front):

Na linie wszycia owalu naszylam cienka czarna elastyczna koronke:

Back is buttoned. I bought great buttons (found them by accident on DaWanda) especially for those pillows. They fit perfectly with the style and the colour:

Tyl jest zapinanay na guziki, kupione specjalnie z mysla o tych poduszkach. Pasuja idealnie stylem i kolorem do calosci:

 

And to add a bit more to the Halloween mood...

A zeby bylo bardziej Halloween'owo - moja dynia w tym roku i Wesley przebrany (tylko na chwileczke) za Szczerbatka :D

* my pumpkin this year:

 * and Wesley aka Toothless ;) 

(I just had to make tiny felt wings for him :D He didn't mind wearing them for 5 min when I took the photos; I used handy for it, thus the quality)

EPP Pillow - Travellin' Pic Stitch BlogHop

Today's my stop on the Travellin' Pic Stitch Blog Hop organised by Laura at Quokka Quilts.

What can I say about me and travelling? Lets see... 

I have to confess, that I like to travel and see new places, but not for long. I'm a type of weekend-traveler. Go, see and come back home. I'm also not a fan of big, loud and crowded cities. I do find architecture interesting, I like to visit museums but it's nature which draws me more.

Once in a year, during holidays, I go to my old grandparents house (in Poland) to stay there with my parents for some weeks. I really feel, that that's MY place. I admit, that I miss my home country from time to time (I travel to Poland about 3x a year), but I do not miss my home town, nor the place where I was studying for 5 years. I miss that house of my grandparents, the river, boat trips with my father, forest around and the view from the window. 

So how do I pick places to travel to? If that's a city, it has to have a ZOO and if it's a place for longer holidays it has to be in the middle of nowhere ;) 
Her are my few favourite potos: 

Wczesniej juz wspominalam, ze zapisalam sie na blog-hop, w ktorym to trzeba bylo uszyc cos metoda english paper piecing, bazujac na kolorystyce wybranego zdjecia, zrobionego podczas jednej z naszych podrozy. 
No coz, wielkim podroznikiem to ja nie jestem ;) Lubie wyjezdzac i zwiedzac rozne miejsca, ale nie na dlugo. Taki weekendowy zwiedzacz jestem, haha. Wyskoczyc z domu, pochodzic po obcym miescie, spedzic noc w hotelu a potem powrot. No i nie lubie duzych miast. Sa zbyt glosne i za duzo w nich ludzi. Lubie sobie czasem popatrzec na jakies ciekawe budynki czy pochodzic po muzeach, ale najbardziej ciagnie mnie natura. 
Raz do roku staram sie wyjechac na dluzej nad Zalew Zegrzynski do domu moich dziadkow. Tam jest MOJE miejsce. Nie miasto, w ktorym sie urodzilam, nie to, w ktorym studiowalam przez 5 lat, ale wlasnie tamten dom, gdzie jezdzilam w kazde wakacje i w ktorym spedzalam dlugie tygodnie otoczona naura. Jesli tesknie za Polska, to wlasnie za tym miejscem :) Za lasem nieopodal, zapachem wody w porcie, gdzie moj tata trzyma lodke, widokiem z okna podczas jedzenia sniadanie, lowieniem ryb, zbieraniem grzybow... moglabym tak w nieskonczonosc wymieniac.
A jak wybieram inne miejsca do zwiedzania czy na urlop? Jesli to jest miasto, to musi tam byc ZOO, muzeum historii naturalnej lub ogrod botaniczny, a jesli mam zostac na troche dluzej, to miejsce musi byc oddalone od cywilizacji. To kilka z mich ulubionych zdjec:

Sardinia

MY place

forest near my house

 from Walsrode Vogelpark

from ZOO in Nürnberg

I chose the snow leopard photo to create a color palette for my EPP project as I feel those are my colours. I chose some of my favourite fabrics - Etchings, Curio, and many more which names I don't remember ;) and designed the EPP pattern. Creating the front of the pillow took me about 2 weeks, but the effect is worth it, I think :)

Do stworzenia palety kolorow do mojego projektu wybralam zdjecia pantery snieznej. Raz, ze uwazam je za najwspanialsze i najpiekniejsze dzikie kotowate, dwa, ze bardzo lubie takie kolory. Zaprojektowalam wzor na przod poduszki i 'zawijalam w te papierki' przez okolo 2 tygodnie. Projekt niezwykle czasochlonny, ale bardzo mi sie podoba:

I have a giveaway going on in THIS post (till 31st of October), so if you want to sign in, just hop there and leave a comment :) 

No i nadal zapraszam na rozdawajke :) Zapisy w TYM poscie.

Blogger’s Quilt Festival :: Fall 2012

It's time for next year's

I chose to add my latest finished quilt 'Gearing up':

I'm very proud of that one. First of all, I love the colour combination and second, it won a #2  prize in EZ Dresden Challenge organised by Salt Lake Modern Quilt Guild (I designed and made the quilt for EZ Dresden Challenge). It will be also displayed in EZ Quilting/Simplicity booth during Fall Quilt Market in Houston! Yay! 

quilt #26

Finished quilt measures: 60"x80"

Special techniques used: PP dresden blades, sewing curves,

Quilted by : me on a home sewing machine

Best Category: Throw Quilt

Czas na kolejny Blogger's Quilt Festival - linky, do ktorego dodajemy jeden ze swoich skonczonych quiltow, ktorym chcemy sie pochwalic (trzeba napisac o nim nowy post), a potem mamy szanse na wygranie nagrod (po festivalu beda nominacje i glosowanie). Ja wybralam swoj ostatni quilt - 'Gearing up'. Czemu? Bardzo podoba mi sie takie polaczenie kolorow, kola (nadal nie wyszlam z obsesji szycia blokow z kolami), quilt zajal II miejsce w konkursie EZ Dresden i bedzie wystawiony na pokaz na stanowisku EZ Quilting/Simplicity (sponsora EZ Dresden Chalenge) podczas Fall Quilt Market w Houston - wielkich targow dla quilterow. 

Wymiary quiltu: 152 cm x 200 cm

Specjalne techniki uzyte podczas szycia: paper piecing, szycie po luku

Pikowany: przeze mnie, na domowej maszynie

Have fun visiting other quilters during Blogger's Quilt Festival!

Otis the Owl, Giveaway and Autumn Block Party

Today's my day on Glorious Autumn Block Party organised by Quilting Gallery (on the Quilting Gallery website you will find some more details about me).

My block is another PP block with big-eyed animal ;) [you can find all my patterns HERE]. Meet...

Dzisiaj moja kolej w blog-hop organizowanym przez Quilting Gallery. Moj blok to kolejne wielkookie zwierze ;) Tym razem sowa:

Otis the Owl (12.5" unfinished)

~click HERE to download the PP pattern~

~kliknij aby sciagnac wzor PP~ 

In previous posts with free PP patterns I was giving links to tutorials on paper piecing. You can find them HERE and also HERE.

If you make a block from one of the patterns, don’t forget to add a photo of it to the Glorious Autumn Block Party Flickr Group so everyone can see it. And if you will make Otis block, I'd be really glad if you'd add a photo to Shape Moth Flickr Group also :)

Head over to Quilting Gallery to see all the blocks which were made up to now and visit this week's designers' blogs:

W poprzednich postach ze wzorami podawalam linki do tutoriali PP, wiec nie bede ich dodawac ponownie. Mozecie je znalezc w TYM poscie, a takze TUTAJ. Jesli uszyjecie ktorys z blokow prezentowanych na stronie Quilting Gallery, to dodajcie swoje zdjecia do Flickr'owej grupy QG, a jesli uszyjecie moja sowe, bedzie mi bardzo milo, jesli dodacie tez zdjecie do Flickr'owej grupy Shape Moth :) 

Ponizej linki do blogow quilterek, prezentujacych swoje bloki w tym tygodniu:

Cherry Blossoms Quilting Studio
http://www.cherryblossomsquiltingstudio.com/

Victoria - Bumble Beans Inc.
http://bumblebeansinc.blogspot.com/

Giveaway!
has already ended

To make a good party even better, I have a giveaway for you!

Fat Quarter Shop sponsored a FQ bundle of Lemon Cosmos Collection by Laura Gunn for one lucky winner:

No a jak sie bawic, to sie bawic na calego! Fat Quarter Shop zasponsorowal rozdawajke dla odwiedzajacych. Do wygrania zestaw tlustych cwiartek Lemon Cosmos Collection od Laury Gunn:

You just need to leave a comment under this post :) Nothing more. 

The giveaway will end on 31st of October, 23:50 CET and I will randomly choose a winner at 24:00 CET (31.10).

Wystarczy napisac komentarz pod postem. Nic wiecej :)
Rozdawajka trwa do 31go pazdziernika do 23:50, a zwyciezce wylosuje o 24:00.

Frame purses - shop update

As I recetly mentioned, I've sewn some more frame purses. All except two are made of little hexagons (got a crush on EPP last days ;) It's lots of work, it's extremely time consuming but I absolutely love the end effect.

All purses are now listed in my DaWanda SHOP.

Jak ostatnio pisalam, uszylam kilka nowych portmonetek z biglem. Wszystkie poza dwiema sa recznie szyte z hexagonow. Zajmuje to strasznie duzo czasu, ale efekt szalenie mi sie podoba:

Those are my three favourites. First made with scraps of olive green (Curio and Origins by BasicGrey), black/grey/white (Etchings by 3 Sisters, Wordplay by Benartex, Lost and Found by Riley Blake):

Moje trzy ulubione. Pierwsza szaro-oliwkowa (materialy: Curio i Origins od BasicGrey, Etchings od 3 Sisters, Wordplay od Benartex'u, Lost and Found od Riley Blake'a):

second in very delicate pastel colors (fabrics - Curio by BasicGrey):

druga pastelowo rozowa i niebieska (niezmiennie kojarzy mi sie z kolorami pudrowych pastylek z dziecinstwa; materialy - Curio od BasicGrey):

and third made with Oakshott Ruby Red cottons:

a trzecia zrobiona ze slicznych rubinowych czerwieni z Oakshott Cottons:

Bohemian / Gypsy. Pastiche bee ~ block for September.

And I'm still to late with Pastice bee blocks... I know. I planned to finish the September one last week, but it didn't worked then. It worked today :)

I znowu sie spoznilam z pszczelim blokiem. Juz polowa pazdziernika, a ja dopiero skonczylam wrzesniowy. Ale, jak to mowia, lepiej pozno niz wcale ;) 

The center mandala I finished a while ago. It's hand drawn (you can clearly see that, the circle is not perfectly round ;) ) and painted. The colours are not mine, so I had some difficulties finding the right fabrics for the block (I really do not have any navy blue or cobalt blue-coloured fabrics, just shades of aqua, teal or turquoise). I'm happy that once I got some squares of bright-coloured fabrics from Julianna. They saved the day :D 

WIP:

Srodek skonczylam juz jakis czas temu i czekal na dorobienie ramki. Jest recznie rysowany (co widac, bo kolko nie wyszlo idealnie okragle) i malowany. Kolory zupelnie nie moje, wiec mialam troche klopotow ze znalezieniem odpowiednich materialow (okazalo sie, ze nie mam nawet kawalka typowego niebieskiego; mam rozne odcienie turkusow, ale niebieskiego niet...). Na moje szczescie, dostalam kiedys od Julki zestaw kwadratow w energetycznych kolorach. Bardzo sie przydaly :D

Praca w toku:

I added some little details to the painted circle using golden embroidery floss:

Drawing curves with EQ7 - tutorial

I was planning to write another Electric Quilt 7 tutorial for a long time. This time on drawing curves (very useful feature I have to admit). 

Last time I didn't really finish any new project that I could show you now (I have one EPP finished which I will show on 27th of October, I've made some purses for my shop but don't have photos yet and I had a trial week in a new job :) ), I decided that it's a good time for writing a tutorial :) 

Tak tytulem wstepu tylko. Niewiele szylam przez ostatnie dwa tygodnie. Tzn. szylam, ale niewiele skonczylam. Duzo czasu zajal mi projekt English Paper Piecing (ktory bede mogla pokazac dopiero 27go pazdziernika), uszylam kilka nowych portmonetek do sklepu (ale nie porobilam jeszcze zdjec), mialam tydzien probny w potencjalnej nowej pracy (moze sie uda :) ), no wiec tutek wydawal mi sie najlepszym rozwiazaniem. Bedzie po ang, zeby nie balaganic. Jest duzo print screenow po drodze i mysle, ze nie jest trudny. To kolejny tutek z serii o Electrc Quilt 7, tym razem jak rysowac luki w tym programie. 

I pytanie do was - jest jakis konkretny tutorial, ktory chcielibyscie zobaczyc na moim blogu? Teraz w sieci jest tyle tutkow, ze nie chcialabym pisac o czyms, o czym kilkanascie(dziesiat) osob juz napisalo ;)

** question: is there any special tutorial which you would like to see on my blog? I'm open to anything :) **

You can find my first EQ7 tutorial HERE (on drawing PP patterns).

First of all, you will need an idea which kind of block you want to sew. You can of course draw the block templates by hand (it's especially easy when you have some special curved rulers), at the end just adding the seam allowance to the pieces. No problem. I was drawing curves like that, before I learned how to do it in EQ7. But it's (i) time consuming, (ii) might be not really so acurate and (iii) did I mention time consuming? I always hated drawing seam allowances around each part; it was taking ages. 

As in my first EQ7 tutorial, in this one I will base my work on an already existing picture. I was drawing 2 different blocks with curved pieces in Photoshop to show you how EQ7 works:

Worktable ->Work on Block 

Block -> Easy Draw Block [1]

Tracing image tab on the bottom left [2] -> Import Image Icon [3]

More details about Importing Pictures in the first EQ7 titorial.

Names of the buttons on the left sidebar:

The picture is already displayed. 

Choose Easy Draw tab [1].

Be sure to choose 'Snap to lines and arcs of drawing' button as well as 'Snap to nodes of drawing' (this one is especially important if you are drawing multiple arcs in one shape  - more details later) on the top (right) sidebar.

Choose Arc tool [2]:

Left click at the point you want to start drawing curve [1] and drag the line (left mouse button pressed all the time) to the end point [2]. Now you have drawn a curved line, which is anchored to the edges of your block. What you still need is to adjust the shape of the curve to your needs.

Click 'Shape' tool [1] and left click on the curves line which you want to edit. Two dotted lines meeting in one point will show. Left click on that point [2] and - pressing the left mouse button all the time - start to move the point around. You will see how the shape of the arc will change:

If you are happy with the result and the arc matches the shape of the curve on your picture (for those who do not use picture as a template  - you can just play with the curves' shapes as you like), just stop pressing left mouse button. The curve will stay as it is:

When you press Color Tab (bottom of the window) you can see that drawing the curve was succesful: 

 

Continue with other curves in the same way. For printing the pattern (more details on this topic in the first EQ7 titorial) I choose or 'Foudation pattern' or 'Templates' (if you choose 'Foundation pattern' you have a possibility to print mirrored templates while when selecting 'Templates', the templates will be not mirrored). Of course you cannot foundation (paper) piece curved templates. Such option of printing gives you just chance to get mirrored templates.

 

But what if you drag at the arc and it just doesn't want to create a line in the shape you like? Method shown above works perfectly for gentle curves.

 

What works the best for me is drawing multiple arcs to create one shape. How many arcs? You just have to try. Usually 3-5 work for me.

Remember about top right buttons - 'Snap to lines and arcs of drawing' and 'Snap to nodes of drawing.  

Draw the first arc:

Second arc will start where the first one ended, the third where the second ended (and in this case, will anchor te shape to the edge of the block):

Click on 'Color' Tab to see if your drawing worked (sometimes it happens, that some lines do not snap where they should; I click on 'Color' tab several times while I draw; it helps correct mistakes quickly):

Draw all the shapes in the same way. As you can see, for creating one curve I've drawn 3 arcs, for another - 4 arcs.

Hope the tutorial was a bit helpful :) If you have any questions, I will do my best to help you.