'Homage to Venice' - Free Quilt Pattern

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'Homage to Venice' - Free Quilt Pattern

…..and as the boat approaches through the last church-crowned islands …….so the whole scene seems to shimmer - with pinkness, with age, with self satisfaction, with sadness, with delight. The navigator stows away his charts and puts on a straw hat: for he has reached that paragon among landfalls, Venice.”

These sentences, paraphrased from the opening pages of the most wonderful book ‘Venice’ by Jan Morris (first published in 1963) for me, perfectly sum up why I love Venice so much and why I wanted to capture a little bit of it’s magic in a sewing project.

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A whole cloth Marimekko quilt

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A whole cloth Marimekko quilt

Sometimes a project comes along that is rather out of the ordinary and challenges you to make something way out of your comfort zone. This piece of fabric has been sitting in the cupboard for several years and then found its way to the bottom of the ironing basket, where it has been hanging out for a couple of months. Impressed that I had actually got to the bottom of the ironing basket the other afternoon, I decided it was finally time to consider what exactly to do with such an amazing piece of textile art.

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A review of the JUKI TL -2200 QVP mini sewing machine

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A review of the JUKI TL -2200 QVP mini sewing machine

For the last four years I have been using a Janome Horizon sewing machine. It’s been a great piece of kit and I love it dearly, but late last year I made the decision to invest in a new sewing machine - the Juki TL-2200 QVP mini. There were a few reasons for this.

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Round and About in Paris

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Round and About in Paris

The brief was, Paris themed with pale green/turquoise.   The fabrics were easy to select.  I chose the backing first.  This may seem a little unusual, but the more quilts I make, the more I am sure that the backing is a key piece of the jigsaw.   Beautiful and bold backings really make the whole project just fantastic and in this case, allowed me to set the Paris theme and the colour way.

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This one is for us!

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This one is for us!

This has been an epic project and last week it was finished! As always, with a big quilt project, it feels like it has been a long and colourful and exhilarating journey and once it is done, you feel a little bereft. It is worse when the quilt is for someone else, but let's be clear - THIS ONE IS NOT GOING ANYWHERE - it is for me and my gorgeous new Chaise Long (Christmas pressie from my Sweetheart!) and my books. What could be more wonderful than languishing on this, under this with a good read on a chilly winter Sunday afternoon?!

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