Ice-Cream Soda Club

The Story...

Ice-Cream Soda is one of those happy convergences of several different goals and ideas I've had swimming around my head for some time. It began with my Paper Daisy Pillow, a bunch of blocks that I made during my Shape Family Challenge with a very simple colour palette. As soon as I'd made a collection of blocks, I knew it wasn't going where I wanted it to, that this pretty blossom was calling out for scraps, for play with value and colour and surprise, rather than repetition. I finished the cushion and let the future scrappy quilt sit for a while. I didn't know how to begin. If I'm going scrappy, do I still pull fabric, do I create a palette? Have I forgotten how to do this?

While looking for inspiration, I came across Jen Kingwell's Daisy Do quilt. Isn't it stunning? Allowing her to be my teacher, I've spent many moments studying this quilt, taking note of the prints Jen used, the way she mixed prints, my favourite parts and the things I might try to do differently. And then I took those reflections to my own stash. First I pulled enough prints to make 3 blossoms. I cut, basted and stitched them together and held them up to ponder. They were a bit clashy for my liking. Maybe a bit more low volume, less colours in each block? I made a few more. Interestingly, these sat a bit flat on their own, in my opinion, much like the originals Paper Daisies from my pillow did, but together with the clashy ones, were starting to create the look I was after.

With each flower, I took note of the way the size of the shape (much smaller than I usually work with) interacted with the print. I made note in my mind which blocks I loved, and which ones I could learn from, and then took note again in the photos. Blocks look really different further back and with friends! My favourite is that pixelated gold one with the coral centre. But as I was making it, I was frustrated by the way the white print was being decimated by the tiny kite. Stand further back though, and it doesn't bother me at all.

I could feel my brain waking up and making connections, after a long slumber of making single-collection quilts. I don't regret the slumber. There's only so much a brain can do, and I'd spent the year molding a new business. But now that we had a little more routine, a little less unknown, space was there waiting to try something new, or more accurately, something as old as the hills, that I was now ready to come back to.

The idea of a Paper Pieces quilt club had been sitting back there too, waiting for the right expression. I'd kind of assumed that one day I would design a quilt with all different blocks so that the pieces arriving monthly would differ, but no grand bolt from the sky has arrived for that one yet. And the more I stitched, the more I became convinced that my first club should be this quilt. Here's the reasons why:

- Making repeat blocks allows for trial and error. You can make blocks you love, and blocks you don't love, you can experiment with big florals and tiny basics, and you can refine where you're going with this quilt. You can takes risks or use prints that usually scare you. If you don't like it, it's just one tiny block, not an entire cog or segment that you laboured over for hours and will bug you later. In the end, all those successes and lessons will still go together beautifully. The scrappy magic!

- Making a quilt where you're learning and experimenting is great done in groups! If a bunch of people are making and sharing their progress, you can learn what you love from their work too, not just your own!

- Before I started hand-stitching quilts, I could knock over a quilt in a week or two. Making an English Paper Pieced Quilt over a year takes away any old pressure to maintain motivation during the entire quilt until it's finished. It's done in bite-size pieces. Bite size is the perfect way to go about a scrap quilt or a block quilt where you're just making a blossom or two or three at a time, choosing prints to match, basting and stitching, starting again. And if you're new to EPP, you'll be a master by the end!

Of course, you don't have to go scrappy. I've already begun to see beautiful monochrome blossoms, stars bordered with solids, blocks made from a long treasured collection, and oh, the fussy cutting! You can find these in the #icecreamsodaquilt tag on Instagram, from the paper samples I offered there a couple of weeks ago. I can't wait to see them grow! Aren't these blossoms by Karen from Pieces of Contentment incredibly beautiful!

The Details...

The finished quilt will be 64" x 66", including a 5" border. Download the PDF here to print and colour in! The paper pieces to make 7 1/2 - 8 blocks will be sent out over 9 months (shipped mid Feb - Oct) and in the 10th month (Nov), we'll send out shapes to make the final 4 half blocks, and the triangles and diamonds to piece the quilt together. The Papers only subscription will cost AUD$10 per month over 10 months including international postage.

If you'd like to go scrappy, but don't have the scraps, or are not quite sure where to start, or just like getting new fabric each month, I'll be offering (24) 2 1/2" x 22" (half Width of Fabric) specially curated strips in the fabric+papers subscription. Each package will have a complete mix of colours and values (light-dark), easy basics and bigger prints, florals and geometric (including samples from Anna Maria Horner's two Loominous collections!). Each member will get a slightly different monthly bundle because I'll be using both my stash and new yardage from the years upcoming collections. Once you receive the fabric, you choose how to put it together, so it will differ slightly from a normal quilt kit, but I like the idea of them being all unique, don't you? I've already carefully chosen the prints from my stash that cut into strips well, so you won't be getting random novelty prints with headless animals or anything like that! You can expect beautiful samples from Cotton + Steel, Denyse Schmidt, Anna Maria Horner and Alison Glass, to name a few. And you're very welcome to bring in your own favourites and use the left over strips for a different project or save them to add to your options in other months. It's the perfect way to learn to go scrappy with only 24 prints a month to choose from. The Papers + Fabric subscription will cost AUD$35 a month for 10 months including international shipping. In the 10th month, you'll get enough prints and papers to make the final 4 half blocks, and the triangles and diamond papers only to stitch the quilt together. The Fabric + Papers subscription does not include fabric for the joining pieces and borders. You'll need to purchase approximately 2 yards of fabric separately for that.

I'll send out the pieces half way through each month so that they arrive ready to stitch together for the following month. When I've shipped them, I'll send out an email with that month's instructions, some inspiration from the club hashtag, and some exclusive monthly specials! I've also created a special Facebook group here if you'd like to join and invite your friends!

The subscription listing will appear in my shop on Friday 3rd February and will only be open from Friday 3rd February - Monday 13th February. I'll be giving 'first month free' codes to people who claimed my free sample and shared it before sign-ups close. If I missed your post, please email me at [email protected] with a link to your Ice-Cream Soda Quilt picture and I'll send you the discount!

Any questions? Feel free to ask below and I'll answer in the comments.

I can't wait to sew with you!

Old Year, New Year

It's a hot summer here this year. The kind of heat that pushes you onto the sofa where you sit dumbfounded most of the day. The kind that makes you watch the mail pile up in the letterbox because you can't bare going out to get it (though, paying your 8 yr old in icy-poles works pretty well too!). The kind where the only moments of clarity you have each day are when you jump into a cold shower morning and evening, draw breath quickly, and alertly enjoy the tingly, cold spray. In those moments when my head is finally clear and I can string sentences together, I've been pondering over a blog post. I miss blog reading. (and writing!) Maybe this is my year to bring it back for me? (though I maybe not be completely coherent until Autumn!)

2016 was a big year for us. We started selling English Paper Pieces online, and I found the process of developing a business, a strategy, a budget, resting all my hopes on my techy husband and his ability to build us a laser cutter, completely terrifying, at times overwhelming, but mostly engaging and fulfilling. Tim and I have always been good friends, so I found myself often relieved that I was starting a business with him, someone with whom I've had a lot of practice in communication and conflict! We also had a lot of help from my graphic designer buddy Hannah, and my brother Josh who's studying a Masters in Business Admin and enjoyed using me as his guinea pig (and I was grateful to oblige!). As someone who needs to process my ideas and decisions out loud, I've been blessed with a family to listen and process with me.

At the beginning of the year, I listened to Abby Glassenberg's podcast episode with Lindsay from Hawthorne Threads. I really enjoyed the whole interview, but her comments about digital fabric printers being finicky have stuck with me all year. It was like a little insight into their world of running a business that reminded me it wasn't always going to be smooth and success. She probably didn't mean her words to inspire, but they have given me courage every time our laser broke down (we eventually, over the holidays, built a new one, which has been working perfectly!), every time we made a mistake, every time things haven't gone to plan, or we just didn't plan enough (or couldn't know enough to plan). I have imagined the folks at Hawthorne Threads with their heads inside the belly of a grumpy Fabric Printer, and I have known that these butterflies and regrets and stresses and embarrassments and waiting, unknowing, are all a normal part of starting a manufacturing business, especially one where you're using newish technology to do an old craft differently. And they have made the successes (of which there have been plenty also!) all the more sweet.

I have been hand-stitching almost exclusively for a year now, and I have to say I'm surprised I haven't tired of it yet. I even had a list of machine sewn quilt ideas drawn up at the start of the year because I assumed my machine would still get some attention, but I never made them. English Paper piecing is slow, but it suits my semi-social self. I say semi because I'm pretty much a homebody, with three extrovert children and an extrovert husband and friendly neighbours, and I spend my life feeling much less interrupted if I'm sitting on the couch or at my dining table stitching. I've even gone as far as to pack my machine away and it comes out for binding and quilting when I need it. My sewing room has also started to look more like a garage (used only for storage) than a creative workspace.

We've come to the end of our 2nd year living in the country and the winds of change have blown upon us. The changes come partly as a result of changing times, and the impact they have on the Christian organisation we work for, and who provides our big house in the country, and partly from within. There have been things that have been perfect for us here - homeschooling next door to my homeschooling brother and his wife, letting our kids have the experience of making friends, exploring creeks, interacting with animals and new folk, often without our direct supervision. I've loved having a safe environment in which to set them free. It's been the perfect setting for starting an online business, with our low cost of living and generous neighbours who have offered babysitting and help packaging. But, we live on campus at a small Bible College, and for the last 2 years, we've had to decide not to run the course due to low enrollments. And Tim and I, thinkers and teachers and creatives at heart, have started to feel a bit lost and solitary in this beautiful farming community. We've missed the crowds and robust conversations that come from living in a university city, and we've wondered whether again, it's time for a something new.

This has left me wondering if the things I feel I need in my life are actually mutually exclusive. I love the space and quiet and beauty of the outback, and the engagement of the city. But there's parts of both that make me shrink and shrivel. How do I live a full life in one or the other? This year I've already started to read and think and understand. I want to know how much comes down to planting yourself in the best ecosystem that suits your personality and needs, and how much is learning joy and contentment wherever you find yourself. Tim and I have begun putting strict boundaries around our weekends, the Saturday for housework and cooking, so that the Sunday can be for resting and reading and talking over things. I love the space it's started to create in my brain and heart.

So far the plan is to stay out the year here, and move around Christmas, maybe to Victoria where the weather is cooler, the homeschooling rules lighter, and where friends of ours are working in community development. But that is as clear as the plan gets. The lack of clarity keeps me awake at night, but I want to give time to see what we learn about ourselves this year, and what opportunities arise to make the decision well.

The other part of the plan, or at least, the conversation, is radical down-sizing. Because Tim and I have given our lives to volunteer Christian work, we don't have savings or own anything of value. Our experience of the rental market has been expensive and unsettling, and so we've been following the Tiny House movement in the States for sometime, wondering how we can take their values and apply them to our situation to provide our family with housing that is simple and affordable and allows us to keep living generously. Tim's ready to buy a trailer and start building, but I, rumbling around with all the other questions at the moment, am still processing.

This conversation has lead me to rethink my fabric stash. Over the last year or so I've been receiving fabric from manufacturers and designers, which has been an amazing gift, but it leaves my old stash almost completely unused. I've been thinking about the way I use fabric and make quilts and have decided that this year I want to A) drastically reduce my stash to what I use all the time, and B) make more scrap quilts that show me again how I love to mix prints and colours. For too long I've been letting the designers do all the work by sticking to a single collection! And so, I've decided to host a kind of BOM club called Ice-Cream Soda (which you may have seen on Instagram or Facebook). I'll be offering papers-only or papers-and-fabric subscriptions over a 10 month period to make the quilt that I've started above. The fabric subscription will include (24) 2 1/2" x 22" strips from my stash and new collections through the year. I think this will be a great way to test all our scrappy courage and help me clear our shelves ready for the next chapter. (and the money from destashing will help us move to the next chapter too!) Sign ups will open on the 3rd February, and the blossom tutorial is already on my MAKE page. I'll post more information here soon! 

And finally, speaking of my MAKE page, there's a few new quilts, never blogged about, that have tutorials up and kits in the shop if you'd like to take a look!

And so! I'm looking forward to this year with a kind of quiet hope. I'm glad for this little space on the web to share my ramblings and pretty colours, glad for you on the other end of the line. Here's to more making, thinking, connecting and finding our place in 2017.

1930s Farmers Wife: Rambling Peony

I call this one rambling, because it is the most unstructured block making I have ever engaged in. There was something about this block (perhaps it's million tiny pieces?) that made me need to take it bit by bit, which probably ended up being not very easy to follow. But I picked up some good tips along the way, so if you've stopped by for the 1930s Farmer's Wife blog hop, hosted by Gnome Angel and Marti Michell, I hope you still find this post useful!

I decided to English Paper piece mine, which took me an entire day. But I settled on EPP because a) I didn't want to have to cut all those tiny fabric pieces accurately, b) I didn't want to try get those teeny pieces through my machine, c) I didn't want to have to iron between each teeny tiny seam. EPP, while slow, was the easiest option for this block in my opinion.

The first thing I did was colour-code the block print out so that it matched the book. The I chose fabrics that were kind of similar in colour because I knew I would get confused easily. Oh my, I'm glad I did this! SO, SO much easier to follow!

And then this is where the rambling began. I almost dove in and cut up the whole block, but I just knew, in this interrupted life of mine, with little ones underfoot, that I would lose pieces. So I decided to make it bit by bit. This is a really different stitching method to what I would usually choose, I would generally start in the middle and work in rounds. But today, this felt like the best way to eat this elephant. One bite at a time.

And so I stitched (and sometimes unstitched - there were mistakes) all through the day...

...bit by bit....

...until it was done! Which, I can tell you, feels like quite the achievement!

Now that it's done and the photos are all snapped, I can see that my prints don't read as one colour as much as I assumed! Teeny tiny pieces only show teeny parts of a print, and in a busy, 6" block I would next time use a solid or two, or many a tiny dot print.

And do you know what else I learned? I really enjoy tiny EPP! I didn't at all expect to. But I spent the day scheming up all kinds of little pretty things. Stay tuned!