This is the second year that the Moda Bakeshop have hosted their wonderful Quilter's Summer Camp and this year we're at the beach. Since June the Bakeshop Chefs have been sharing their beautiful blocks along with their favourite seaside memories. Today is my turn and where else would I whisk you off to but Cornwall? Photos from our trip to St. Ives earlier this month... My block is based on that perennial British favourite: the Beach Hut. The place where we wriggle into sandy

I’m blaming Trish. You see, just before Christmas I shared a tutorial for a Dala Horse block on the Moda Bakeshop, as part of their fabulous Countdown to Christmas (you can download a printable PDF pattern here). The lovely Trish - on Instagram - suggested a sew-along and I think I knew then and there that it was going to happen. Especially when I was staring at the scraps from my Sailing By sampler: hello Swedish blues and yellows. Also, I have no willpower. A casual, in-bet

Have you been opening the Moda Bakeshop Advent Calendar this year? My fellow Chefs and I have been rustling up some Christmas treats for you and my recipe has a distinctly Scandinavian flavour. The Dala Horse block can be made in two sizes - 6" or 12" - and there are oodles of options for fussy cutting your fabric or adding folk-inspired embroidery to give your Dalahäst an authentic, hand-painted look. EDIT: Download a printable PDF pattern for the Dala Horse Block here. You

A very warm ‘welcome aboard’ if you’re joining me from the Moda Bakeshop, I hope you’re enjoying this month’s Building Blocks series and discovering new ways to use those scrummy pre-cuts. I was thrilled to bits to get the chance to share a tutorial for Half Rectangle Triangles as I love what they can bring to my quilts, whether it’s a steep roof, pointy beak or fluttering sail, they always add so much personality. Now, the best way I know to keep your piecing skills shipshap

We rarely have snow in Shropshire, but this month it arrived right on cue as I joined the Moda Bakeshop chefs in their Countdown to Christmas. Each day in the run up to Christmas we have been posting a fun festive block, to be used together in a sampler quilt or individually in smaller projects. Sort of like an advent calendar without chocolate...which is slightly disappointing but it does involve fabric, so that’s OK then ;-) My design was inspired by a sprig of Holly and I

I was lucky enough to post another Moda Bakeshop recipe last month. A pretty Charm-Pack-friendly quilt I called 'Woodruff' (you can find it here). I made a similar quilt as a gift for my Mum, not long after I started quilting, which repeated the same block throughout the quilt to give a sort of plaid effect. I pieced that version with Charm Packs too, cutting all the little squares individually. So I was immediately drawn to this quilt, found on Pinterest... A very well-loved

A warm welcome if you've joined me from the marvellous Moda Bakeshop. Here, as promised, are my favourite tips for those of you considering hand quilting your Woodruff Quilt. Or any quilt, for that matter. I love hand-quilting and find it very relaxing. I particularly enjoy the transformation of three separate layers of fabric - feeling their weight draped over my palm - to one continuous piece of quilted fabric, which somehow takes on a life of its own, feeling lighter in m

The lovely people at the Moda Bakeshop have let me post another tutorial - it's called Stepping Stones, you can find it here - and I thought it would be fun to share a little more about my inspiration for this quilt. Stepping Stones was inspired by a beautiful, hand-pieced Tumbling Block quilt-top in the Gawthorpe Textile Collection, made between 1875-1900. I first saw it in Gail Marsh's wonderful book 19th Century Embroidery Techniques - I bought mine here - which details it

I had always planned to include a couple of blocks from my patterns in my Keep Calm and Carry On quilt. The cakestand block from Vintage China fitted a treat, but the umbrella block from Jolly Brollies was a tad too small, so it was back to the drawing board or, rather, the computer to tweak the size of the template. The block is based on a Dresden Fan block. I have always loved the look of those beautiful 1930's Dresden quilts, but I didn't love using the fiddly templates,

I finished my Keep Calm And Carry On quilt this morning and I'm a little bit sorry. I've thoroughly enjoyed making every single block, possibly because they've all been slightly different and all had their own little challenges. And there's been plenty of opportunity to procrastinate over fabric choices, which is one of my favourite parts of quilting. Because, truth be told, I rather like a quilt to go together slowly. There's a luxury in taking my time and enjoying the proce

Thanks to Storm Imogen and a rather wet and windy weekend in Cornwall I've been whizzing through my Moda Bakeshop Birthday Sew-along blocks. Some letters are slightly more challenging than others, so I eased myself in with a couple of 'E's *ahem* before moving on to the trickier blocks with diagonal sections. And I couldn't resist tweaking a couple of the letters. I had larger pieces of some of the prints in my Avalon Jelly Roll, so I constructed my 'M' and 'Y' with triangle-

I'm slightly overexcited to tell you that I've written a tutorial for the Moda Bakeshop. It's for a quilt that I've called 'Speedwell' - you can find it here - because it goes together so quickly. So quickly, in fact, that since it was posted on Friday, a lovely lady called Jennifer has already made one. Which was a bit thrilling. The Bakeshop is a wonderful resource for quilters and quilt-shop owners. All the patterns use their popular pre-cuts and are ABSOLUTELY FREE. Which

Have you ever joined a sew-a-long? I'm always keen and have sewn along with Flickr and Instagram groups - both photo-sharing sites - which allow you to see what your fellow quilters are making: learning and being inspired as you go... My first foray into the world of online quilting was almost exactly four years ago when I joined the Swoon-along on Flickr to make Camille Roskelley's wonderful - and wildly popular - 'Swoon' quilt. Me and 1,500 other people. Really. I went on