Visit to Tikki and Architextures

Liberty fabric will always top my list, but I could not resist these totally modern and graphic fabrics at Tikki London.  Although this wonderful shop is only about 4 miles away from me, I had never visited before. I just had to put that right after reading this post about fabric stores in London on the Needles and Lemons blog.
The shop, in Kew (south west London) is quite small but I could not believe how much the owners have managed to get in there. Anything I could not see was produced as if by magic by the friendly staff.  After about an hour I ended up with some fat quarters, a pattern for a bag and some threads.  I will certainly be visiting Tikki again before too long.

Some of the fabrics are from the Architextures range by Carolyn Friedlander for Robert Kaufmann.  I've seen a lot about this fabric online, but the fabrics look even better in real life.

As soon as I got this bundle home, Number One Son asked me to make a cover for his iPad mini with the Architextures fabrics.  So I cut two 6.5 inch wide strips a bit longer than twice the length of the iPad to allow for a flap.   Then I sandwiched them together with some lightweight polyester wadding (batting) which was leftover from another project.  

My original plan was to quilt it with diagonal lines in orange but in the end I decided it might look too busy. So I left it unquilted and simply sewed up the edges.   It is finished but still needs Velcro - I thought I had some somewhere but could not find it. Must get organised!

Skinny Log Cabin

Log cabin blocks have always been my favourite.  They are easy, use up small scraps, and have many variations.  In August there are a lot of birthdays in my family  - two of them will be getting log cabin quilted makeup bags. I hope they will appreciate the depredation on my hoard of Liberty Lawn.

This blue and yellow bag has logs 3/4 inch wide.

For the blue one I went down to half an inch wide.

I started to wonder how small I could go with these log cabin blocks.  Valerie Campbell-Harding's book Strip Patchwork is the best book I know on working with strips.  Although it was published a hundred years ago in 1983 you can still find it on Amazon.  She suggests using a piece of calico as a foundation fabric for folded strips.     Using this method I was able to get down to 1/8 inch strips although by first attempt is not very square.  Here is is in the machine:

It really is very tiny.  I am not yet sure what it is for (people have learned to stop asking me what things are for- do they have to be for anything in particular?) but I expect and idea will come to me.

This is my first blog post.  I am not expecting loads of visitors, but if by some accident you find yourself here, you are welcome to leave a comment.  If I can work out how to do it, I will link up with Crazy Mom Quilts for finish it up Friday.