What a week: 52Quilters is continuing to grow and I've only got a few days to finish off my guest-posting before I pass the baton to the next quilter.
Now that the Monday to Friday work week is over and I'm starting to unwind I've decided to spend my Friday evening in, ironing out a few stacks of fat quarters that I'll be working with this week. Are you jealous of my glamorous rockstar life?
... speaking of which, please let me acknowledge that I do see the irony in the fact that this project, which is supposed to be "quilting: warts and all" has resulted in posts from both Liberty of London and The Savoy - two places where I am definitely NOT a regular! So please let me give some context:
Last weekend I ventured out to Liberty's and for the first time made some fabric purchases. I love to go to Liberty and drool over the beautiful and curious things there: I've never bought fabric before, but I'm working on a little baby quilt and knew that I could stretch the budget to buy some of their tana lawn for a small project.
So in honour of 52Quilters being a 'special occasion I had a little splurge and bought some fabrics at Liberty. I also had the idea to buy a diary in their gorgeous stationery section, but I overspent slightly on fabric and decided to call it day. It was nice to treat myself, but I had to limit my indulgence and keep my conscience clean!
I'll share a bit more about what I bought at Liberty tomorrow when I share the progress on the quilt I'm working on.
To cut a long story short, we connected over twitter and she invited me down to meet her and check out the show... so at 9:00 am this morning I found myself here:
Jacqueline was a treat to meet: she is very passionate about Soak and all things craft. We talked quilts, trade shows, making it as a maker, maker training and of course 52Quilters. It was a wonderful and serendipitous treat to meet a fellow Torontonian on this side of the Atlantic during my week on the '52.
After our chat I headed to work, but all day I was keen to get home, change into comfy clothes and break out the iron! I decided to start with my Flatter and iron out some fat quarters I'll be using to make my 52 Quilters patchwork piece.
I love the Yuzu fragrance and found it was a treat to iron with it. The spray helped me iron out those frustratingly fixed fat quarter creases and gave the fabric a fresh crispness. After trying it out on my fat quarters, I decided to try it out on the squares I've cut from my Liberty fabrics.
I'll be pairing the squares I've cut above with a heavier Charcoal fabric from Oakshott (pictured next to them), so spraying and pressing with the Flatter helped make these very light cottons a bit stiffer which I think will help with when it comes to sewing them tomorrow.
All in all today was a real treat. After meeting Jacqueline, I'm completely enamoured with Soak stuff. I'll admit, Flatter is not a true necessity, but I'm a very sensory/tactile person and there is something to be said for a product that can make ironing enjoyable on a Friday night. Yes, it is a luxury, but its a small one and in contrast to Liberty and the Savoy it's a luxury that is within my budget!
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| Jacqueline and Chris (and Soak) |
Post by Chris: Chris is the founder and organiser of 52Quilters. He is a crafty guy who has been making his whole life. Although his crafty roots are in Canada, he has been working and crafting in the UK for nearly 10 years. For more of Chris' work visit http://lazycrafternoons.blogspot.com 
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