Slow Quilt

I did not come to quilting via the traditional block. I came to it with a bunch of squares, next to my machine, all sewn together randomly with as little up and down to the iron as possible. I still like to make a quilt that way. But in the last year, I've come to appreciate the quilt block. Not just the look of them. I've always loved how they looked. Now I am learning to like the making also.

I cannot say enough how much I am enjoying this new line by Maureen Cracknell. Wild and Free is a sweet mix of basics, low volume and stand out prints. I pulled together a bundle of about 15 prints because this Luminous Field welcomes so many other colours to the mix. But eventually I settled on this limited palette, including only Sarah Jane's Glow Friends as an extra, and leaving the Folk Plaid for the backing.

When I was a teenager, we lived on 100 acres, about 4 hours north of Sydney. Before we lived there, it was a weekender, a horse riding retreat owned by a couple who divorced and sold the property in the settlement. When we moved, in the middle of winter, there was no electricity, no house, just a bunch of sheds, two caravans, 16 horses, an old Land Rover, and the most amazing view of the mountains. Every night, we heated our dinner over the campfire, then heated our water for washing up and showers. Then we sat around the fire to keep warm before bed. I felt like I had the most wonderful family in the whole world! These prints remind me of those peaceful and adventurous days (though I'm sure they were challenging for my mum!) before electricity and TV re-entered our life.

I'm cutting this quilt, mostly with my Accuquilt, in small sections. I haven't done the maths to tell me if I'll have enough fabric to make a queen size quilt. I don't really have the head for that kind of thing, so I'm making it block by block, laying it out on my design wall as I go, so I can match up the Sun Tracks, and the Woven Path fabrics. They are such perfect prints to play with in this way! And the repeat is big enough that each on-point square looks slightly different.

I've had the funny experience over the last few weeks of grieving finishing a quilt too early. Whenever I've gone into my studio and thought about what I've felt like making, I've settled on my Flying Geese quilt. And then I remember that I finished it just after Christmas so I could give it to my brother and sister-in-law! So I'm taking this one in slowly. I haven't settled on a quick chain peicing method yet. I'm still doing one block at a time. Then I put it on the board. Then I stare at it for a while. Then I grab a cup of tea. And then in the in-between times, I'm working on a faster quilt, one that doesn't need a bird's eye view, and that I'm not so emotionally attached to. Because I don't want to rush this. I want it to stay with me as part of my memories moving back to the country. I want it to evoke those feelings of quiet and adventure, of taking chances and fresh starts.

Linking up to Wip Wednesday and Fabric Tuesday.

Use Your Words Quilt.

I have my first finish for 2015! And I usually try to avoid clothesline photos, but when your new clothesline is old wobbly fencing wire woven through old timber planks, next to an old rusty bath tub and blue shipping container, it's worth a try, right? Add to that a husband away for the week, and a break in the rain, and it's practically fate!
This was my already cut, post Christmas haze quilt. No thinking. Just plug in and play. So while I fed fabric through my machine, I let it's therapeutic hum take my mind around all the events of the last few months, and various things that lead to me being here today.

When I was about 15, I wrote a music essay for school. I remember putting a lot of thought into how I would frame the arguement and bring it all together. My teacher handed it back with high praise. She told me she thought I should pursue journalism as a career. It meant a lot to me and I thought about it seriously. I chose all my subjects the following year that involved a lot of writing so I could improve. And then at the end of the year, I applied for a week long work experience with the local News station.
After a week talking to people about their pets, listening to the police radio chatter in hope of some disaster and doing a story about a school musical, I was utterly discouraged. What was the point?
I finished school the following year, tired of writing and completely bewildered as to how I could use it in a 'real' job and I went to Poland instead and became a missionary in an old Polish castle.

It wasn't until recently, when I was considering my name change, and thinking about what I love most about this part of my life, that it was the writing that stood out to me as a really important process of my making. I enjoy quilting most when I'm doing it to say something. Not necessarily preachy things or teachy things. I just like telling my story and having your share yours.
I chose these texty prints because I thought the Drunkards Path blocks in circles might look like thought bubbles. They don't. But I still like how graphic it is. And almost 3-dimensional. Unisex. Grown up. All those parts were pulled off like I hoped!

And here I am, 20 years later, enjoying the fulfillment of those encouraging words way back then, and in such a different way than I could have ever imagined. Proof that if you use your words kindly, you never know the long lasting fruit that can grow ever so slowly inside someone's heart.  

Linking up with Finish it up Friday

The WIP Box Reflections

About nine months ago I wrote a blog post, setting the goal to empty my Works in Progress box. I've been planning for a few weeks now to write and share how I didn't reach my goal. My WIP box is still full. But this morning when I sat down in front of my box to take stock, I realised it wasn't full of the same projects, but with different ones. In fact, I think apart from a pile of dresses that I just can't manage to finish off, most of the quilts in this box were all started last year.
So it got me thinking about my year of WIP box finishes and how I feel about this old box that has haunted me since I started collecting projects as well as fabric.

I've always wished I was the kind of person to work on one quilt at a time. Press, cut, sew, press, quilt, bind, give or sell. Then move on to the next one. It's such a clean process, that I've assumed my head, which is always busy with kids and ideas and expectations, would find restful and comforting. This could be my one area of life that is ordered and clear cut. That was my goal last year. To clear out my box of disorder so I could have a clean slate. But instead of changing my habits, I think I discovered/accepted something even better. For me, anyway.

The first important thing that happened was that I pulled this box down from the shelf, made a new home on the floor, and opened the lid. Then, as I needed gifts for friends, or new inspiration struck for old, forgotten blocks, they were there to work on. Quilts like the one above, which I'd been working on for over a year, came together in the end, quickly and joyfully, and with great purpose. I realised that often I'd lost joy for a project because it was taking so much longer than I had anticipated. But coming back to it fresh was a bit like starting again, but with all the little, time-hungry piecing or cutting already done.

Projects that I really wasn't happy with, I let go, and took to with the seam ripper. If a friend came around for a coffee, I gave her one too, and we sat and chatted together and made the work go faster. I was surprised at how satisfying this was. Much more, in fact, that pushing on and spending time and money finishing a quilt that I didn't like. And now I have that fabric back! Albeit in 2.5" strips or 5" squares, but I've now given them their own bag or box and I dig through them often.

There are times (in the month? I'm sure it's hormone related!) where I'm absolutely bursting with ideas. I spend my evenings drawing and the kids rest time cutting and laying out. Then there are times when all I can do is sit and chain piece, while I let my brain mull over things that are tricky, or tune out completely. The quilt above started as a Collage layer cake that I won nearly two years ago from Fabric Bubb. Then, when in the mood for playing, out came different co-ordinating fabrics, which became a pile that sat together for 6 months or so. Then one weekend late last year, while Tim was away, even thought there were gifts to make and boxes to pack, I pulled out my Accuquilt and started cutting in front of a movie one evening. The cut pile went back in the WIP box until after Christmas when I just needed to work on something that was already thought through, something I could stitch in short intervals between unpacking and hosting guests. When inspiration hit again, a completed quilt top was set aside while I followed my fancy with this new quilt below. Then on the weekend, the longing for long, monotonous quilting struck, and and I finished the quilt last night.

I think the thing I love most about blogging is the discipline of taking note, sharing goals, and telling stories. It helps me appreciate who I am and how I work best. Without it, I'm not sure I would have learned to embrace my WIP box as something that enables me to work effectively rather than as a sign of a lack of discipline or productivity. I would have kept assuming that I'd failed at my WIP box challenge, rather than succeeding at the most important parts, that I let it empower my creativity, and learn to use it well. I would have assumed my habits hadn't changed, rather than realising they'd changed in a wonderful way - I was rifling through this box regularly for inspiration, rather than hiding it in a cupboard in shame.

So my goal for this year? To trust myself. To put something down when I don't have the drive for it anymore, knowing I'll come back to it later with a fresh vision and energy. To not let those scrappy strips or charm squares hang over my head impatiently, but to wait for a good idea to use them. And to enjoy the seasons of creating and innovating, rather than squash them out with a list of rules and unfinished projects.

Want to join me?

Linking up to Fabric Tuesday and WIP Wednesday.

A Blog by any Other Name.

While arranging my new studio in the last few weeks, bringing order, making plans, diving into new projects, it suddenly struck me that something that had been on my mind for around two years, that is to change my blog name, had now shed any barriers standing in my way.
Tickle & Hide started as a handmade, reversible kids clothing brand which sold at local markets and on Etsy. But while I enjoyed making kids clothes, I wasn't driven by it. When I followed new blogs, they were always quilters. When I had new ideas, it was for quilts. I never ventured into the online world of kids couture with new designs and ideas and relationships. I just liked the way beautiful prints looked like wearable art on the flat, almost seamless design of the crossover pinafore.

When I opened my pop up shop in town, pinnies sold like hot cakes. My brand became truly 'local' and well received. And even though I already had doubts as to whether Tickle & Hide would serve me well long term, I decided it was too late to change. It wasn't worth starting over.


In a way, that starting over has happened naturally the past year on its own. As a maternity leave treat to myself, I dropped the expectation to make any money and just make for fun. And slowly, I have shed the image (for myself at least) as a kids clothing label, and morphed into a quilter. Moving here to our new country home has felt like a reinforcing of that, leaving the customers and fellow market sellers that so connected me to gifts for children.



When I sat not so long ago and wrote my thoughts and dreams for the new year, like a bolt of lightning, it struck me. Now is the right time to change. Partly because by the grace of Google, I should be able to change things now without losing you all and begging you to follow me, an option not available to me two years ago. And partly because a lot of our connecting has moved to Instagram, where it's easy (and fairly common) to change names. Finally, all my ideas felt a bit disconnected, a bit uncomfortable under this beloved old name. I didn't really like the idea of Tickle & Hide branding on pattern publications or on ideas for magazines. I'd spent the last 4 years growing up as a creative person, first only using others' ideas, now developing my own. I needed a name to reflect that maturation.

And so I chose a new name, after lots of brainstorming, messaging friends, Googling to check if names were already taken. I'll be spending the new week or so switching everything to Tales of Cloth. I wanted a name more closely connected my area of interest, but still broad enough to evolve. I wanted an emphasis on storytelling through making, on inspiration from history and everyday life. So really, what I write about here won't change all that much. I have hopes for growth, for stretching myself, but the heart of why I write remains to same.

I hope you'll stay with me in this next chapter! It is your encouragement here that has done just that - given courage - to be more myself. I feel excited to move forward without the 'shackles' of a name that no longer fits, and to just give myself permission to make in a way that energises me, rather than trying to maintain an old, lost vision.

And I'd love to know what you think!

Jodi. xx

Country Geese

Tonight we ate dinner at our dining room table (a luxury we missed in our old, small house), quickly ironed my finished quilt in my new studio (it's really way too big to be called merely a "sewing room"), and walked down Cucumber Lane, our new address, to the Lucerne fields for photos in the evening light. 

We have had a wonderful, relaxed Christmas. With everything new enough to feel like we're really on holidays, but with all our stuff here too, to make it feel like home. We've got our first, real Christmas tree since we got married, and we've been eating locally grown cherries, bought from the side of the road, from an old farmer who enjoys a chat. We've been listening nostalgically to Amy Grant Christmas albums from the '80s, drinking coffee, watching movies, sitting out on the front verandah over looking the view. I haven't done any baking (which suits me just fine!), but I have been sewing.

This flying geese quilt was made from all the leftover half square triangles from my last quilt. I cut a lot of triangles! I blame it entirely on the Accuquilt Go cutter I have. It's been perfect for turning all my funny shaped scraps into usable shapes. And apparently it's so easy (therapuetic maybe?), that I just kept cutting away till I had this many.
I really enjoyed making this quilt. Partly because I loved the colours together, so quiet, happy satisfaction kept me company throughout my sewing, rather than constant doubt or reassessing. The simple, repetitive pattern allows for some lines to be lost where colour or value is similar, and it doesn't detract from the overall effect. I was constantly careful with the Nine Patch Dash to create as much contrast as the prints allowed. But I didn't even worry about that here.

I also love the light and space in my new sewing room. In my last house, while my sewing room was big enough, I sat awkwardly in a corner. I didn't even really think about it until moving here and sitting along a long, white wall which feels so open and spacious. The window near my machine overlooks our large front yard which is full of trees, with mountains in the background.

 Ahhh. Can you tell I feel like I've taken a deep breath? I think we all have. We are so thankful. And my mind is abuzz with ideas and colour. I can't wait to show them off here in these beautiful fields.

Hello, Win a Jelly Roll!

Hello! This is me:

Quilts, 3 kids, suburbia, Australia. Madly packing up the house to move to our new oasis in the country this weekend!

This is my giveaway!

I'm joining in Sew Mama Sew's Giveaway Day with this Figures Jelly Roll and a PDF copy of my Drawstring Quilt Pattern! Remember those Lego play mats I had as a kid? This is just like that, but all sewn, prettier, and perfect for baby. My pattern has lots of colour photos, making it great for a confident beginner.

To enter, simply leave a comment below this post. Tell me, are you going to have a HOT Christmas like me? Or a COLD one? Then pop back up to this friendly Rafflecopter widget and let it know you've left a comment. It will then show you extra ways to enter.
(If you follow some way other than Bloglovin', like via email or Feedly, or Facebook, feel free to enter that option! And thank you!)
This giveaway ships internationally.

Thanks for stopping by and joining in!


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Sew the Library

When I did my year long fabric fast last year, quilting books became my little retail therapy treat. All those pretty colours on paper were almost as sweet as the cotton variety! I've made a few things from these wonderful pages, but mostly they sit on my shelf (or in boxes ready for our big move) and I just enjoy the look of them as a collection.

When Heidi from Fabric Mutt said she'd set herself the goal of sewing her way through her crafty library, a few of us suggested a sew-along. I for one love the idea of a little extra motivation, and seeing what other books are out there. And Heidi agreed! And I get to host one of the link ups!

If you'd like to join us, we'll be linking first to Heidi's blog in January, then Martha's over at Weekend Doings in Feb, then over here in March. If you've made something inspired by one of the books or magazines you love, you can share your blog post about it from the 20th of each month. And if people are having fun, we'll keep going throughout the year! Sound fun? I think so. I think it'll be just the push I need to make a few Farmer's Wife or City Sampler blocks each month. Or maybe some the kaleidoscope quilt I've always loved from Modern Quilts, Traditional Inspiration by Denyse Schmidt. Is there a quilt you've been meaning to make?