Quilts for a Fairer World

At the Festival of Quilts this year I met Ruth who owns The Fair Trade Fabric Company based in Southall, Nottinghamshire. She is passionate about her huge range of Fairtrade fabrics which are grown to organic standards and mostly produced in Gujarat, India. The Fairtrade label enable the weavers, dyers and growers to earn a fair wage, ensuring their health and family welfare.  Aside from all this, the fabrics are fabulous, soft and with a homespun quality which is so attractive. There is a rainbow of colour available with her fabrics and you can visit her on line shop here at the Fairtrade Fabric Company

This is the first quilt. a cot size 114 x 84 cm:

Fairtrade fabrics quilt by Green Star Quilts

 I love this quilt and daughter who lived in Norway for a while was very taken with it. The fabric is from a pack sold by Ruth called Highlands with one extra fat quarter added in royal blue plus 1 metre for the backing. The binding is pieced from all the tiny scraps, I used just about every inch of the fabric from the pack.
 

Fairtrade fabrics quilt by Green Star Quilts

The backing fabric is a handloom woven 100% cotton, vegeble dyed fabric also from Ruth. This fabric has a slight variation in colour within the stripes due to the hand woven element. The mountains bit is a printed fabric which I have quilted around. I love the tiny Nessy monster who swims in the lake.....

Fairtrade fabrics quilt by Green Star Quilts

 and the eagles and the hunting lodge, the boats as well as the mountains...

The wadding is 100% cotton, unbleached and made without chemicals for the Simply Cotton Company. I have tried to make this quilt as kind to the world as I possibly can. The fabrics are bought from a Fairtrade company and the wadding is unbleached cotton. I haven't found an organic cotton wadding yet. I thought about bamboo wadding which is organic but would make the quilt very expensive. I will continue to think about that but if you have any ideas, please let me know.

 Here is the second quilt:

Fairtrade fabrics quilt by Green Star Quilts

 This cot quilt measures 90 x 102 cm 35.5 x 40 inches and uses the Living in a Box pack from Ruth plus a metre of fabric for the back and sashing.

Fairtrade fabrics quilt by Green Star Quilts

 

Fairtrade fabrics quilt by Green Star Quilts

I love the bright vibrant colours of this quilt plus the sweet song birds in pink and green. I don't normally show the back of the quilt but this fabric shows up the quilting so well....

Fairtrade fabrics quilt by Green Star Quilts

Fairtrade fabrics quilt by Green Star Quilts

 

Fairtrade fabrics quilt by Green Star Quilts

And the last photo.... oh, these colours make me feel so happy....

 

Fairtrade fabrics quilt by Green Star Quilts

Please consider making a Fairtrade fabric quilt, the drape and softness of the fabrics are lovely, they have been very easy to use and we all need a fairer world don't we?

Happy quilting this week, do let me know if you have found an organic cotton wadding,

Kind regards,

Sue

soft colours quilt finished

I am so stiff from my Pilates class, it doesn't seem to get any easier, but surely it must be doing me some good! Natural bendiness is not one of my gifts, but I keep on in the hope that one day I will wake up with a super trim waist and smooth, slim legs, an inch or two longer would be good too..... well a girl can dream!

But I have also finished the soft colours quilt and taken lots of photos before it is posted off to Wales where a little girl will open the parcel on Christmas morning. So here it is and I am really pleased with it:

Soft colours shabby chic quilt by Green Star Quilts

The quilt measures 46 x 60 inches and has 100% cotton wadding which gives a lovely soft drape.

quilting detail 

The quilting is straight line grid 1/4 inch from the ditch of each square and row. I quilted some swirls and tiny hearts and stars in some of the squares to give a random effect....

quilting detail

More lovely photos, I do so enjoy taking these....

shabby chic soft colours quilt by Green Star Quilts

shabby chic soft colours quilt by Green Star Quilts

 

shabby chic soft colours quilt by Green Star Quilts

I really enjoy adding the tiny random quilting designs, making the squares like mini quilts all by themselves....

shabby chic soft colours quilt by Green Star Quilts

 Thank you all of you who left a comment last week. Lots of you like the bigger format pictures and I do too, so I will carry on using them. What I love about quilting blogs is that all the comments I read are so positive and friendly. The thought that we reach across the world to leave a kind comment, a sort of virtual postcard, for someone we have never actually met cheers me everyday. The world needs so much more kindness at the moment don't you think?


Anyway, I am getting through my Christmas orders, amazingly I am in line with my calendar, one more quilt and a cushion to go, then lots of tidying and a big attack on scraps and oddments of leftover fabrics. I hope you all have a productive quilting week too,

Kind regards,

Sue

Soft colours first bed size quilt

I often feel I don't use many soft quiet colours in my quilt designs, so it has been a bit of a challenge to make a quilt with really gentle colours for a little girl. This quilt has been commissioned as a Christmas present and the request was for a shabby chic, washed and worn look. Some baby clothes were to to included too. 

These are the fabrics used so far, I bought them from a lovely French fabric stall at the Festival of Quilts this year and added other fat quarters from my stock.

Shabby Chic fabrics

The design is simply 3" squares but I have broken up some of the squares into tiny log cabins, quarter squares and little bow ties too. I hope this adds to the vintage style of the quilt.....

Inset squares by Green Star Quilts

The old gold fabric I chose to stop the quilt looking too pink and sugary.The family sent a tiny pair of scratch mittens with a Manchester United football club logo on them, which goes suprising well with the over all look! 

Detail of Vintage Look quilt by Green Star Quilts

The number of squares used added up to 143 using about 15 different fabric and lots of scraps from my very extensive stash.... hummm note to self....must make more scrap quilts.... I really enjoyed fiddling around making tiny log cabin blocks on a wet Sunday afternnon....

Detail of Vintage Look quilt by Green Star Quilts

Here is the top of the quilt finished and ready for quilting, there is a row missing from the bottom of the quilt which I added later to make the length right:

 Vintage Look quilt top by Green Star Quilts

The cream coloured American Quilter's calico has been used for the bottom strip and will have the baby's name appliqued on it after the quilting is finished. I love this calico which is so soft and lovely to handle. I buy it from The Fabric Guild, which is a wonderful company with a good mail order facility. I have added a link for you to visit them here.

Detail of Vintage Look quilt by Green Star Quilts

Now the quilt is all ready to quilt. The wadding is Super Soft Cotton by Sew Simple, also bought from The Fabric Guild and I am really pleased with the way it drapes, it is so very soft and stitches like a dream. The backing is simple, using the calico again.The quilt is nearly finished and I will show you it completed next week.

This week I have used a larger size for the photos, do you think it is better and easier to see the details? Do let me know! Taking photos at this time of the year in the UK is so difficult. There may good be natural light oportunities at about 10am until 12 noon and then it gets darker so quickly. If it is a rainy day things become even more difficult! The last photo was taken in electric light and the whites always look yellow! Does anyone else have this problem? How do you light your quilts for photos? 

I am going to try some natural daylight bulbs for the lighting next time and hope to have really good photos of the finished quilt for you soon,

Hope you all have a lovely weekend,

Kind regards,

Sue

Winnie the Pooh first bed quilt

Half term is finished and we are back from helping to look after our little ones. I have had some many cuddles but it can never be enough! The Boy aged five months has grown a smile and a way of fluttering his long eyelashes which melts my heart every time. His big sister is learning to read and can write her name. She is smart and sassy and so sweet, I am her biggest fan and complete slave! Now I am back in the sewing room and have been finishing a quilt for Anne to give to her newest grandson Hugo, born this year. The nursery decor has a Winnie the Pooh theme and the main fabric comes from the Jane Churchill range.

Here is the first star:

Eight point Winnie the Pooh star by Green Star Quilts

and in the other colourway...

Eight point Winnie the Pooh star by Green Star Quilts

The fabric design is quiet and minmal in style so I have kept the quilt design that way too. I have added a border of soft blue fabric with polka dots....

Winnie the Pooh quilt top by Green Star Quilts

Here is the finished quilt which measures 46 x 60 inches:

Winnie the Pooh quilt top by Green Star Quilts

And some highlights.... simple swirls echo the ribbon on Piglet's balloon....

Winnie the Pooh quilt top by Green Star Quilts

The backing fabric is also the Winnie the Pooh and Friends fabric by Jane Churchill.The binding is a simple blue and white thin stripe which a style I love and use on lots of my quilts....

Winnie the Pooh quilt by Green Star Quilts

I loved Winnie the Pooh stories as a child and also reading them to my own daughters. The gentle humour and simple line drawings have become a part of our family life. We still mention going down the garden to look for Woozles and Heffalump traps are my piles of things on the stairs waiting to be taken up to bedrooms and bathrooms when the time can be found... just waiting to be tripped over by husband... its a bad habit of mine...

'I feel like a little something....'  goes with that empty tummy feeling around four o'clock when the biscuit jar beckons, with or without hunny for tea... 

So I hope you have a lovely week and if you are drawing at all, have a look at the labelling on your graphite pencils and remember that B is for bear, HB is for Helping Bear and BB is for Brave Bear....

Happy drawing and quilting,

Kind regards,

Sue