Pretty Things 4: Pixelated Florals

I love flowers.  I love a lot of floral designs, but sometimes they can just be a little bit ... old fashioned.  And I don't mean 'vintage', I mean 'grannified', AKA the Dark Side of retro.

But some genius came up with the idea of pixelated floral designs and suddenly any floral could be current and, dare I say it, slightly subversive?

I got this super-cute pixelated floral fold-up tote bag from Paperchase the other day.

I've also been thinking about the baby quilt I'm making, which is lots of squares...

And then it wasn't much of a jump to realise that I could make a pixelated floral quilt.  I am so excited about this idea!  I'm thinking a nice big 'lap quilt' to use on the sofa (it can get quite cold in our new apartment) with one large rose, some leaves and maybe a couple of buds...

I haven't even made a quilt following someone else's pattern and I'm already coming up with ideas for my own... oh dear, this is clearly addictive!

Made With Love for the Home - Patchwork

Patchwork always used to fill my mind with images of slightly ugly, old-fashioned colour-combinations stitched together in, well, a much too traditional style for me.  My aunt is a patchworker and produces some gorgeous work for her lovely old cottage home, but while I've always appreciated her skill and taste and the finished product, it still wasn't me.  And the final nail in the patchwork coffin for me: as a garment-stitcher, I find it plain frustrating to visit fabric and sewing shops and find that they're quilting-focused.  Annoying!

So I've always written patchwork and quilting off (sorry!) ... until now!

I've recently seen some gorgeous examples of quilting through various blogs - things that are brighter, more fun, more graphic and more 'me'.  And with the move, I'm going to try out some patchworking and quilting to help make our new house a home.  

This 'scrap vomit' (hahaha!) quilt-along was one of the first I spotted that I instantly loved:

Scrap Vomit, from Monkey Do.

And I love the applique on this quilt, which has a PDF tutorial on Sew, Mama, Sew:

Butterfly Silhouette Quilt, from Sew, Mama, Sew.

It's really inspired me - I can picture a quite simple quilt with bird silhouettes flying across in a brighter, solid colour.  Yum!

And Monkey Do has come up trumps again with Hexy MF.  Just go and look at it - amazing.  Again, I think it's down to the simple design and when you put that against a grey background, it makes it fresh and new.  The quilting is rather beyond me (it's pretty amazing), but the patching I like the look of.

So, I recently got Patch! by Cath Kidston.  I'm not a Kidston fanatic, but I liked that it came with a kit to make a cushion cover, which is a good way of trying out a new craft.  It's also the closest I've found to the kind of book I'm looking for - modern, simple patchworking for beginners.  It's not perfect, but it's giving me a taster.  Has anyone got any recommendation for patchwork/quilting books that match that description??

I'm part-way through making the cover design and I'm quite enjoying having a hand-sewing project to do while watching films. The thing I'm not loving is the 'English patchworking' with paper - it's just quite annoying to tack through and handle, plus I'm not entirely convinced that it's necessary.  But what do I know?!

So that's what I'm working on at the moment.  Have you ever tried patchwork?  Any tips, techniques, tutorials you'd recommend?