CocoWawa Weekly #2 - January 2023

January 20, 2023

Hello makers!

And welcome back to another weekly summary of my life as the owner of CocoWawa and as a sewing and quilting teacher. This week has been littered with adulting tasks (yep, those we all hate), so I haven't been able to finish all the tasks I had planned. But as I am trying to be kinder to myself and accepting that these things happen, I am telling myself that there is always the next day and the next and the next.

Regarding my business, this week I have created a couple of mock-ups of the #cwbrokencirclesquilt to send to two lovely fabric shop owners I will be collaborating with. They will be providing me with the materials to make two samples and they will be offering as well fabric kits to make the quilt top of the pattern when launching in early April.

Here you can see how I was playing with my color wheel (highly suggest you get one) as well as a color tool to design the mock-ups. I also managed to create the pattern pieces on Illustrator.

Pattern pieces Broken Circles Quilt pattern

This week I have also received a couple of materials I needed. A bottle of starch (it will be my first time using it to make some fabric I washed for a quilt crispier again) and new quilting needles. I know lot of people use either universal or top stitch, but I have always had good results with these.

The only difference this time is that I didn't manage to find size 80 / 12 (which I used for piecing) mixed with the 90 / 14 size (which I use for the quilting part). Let's see how this one works out...

Talking about pre-washing fabrics for the first time (when making a quilt. I always pre-wash for dressmaking), you can see here how I had to trim all the threads that unraveled while on the washing machine. I know that you can overlock the edges beforehand for example to avoid that, but I honestly don't have the time to do that to 20 pieces (plus 3 yards of background fabric) so trimming it was :) I am working on the Ombre Gems Quilt by Emily Dennis

(as a personal project).

Ana CocoWawa Crafts cutting threads from fabrics to make a quilt

Another thing that happened this week is that I got ready for a new virtual quilting class I am starting to teach next Tuesday. My student, who is a beginner, wants to make a quilt that her sister and herself can enjoy when travelling on a campervan, so we decided that a HSTs was the answer. Can't wait to see which fabrics she has chosen!

Apart from CocoWawa and my personal sewing and knitting projects, I did another crafty thing last weekend. I went to a pottery class here in Madrid with my lovely friend Adri. We made a vase and a bowl and it was very intense but a lot of fun :) Now we have to wait for a bit till they are ready to pick up.