...Marcelle is well on the way to done

Given the scrappy nature of this quilt and the rapidly overflowing fabric cupboard I have, despite my more restrained purchases, I wanted to make this quilt entirely from stash.

I didn't quite get there - there are a few new fat 16th in there as well as the pink border but more or less it all came from the cupboard. I'm pretty please about that as a few years ago I would have found that difficult - both in terms of my confidence picking the colours/fabrics and having enough blenders to make it work. It seems I'm fond of a novelty print to the exclusion of a lot else!

I sewed the last of the borders on Saturday morning and got ready for basting. I find these things are best done quickly or they can sit in the un-quilted pile for a long time.

I pin basted to within and inch of its life - partly as I was not convinced of how flat the quilt top was and partly as I intended to free motion quilt it and I have never successfully free motion quilted anything that big.

I spent a lot of time quilting it yesterday - I find it quite addictive and calming and I had to force myself to take good ergonomic breaks and do the washing and other such mundane activities. Taking inspiration from Jess and Jeannette I've quilted each section/border a little differently. I'll be using this one, rather than hanging it on the wall so I tried to find that balance between making an interesting quilting pattern and making sure the quilt still draped nicely.

 

I've still got about a 1/4 to go, and happily a day off tomorrow because there is some race that 'stops a nation' - perfect for the last of the quilting and binding.

Linking with Penny - Thanks for hosting a great quilt along! Stop by and check it out - there are some great versions of the wonderful quilt there.

...a roadblock - my Made to Measure Quilt

I am a prolific collector of quilt books. Can help it. I find them really inspiring. Within their pages there must be hundreds of quilts that I would like to make 'one day'. So it was no real surprise to myself that I pre-ordered Sarah Fielke's new book, Hand Quilted with Love earlier this year. The bigger surprise, at least to myself, is that I started a quilt from its pages on the day it arrived!

I had been hanging about on Twitter and Instagram in the weeks before Easter and a Quilt Along had been got up. I got sucked in - a combination of inspired, Easter weekend and a cupboard full of fabric.

The pictures show the medallion quilt growingv.

And stopping right as it reached the edge of my bed.

There are two more borders to grow and I have hit a roadblock.

See I'm not confident in choosing colour scheme when it comes to a scrappy many fabric quilt like this one. So armed with a desire to start right now I decided to work from what I had. Where there was pink in Sarah's I went with that, black I chose a black print. my shades are very different and consequently so is the whole look but it gave me some structure to my fabric choices.

 

It was working until I got to the yellow in the second to final HST/Flying Geese border. All the yellows I had a brown base. I went ahead and used it, but my slowing work rate should have warned me that I wasn't sold on the look.

I think that to continue with a yellow I need a green-y yellow but there are none of them in my stash and I can't find any in the stores either.  It has been suggested that I substitute turquoise (picking up some hints of colour in earlier fabrics).

I'll need to hunt some out but the theory has promise, I think. Opinions?

...falling off the wagon...into a pile of scraps.

Almost as soon as I started the Craftsy BOM with my scraps it became abundantly clear that I was going to go nowhere near far enough into making a dent in my scrap stash. So I started a new quilt, even though I was trying to focus in finishing the ones I had started. 

I'm working though the My Favorite Block QAL and making a number of blocks from each post with the aim of ending up with a top 7x7 blocks in the 12" size - big enough for our bed.

This one is four 12.5" blocks - I wish I hadn't used the brown!

The Road to Oklahoma especially needed to be repeated I think.

So far I have made at least 4 of all the blocks (I am finding many of them are better repeated to show a secondary pattern) and am well on the way. I'm using 'low volume' fabrics as the link between all the blocks and so far the block are linking OK I think though I am finding the whole things very busy and a departure of my usual style.

Blocks come out twice a week so I hopefully in another week or two I will have a better idea if it is going to work or I with end up with a really scrappy mess!

...same, but different

Towards the end of last year I found out that some friends were expecting a baby and naturally my thoughts turned to quilt. The baby was still very new and so the thoughts were put aside while I started to plan Christmas gifts. A few days later a got a call from a mutual friend hoping to commission a quilt for the same child and we hatched a plan for a joint gift. Then I got another call a little later…could the order be upped to two quilts? It seems there was not one baby, but two.

When we got to the planning stages of the quilt we went through various options - same quilt, same colours/fabrics; different quilt, same colours/fabrics; Same quilt, different fabrics colours. There were positives and drawbacks to them all - the babies will share a bedroom so they had to look OK together, we wanted them different enough to be easily identified different and I, at least, didn't want one to be 'better' than the other - they needed to be equal, but unique as the babies will be.

In the end we decided to use the same prints with variation, different by complementary background colours and the same blocks but in different sizes while making the same size finished quilt. I used a variation of block 1932 on page 244-245 of the Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns.

I sent a whole bunch of images to be co-gifter (did I mention that this was a cross border exercise) and then we skyped the fabric purchase (did you know it is easier to turn your webcam to the screen and show and image of a fabric rather than sending a link? I do, now). 

And then I waited for the fabric packages to arrive. One did and then I waited, and waited and waited for the second. It was caught up in the Christmas mail and as each day went by I saw my chance at taking one to Perth for the Christmas break to be hand quilted slipping out of my grasp. In the end I sewed the tops up after I had got home and based and had and machine quilted them in the week before the shower. I machine sewed the binding on both of them on the morning I caught the flight for a weekend away - that included the shower.

The hand sewing of the binding of one was finished, in the recipients house, on her couch with the quilt hidden under another blanket while I was chatting with her and another friend. The second was done on the morning of the shower.

  

In the end I did end up with a favourite, but so did the co-gifter and they were different quilts so I think I met my brief. Especially as mum and dad to be seem to like them both!

...a happenstance and a plan

While I don't think I am in the league of the people that are featured in hoarders my fabric scraps are out of control. 

The 'problem' I have is that while I can still think of something I could do with them, and there are no shortage of ideas in that department, I have no real desire to re-house them. 

That said, I am happy to use them - and really enjoy putting them to use in the do. Good Stitches blocks for the Cherish circle (in fact the chance to use these small gems was one of he reason I joined this bee). But still the boxes keep bulging and the scraps keep spilling out. 

And I refuse to solve the issue by buying more boxes. 

And them comes the happenstance. I was mindlessly wandering around the Fresh Modern Quilts group on Flickr recently and came across this quilt, described in more detail here. And then I wandered over to Craftsy and looked in on the free 2013 block of the month. And I signed up. 

My plan is to use stash for this quilt. with a focus on all the little bits and pieces in the scrap boxes. With bits and pieces of my text fabrics as the background. 

Tonight, after I finished the second of a couple of quilt tops to be revealed later in the week I sewed up the first four blocks. I'm looking forward to the next 11 installments!

...doing good stitches in January

It feels like ages since I last made a bee block, and I guess in a way it is. In the Cherish circle we take December off so I last made a block in November and I made it the first weekend of the month so it has bee about 10 weeks. Ages!

This month Kim asked for star blocks in blue and white.

I chose to make Another Star by Beth Gutcheson using the tutorial from Fresh Lemons Quilts. I constructed mine a little differently by sewing the first strip on the center square using a partial seam and the finishing it off after the other three strips were sewn.

I also chose to make the Evening Star block using the tutorial by Swim, Bike, Quilt published as part of the Summer Sampler series. I also changed this one up a bit by using a single piece to make the star points.

I can't wait to see how this quilt turns out!

...Tulip Cross Quilt

I saw a picture of a quilt on this post over a year ago and haven't been able to get it out of my mind, it is the one down the bottom of the post. I did consider buying it for a time but I really wanted to make it for myself.

So I searched online and in my two blocks books, Encyclopaedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns and 5500 Quilt Block Designs. No luck.

After a few comment exchanges I got a better idea of how it was constructed. I spent another few night staring at the little picture and trying to work out where the seams were in the original and what formed the blocks.

In the end I got some graph paper, a pencil, a ruler and a compass and drew it out as a finished block. I was pretty happy with the first version and only made a few changes in scale. I cut out the drawn block, traced it onto template plastic and added seam allowance until I had a template set for the block.

And then I got sewing. It isn't an impossible block, but it does require some technical skill - a 'Y' seam and a curved seam.

I ended up deciding to make this quilt for the Quilter's Guild of New South Wales Under 35's Quilt Competition. This year the theme is "How Does Your Garden Grow?"

Complete with tulips, thanks.

Because to the size restrictions in the competition I stopped at 16 blocks - finishing at 95cm (or just over a yard) square but I would love to make a 6x6 layout version as a centre medallion. I think this would show off the crosses better and make the name make a little more sense.  

I posted it off today and will not see it again until sometime in December.

If you happen to be interested in seeing the show (and maybe sending me a picture of my little quilt hanging in the show) all the entries will be on display in the Newington College Gallery, Stanmore Road, Stanmore, Sydney from the 21-23 September from 10am - 4pm daily.

...paper pieced octagons

I can't remember if I have blogged about this quilt before so please forgive me if I am repeating myself.

Some time ago I decided that I would use exclusively Heather Ross prints (with a preference for Munki Munki, West Hill and other early or whimsical cotton base cloth collections) to paper piece a quilt of a size that is still to be determined.

I wanted to use 2" Octagon papers with 2" squares in the filling gaps. In addition to the HR prints I planned (and am using) scraps of various white and grey solids.

This is where I got a little stumped. I wanted to use some 'solid' octagons and piece some. I went looking for co-ordinating shapes, first from Patchwork with Busy Fingers where I got my first lot of papers from and then Paper Pieces where I got extras. Unlike for hexagons there seemed to be very few - in fact I used this and this shape from Busy Fingers and could find no more that would work without me cutting some shapes of my own.

So a few weeks ago I emailed Paper Pieces on on the strength of their reply took to a piece of paper with a ruler and a pencil.

These arrived in my mailbox one morning early last week, eight different pieced octagon options finishing with 2" sides and available to order from them should you also want to paper piece 2" octagons from smaller shapes.

I have sewed some together already

Variation 1

Variation 3

Variation 5

Variation 6

Variation 8

There is one more still just basted...

Variation 7

And a couple more cut at and waiting for some stitchable moments...

Variation 2

Variation 4

...on a whim

A couple of weekends ago, on a whim, I bought a 90 degree triangle ruler at Spotlight with a 25% off voucher.

When I got home, on a whim, I got home and used it to cut up a 1/2 yard bundle of spring theme prints I bought ages ago from Sew Fresh Fabrics when I got free shipping.  Cutting them into strips and then cross-cutting with the new ruler.

On a whim, by sewing the triangles into pairs, the squares and trimming to 12.5" I made this quilt top. 

It isn't huge - the blocks are 12" finished - which if my maths is having a good day means that this is 49 x 61" in the current state.

I'll need to wait for another whim to help with finding a backing, basting, quilting and binding but even without all that yet this was a pretty satisfying evening of sewing. 

...finally finished - A bee Quilt

I have been, at different times in four different bees. One of them is the do. Good Stitches bee and has very clear guidelines in the due dates to finish quilts for which you have been responsible for the design so have finished the three quilts I have been responsible for in that one. 

That leave three bees for me and until earlier this week the total of finished quilts I had for them was zero. To be fair two were in the late quilting stages but had languished in that phase for ages and had been in various stages of construction for nigh on two years. The other is a spring chicken at only about a year old but still at exactly the same form as when the blacks arrived back in my mailbox. 

But thanks in part to the Olympics and the cold nights I have finished off the hand quilting on this one. And in a rare display of some good solid forward planning and because of the placement of the machine quilting I could hand stitch down the binding right away instead of waiting for the interest in getting it done to outweigh the laziness of needing to change to the walking foot because I attached the binding at the time of the machine quilting.

The blocks were completed by the lovely ladies of the Bee Seam Piecing Downunder bee with a theme of 'Circles'. I also asked that each sign a siggy block that I later embroidered and pieced into the back with a couple of blocks that didn't make it back in time to be sewn into the front. 

The sashing and borders took a few different forms before this final version - 2" finished sashing in Kona Coal and scrap 2" finished squares for the border. 

The backing in this Aqua print from Spotlight (with the extra blocks, siggy blocks and some sashing) and the binding in yet more scraps from the feature fabrics. 

Machine quilting in the sashing was with some 12wt Aurifil 1/4" inside each seam and then the border squares each had an X quilted inside with a 40wt Aurifil. An echo or feature circle was hand quilted inside each of the block in DMC Perle 8 in a light grey.

Finishing at about 58" by 71" this one is a little wider and shorter than average but great for the couch at night. 

Thanks to Pam, Bec, Emma, Erin, Kelly, Kelly, Rose, Sue, Liz, Nicole and Abby for the blocks and for a wonderful year of patchwork and an another year of quilting!

...Green Tea and Sweet Beans

So yesterday I went to pick up my pattern and 'starter' pack from Amitie.

I am really really looking forward to starting this one but I am thinking of completing it by hand so I am making myself finish a few things first to free up a project box.

I don't know about starter - there sure is a lot of fabulous fabric in there! 

Can't wait!