Friday, December 25, 2020

Merry Xmas and what happened to December?

 The whole of December has been a bit of a blur... Xmas work functions... kids prizegivings... Dylan getting his wisdom teeth out and Nadia needing to go here and there and needing transport.  And so we finally make it to Xmas day... Merry Xmas and well done everybody!

I have spent a lot of December's crafting hours working on the Ray Quilt by Carolyn Friedlander.  A large log cabin quilt... just the one ever expanding block.

After being alerted to the quilt along by Linda from Koka Quilts I decided to use my fat quarter bundle from Scribbly Gum Quilt Co... (good call Linda)...


Added some odds and ends from stash, some fat 1/8th low volumes  and some long held dear scraps (thanks Suz from Patch n Play) that fit the colour story and I started to get a collection of fabrics that were working well together and gave me lots of variety, a cool side and a warm side without any problems, and graded through from light to dark.  This would be a simple process... she thought... but she would be wrong 😤


The pattern is not overly hard... simple in fact... but making that final decision on where to place fabrics is much harder than you would expect.

I decided it was just easier to just cut and place... then  reassess.  Although I didnt like the beginning... I continued...


It slowly grew...

But I still wasn't happy with the centre so I worked on that for quite some time in the middle of everything, trying all sorts of combinations and placements.



Before finally settling on this combo.  Small changes which i felt made a huge overall change.


I added some extra solid accent pieces through the first couple of logs and this really gave it a strong central focus. 

I realised that improv is not something that I usually do... and I was really struggling with it.   There is no right or wrong answer... what you decide is OK.  But is it really OK? Indecision is not my friend.  Plus I suffer from FOCIAU - Fear Of Cutting It All Up, so that is always in the back of my mind.  In my head there were some areas which seemed wrong... I just couldn't identify exactly what it was... I don't think I am the quilter to just sew things together without having more of a plan (and yet i start lots of things without having a fully formed plan!).   Grrr!!

However, I got past the first few rounds successfully (thinking to myself... i CAN do this) and then decided to break up the heavy orange area which had started to read as simply orange... (fell down another rabbit hole of indecision) before finally finding a grey fabric in my stash that had all the colours... orange, burnt red, teal and yellow... this helped to give the oranges a bit of breathing space and make sense of all the colours.  I also played around with the progression from light to dark and decided to mix this up a bit also.  I am very happy with things so far!


I'm still not quite finished... I have added another grey text row before the teal and red fox fabric... and will need to lengthen the orange strip on the far right hand side... but I like where it's heading... maybe improv might not be my happy place but i am also keen to try a few more exercises and see where it leads me.  Watch this space... and have a merry Xmas!

Sunday, November 29, 2020

Almost the end of the month

 I think I have spent a lot of time this month pondering which snippets of life to blog about... and in the end blogged about nothing.  So a bit of a round up post of all that's happened so far... and lots of photos so a cuppa might be needed to get to the end of this 😆

If you remember last time, Nadia had broken her collarbone... she is almost fully back to her normal self and has an appointment on Tuesday which will hopefully confirm she can resume normal activities.

My main goal for this month was to get my Granny Squares quilt fully stitched... a rainy day has meant that it's too wet to take full length photos while I have quilt holderuppers home.


My second big challenge was to finish the FMQ on Theres a Square In There.  This has been incredibly time consuming and although there are a few spots where the bobbin thread has peeked through on the front... I just don't care!


Yay... and the binding...

I'm now stitching this to the back by hand little bit by little bit.  The backing is the wonderful koi print.


As soon as it was out from under the sewing machine I had my Avalon quilt zooming through for a much quicker linear design.




I am now working on the 2nd quarter.



My other monthly goals have fallen to the wayside.  I did manage to choose fabrics for the next Line Dried section.


I discovered some more plus blocks so unpicked the side sashing, added another row... replaced the sashing and decided this rainbow stripe just finished things off perfectly.  It has since had the top border added 😆



Some new fabrics...



Some new patterns...


A basic shift for woven fabrics...


A basic top for wovens...


A basic dress for knits... 

Look at all these variations!


I finally have the background for the Libs Elliott Orbiter Quilt!


A few more Crossroads blocks to add to the collection.


I love the blues in this print that's in my Avalon quilt.  When I saw this organic solid I thought it was as close a match as i would find.  Although you'll need to watch this space to see what happens to it. 


Some other solid fat quarters made their way home with me...

And a couple of cute prints... because you know... bunnies!





Monday, November 9, 2020

Hop Skip

 My new baby quilt is progressing nicely.  Hop Skip by Cluck Cluck Sew came out last year I think and I put it on my "looks like a good one" list.  I even managed to buy a hard copy of the pattern, and finally decided this would be the best pattern for these fabrics.




This finishes as 39" wide by 50" long so a generous cot size.

A few mixed fat quarters, background for sashing and some yardage for the top and bottom border... all from stash.  Well, or stolen from other current projects.... I'm looking at you white quilters muslin.  I have come to the conclusion you can never have enough white solid fabric 😂

A terribly lit photo and unattractive wrinkling but you get the idea...


Just imagine all the colour variations you could make... fussy cutting images for the centre squares or even substituting some simple piecing.  I think there will be more Hop Skips in my future.

Tuesday, November 3, 2020

Rounding off October

 I seemed to spend most of the last week of October cutting scraps... finding and auditioning more scraps and then cutting more scraps!

It's really starting to take shape now and I think I have a handle on how the colours need to be placed without laying out the entire quilt... so I've started piecing a few blocks and will lay it out again when there are a few more completed units.  It is quite the process!


In Granny Square news... I've laid out my 14 blocks to see if I could find a pleasing arrangement.  I added some plain floral squares to make 16 blocks... a 4 x 4 layout.


But then couldn't decide if I liked the florals in the corners or the centre?


Having them in the centre helps to spread the blocks around a bit more... and I don't know if my head can cope with another round of block sudoku but I'm also thinking that putting them in the middle is quite disruptive to the flow... so might go back to the original layout.

My husband keeps reminding me that there are new grandbabies due next year and that I had better get cracking...

I chose some soft purples but he wasn't so keen on these for a baby quilt.  The pile grew into this beautiful bundle so I think I'm going to HAVE to make myself something from it.  I'm thinking big moody Ohio Stars... next year...


And last up, the fabrics that met the approved baby quilt list... some lovely bright but not too bright primary colours and a simple baby quilt layout (pattern from Cluck Cluck Sew).  There are twelve log cabin-style  blocks so not too much more to sew.



Wednesday, October 28, 2020

The October Curve Ball

 My To Do List had been roaring along... I ticked off my initial items and started some additional tasks... and still had a couple of weeks left of October to go... wow... what to do with all that time??

I started a declutter challenge...



Repurposing and reinventing... sorting and cleaning.


I did the next #sewcialitesQAL block


I started planting some vege seeds.... this cupcake packaging is the perfect size to act as a mini starter environment.


I did some new #modastitchpink2020 blocks... 



And I decided to pull some new project collections by raiding my stash containers.  I started by choosing some fun, colourful prints...


Then trawled through my colour sorted scraps to see what blended.

I really liked the bono vibe of this collection...


Surprisingly this group never really jelled even though the feature fabric had some great colours.


This mix was bright and cheerful.


I really liked how this mix was shaping up.


I had made a list of possible scrap projects, and jotted down the measurements of the key scrap units.  Not surprisingly, I really struggled to match fabric piles with projects!  Eventually I decided to cut the bright and cheerful pile above into the Brightly Quilt by Cluck Cluck Sew.  The pieces are all cut to 2.5 and 4.5" measurements so while some scraps were too small (in particular the bright oranges), there were still plenty of others.

The first placement of fabrics was a bit flat... it was actually even worse than this!


I wasn't sure whether I liked it... but started adding in some black and white prints and it started to zing again.

The start of the star unit and a bigger area and the pattern is starting to reveal itself... I can see I need some more variety but it also looks like it's going to work.


In amongst all this my daughter broke her collar bone... those spare two weeks disappeared with plenty of days of no sewing... and my dreams of finishing multiple projects disappeared in a puff of smoke.  The perfect time to start a whole heap more.  I think this is called Stress Sewing 😆😆.