Spring Colours

 I had never seen a lily (I presume it is) like this one before. It was so thick and large it looked like it was moulded from plastic. The bud you can see behind was also most unusual.

These, just growing by a busy, dirty noisy roadside in a business garden, were prolific and so vivid too. The centre of that flower looks like it's designed especially for pollinators to me...!

I managed a bit of sewing a couple of evenings this week and was impressed with my aging machine's capabilities in sewing this leather pouch for a friend's birthday. 

Lined with some lovely orange feathers from Anna Maria Horner's Field Study collection

I made another pouch too, which I might keep under wraps for the time being.

And here are a few more pictures of my finished improvised quilt previously posted here and here.

I like the effect of the scrappy binding and for the quilting I used a thread a few shades darker than the aqua as I wanted to reduce it's clean brightness a little. I had mis-identified the blue I'd used in the centre of some of the squares as Kona Aqua, when actually on closer examination in better light I think it was Dusty Blue- the perils of 1" swatches on a card...

At least I think it's finished, I'm considering adding some dark aqua and blue hand quilting in between some of the wider lines...?

And last but not least, look at the lovely needle case Liz made me to match the pincushion at the end of this post! I suspect she used this pattern?

Sneak Preview

I have finally finished the improvisational piece I started in my pajamas and continued with the last couple of months alongside another couple of projects.

 More and proper photos soon, after it's dry. I had to get a move on to finish and wash it coz I oiled my even feed foot since it wasn't behaving... The problem was fixed but some oil did seep onto the quilt in a couple of spots :-(

A portion of the back, which I might even prefer to the front?

There hasn't been a deadline for this, which is probably why it's taken ages. I always seem to do better with a deadline!

Linking up to  Creative Spaces today.

A Blank Slate

Of course new fabric isn't really blank (even if it's a solid), and maybe that's the challenge? But there's something a bit daunting about a lovely unsullied stack. Perhaps like a writer or an artist might feel with a fresh blank sheet of paper?

Field Study favourites, interspersed with a couple from the Chicopee range (voltage dot in red and ladder dot in black)

All those possibilities...

The doubts creep in: I might ruin it...

or waste it...! I feel I need to do justice to the fabric and that's a bit intimidating somehow.

I know some people (not usually quilters) who feel there's something a bit odd about taking perfectly nice, carefully designed fabric and chopping it up and sewing it back together. I sort of get that; even if I don't agree!

A couple of shot cottons (Prune and Moor); Sweetwater Reunion; Madrona Road Memoir (x2); Kokka script; Curious Nature and two from Valori Wells Wrenly collection 

It doesn't look so much not folded in half again! (1/2 yd of each except the Coordinates in Midnight, of which there's 1yd)

All those possibilities...

The same as above, inverted.

Where to start...?

Well that large print Wrenly was bought with Christmas Crackers in mind, but I'm wondering if the scale is too large? The script ones are for my text cross quilt (in the pipeline).

Sometimes I'm surprised by the scale when buying from the internet. I haven't seen these lines in shops here. Not everyone online has a scale guide and I was particularly surprised by some of the Field Study fabrics. I'd pictured the Coordinates (destined for a skirt I think) as circles about 3cm in diameter and they're actually twice that, similarly with Mind's Eye. The Migratory Lace was also bigger than I'd pictured. Strangely the Sundials was as I imagined!

For now I've filed these in colour order with my other fabric and I'm really appreciating beginning to build a stash to draw from when starting a new project, or looking for inspiration. I'm still figuring out how much to buy for stash building. So far I've gone for 1/2 yd generally. What do you do?

A Blank Slate

Of course new fabric isn't really blank (even if it's a solid), and maybe that's the challenge? But there's something a bit daunting about a lovely unsullied stack. Perhaps like a writer or an artist might feel with a fresh blank sheet of paper?

Field Study favourites, interspersed with a couple from the Chicopee range (voltage dot in red and ladder dot in black)

All those possibilities...

The doubts creep in: I might ruin it...

or waste it...! I feel I need to do justice to the fabric and that's a bit intimidating somehow.

I know some people (not usually quilters) who feel there's something a bit odd about taking perfectly nice, carefully designed fabric and chopping it up and sewing it back together. I sort of get that; even if I don't agree!

A couple of shot cottons (Prune and Moor); Sweetwater Reunion; Madrona Road Memoir (x2); Kokka script; Curious Nature and two from Valori Wells Wrenly collection 

It doesn't look so much not folded in half again! (1/2 yd of each except the Coordinates in Midnight, of which there's 1yd)

All those possibilities...

The same as above, inverted.

Where to start...?

Well that large print Wrenly was bought with Christmas Crackers in mind, but I'm wondering if the scale is too large? The script ones are for my text cross quilt (in the pipeline).

Sometimes I'm surprised by the scale when buying from the internet. I haven't seen these lines in shops here. Not everyone online has a scale guide and I was particularly surprised by some of the Field Study fabrics. I'd pictured the Coordinates (destined for a skirt I think) as circles about 3cm in diameter and they're actually twice that, similarly with Mind's Eye. The Migratory Lace was also bigger than I'd pictured. Strangely the Sundials was as I imagined!

For now I've filed these in colour order with my other fabric and I'm really appreciating beginning to build a stash to draw from when starting a new project, or looking for inspiration. I'm still figuring out how much to buy for stash building. So far I've gone for 1/2 yd generally. What do you do?

Eclipse on a Sunny Day

I've been waiting for a sunny day and beachy background to show you this quilt; which I think was the third one I made, finished a few years ago now.  It was a very long process, begun in NZ and stretched across two more moves one across the Tasman and one within Adelaide where we still live. 

It was my first go at curved piecing, which really wasn't as hard as I'd anticipated and the instructions were very clear. I added on a couple more rows of blocks to the pattern to make this a twin bed sized quilt.

 Leftover fabric was good for the scrappy binding

 The quilting was a meander in variegated thread, except within the circles where I used an FMQed spiral to emphasize the circle. Some went a bit wiggly woggly, especially on the larger outside parts of the spiral!

I left the lighter pieced circles unquilted, having stitched in the ditch around them.

This quilt was for my daughter who loved these colours. It's probably not what she'd choose now at almost 17, though she is still drawn to colour, but I think she still likes it and I'll make her another some day.

I didn't take any of the back, which is just a soft white flannelette sheet and the variegated quilting thread used front and back just gives it a little lift. I used wool batting as my daughter feels the cold!

The pattern (called Eclipse) was a free one from Fun Quilts Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr whom I've enthused about before. And much of the fabric is from a line they did too, though I did supplement it with a couple of others.