HST Finish

It's taken a while what with one thing and another, but my HST quilt is finally finished!

I made this quilt with scraps plus the colours I pruned from the 60+ Kona colours I bought for this quilt also blogged about here.

The back is kona Peridot and some left over triangles joined end wise and trimmed. Actually I sort of forgot I'd lose the points so ended up cutting them in half lengthwise and making a couple of stripy strips instead.  But I'm happy with it although it wasn't my original idea. Sometimes mistakes end happily!

After some debate I decided to straight line quilt it in offset triangles.
While I was doing it I worried that it would overwhelm the interplay of the piecing, but it turned out OK.

Bound in 2 1/2 " wide Espresso again but I needed to do a bit of clever cribbing and hide the seam inside as I almost didn't have enough..

Loosely, I did denser lines on the darker rows and more widely spaced lines on the lighter piecing, but of course the pattern of the triangles is irregular so it's not too strict. You can see it better on the back, except where the lowering sun washes it out!

And a couple more gratuitous shots with the trees in the setting sun...

And I need to say that I was hugely inspired by Katie with this and this!

Bloggers' Quilt Festival

Only earlier this year did I discover The Bloggers Quilt Festival which runs twice a year. Sometimes it seems that if I follow the blogs of other quilters, every day can be a bloggers quilt festival! It's always energising to see others' work online; but this event  is a great chance to really enjoy everyone's finished work all at once. It's also a good way to discover new creative people whose style you admire.

I've posted about this quilt before, but I chose it for the festival as I think it's my favourite so far, insofar as it was me stepping outside my comfort zone and trying to capture the essence of something I never tire of looking at. It was the first time I tried to do something completely out of my own head. It's very simple, but it's encouraged me to continue to practice being creative...

Since I've been in Australia I've loved the seeming endless tones of gum tree bark on the trees in our local conservation park.

Combined with the many and varied soft eucalypt greens of the leaves, it's an inspiring colour palette.


For the process of making this quilt I took nearly a hundred photos of the aforementioned bark and then ordered over 60 colours of Kona solids (- yay for the colour card) in tones I had seen in the bark and made a simple block with strips of three or four colours each. I cut pieces of fabric a bit bigger than the finished blocks of 19.5 x27 cm (71/2 x 101/2 inches) slashed them in to three or four and recombined them. In the end I culled the blocks to consolidate the colour range to capture the palette I was after, using I think only 23 shades in the end.

I took it back to the source of its inspiration for the photos.

 I pieced a strip for the back, which is mainly Kona Coal, using scraps and inserting a couple of slivers of Kona Pomegranate to reference the gum flowers.

That tree must be very old!


I wanted the skinniest binding in the darkest brown (Espresso I think), so I cut it 2" and doubled it over and it was hard work hand-sewing it down that skinny. Resolved to do 2 1/2 " next time...

I machine quilted it in this free motion bark like pattern, which actually goes lengthways on the quilt

Stats:

Size: Throw size- 64x47" (163x120cm for you metricists)

Quilted: FMQ by me on domestic machine

Best Categories: Throw; Home Machine Quilted and Quilt Photography?

Entry Number: 58

Thanks Dad!

Actually I have to say I feel so thankful to my clever Dad every time I sit down to quilt. He custom made, in perspex, this great extension table for my machine (that he and Mum gave me for my 21st (err, ahem-more than 25 years ago now) and which is thoroughly reliable and good, thanks again Mum and Dad!). It's a Janome and it's been almost entirely trouble free. The only thing I've had fixed is the reverse, which was a bit iffy for a while. Quilting would be almost impossible without the extension table, as it gives a good firm place to put my hands, especially for FMQ (free motion quilting); and reduces the pull of the quilt through the machine.

It just slides into place once I've unclicked the little toolbox thingy that normally sits in front of the bobbin case.

It's quite hard to take photos of a shiny clear thing on a gloomy day, but hopefully you can get the idea.

I only half mentioned to Dad that this would be handy once when I was staying and he saw me doing some sewing. I think I said about how big I'd like it. I think I envisaged a utilitarian plywood something...

But Dad had better ideas.

He thought it would be handy if it fitted inside the sewing machine case. Sounded tricky to me and I was prepared to store it separately, you know, kicking around the bottom of some cupboard when not in use...

But he somehow curved the perspex to get it to fit inside the sloping sides of the case and cut slots so the handle of the sewing machine both folds up and holds it snug.

I wondered whether flat would be better, but curved is great for other reasons too. It slopes away towards the table just a bit, which eases the path of the quilt off the back of the machine and the perspex is lovely and smooth so the quilt slides easily.

All packed away-Yes it's in there-see? You can just see a corner of the perspex peeking out inside in front of the handle!

Thanks Dad!

WiP

Work in Progress is a little slow, but underway in a couple of areas.

Just one to show you today.

I had some encouraging feedback from this post, but wasn't feeling happy with those squares so have made a few changes, which will become apparent in due course.

For now this is how it's looking:

I'm using a mixture of masking tape, chalk and the edge of the foot to find my way here.

And the back so far.

I've done a few big lines to anchor things and now just have to fill in...!

I'm not going to have a chance to work on it for a wee while, but I'm looking forward to getting back to it.

I'm linking up with Creative Spaces on Village Voices today and




What have you been working on?

~ Camilla

Quilting Dilemmas

Pin Basting HSTs

And

Trying out some quilting possibilities...

At this stage I'm not sure on the squares? I've since rubbed out some of this but my general idea is to emphasise the patterns by close lines on the dark and wider lines on the lighter meandering lines, but not sure about what to do about the squares and the areas where the  pattern is less distinct?

Also, will I drive myself mad trying to quilt close lines with tight angles?

All input valued...!

Blown Away

We went away for what we thought would be a week's camping at Wilpena Pound, but got no sleep at all on the first two nights due to very strong winds and one of the tents blowing over in the night. Three of the five poles snapped too. Not sure if this caused or was caused by the tent blowing over... suffice to say we came home early for a holiday at home! Comfy bed and all... Not before we'd made it safely up St Mary's Peak one day and enjoyed the campfire and some cycling for some in the remaining time.

Windy at the top too

A bit hazy, but stunning none the less

Outback colour inspiration

We did decide we'd not use our devices (computers, phones etc.) once we got home and it was actually lovely to be a bit more widely disconnected and to connect as a family at the beach, cycling, eating etc. We even went ice skating which we all enjoyed, despite various minor injuries all round!

Back to work today for some of us and the devices are on again, but we're easing back into it with school not yet back.

Before I went away I managed to finish the back of my triangles quilt and hope to get it basted today, ready for some quilting tomorrow.  Having put that link in, I see it was a whole term ago, along with my last holiday post, that I was arranging those triangles! More progress to report soon I hope!