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

Gum Tree Quilt finished!

Despite this quilt being so simple it has taken me almost a year from first idea to finished article. 

When I was uploading the photos of the finished quilt the other day I noticed that the date on the original inspiration photos of the gum bark was 31st May last year. I have been making other things in between but still...

Overall as my first real attempt at improvisational work I'm happy enough. I once heard a well known quilt artist speaking at a workshop, can't remember who it was, being even before I really got started with this faffling; but I do remember her saying that the best design advice she'd ever been given was: "if you like something, do it again; and if you don't like something, do it again!" And in terms of refining an idea and a skill, that's got to be good advice.  The other thing I remember was her proudly showing a lot of her work, from her very earliest quilts, which she described as ugly; but what was significant to me was her affection for these as part of her learning and her first attempts at conveying an idea in fabric.  That's encouraging! And an approach to self that I'd like to cultivate. It's easy for me to see all the things I don't like in my work and for that to put me off the enjoyment of the process and the play. Do you think about your process, or wrestle with yourself, or is it only me?!

I like the "back" with its tiny strips of Kona Pomegranate, like the tiny hot pink gum flowers on some species of tree and I think I'd like to try this strip of improvisational piecing amidst the grey again in a different project.

You can see my process was very simple; to cut pieces of fabric a bit bigger than the finished blocks of 19.5 x27 cm (71/2 x 101/2 inches) slash them in to three or four and recombine them

The quilting was decided before I even started, once I'd seen the lovely job Amy did on The Real McCoy. She even has a tutorial of her quilting of this one here; which shows how she manages quilt bulk. Amy's quilting is denser than mine, but the general idea is the same.

I auditioned several binding possibilities but the Kona Espresso won out. That's the darkest brown I used in the top and in real life it's not quite as dark as it looks in these photos. I wanted a skinny binding, so cut it 2" wide and binding this in the traditional way, sewing the doubled over binding on to the front and hand stitching the back, certainly was skinny, a bit of an effort actually- maybe I'll go for 2.5" next time!

So now that's done, I'm working on an HST quilt with scraps and unused colours ( I bought 60 something and only used 20 something) from this quilt, inspired by this one! 

And also in the pipeline is a simple piece based around this fabulous fabric from the 60s or early 70s 

which was languishing for many years in Mum and Dad's kist where Mum keeps her fabric. I love it and she gave it to me years ago, since when it has been languishing in my fabric storage, but its time has come (the walrus said)...!

So I have gathered it some friends, which are sitting together in an inspirational little pile. 

What do you think? Does it all look too "medium" to you? Any that don't belong? I'd love to read your comments.

Here goes nothing!

Well looks like I'm taking the plunge and writing a blog! Who would've thought it!  I've been thinking about this for some time since I've found myself gaining so much inspiration from others' work shared on-line. It's felt a bit like cheating looking at everyone else's stuff and not contributing to what often seems like it becomes a conversation. 


Since I'm someone who does better with a deadline, or a bit of a push, this might be one way to make myself more accountable (but only to myself). Perhaps I will do more creative stuff myself rather than living vicariously looking at others.


After a bit of thought, I've called it faffling; from a word I found in a fascinating book called The Word Museum. Hey did I manage to add a link!? Faffle is "said of work which occupies much time, the results not being satisfactory or commensurate with the labour and time expended on it".  I seem to do plenty of faffling, if one can use it as a verb, and this seems to capture the idea of being playful and of wanting to make something that IS worth the labour and time! 


I've procrastinated dreadfully about this and I think that's mainly been about the techy aspects of blogging and the design aspects. I don't feel I'm particularly good at either so it's probably my pride that feels exposed putting up something that isn't good enough. Also I've wrestled with "I don't have anything much worth posting...". But get over it and just do it hey! I'll learn as I go...(The banner, for example, will personalise in time when I figure it out).


Enough of the reasoning!


My current project on the quilting front is almost done.  I'm just waiting for the binding fabric to arrive. I'm not very zoomy with these things, but I've enjoyed the process for this one and it's been a step outside my comfort zone in its improvisational approach.


As a NZer living in Australia I'm passionately patriotic, particularly about the natural environment and I really miss NZ's wild places. But one thing I do love here are the gum trees, their colours and especially their bark. 

So I wanted to make a quilt playing with that idea.  I went out to our local conservation park and took A LOT of photos of gum trees and then Kona colour card in hand, chose about sixty (!) solid colours I could see and ordered them. In the end I think I narrowed it down to twenty something shades and started chopping with a rough plan in my head and my journal.


Here's little hint of the result, but I want to wait until I've bound it and taken it back to the source of its inspiration for some proper pics...

Part of the impetus for finally getting this blog up and running is that P and I are off to Cambodia shortly- very exciting indeed!  And I thought that I could post a bit about our travels for family and friends to see perhaps. It's a bit of a learning curve starting this while away from the usual gadgets, but honestly how hard can it be?


It's going to be strange without the kids who are all off having their own adventures this holidays, quite like old times for us travel-wise; a bit sad to go to an exciting place without them, but I think I'll get over it!