WiP Wednesday (or Thursday here)

I've been playing around with some scraps making a few potholders- always useful...

I'm posting this on my phone and I can't seem to get the photos to line up right, to say nothing of the picture quality, but you get the idea...

Linking up with Lee for WiP Wednesday 

Bits and Pieces

I'm just finishing off a few odds and ends for Do. Good Stitches Bee:

 

My sewing time was eroded yesterday by three trips to the sewing machine shop. The feed dogs wouldn't go back up having been dropped for the free motion quilting. Anyway I've had very little trouble from my machine in the last nearly 30 years so I guess I can't complain.

So there was a short delay before getting the binding made.

I began hand sewing while movie watching last night. 

But I'll need to watch another...! I'm not very speedy!

Here are my untrimmed blocks for November. Kathryn requested red crosses on a low volume background. I'm quite fond of these. They'd make a great baby quilt. I'll file that idea away for a future gift.

Next up a backing for the shirt quilt. The top is done and I really like it.

I have so many things I want to make at the moment, hope I can hold onto the ideas for when the time is available...?

Linking up with Freshly Pieced today. 

Bloggers Quilt Festival

The time has come around again for this fantastic festival.

It is always so inspiring to see all the amazing quilts people make.

Welcome if you're visiting from the festival- hope you enjoy having a look around.

My entry is a quilt I have just finished for a friend's 50th birthday.  

SPOILER ALERT!! 

Nigel, if you're reading this and you want any element of surprise, discipline yourself to look away now!

The decision process on what to make was quite protracted, then it took even longer to make it; mainly because I was slow and we were in different countries. Throw in an international move and time goes by so fast so now I'm nearly a year late! Making quilts for friends and family can be quite difficult because of differing tastes, but we had a lot of agreement on this one.

We pinned inspiration photos on a shared Pinterest board and had thought we'd come up with a plan; but then I just didn't feel inspired about our first decision which involved loads of narrow stripes, which would have looked look amazing but been quite tedious to do.  The colour palette emerged quite early: an ochre theme being common to many of the things Nigel pinned. I also decided that using shot cotton would give it the colour depth I was after. 

In the end we were inspired by this. I think it is by Tommy Fitzsimmons of Tommy's Art Quilts  so I would like to acknowledge her amazing work, very much more subtle and complex than mine.

The size of this is 47 x 68.5" so it just squeaks into the Small Quilt category. But I've decided to enter it into the Modern Quilts category.

 I wanted to make it quite improvisationally, so I cut panels in the approximate dimensions and experimented with the arrangement on my design wall. 

I wanted to have gently wavy insertions and a general sense of wiggliness, so I stacked the fabrics right sides up and cut improvisational curves with the rotary cutter.

And then just built and inserted until I was happy.

I hadn't done this kind of curved piecing before but it went OK. Long gentle curves are much easier than small Drunkards Path blocks!

I quilted it using a variegated cotton thread, in long organic wavy lines to echo and accentuate the piecing.

I backed it using good old Ikea Nummer which I bought a bolt of before we moved to an Ikea-less country!

It makes such a versatile backing and here I highlighted the relevant number with a wavy frame of the different shot cottons.

For the binding I used left over strips of the various fabrics in the quilt.

After  trialling many different methods for attaching the binding over the years I have come back to my favourite: narrow doubled binding, machine stitched onto the front and hand sewn down onto the back.

I was bit nervous about washing it as I hadn't prewashed the fabrics, but I put in a colour catcher and all was well!

Hopefully it's the perfect size for a bit of coziness when reading or to drape over a chair

Isn't it funny how a quilt never looks finished until it's been bound and washed to find all its lovely crinkliness!

Now I'm off to look at all your entries in the festival...

Slow Slow Quick Quick Slow

Things have been kinda slow over here. 

My work's been a bit slow, which has been good coz it's the school holidays.

And it's been good to be about with the kids, including the oldest home from NZ for Uni holidays, hanging out with his brother in the kitchen in these photos, evidence for the fact that he even cooked us a few meals while he was home :-)

We're sorting out towards a move back to NZ at the end of the year. 

That's a slow process. 

I'm in the midst of instituting a new and efficient filing system (hmm I fear in my secret self that however good the system is, it's the filer here who's not so efficient) and going through every cupboard and drawer. Sorting out's been slow, I'm not good at making long term decisions about what to chuck out. I've been burnt in the past by chucking out things I shouldn't have and consequently now probably keep too much. That, and I'm super indecisive and can't bear to waste something that might come in useful later. It probably won't, but as soon as I chuck it out I'll think, now where's that little box that'd  be perfect for this....!

We also have to prepare the house for sale, which means means tons of little jobs, yet keeping the big picture in view, so not being too detailed about it.

Even tho' things have been slow, time's going fast somehow and I don't want to live towards next year while I'm preparing. We're here now and I want to savour it. So in a way I want to slow down.

I've been slow sewing and blogging too.

I'm still playing with the Oakshotts and ideas are synthesising for a quilt with them. I have some sketches, but really I just have to take the plunge with my idea. I'll show you bits soon.

Altogether I'm slightly stuck in my creative decisions...

This quilt which has been stalled for ages at the quilting stage is finished except for the binding, but now I've decided (almost) to remake it!

I think I've been stuck with the quilting, not so much because I got bored with doing it, as because I'm disappointed with the quilt as a whole.

I love that feature 60s floral so much that I didn't want to cut it up too much. Liz made a stunning quilt with big pieces of Japanese fabric which inspired me- here's just a section of it

But even though  I love I'm happy with the back of my new one and even the quilting in the end...

It just doesn't do it for me. Last weekend I finished the quilting and then straightaway I SOOO nearly cut it up to make this inspiration of Ashley's.  

From Ashley at Film in the Fridge

Which I'm sure is a much better use of the lovely big scale. I'd convinced myself to cut up the finished quilt to make it quilt as you go and just add a new backing over the top of the old one and stitch in the ditch around the hexagons. But...then I waste the strip of floral on the back. I suspect the solution is to unpick the quilting and re-make it properly. Not sure I've got the energy for that yet, having just finished all that quilting after so much procrastinating; so maybe I should just bind it and use it and re-do it down the track?!

Do you ever have dilemmas like this or is it just me? 

I have made the July block for the Simply Solids Bee

And I've started on the July do.Good Stitches Drunkards Path blocks

Just as well there's a Slow Blogger linky to join!

Resurrecting Inspiration

I have been playing with these recently.

I only dared to cut an inch or an inch and a half off each...

Not entirely to good effect! 

Gum trees and bark have long inspired me and I had an idea which I fear is doomed (aren't I brave showing you my failures)!

I've worked out what's wrong I think- colours too close and scale of strips is wrong, but I am confident something new will emerge.- so thinking again...

And trying to tell myself that this is how I learn to be creative...

Trouble is... I don't think I'll be able to find it without cutting into that lovely stack a bit more daringly...!

Linking up with Fresh Sewing Day and Small Blog Meet at Lily's Quilts

A finish- finally and some fabulous fabric

I have finally finished off my table runner!  I was feeling indecisive about making a facing, but ended up deciding a binding would finish off the stripes, rather than leaving them hanging. Tho' I did like the wine red idea, suggested in the comments on my last post, I'm a sucker for green and happened to have enough on hand. So green binding it was.

I absolutely love this Wrenly pattern with its greens and small and large detailing . The red spiky flowers like the one below towards the right totally remind me of the Pohutukawa and rata flowers from home in NZ which flower around Christmas near the beaches. I decided to quilt some of the patterned areas with some free motion outline quilting. Not only because I was sick of doing short stripes!

I deliberately didn't make the striped piecing ruler straight, but am not entirely sure about the quilted stripes accentuating that. I might make a different decision next time, but overall I'm pleased and think it's happily Christmassy without having to be hidden away for 11 months of the year.

In other news...we have been receiving various exciting packages to put under the tree and for our younger son who turns 14 on Sunday; but one came today which I could open already!

I have really fallen for Carolyn Friedlander's Architextures range. Believe it or not I did exercise some restraint and there were a few I didn't get, but I've always loved maps, so these were irresistible!
I'd love to make a bag, but they'd also make great little pouches, cushions and some are destined for my low volume text/ crosses quilt.

The white on white  is hard to photograph with the others and reflects the light quite trickily, but I think these will be great blenders, as well as stunning on their own. The cross hatch on the bias is a nice change. As is becoming my standard, I got 1/2 a yard of each, but a yard of the black and white as I have a project in mind for the future.

Joining in at My Creative Space today