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!

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

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!

Works in Progress

Somehow I've ended up working on three quilt tops fairly concurrently...


My HSTs have migrated from the design wall, one row at a time to the machine and the top is coming together quite quickly now.

My improvised squares have been pieced into the background, so now I'm thinking about the back for this, which will probably be pieced from odds and ends, since this quilt is mainly that.

I'm sort of reluctant to post this yet because I know that the individual pieces in this top will really "meld" by the time I've quilted it. It's going to be a bit held up though, because the Copen (Kona solid) I chose for the back really isn't as good as Cadet would be... It is so hard to choose a colour from a card with 1" squares and I haven't found a shop here which sells solids. Such a shame to have to buy more fabric ;-)!

Speaking of which, I bought this lovely stack of Moda Grunge (plus bonus Habitat on sale)  for a project I have in mind inspired by our Cambodia travels and a particular spot in Battambang. 

I think there'll be a bit of the Grunge left over and I rather like the look of it with the Habitat Peach Pollen, which was serendipitous rather than planned, so it'll be interesting to see what comes of that!

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.