Zesty...

It's Springtime on this side of the hemisphere and there are blossoms bursting, leaves unfurling, bees buzzing furiously and today an endless blue sky all wrapped in a perfect mild 20 degrees celsius. We've had a bitterly cold winter and plenty of rain (not complaining about the rain but enough already!). The weather was so beautiful this morning I couldn't help make the most of it and took my latest quilt finish outside to finish off the loose threads.This quilt is another donation towards R's Ireland trip. The jazz ensemble has a performance on Friday night at the Royal Institute in Adelaide (RIAUS), the old Stock Exchange building and this quilt will be used as a raffle prize.I've used a similar layout to this quilt, 5" squares on the diagonal with white set in triangles. The colours are really citrus-y with a mix of hot pink, green, orange and yellow. Selecting fabrics for this quilt really took me out of my comfort zone. I'm very much a 'fabric story' quilter....so this was a very brave step forward in selecting colours and prints but I was determine to use what I had and the scrap bag is rather depleted (joy!). I know most of these prints are much the same saturated tone but it was the mix of colours I was going for in this instance.Not a huge quilt at 54" square but big enough for a lap or a picnic.
The binding is a funny little print of zany green and yellow diamonds with a hot pink dot. It reminds me of crocodile skin! I picked it up for $2 a metre at a Spotlight sale and it blends perfectly with the rest of the colours. Zesty looks right at home under the very last mandarin but only for a day or two!

Another Granny....

The Granny Square quilt that Clare and I have been making for our friend is finished. It's just lovely ...even if I say so myself!
We shared the block making and it's surprising what you can find in your scrap bin to turn into a Granny block. Together we brought a bunch of random and donated bits of fabric (thank you Kay and Michelle) that stitched together into an eclectic colour mix to create nothing short of a wonderful quilt top and backing.
We had a splendid time sorting and balancing colour choices. It sure is a fun task playing with someone else's 2 1/2" pre cut squares! So much so, the girls and I have already spent another evening throwing fabric scraps into the centre of the table to cut into 2 1/2" squares for us to divvy up next time we meet. This is a great way to move around some fabric that we've pulled and used just one too many times! So stay tuned for a bit more of the Granny Power!Clare stitched this top and I quilted and bound it. The binding is a quite wide stripe of red and the palest of pinks that I've had in the cupboard for a while now. The red works with the front (we both do red...a lot!) and the pink works with the back....(which I do...a lot!) I love it....we love it, I'm sure J will love it too!

Meet Miss Polly....

...Actually, it's more like Miss Poly....Poly short for Polyester!
I saw these fabrics at our local 'super-sized' fabric/craft/habby store and fell in love with the designs and colours. Clare and I dubbed them the 'Cath Kidston knock-offs' and we both thought that we'd like to work with them. We agreed to go halves in some 1/2 metres to give ourselves a set of fat quarters.I was in the neighbourhood of the newest superstore during the recent school holidays and whizzed in to pick up a bunch. I was more concerned with grabbing a big enough bundle of rolled fabrics and lining up to be served quickly and dashing out again in the amount of time I had available.
That afternoon my Spotlight catalogue arrived in the mail and after a bit of speed reading to determine what bits I was keeping and what was going straight into the bin, I turned a page to find that what I'd just purchased was a 'poly-cotton'. O.M.G! I had committed a fabric purchase sin. I have a cupboard full of beautiful cottons and I've purchased poly-cotton and didn't even notice it beyond thinking it was a bit stiff....which I assumed was sizing and this would wash out.
I cut the fabrics up and confessed my blunder to Clare. She didn't mind. And, truth be told, I was torn. I hated the fact that these fabrics were synthetic....but I still loved the prints and colours.
We both decided to soldier on and each added some cotton sateen's to the mix.I cut my bunch up into 5" squares and set them on point to create a lap sized quilt for my mum.
After a bit of calculation I worked out how big to make the triangles to set into the corners. These are in white cotton....now we have a mixed marriage!Cutting and piecing was easy...in fact, I think the stiffness helped to keep things straight. But I did notice my needle blunted very quickly.
I've stippled the quilt and whilst I was very concerned about slippage....it's quilted quite well both front and back.The binding is scrappy and uses pretty much the last of the 'knock-off' poly's.....I didn't want them hanging around!
Having said all that, and even with this total fabric dilemma I'm suffering, I think it's probably a good thing to have fabric that's a little more robust for a lap quilt that will endure everyday use by an older person. Time will tell....at least it's pretty to look at!

It's Laura Ashley's fault....

Back in the mid 1970's, Laura Ashley came to Adelaide. This little shop first opened in a now defunct city arcade and was a treasure trove of white cotton lace dresses and pretty floral fabrics. I loved visiting this shop and I'm pretty sure I touched every bolt of fabric as it sat propped on its shelf with it wonderful assortment of coordinating prints, stripes and florals.
As a teenager I began visiting the city by myself. I would always pop in and marvel at the prettiness of everything in this shop but with price tags way beyond my meager part time job income, I would generally walk out empty-handed. Then I discovered the discount table. Oh what delight this table would deliver. Fabric covered diaries....who cares if it was March, there was still 9 months of good diary keeping to be had. Soaps in broken containers and discontinued single rolls of wall paper and borders that were perfect for the dolls house. Then on one such discount table rummage, I discovered the best prize of all. A packet of Laura Ashley cornflower blue fabric squares for patchwork projects for just $5. Needless to say that little torn plastic bag came home with me that day and there it stayed waiting for the perfect project for about 30 years. It moved house with me several times and was then duly forgotten until 4 years ago when I found it again in a suitcase of craft 'stuff'.
"Hummm", I thought. "I've always wanted to make a quilt". So that Friday night I popped into a bookstore and bought two quilt books. Inside one book was a 9 patch quilt for a cot. It called for 11 different colour prints to be cut into 2 1/2" squares. "What's this inches business?", I thought to myself.
My fabrics were 12cm and I had 5 prints in my Laura Ashley stack. 12cm is roughly 4 1/2" and I decided not to cut them down but rather make the quilt in the book but use the full patch.
So early next morning after a sleepless night watching the clock tick down till the lovely fabric shop around the corner opened, I waltzed in with my squares hoping to select the remaining six lots of fabric along with white for the sashing.
I was bamboozled to say the least. So many gorgeous fabrics and absolutely no idea how to pick them. Luckily there was a very obliging staff member who helped me make up the balance of fabrics I needed.
Home I trotted with my fabric booty, new cutting mat, ruler and this roller blade thingy.
I cut and sewed all afternoon and by the end of the day I had a finished quilt top.
Looking back now, I laugh and shake my head in disbelief at all the mistakes I made because I didn't know any better.
I measured everything in centimetres when I should have used inches.
I concocted this measuring technique using my tape measure and placing my ruler on the 'wrong' side of the fabric....how it ended up straight and even is a miracle!
I used my regular foot because I didn't know what a quarter inch foot was.
My ironing is sloppy with many seams not quite fully pressed flat.
And of course the size of a cot quilt that should finish at 44" x 36" when cut from 2 1/2" squares ends up at 84" x 64" when made from 4 1/2" (12cm) squares!!
I started to baste it on my dining room table, tacking it down by hand and not knowing anything about taping down backing before placing batting and a top and blissfully unaware about pinning with safety pins.
And then I panicked. How was I going to quilt something that was over 2 metres wide on my 1980's Husqvarna?
I folded it up and put it away and went and learned a bit more about cutting, ironing, piecing, basting and quilting.
A couple of years ago I pulled the tacking out and used the batting for another project. Goodness knows what became of the backing....which by the way was completely inappropriate now that I think about it.
Then last week and many quilts later, I pulled that quilt top out of the cupboard with the intention of pulling it all apart. But I looked at it and thought, "Who cares if the seams are little wider than a 1/4"? They all match up, and the fabrics are so pretty."So I ironed that quilt top and bought some new backing and batting and now 4 years later, I'm a much braver and wiser quilter with better equipment and I'm ready to give it another go. And every time I look at this quilt I'll think, "thank goodness for that Laura Ashley discount table in that shop full of beautiful things I could never afford because if it wasn't for that reject cornflower blue patchwork fabric, I might not have ever become a quilter".

Belated bloggerversary....

Last week I past the two year milestone of this little blog. I didn't forget, I just wasn't sure what to write. Last year I wrote about how I'm constantly inspired by my surroundings and how I see quilts everywhere. Nothing's changed! And in fact, many of these sightings are generally right under my nose, like this 'little' beauty two streets away from my home. This is a very large shed wall that is part of the Coca-Cola bottling plant in Adelaide. About 20 years ago the Thebarton Residents Association lobbied to paint a mural on the wall. It reflects the spirit of our neighboured with elements such as the large Greek community (the biggest in SA), Aboriginal housing, local schools, services and the history of the area. My friend Tara, who is a reader of this blog and now living in Portland was involved in the painting of one of the diamonds (sadly now painted over). We were very worried when the wall was barricaded a few months back, fearing it was to be demolished when the roof was pulled off but thankfully Coke kept the wall and just renovated the attached structure! I love looking at this wall because of its quilt attributes, its small diamond patchwork pieces gathered together to make one large mural. In this case many hands have combined to leave their mark on our world....often like the process of making a community quilt. It's a neighbourhood treasure and something to be admired for many years to come....again just like a quilt. My own recent finish is also a lot like the patchwork mural featuring many pieces of fabrics left over from numerous projects and formed into a network of diamonds using the string piecing method. I had actually finished this quilt top back in January 2010 and it has laid idle in the wardrobe all this time! I'm on a mission to finish up the many incomplete projects I have and to use up fabrics that have a habit of being purchased because 'I have to have them' only to store them away. So no starting anything new until then....well that's this week anyway. Let's see how many I can bowl over!
The quilt is really bright and cheery and I'll be gifting it to my mother in law who is in hospital at the moment facing a second cancer diagnoses. She is very fond of bright colours so I hope it does indeed brighten up her day. The quilt is straight line quilted which I'm a big fan of these days because of its speed and economical use of thread but it also proved the perfect quilting method for the plethora of seams found in string pieced blocks. The straight lines offset against the angles of the strings also looks really great. The back features the lime hippos from Ikea. I don't think you can get this fabric any longer. I've had mine tucked away for this quilt for a long time and also have some red hippos in the cupboard for the right project to come its way. The pink and lime backing works perfectly with the binding which is a multi striped fabric that was purchased from Spotlight. This is the same fabric that's also used in the inset border. It's one of those crisp cottons that I find myself using less of in favour of better quality cottons but I had it stashed for this quilt and thought it was a good opportunity to use it up. I had to laugh though when I noticed that Sarah Fielke (AKA Material Obsession I and II co-author) had used it as a binding in her Woodpile mini quilt in her new book 'Quilting From LittleThings' which I was lucky enough to get from the family for Mothers Day last week. Just goes to show that even great quilters use any fabric so long as it works!And if you're still reading after this long post, here is a gratuitous shot of a little project I've been working on lately. It's actually at binding stage but I think the colours are just gorgeous and I love the look of it all pinned down. It's another 4" block bow tie quilt made up the triangles left over from yet another project I've also resurrected this week. Again the triangles were cut from 2 1/2" strips, so they're pretty tiny. The fabric is Bonnie and Camille's Bliss. I still love it. Now, I'm thinking of pulling yet another UFO from the wardrobe but have to also jump over a mountain of washing first!

Pyjama Party....

I had a lovely pair of rose print cotton p.j.'s that I just loved and then the elastic went. I couldn't be bothered fixing the elastic...too hard in commercially bought p.j.'s but at the same time I couldn't bear to part with the lovely fabric.

So I took a leaf out of quilting ancestory and CUT them up!

The fabric is still in great condition and one leg yeilded around 12 6" squares!

I've teamed the squares with co-ordinating red, pink, blue and green and created a pile of gorgeous shabby chic-ish half square triangles.

I'm still playing with the layout as there are a few too many blobs of colour. But this little quilt is looking rather delightful. And don't worry friends. I won't foist my old jammies onto you, I'm keeping this one .....mind you....I have several other pairs of p.j.'s in rather nice prints on the go!

My creative space.....

Was an absolute shamble this morning at 12.47am.

But by 3.30pm this afternoon I had managed to complete 30 x 8 1/4" paper pieced strip blocks made completely...I said COMPLETELY out of scraps. Even the paper was recycled from essay drafts ....I have lots of them!I've been very conscious since I made my first string quilt to sort my scraps. If they were long or rectangle I put them aside until they were burgeoning out of the bag. I had a bit of a production line going so there is a slight repetition of fabric to match up and I would have to say it made the process of making the blocks much quicker than my first attempt.

I love the fact that this collection of blocks is made from little pieces of fabric that will add up to one fairly substantial patchwork top. However, looking at it on the design floor I think I could do with about 6 more blocks.....maybe!

The photo isn't very clear but the central strips are pale pink and I think I'll use the same fabric for a wide border. I reckon I'll bust out the lime hippos from Ikea that I've been stashing for the backing and that stripey binding fabric I discarded earlier in the week will probably make an appearance on this quilt too.

No plans for a recipient just yet.....just a little project to keep me up at night!

The chook...

This was my Friday night project. It became my Friday night toss and turn, "I can't sleep, what if I did this, I could get up now it's only 3am" project and now it's Saturday night, so it's my "look at my latest quilt top".

The funny thing is that I started sewing these log cabins with a bunch of fabrics that I bought last April when we were in QLD (Mt Tamborine - Gold Coast). I bought 2 x fat quarters and 1 x set of 4 fat 1/8ths. They were supposed to be Civil War repros and they looked lovely all together. When I got home, I had post buyer dissonance (this is marketing speak for consumer behaviour buyer's remorse which is what I should be studying right now but am not because I'm worshipping fabric....where am I....?). I have looked at these fabrics in the cupboard so many times since then, pulled them out and then shoved them back in because they didn't go with anything. Then I got serious. I knew what I wanted to make and I had a recipient in mind. I just had to make it work.

Low and behold. I'd been stashing and hadn't realised it! There was an Anna Maria Horner fat quarter that I bought in Tasmania that co-ordinated perfectly and 2 x brown flat fats from Spotlight. (Quilters: if you're in Australia and have a Spotlight close by, check out the honeycomb and small print fat quarters. Seriously, they're not bad!)

I've used 8 different prints in the log cabins and surrounded them with white. Normally I wouldn't have used white against all these creams and browns but I was also on a mission to use what I had in the cupboard. I must admit that the white does make the other colours pop but I'm not sure of the practicality.

All the fat 1/8th's are gone :-( and I have about a fat 1/8th of the fat quarters left. So all in all, a very low use of fabrics used in the log cabins.

I've christened this quilt top 'The Chook'. The colours remind me of hens....oranges, golds, browns and muddy reds. I probably should have taken it over to Clare's for a photo shoot with her chooks but I think they're demanding huge appearance fees these days as Clare likes to incorporate them in her quilt photos! ....Take a number!

So in the absence of talented chooks, thank you to my patient holding up model...who funnily enough will probably demand a lot more than the chooks! :-)

Santa Claus is coming...

Not that I would wish the festive season upon us this early but for once I've done something that could be considered almost organised! Although it could have quite easily ended up in the unfinished project too-hard-basket if I hadn't needed a small project to take to my machine quilting session a few weeks back. I have finished my Christmas Tree Skirt. You'll find the tutorial over here at Crazy Mom's. I'm very pleased with it. The red gives it a very rich warm feeling and even though the greens I've used are a little unorthidox and not Christmas prints, it's still quite festive.

After our WEA machine quilting sessions I've learnt to stipple a little smaller/denser (perfect for smaller sized quilts and projects) and I've even ventured into the area of 'picture' quilting by including some little stars within the log cabins. It was recommended that this sort of quilting be tackled with a darning foot and I couldn't get my head around that, so opted for my walking foot. But having done it now, I know why. The walking foot is too restrictive and you have to turn your quilt with every angle. So next time, I'll use the darning foot.

On the general quilting front I've really been restraining myself on starting something new which is quite at odds with my personality. I openly flaunt that it's perfectly OK to have more than one thing on at a time but the pile of sandwiched quilts and flimsies is building a little higher than it should be (but then again what's the measure on that? No more pins?). I've been dreaming of a couple of black and white projects and it's amazing what a little self control can do. It's doing my head in to be perfectly honest. I've changed my mind about six times already but I think I've finally decided on two designs for the two quilts I'd like to make. So having got through this week with a big tick on one completed project and we're about to embark on a week away with the family (without the machine), AND uni starts again for me next week, I reckon I can set myself a "Spring to Finish" challenge on the other projects and maybe squeeze in a bit of cutting on the two new projects in between packing. Good plan? Say, yes!

The process of de-pinking

My little girl R has always been a pink girl. I didn't foist it upon her, it just happened. And as quick as it happened, it un-happened.

Now 12 years old, pink's no longer appropriate. Neither are the plethora of baby dolls, Bratz or Barbies, soft toys, fairies or tutu's. So we're de-pinking. We're re-painting after such a short amount of time (I wish I'd kept the room the original cream!). Worse still, my first quilt will be removed from the room. It's inspired by Candy Shop from Material Obsession and it was the VERY first quilt I finished. It's even hand quilted! AND I made a cushion to match.

Now R's room will be white with red accessories. Here's where the red and white quilt comes in! Oh well, at least with white walls it's a plain canvas for the next time there's a change in the air!

There is a time and a place....

I've never had a problem with having more than one project on the WIP sheet at any one time. Particularly when it comes to quilting. Some things need to be approached when you're either 'in the mood' or you can have a good run at it. Personally, I like to cut out fabric on Friday's because that means you can stitch on the weekend.
Today I was 'lucky' enough to get the day off work to stay home and look after the children whilst they're in 'home isolation' (it sounds so much better than quarantine, don't you think?). They've completed all the homework their teachers had set so for all intents and purposes, that's a quilting day! (R said I was like the substitute teacher that lets the class get away with murder!)
So I sandwiched the red and white disappearing 9 patch before breakfast. Stared at it for a while and contemplated it's size and how much time I'd need to quilt it. To resolve the dilema, I thought I'd cut out some fabric.

Our lounge features the one thing that ever got renovated. (We bought our house because very little had been changed.) The previous owners had removed the original Victorian fireplace and replaced it with a 1930's bungalow style glazed brick number. The terracota colour of the brick is so strong and tends to dictate any colour scheme we choose for that room. So when we were visiting Mt Tamborine, QLD back in April I found these beautiful fat quarters of Wyndham fabrics that are supposed reproductions of Civil War prints (hey, I bought it!) in shades of dark pink, terracotta and brown, I had to have them. I've co-ordinated them with some Denyse Schmidt Country Fair and eventually had enough to make a reasonable sized quilt. Then comes the dilema of what to do with them! I've really enjoyed the construction of the Old Red Barn Co's quilt along quilt so I've decided to do something similar for the 'lounge quilt'. Because I've got fat quarters, I can't go full width which means my blocks can't be as deep so I'll join 5 strips of the 2 1/2" strips instead of the 6 and cut them into smaller 10 1/2" blocks.
Before I knew it, all the cutting was completed by early afternoon and the pieces have been re-packed neatly ready for the moment of construction.
Then in between 'silly sentences', a load of washing and a pot of vichyssoise I went back to the red and white and began stippling. Now it's the end of the day and I'm about 2/3rds done!
Yup.....you just have to be in the mood!