Double Wedding Ring

There's always a challenge! 

When I was asked to quilt a piece that had already been sandwiched and bound, I nearly turned it down. It goes against all the rules. But when I saw how lovely it was I agreed to give it a go. It was all beautifully hand pieced and made from a gorgeous blue oriental print. For some reason the lady who made it said she hated it because there was too much pink. 

Really ? Too much pink! 

But there was a lot of open space, so we agreed I should try to tone it down with a different colour thread.  Before I saw the quilt I thought I might be able to remove the binding to get it on my frame. But as you can see it is scalloped and so neatly bound I couldn't do that!

So it was a real struggle just to load it onto the frame and keep it from shifting as I quilted up to the edge. 

It was crying out for some sort of feather motif inside the rings. I chose a light blue to match the other fabric which of course showed up against the pink - No pressure then!!

But I am quite pleased with the effect and hope she likes it too.

It looks nice on the back, and surprisingly I managed to do it with very little puckering.  

After that adventure, I spent half a day 'processing' a bag of scraps I'd been given (Thanks Jean - it doesn't take much to distract me!) I was quite ruthless in chucking some of it away (green camouflage fabric - I don't think so!) But then I found some pretty pinks and blues and I was lost. Like I said, you can never have too much pink!

 

This weekend I had planned to start on a hand pieced quilt for Meryl, but the thread tension was playing up and I did more unpicking than sewing. So I walked away from it  for a while and went back to the 'Halo' quilt. 

And today I finished piecing it.

I love the final stage of assembling a quilt top - it seems to come together so quickly after all the fiddly bits. I really enjoyed playing with my favourite treasured fabrics which I have used very sparingly. I just need to add an edging of the background so that the binding will clear the flying geese.

After I complete Meryl's quilt, I want to set some time aside for some serious custom quilting on this one.

 Happy Quilting Everyone!

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96 Geese - a - Flying!

Know When To Stop!

Ok! So I got a bit carried away with these tiny flying geese, but they were so much more fun than foundation piecing somehow. They are no harder to make than larger units, it's just that they don't go so far. They are so sweet and finish at 1 inch by half an inch!

I was in my element and stuck with it all day, but eventually called it a night at 96. 

Today I have made them into a little border for the Halo Block.

Then I joined my Dresden Bloom blocks into pairs to be trimmed down to the same size as the curved flying geese. This was not as simple as I thought it would be because I had to part unpick the appliqued quarter circles to tuck the inset triangles underneath. So the join is a bit messy, but I think I can hide that with some clever quilting. 

Now I have to build up from the centre outwards to meet that border. 

Back to the school of make it up as you go along!!

Happy Quilting Everyone!

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Throw Me a Curve!

Sewing by Numbers! 

Much as I dislike the tedium of foundation piecing, I have to concede that sometimes it really is worth the effort. This delightful top was a charity shop find which Jean M and her daughter asked me to quilt. The piecing is absolutely perfect and it is such a charming design. What a shame that someone went to all this trouble to make it and it ended up unfinished in a sale. 


It would have been a crime to quilt an edge to edge design over it. So I loaded it onto the frame just to baste it, then took it off and stitched in the ditch on the Bernina. Then I put it back on the frame and quilted some simple meandering loopy 'bubbles' in the background. 

Then I went back to my own foundation pieced project (based on the Halo Quilt design). I made another 12 'Flying Geese Arcs' and then had to pick out all this foundation paper. 

The next job was to cut the background pieces to set them into blocks. I found the perfect template for the outer curve, in a set I already had, which made it a lot easier. 

I got the hang of the curved piecing quite quickly and really enjoyed that part today. The instruction for squaring up the blocks was very accurate and I now have 28 of these pretty blocks to add to the 8  Dresden Bloom blocks I made last year. 

This is where I am going to deviate from the original  design and now I am working on these minute little Flying Geese spacers.

I just can't resist playing with the little scraps!


Happy Quilting Everyone!

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Firm Foundations

 Necessary Evil!

It must have been withdrawal symptoms... not being able to sew over the Easter weekend... but this week I have thrown myself into 2 things I generally do very little of.

The first was foundation piecing. Sandy has been leading the way on a very intricate Block of the Month project called the 'Halo Quilt', designed by Sue Garman (sadly no longer with us) for the Quilt Show.

I made the centre star a while back and have been too busy with other things to get any further. 

But I really wanted to have a go at curved flying geese and there really is no other way but foundation piecing. 

It is not my favourite technique, but I got stuck in and produced these 16 'arcs' in 2 days. I was pleasantly surprised at how little waste there was, as it gave me the opportunity to use up little odds and ends from my 'Treasure basket'.

I will probably need to make more, but I haven't decided on the final layout yet. As usual I am making it up as I go along and will adapt the original pattern to incorporate other elements of my own.

Today I have started to set them into their background squares. Curved piecing WITH PINS - no option with these!

So far, so good!

The other thing I have been playing with is English Paper Piecing. I was so impressed with Karen's little hexie quilt made using pre-cut 'Hexieforms' which can be left in, that I ordered some (300 actually), but smaller, with 3/4 inch sides. I am inspired to make a smaller scale 'Mrs Billing's Coverlet' style quilt and I plan to use them for applique rather than make a whole piece with them.

The cutting out and tacking is rather tedious (though not wasteful), but once you start to piece them into these little flower shapes they come together really quickly. 

I can see how this can become addictive!

Happy Quilting Everyone!

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Back to Business

Lovely Applique

After last week's bag diversion, it was back to business up in the loft, to complete 2 pieces I had been asked to quilt. This one is another fun applique design put together by Jenny. What a charming pattern - I'm sure her granddaughter will love it!

 

I have quilted it quite heavily to fill in the large open spaces and to take up a bit of fullness in the borders. 

Before that, I quilted this top for Jean Hipwell. It was mystery quilt which she had adapted a little to make it fit together the way she wanted. 

I took the opportunity to practise this quilting design called 'feathered swirls' by Judi Madsen. Her quilting is truly phenomenal and I have a couple of her books to study. I would love to get anywhere near her standard! 

I have watched her video over and over and tried it a couple of times before.

 It is still not quite right but I am definitely improving. I am getting better at the shapes. But I need to get the 'travelling' right and to fill the space more evenly.

But Hey! Practice makes Perfect. I am determined to get the hang of it. 

Talking of practice, I found time to try some free motion quilting on the Bernina, using the transparent quilting foot I got at Birmingham, and the Brother hoop, and I got on fairly well. I will try it on the Brother machine too when I get a moment.

In between times, I have started on the '40 scraps challenge' which Ann K gave us from Connecting Threads. The challenge is to use a scrap donated by each member in a single project, as a sort of memento. What a nice idea - I know where I am going with that one and have already made a start. 

Bet you can't guess what it is - but look how little I threw away!

I've also been working on my own version of the 'Sew a row' quilt in blues and creams, mostly Edyta Sitar fabrics. I have done the houses, trees, animals and boats. Now I have cut out a whole fat quarter's worth of stems and leaves for the applique setting, with a little help from Rene on Monday afternoon!

Hardly an inch was wasted!!!!!!!!!!

So I have plenty to be getting on with - Happy Quilting Everyone!

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Mumm's The Word

Extreme Fussy Cutting

Another distraction this week! 

The theme for the last Studio Quilters meeting was to 'make something from the cupboard' i.e. use up a kit or finish off a UFO. I had intended to cut out a folksy style printed waistcoat pattern and make it into a wall hanging. So I dug out all my 'Debbie Mumm' scraps to add to it.

Now these started out as dressmaking scraps that I acquired in the 1990's.

 So they were originally very odd shapes with arm holes cut right through this very busy pattern ('Fruity Kitchen' by Debbie Mumm). I had cut out as many bits of the motifs as I could salvage and had already used up the off cuts of the off cuts! 

Over the years I have moved them from one box (and house) to another, every time I reorganised my stash, and vowed that one day I would find the right project for them. And this was it! 

I abandoned the wall hanging project and set about reconstructing the pieces to form a large enough panel to make a new quilt tote bag.

I framed some of the smaller squares with snippets of the striped sections to make them fit together. And I even spliced sections of the pattern together, carefully matching it up, to make it go further. 

There was even enough for two strips on the inner pockets and for matching inset strips on the handle.

It has taken me all week and I did have to laugh at myself! But now I have turned my obsessive compulsion to use up scraps into another big bag to take quilts and all my other bits around in - I always seem to have so much to carry!

Next up is Jean Hipwell's beautifully pieced top which is loaded and ready to go when it is a bit warmer up in the loft.

Happy Quilting Everyone!

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Mauve Masterpiece

Feathered Friend

Here's a preview of Rose's amazing hexagon quilt. I will show pictures of the whole piece when she has seen it. That is if I can get a a complete picture (it is massive). 

Rose asked me to do a bit more than the pantograph style she usually gets done at the quilt shop. So I gave it the full custom job with ruler work and freehand feathers. Rose thinks she might want to trim the bottom corners into a curve. So I deliberately contained the border design in a curved outline, then quilted a curly filler up to the edge, so that the feathers wouldn't get chopped off.

The hexagons were machine pieced, lots of 'Y' seams, and beautifully done. There was a bit of fullness in the cream background, probably due to the bias effect of the hexagon cut. I managed to 'soak it up' by trailing feathers all around it.

All in all, more than 25 hours on the frame, and I am pleased with the result.

The snow cleared just in time for our little jaunt to the Knitting and Stitching Show at Olympia last weekend. Once again, I showed great restraint for myself, yet managed to encourage another quilting friend to buy a brand new Brother machine like mine! I should be on commission.

I did get this lovely wooden thread stand for my loft studio, a birthday present courtesy of my dear brother who joked...

"Surely wooden threads stand up by themselves!"

Next in the queue is another hexie quilt for Mary S. Hers was hand pieced into ten large diamonds. I played around with different layouts and found that ten doesn't work well. So I joined nine for the top and top stitched it onto this background.



Then I appliqued the tenth one onto the backing, which I also pieced together from various fabrics from her stash. I will do a fairly open edge to edge design on this one. 
Mary kindly gave me a huge amount of fabric which I will be sharing with Studio Quilters tomorrow. 

I think there will be an abundance of green quilts this year!!!!

Happy Quilting Everyone!

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