Metamorphosis!!!

It has rained all day here in Auckland....Mr D. has spent his time on the computer converting years & years of slides & old pics onto the computer,  and, as we now share the spare bedroom as a computer/sewing room, I too have been "locked in" !!!!
Remember the book about the  "Hungry Caterpillar" ? 
Time to transform something ..........
I must admit I have not been at all happy with my "Beaded Curtains" quilt, and I do feel that with all the time/money/material invested in any project one should be happy with the result, yes????  
I did so want the bright "beads" to float.
Looking back thru' my Kaffe Fasset books also  re -inforced that I had wanted to try for a "no borders" kind -of -look to keep that vertical dropping/floating  feeling.
(And I certainly didn't want an overall "purple" look to the quilt!! )
So........ I have spent most of today unpicking !!!!!!!!
I removed all of blue & mauve 1/2 triangle side borders & all the surrounding soft blue spotty borders.  
Then I rumaged thru' my leftovers container & found more of the Riley Blake cream stripe AND, luckily, more of the KF white/yellow dot. But sadly none of it in biggish pieces.   
So I made fabric out of what I had left.  (If you look closely you will see some joining lines)   I have an old vintage sheet that I will use for backing and the lovely KF stripe binding will, I think, just finish off the quilt quite nicely.   I am v. happy with it now!!!!!!!

just a few more triangles

Have you ever started sewing and it turns out nothing like the idea you originally had ?
I even had a few "rules" sorted out for my last project, the triangles Kaffe Fasset ( KF) quilt, but somewhere along the way it just wasn't working. Certainly not from a construction point of view, 'cos the triangles fitted together really easily, with points all beautifully matched!!!
BUT it began to look like a v. purple quilt which I really could not cope with!!
So, after a bit of auditioning, I added a soft blue border (another KF fabric) all around..........

.....and then had another try!!
I used up the leftover solid fabric triangles that I had rejected for the first quilt, and added alot of white/cream triangles, along with another lovely  KF fabric as the focus.

....I also made the binding, a wonderful KF stripe that will just give this wee quilt a final extra shot of zing!!!   I am alot happier with today's efforts!  (but sadly my sewing machine is sounding v. noisy and is probably now long overdue for a maintenance check !!!)

Quilting friends!!!

Glenys popped in this evening, we had a wine, and she showed me what she has been working on over the last few days. (in between a v. busy time with both of her daughters getting married!!!)
Here is her "Converging Corners" quilt  all together now!!  This quilt was one of our Modern Modern (MM) Bee blocks. We all did a block each & I think Glenys added a couple more to make it up to a good size. 
It looks really great!!!...................





She has also been making three individual "biggish"  blocks........

These have been made with colours that were  picked to be an accent in her newly decorated lounge. She has now added some neutral beige and made a very "modern" setting.......




Its gonna look really good once the quilting adds that further dimension!!!!  Yes?

Triangles

I had a little helper today! 
My 2yr old granddaughter came to play & it wasn't very long before she spotted the fabric mess in the family room and she asked  ...."doing Granny?" ..... I explained I was making a quilt and I was having trouble finding just the right spotty fabrics to go with it. So we played spot -the -dot, & needless to say there was even more of a mess in the family room, but we had alot of fun!!!

After she left for her afternoon sleep, I just kept going and cut out heaps of triangles.

They are each made from a 9" square. You can get 4 squares from a fat quarter. On each square make a mark at the center of the top edge which is 4 1/2 " from each side, and cut from the bottom outer corners up to that mark, forming a triangle.  This gives you a nice largish triangle. ( see Fly A Kite... Noteworthy Fabric Collection/ Sweetwater. I purchased this oh -so- easy pattern from Fat Quarter Shop, I think) (but I haven't followed their layout at all!!)

Then I played around with all the triangles spread out on the family room floor, auditioning them & swapping them around in various layouts.

And the Warriors were on about this time so I just kept going!!!!

My thoughts for this quilt :

1. To use pastels

2. To use some of my stash

3. To use triangles

4. And.... I wanted to use a couple of Kaffe Fasset fabrics as the focus this time.  Over the years I have tried to include some KF fabrics along with other fabrics into most my quilts but the result has been variable!!!)

5. AND........ I wanted something that resembled a beaded curtain effect - I have seen Sarah Fiekle's "Love Beads" where she uses hexagons and triangles,  & I did like the finished look,  plus ages ago I remember seeing  a KF pattern in one of his books for some sort of curtain effect but I can't recall the pattern 

ANYWAY.....It seemed quite extravagant to cut the triangles from the larger squares but I think in the long run it made for a better finish. The sides of the triangles were quite stretchy as I sewed so some care was needed but, once all together, the whole quilt felt very stable.

Here it is so far.......