Thursday 30 October 2014

Tuesday 28 October 2014

every quilt tells a story

While I'm not back into sewing just yet I thought I'd share with you a few of the older quilts I have made over the years. Be warned, some content may make you laugh out loud! Things were certainly very different when I first started quilting 30yrs ago! Fabric & colour choices way, way back then were very limited, you wouldn't have contemplated internet shopping for fabric, & we didn't have all the inspiration that's available now out there in blogosphere! We all made our initial sampler quilts of course, which was a really good way to learn all the basics. But I felt people were obsessed with perfectionism {you've heard of the quilt police!}, getting the exact fabric if they ran out, and layouts were often standard & methods limiting.  Over the time I've been sewing, alot in the quilting world has certainly changed -thank goodness- and there are some things that I think are really great now... it's lovely that so many younger people also love quilting too, I love that there's more colour, more patterns, more techniques to explore, and I really enjoy being able to document my own quilting journey in this way! So here we go...

lots of little 4 patch square-in-a-square 4" blocks
the first of many scrappy quilts


I bought the fabrics in Auzzie at a quilt show 2008, a couple of lovely liberties in there!
actually it still kinda looks "fresh & modern" to me! 


1930's little prints Fan Quilt with a touch of yellow batik
ha-ha, seems to me I had more time for handquilting way back then!

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Whether a Kaffe fan or not, one of his earlier books Museum Quilts is really worth having a look at. It showcases some of those wonderful quilts in the Victoria & Albert Museum in England. I have made a couple of quilts using his patterns from this book.

Gypsy Throw, gifted to my daughter's in-laws


Snowball Quilt, I love a blue quilt
but sadly it's still a UFO ! 


another Snowball Quilt
oh dear - I must have been going thru' a very brown phase!
so glad now I added in that turquoise & grey stripe as well!
Gifted
 

Brick Path Quilt
while simple in layout it's still a favorite of mine
now all quilted & gifted

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And here's a couple of pics of earlier quilts that are now being very much used & loved on little Olive's bed.


I drew up the pattern after seeing something similar at Material Obsession


Ice Cream Quilt
from the "Gentle Art of Quiltmaking" by Jane Brockett
I really enjoyed raiding my stash to find similar medium toned fabrics 
then threw in the darker pink spot to add interest  

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I made this top ages ago, never finished it
BUT it's my inspiration for something a bit more "modern" that I am planning at present



As you can see my quilting style has been all over the place, over all these years! Fast forward to today and it still remains a great hobby, full of creativity & challenges, full of new quilty friends and full of lovely fabric! Hey, I'm sure you will all have lots of stories about your first quilting ventures too - I'd love to hear about them!


Sunday 26 October 2014

from the couch














It's been a bit quiet around here on the blog... I've just had a bit of an extended sleepover in hospital for several days, not too nice being on the receiving end of things I must say! Anyway, all's good now & I'm recupping on the couch for a bit each day. And it's so nice to have some hand sewing to do.
Some time ago I started a long term handpiecing project, Curved Star Hexagons. I've had a few completed pastel ones up on my design wall for a while now, but they never seemed to look quite right! I often start out enthusiastically & have a vision of where I'm going, but as usual, things don't always go to plan!
This week I've had plenty of time to think about those hexis... and decided on a selective scrappy colour scheme. I grabbed some extra AMH fabrics from the stash, got back on the couch, put on my Piano Boys CD {see link below} and made a few more hexagons, only thing missing was a wee glass of vino! The hexis take less than half an hour to piece together and I'm finding it very enjoyable! Not wanting to waste all my earlier hard work, I also unpicked a couple of the original light outer triangles, added darker fabrics and it's made quite a difference! This has possibilities, yes?

a bit more #22

Sunday 12 October 2014

just like joining the dots










Ginger Crush BOM... muted colours.. pastel shades.. with little bright pops of Raspberry/Cerise/Navy, and an added bonus, all the working out has been done for me! It's a nice change to make something that's so easy to follow & you know it's all going to gel together nicely 'cos you've seen the finished picture. 123 or abc... it's just like joining the dots really, and I'm loving it!



Thursday 9 October 2014

from chaos to some semblance of order!










Not a big fan of solid-all-white backgrounds  
but my goodness
what a difference adding just a little bit of low volume white has made to this quilt
It seems to have taken it from chaos to some semblance of order!
{And I just love that AMH Social Climber in teal/green, luckily I had just enough to do the borders!}     


a bit more #21
remember this? my puss-in-a-corner quilt
... just back from Annette, with lots of lovely traditional 3" clamshell quilting all over it!  
You know what I'll be busy doing this weekend!





Tuesday 7 October 2014

scrappy chains (a WiP)





A fortnight ago I treated myself to a little stash building, and my fabrics arrived last weekend!
See the fabric spread out on the table? It's a pretty floral from Pat Bravo for Art Gallery Fabrics. The cream multi spot & teal branch fabrics are also part of that range, {yep, that's all I bought!}. Together they inspired my colour scheme for my next quilt of yellows/oranges/pinks/watermelom green. I love a scrappy look, that random use of bits & pieces is resourceful & patchworky, and I do also find using fabrics from my stash very satisfying. Having said that thou', now & then adding one or three newer fabrics helps breath a bit of fresh life into my collected treasure! 

And my quilt idea? I spotted this 'Spanish Chains' quilt here @ 
http://riddleandwhimsy.wordpress.com/project-type/2014/ it appears to be made from one designer range and the same neutral background fabric thru'out. Not wanting to make a complete look-a-like version, and this is the main reason, I also didn't have enough of any one fabric for the background, I decided to go with my usual scrappy. I did some simple maths & made up a few test blocks...



After making a few more blocks, I did find that the overall pattern seemed quite lost. The usual format of the 9patch, 5 squares light & 4 dark (or vice versa) wasn't working here! All my neutral creams and black & white fabrics for the 4patch blocks, while certainly pretty enough individually, were proving to be problematical! Because once put together with the 9patch blocks, the "chain" effect was a bit of a non event! You can see that it's really hard to follow the pattern clearly in this pic below...





... so I changed a few of the 9patch squares, making them more middle-to-dark in value. And I also made my lights really "light" for the next few blocks! Progress pics...










I was going to can the whole idea, you know, just chalk it up to experience!
But I've spent a few hours fiddling around with this now and kinda like it!   
The overall pattern is subtle - 
but it is there -
from a distance!

Linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced



Thursday 2 October 2014

classic meets modern {October edition}









It's that time again, and another block to make! There are a couple of things that stand out to me now... firstly, I seem to be using more & more solids within each block as we have progressed, a real change for me! {maybe I'll make an all solids quilt one day!} And I also feel this is a fairly restricted colour pallette for me, rather than my usual all out colourful scrappy, and that's a nice change too. Looking forward to the last couple of month's blocks and then it'll be time to decide on settings etc.

Linking up with Erin here at