my 'everything but the kitchen sink' quilt

A long long time ago I made this quilt. 

It was quite a challenge for me. As I pulled these rejected blocks all out of the box I had stored them in, I remember trying to work out what, if anything, was the link between them all. And, an unusual choice for me, I decided that 'green' could work well.

Why the name? Well, this quilt includes blocks and fabric from over 15 years of quilting, everything from orphan blocks, blocks from a New York Beauty workshop, leftover strips, trial blocks of machine applique, and lots of scrappy fabric bits, everything really, but the kitchen sink. So many great blocks and so many great memories tied up in one quilt.

The black & white stripe seemed to also tie things up together nicely and I used a large Kaffe floral for the outer border. And then I did straight line machine quilting all over the quilt, nothing fancy just enough to secure the layers without distracting from the scrappy feel of the quilt. I used a Kaffe soft green with pink spots for the binding.

Olive now has this quilt on her bed,

it's well loved and is standing up to the test of time and lots of use

Linking up with Cynthia for Scrap-A-Palooza! : Quilts From Orphan Blocks here
- pop on over to see lots of other projects made from orphan blocks

a no sew day

My Friday plans involved this lovely little stack of outback wife vintage florals

'cos, you know,

being retired,

one has to have a few plans . . .

and then a little twinkle turned up unexpectedly . . .

and she had other plans with my fabric . . .

and was so much more fun . . .

so it was a no sew day for me today . . . and I think you can see why J
{#lovebeingagranny}

upcycling {a WiP}

The other WiP that I'm busy sewing at present is my hexi project 

Inspired by these gorgeous recent 'doily quilt' versions over here 

I too am teaming up my little collection of 'old' doilies with a scrappy selection

of pastel prints

I'm using an old photocopied pattern from an out-of-print magazine

of a bright and colourful quilt called 'Candied Hexagons' by Kerry Dear

Using a pastel palette gives more of a vintage look to this pattern, don't you think?

I spent a bit of time at the beginning of the month prepping,

a very pretty mess that day . . . but so worth it . . .

. . . because now I can sew a couple together whenever there's a bit of time

Making steady progress

- head count now at 28 {out of 100 required} pieced hexagons

- loving this little star cluster, can you see it?
It's made {accidently} by combining three 'baby blocks' together, might just leave it like that

I do think the variety in these little individual pieces is what's keeping me interested

Couldn't resist another group shot . . .

I'm really enjoying this.
It's great way of re-using, and upcycling, and valuing mums pretty collection of doilies

Linking up with Esther here for 'WOW' = WiP's on Wednesday
and with Lorna over here  for 'show & tell'

a little scrap basket sewing

Back sewing from my scrap baskets today,

a little bit of improv with a tea towel or three thrown in too ...

just something a little bit different this week ...

More to come ...

Linking up with Cynthia for 'oh scrap' here 

rainbow explosion

rainbow; noun arch of colours in the sky

Oh goodness it looks like a rainbow exploded around here today . . .

I finished putting my 'queen of the May' quilt top together this week, all from stash
{see here, here and here for inspiration details and earlier decision dilemmas}

After a few days of experimenting
with different borders, different sashings and different settings,

this is where I finally ended up . . .

Just my luck, the HST border didn't exactly fit, so there's some quirky improv corner piecing

And I started to run out of bigish pieces of my main yellow floral fabric

 so in true 'makedo' fashion
I had to piece several bits together when I reached the outer borders
Hopefully once it's all quilted it won't be an issue

It's big, it's bold, and . . . it's unlike anything I've made before

Linking up with Leanne and Nicky for February's 'scraptastic Tuesday' here
with Lorna for 'show & tell' here @ sewfreshquilts
and with Kelly over here for 'needle and thread Thursday'

'queen of the May' {decision made}

Thank you all so much for the comments & suggestions on my last post.

You've given me lots to think about with my 'queen of the May' blocks. 

On my last trip to Melbourne I visited Somerset Patchwork and loved Karen's quilt 'Circle of Sisters' that was on display in the shop. It was a bright & happy recreation of a vintage quilt. The blocks were on a wonderful yellow background, the whole quilt simply glowed, and I've always loved the idea of making a quilt one day on something so bright too.



Fast forward to now, and my indecsion about the backgrounds of my 'queen of the may' blocks. The 'printonprints' effect is quite wild and colourful! And so tempting. It's such a very different direction from where I would usually go.
So I’m heading this way ... just for a change ... and using the lovely Victoria Findlay Wolfe yellow floral, Elise Mostly Manor, as my background.

But as some of you pointed out, the blocks could easily get a bit lost on it. So what to do?
Yesterday I had a light bulb moment ... ric rac.
I've seen ric rac used on some quilts before - Rachaeldaisy from 'blue mountain daisy' has used ric rac in some very inspiring ways on her lovely quilts. So off I went to 'Spotlight' (it's similar to 'Jo Anns' I think), and bought a few metres of blue ric rac.

It’s my first time using ric rac to edge anything like this, and I had to quickly check out how to actually sew the ric rac on, you can see here too.

After machine stitching it onto my first 'queen of the May' block, I did panic a little, as there was a bit of buckling. However, after I pressed it down, and pulled gently on the ric-rac that was showing, I had it all nice and flat and even. Then I edge stitched the circle down by hand onto my yellow background fabric.

Yes, I think this could work out just fine

- only six more to do

Linking up with Kelly here for 'needle and thread Thursday'

and with Esther over here for 'WOW'

fabric indecision

My 'queen of the May' blocks are all made now. I've really enjoyed putting these together, from making the wild fabric choices right through to the traditional construction - the hardest thing was not to make them all too nicely co-ordinated.

I love all these blocks. However, I'm still very undecided about the backgrounds and am so not wanting to buy anything new. Here are the options from my stash ...

option #1

Kona cotton Corn

I would envisage some lovely quilted texture all over those yellow spaces if I used this.

option #2

VFW yellow floral Elise Mostly Manor

hm-m-m- it sure is a riot of busy happy colour here!

option #3

a scrappy selection of neutral plaids, spots & stripes

maybe playing it safe with an old-ish earthy striped Kaffe fabric for sashing...

Time for a bit of fun ... which option appeals to you?

Any thoughts or comments really welcome!

Linking up with Cynthia for 'oh scrap' here
and with Beth for 'main crush Monday' over here