it's a wrap, or two, or four

It's no secret, I collect fabric, and my daughter collects wraps.

They are practical, comfy, sanity saving at times, and 

. . . the fabrics her wraps are made of are so so lovely

 - Johnny just wanted to play with granny & gramps, not have a photo shoot.

wrap stats:

All cotton, double weave

in emerald & copper brown

4.6 metres (now that's alotta fabric!)

#bijouwear

and a few close-up pics of a couple of her other wraps . . .

and the Harry Potter plaid wrap
'The One Who Lived' and is made by Pretty Paisley . . .

I'm plotting & planning now how best  I we could use these fabrics
you know, when Johnny gets too big.
Maybe floppy messenger bags (instead of plastic), cushion covers, cowl scarf or shawl, soft toys, utility style quilts oh, I've heaps of ideas.

Sundays are for my brimfieldblocks

Have you seen the wonderful 'brimfieldawakening' EPP blocks over on IG recently, 

- if you check out the link you'll see there's lots of variations of the original block.
It ticks all the my boxes just now, slow stitching, live to be creative, modern quilting, handmade.

My brimfieldawakening pattern from here arrived awhile ago, but I omitted to order any papers.

Finally this week, I had all the essentials - pattern, templates and the papers for EPP.

I spent a bit of time pulling fabrics,
based around a couple of fabrics I had recently purchased from the AGF lovedtopieces collection
and a scrappy assortment of other fabrics in my stash.

. . . prep work done now, all ready for a spot of slow hand stitching on Sunday.

exploration in subtle

My "quilt receipe" for this quilt top was to have a simple colour palette of just a few peach, pink and mint prints . . . with lots of low volume fabrics . . . making sure the darkest fabrics went in the centre of each block . . . and of course, to go scrappy. A simple quilt can be the most pretty sometimes, don't you think?

There's been a lot of interest in using low volume fabrics lately. I know these fabrics as maybe called pastels, lights, background fabrics, or neutrals - print fabrics that are "light" in colour.

We all have different fabrics in our stashes, are you like me and tend to {unwittenly} buy mainly medium value? After a little stash-diving, I found an assortment of scrappy low volumes for this quilt. Mine all tend to be mainly white based, pale but not dull, some busy some not so. They seem to give a soft subtle feel with just a little merging of boundaries to my quilt top.

I've loved playing with these subtle colours and exploring the different light & dark values from my stash! As I progressed, it was clear that 'contrast', however subtle, was the key and really, the colour of a fabric is not known until it is actually playing up beside it's neighbour!

Close up, things aren't too obvious,
this is a quilt best veiwed from a distance to get the full effect . . .

Here's the links to a couple of recent posts about using low volumes -

Blair from wisecrafthandmade, where my initial inspiration came from

and Cynthia from quiltingismorefunthanhousework

I'd love to hear your thoughts about working playing with low volumes too.

it's slowly growing on me

Here's a few progress pics of my values quilt . . .

hm-m-m- I need a bit more pink I think

Loving this mix of peach & pink with the mint. Three of my blocks are not actually joined together yet, they are just in place up on the design wall. I'll leave them like that until I've made all the other blocks, and they can be altered if the colours look a little unbalanced, or the light:dark ratio gets too lost.

Yes, it is slowly growing on me, and only a few more blocks to go.
I don't know about you though, but I do get a little bored making all the HST's . . .

. . . So-o-o- I've been plotting & planning my next quilty detour

Have you seen these wonderful EPP blocks, 'brimfieldawakening'

It ticks all the my boxes just now - slow stitching, live to be creative, modern quilting, handmade

and so, I've ordered my brimfieldawakening pattern from here

Linking up with Cynthia for 'oh scrap' here

and with Beth for 'Monday making' over here

a values quilt

My oh my, I've been missing sewing lately. We've got into a nice routine now with the three little ones, and it's great to be involved & helping. And, I have done a little sewing since we upped our childcare days, like stitching bindings down, but it's not quite the same.
So I've decided I really need to make time to sew on my 'free' days, just slip away to my sewing room for a few hours to work play with something. anything.

This quilt is a great way to use up leftovers, scraps, etc from previous projects. It's totally inspired from a quilt in this book by WiseCraftQuilts. Another 'values' quilt has been on my 'quilts to make' list for quite a long time now, one where the HST's have more of a rhythmic layout rather than being randomly scattered, (see here for my previous efforts). I'm not wanting to go too large, hm-m-m- unless I get really carried away of course!

Lots of 4 1/2" squares and lots of HSTs in an assortment of light, medium and dark prints to create contrast. The darks and lights together will create a sharp “high contrast” however, with the mediums mixed in too, I'm hoping they will give my design a softer feel, easing that jump in contrast. I'm aiming for an overall gently muted look to this quilt, #lowvolumelove.

As I was making up the first block, I worked out a rough colour scheme to make things a bit easier - a peach, mint, pink and grey combo. This is how I tend to start a lot of things, a lot of the time (and I'm sure many others do too), with no real plan, just pop stuff up on the design wall that might work together, narrow things down a little, and from then on it's fingers crossed!

oops, I can see one little block in the wrong place, can you too?
. . . better fix that up before I start sewing them all together.
Linking up with Cynthia for 'oh scrap' here at quiltingismorefunthanhousework

Have a good week, Linda

finally finished

This quilt was probably one of my oldest unfinished projects. It was lurking in the depths of the wardrobe for ages and resurfaced after the "big move". I started it way back in 2007 following a Kaffe class and now it's finally finished! I used Kaffe's 'snowball' pattern, he's made a few versions thru'out his many books. I had it professionally quilted in an all-over scroll pattern. Finished quilt measures approx. 63" x 52". All bound now & off to it's new home . . .

Linking up this week to 'moving it forward' here at emsscrapbag

slow stitching on a Sunday

This is one quilt that had a mind of it's own all. the. way. I started out with one single thought - that I wanted a piece of bold floral in the middle, and would work outwards from there. I made it up as I went along, hoping each additional border went on ok. And, in the end it all went well according to NO plan! That's improv I guess, yes?

A little while ago I had this quilt machine quilted by Sandy Mayo in an all-over floral pattern. The centre block is a lovely 'Outback Wife' fabric and as I was adding on the binding this afternoon . . .

. . . I suddenly remembered that I was going to add a little extra something to the centre. So for my 'slow stitching' today, I gave Kantha style stitching a go, the simplest stitch in the book! It's a bit hard to capture in a photo but here's a few pics to give you an idea of the texture. 

I came across this comment recently from here -
"Modern quilting is NOT just about clean lines, solid fabrics and negative space! 

It also embraces gorgeous modern prints and is a mindset which embraces ancient arts 

such as #kanthastitching with modern fabrics!" 

Not sure what the thinking is about the 'modern' debate these days

. . . I just make what I love making, and I have to say, I'm hooked on kantha stitching

Linking up with 'slow Sunday stitching' here at kathysquilts