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!

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ry4BzonlVlw&feature=player_embedded
skip the ads!

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!

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!

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

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

 http://www.sewathomemummy.com/2014/10/classic-meets-modern-october-flying.html  

the not-too-flowery quilt {a WiP}



My son asked for a quilt, but "not too flowery, not too sweet, please mum"
I got started with much enthusiasm and then quickly ran out of the main DS fabrics!
Additional fabric arrived this week.
More sorting, more slicing, more sewing.. almost done!
Looking at the pics in the lovely sunlight, I see I do still need to iron it again!
and then it's off to the quilters for a bit of 'modern squares' magic on those cream -ve spaces!

{see earlier post for more details re inspiration for this quilt top}

Linking up with WiP Wednesday

I love seeing what everyone else has been up to!