Anticipaaaaaation

Tomorrow I'm off to the Festival of Quilts.  Yippee!  Can't wait!

In the meantime, here's what I've been up to:

1. Continuing with my hexagons.  I have decided to go with scrappy rings rather than single colours and it's looking rather lovely.  Will post pics once I have the next round of hexies on.

2. More hand quilting of my Jacob's Ladder quilt.  I am now more than a quarter of the way through!

3. Added the denim border to my Gee's Bend style corduroy quilt top:



It measures about 38 x 40 inches now, so not quite lap quilt size.  I have a couple of legs of jeans left, so might add a border to just the top and bottom.  I think if I make it any bigger it will be too heavy to pick up :-).  I don't think I will quilt it as such.  I was thinking of backing with an old fleece blanket then using yarn to tie it.

4. I was stricken by guilt that it had been so long since I made any Morsbags, so knocked up half a dozen:



I particularly like the kitchen print,although understandably, Waif has claimed the skateboarding Morsbag.

Until next time...zzzzzzz....

Bits and Pieces

I've been doing lots of fiddling around with works in progress this week.

Having decided to go with a hexagon star design for my charm quilt I laid the first few rings out, to see whether I prefered the rings in a single colour or scrappy.  I think I prefer the single colour...but I'm not sure.  What d'ya reckon?




Next in line was the corduroy Gee's Bend style quilt.  I got three pairs of jeans for a quid from a charity stall and got to work ripping them into strips.  I laid out the strips together with some leftover bits of corduroy from the centre to see how it would look.  I think it's gonna be great!



I've also been working on hand quilting my Jacob's Ladder quilt.  I have quilted 17 blocks out of 80 so far (yikes, still a way to go!) but although it's time consuming, I am enjoying it and I do like the way it's looking (ignore the basting thread, will take it all out when Ive finished the lot)

Rippin, stitchin, swapping and changing my mind

I mentioned in my last post that I was planning on making a corduroy quilt as a tribute to the Gee's Bend corduroy quilts.  Well, I've started it!  It is very liberated.  I did no measuring and very little cutting, simply ripped the cords into strips of various widths and lengths.  Next I stitched them together into four log cabin-ish blocks, taking strips randomly.  One strip I accidentally sewed the wrong side up but when I looked, I thought "hey, I quite like the look of that!" so I left it.  I am loving the way it looks and feels so far, but I have run out of my thrifted corduroy now!  I may try and get some soft denim to add a border to the quilt, bringing it up to lap quilt size.  But typically, since I've been looking out for some lovely soft denim in the charity shops, I haven't seen any!  So once more, it's "watch this space" to see how it progresses.



I have sent off two postcards for a swap on Lib-Quilters.   Unfortunately, I forgot to take photos of them before I sent them on their way...but here's one I didn't send plus one I've made since:





The ric-rac octopus was originally made for the swap but Waif wouldn't let me part with it!

The red and black star is going to a friend who donated some scraps for my hexagon project.

Which brings me nicely to:



I have decided to take a different approach with my hexie quilt. I wasn't quite happy with the flowers. They look nice individually but I couldn't work out how to put them together without a path and not look too random and cluttered. But I didn't want a path cos it would mean making zillions of identical hexies and I didn't fancy that much. So, I am thinking along the lines of a large hexagon star, like a quilt photographed in this Jinny Beyer book.   I am sorting my hexies into light, medium and dark and will define the pattern by value.  I don't think it's going to be a true charm quilt, but I will try to make sure there aren't more than 3 or 4 hexies of the same fabric and that they are not close to each other.  Hopefully I will be able to use the hexie flowers round the edges of the star somewhere - if not they will applique themselves onto something or other, no doubt...