Thursday 19 August 2010

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:

Denim Border on Gee's Bend tribute quilt

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:
kitchen bags
flowery and blue
skateboard bag
I particularly like the kitchen print,although understandably, Waif has claimed the skateboarding Morsbag.

Until next time...zzzzzzz....

Monday 9 August 2010

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?

hexies with scrappy rings


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!

thinking about denim borders

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)

detail of quilting after 17 blocks

Wednesday 4 August 2010

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.

corduroy tribute to gees bend

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:

ricractopus

red and black star postcard

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:

new direction with the hexies

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...