Unruly Nephew (and Wife?)

True to my promise to myself, I have made a start on my next present for Allie's Christmas Through the Year challenge. I am making name panels for all my nieces and nephews using Unruly Quilter Tonya's techniques. You can see previous panels here, here, here and here. This one is for my second eldest nephew, Charlie:



As you can see, it's not quilted yet. I think I will have to keep the quilting pretty simple given the crazy nature of the background fabric!

And, then I have this Unruly Farmer's Wife thing going on in my head. You will probably have seen all over blogland, peeps taking part in the Farmers Wife Quiltalong. Now, I don't really *do* making other people's quilt patterns, or following rules and templates but I keep seeing the blocks and thinking "ooh, that could be free pieced". So now I'm thinking "how about a liberated/free pieced/wonky farmers wife quilt?". And I could call it the Unruly Wife, which would be much more up my street!! I'm still thinking about it...but it is growing and growing in my head :-)

And I realised I haven't blogged about the ICAD Challenge for a while. I have still been creating an index card a day, although I admit it is getting harder to know what to do each time! Here's a few recent ones:

Cards inspired by my love of quilts:


Doodley ones:



Favourite poetry:


Cards reflecting my spiritual journey:


But of all the index cards I have made, none of them make me smile as much as this one made by my six year old son, Waif:



I love it!

Unruly Letters for My Unruly Niece!

I've pieced the letters for my next Christmas name banner. This one is for my niece, Ellie. Ellie is a bit of a pink princess - but more warrior princess than Disney princess :-)- and she loooooooves bugs, so this pink spider fabric is just perfect for her. I might even hand quilt this one, cos I've been itching to have a go at some Baptist fans but too scared to try on a big quilt. So, I'm thinking pearl cotton (what else?!) but should I go for pink cotton, white, or a different colour entirely? Hmmmm....decisions, decisions. What on Earth did I spend my time thinking about before I started quilting?!

Fencing in the Village

Phew, I aimed to finish Waif's quilt top by the end of February...and here it is! A complete village, all fenced in.

Forgive the cruddy photo, but I was too excited to wait for a sunny day!

I do love this quilt, but I think if I was to make it again I would leave a little more background on the houses, cos I don't think there's much of a place for the eye to rest. But hey, it's for a six year old boy and when do they rest?!

Christmas Through the Year - February

This month, I made a couple of Christmas presents. The first was a couple of luggage tags (posted about here) and I have also made this name panel for my nephew, Ewan:



My sister reckons he'll be thrilled with it cos it's hard to get hold of things with his name on in the States as the name isn't popular over there. Let's hope he likes it as much as I enjoyed making it :-)

And the word is...LOVE

Over on the Lib Quilters list, we have had a challenge to make "LOVE" blocks using Tonya Ricucci's unruly letters methods. These are to go the wonderful Clare who makes charity quilts for leukaemia patients. The quilts are red and white and made up of 8.5 inch blocks, if you fancy having a go yourself :-). Do have a look at the Quilts 4 Leukaemia blog and see all the wonderful quilts.

Houses, Rust n Holes in Hearts

This week on my design wall floor:



Now that I have finished Gman's quilt top, it's time to turn to Waif's. The planned layout is a strip of wonky fences, then house blocks, then more wonky fences, more houses, lastly a strip of wonky fences. So I can see from laying it out that I need to make a load more fences. Then I can sew the middle together and see what I need in the way of borders.

I've made a start on my next Christmas present for Allie's Christmas Through the Year. It's going to be made into a name panel for my nephew Ewan. I am just loving this crazy swirly orange fabric:



I have also had some fun rust dyeing a few bits and pieces for my next journal quilt. I collected together some random fabrics - white patterned quilting cotton, wadding, open weave cotton, ricrac and lace - laid them in an old washing up bowl and covered with random rusty stuff - old washers, nails, a toy car, plus some steel wool:



Next, five year old Waif enjoyed spraying them with a mixture of vinegar and water:



Then we placed the tray in a bin bag, weighted down with some books and left overnight.

Next day, we had an assortment of rust dyed fabrics to play with:





To set the dye, we soaked in a salt water mix, then washed as usual.

I was disappointed with the quilting cotton, this didn't really take on much of the rust but just LOVE the effect on the open weave cotton, the wadding and the lace.

I am going to integrate some of these pieces into my next journal quilt, which I have made a start on:


You might also notice the holey burnt hearts. Yes, I have a new toy - a heat gun :-). Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Drum roll please...

...it's my first completed quilt top of 2011!

 



Yep, it's Gman's black and red quilt.  Not sure of a name for it.  Suggestions on a postcard please.

Next step is to quilt it...not sure how yet though ;-)

 

2010 in Stitches

Well, that's 2010 nearly all sewn up (boom boom!) and I think I achieved a fair bit, sewing wise:

• I completed my Jacob's Ladder quilt top, started late 2009 and am part way through quilting it. It's taking a little longer than I originally expected mainly because I made the decision to hand rather than machine quilt. I have counted up, and I have completed 59 out of the 80 blocks. Estimated time spent hand quilting this so far = 24 hours. Yikes. Think I will stick to smaller projects and machine quilting.



• I have nearly completed quilt tops for both Gman and Waif.  Gman's red and black quilt centre is complete, and I working on some wonky square blocks for top and bottom borders (all will be revealed in time).  Waif's village quilt is waiting for a few more trees and lots more fences.



• I made a few mini quilts:  a beach hut themed one for my mum's caravan; a scrappy Army Star/Split Nine Patch for the back of the sofa and recently a little hexagon quilt for Waif's Guinea Baby toy.



• I made a start on a hexagon charm quilt.  Lost momentum a bit on this one TBH, but might pick it up again in the summer, cos I was very partial to sitting in the garden with these!  Bring on the summer.



• Made a nightie.  Think my dressmaking career endeth there ;-)



• Made a load more Morsbags...current tally stands at 137.



• Started to learn embroidery with the help of Sharon's Stitch Files.



• Bought an embellisher machine and made a few cloths with this, plus a couple of little pouches.



• Helped Gman to make two quilts himself, and Waif to make a little drawstring bag.

All in all a sewtastic year :-)

So, goals for 2011?!

• Get the Jacob's Ladder quilt quilted and bound - hopefully within the next two months.


• Complete quilt top for Gman.  Should have this done by the end of January, or hopefully earlier.  Then to decide how to quilt...?


• Complete Waif's liberated village quilt top.  This might take a bit longer...


• Continue learning to embroider with the help of the Stitch Files.


• Make something with a zip.  (this was a goal for 2010, but never seemed to have gotten round to it)


• Have a go at some free pieced letters a la Tonya Ricucci


• Make a journal quilt each month (in collaboration with a new quilty friend).  Watch this space for more info...

I also have a hankering to make an art doll after borrowing Jan Horrox's book from the library.  Yes, I quite possibly have lost the plot :-)

Basically, I just want to continue to learn all I can about quilting, embroidery and all things textile.  And to have fun doing it!

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

Ode to Tonya

As all liberated quilters will know, today sees the release of Tonya "Lazy Gal" Ricucci's first book "Word Play Quilts". Aside from Gwen Marston herself, Tonya has got to be the most influential liberated quilter about. Certainly, if I hadn't stumbled across her wonky house tutorial, I never would have discovered liberated quilting, never would have joined and been inspired by the fabulous Liberated Quilters yahoo group, met the wonderful Clare, and made a start on my liberated village. So, if you are not familiar with Tonya's stuff, step on over to her blog, then order your copy of Word Play Quilts!

To complete my ode to Tonya, here are pics of all my Tonya-inspired wonky houses in all their glory:






I can't wait to get my sticky mitts on a copy of Word Play Quilts and I am sure you will be seeing some free pieced letters on this blog very soon :-)

Back in Black (and red)

Well, I finally got round to completing the flying geese borders for Gman's red and black quilt. I am loving the way it looks so far but it's not quite big enough yet, so not sure what to add to bring it up to size...any ideas?!? It is wide enough, but needs to be longer, so looking at adding top and bottom borders.

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)