More Holiday Happiness

Whilst on holiday I also finished Tara's quilt, now her grandmother can take it back when she goes home.

I know I'm not very inspired at taking photos of completed quilts, but given the location it was easy even for me to take decent photos:

As well as the quilt for my niece Tara, I made two smaller versions (for her children) to use up the extra fabric - here is Mila's, Tara's and Matteo's all lined up

 

Oldest UFO?

I think I have finished my oldest UFO! The earliest blog reference I can find was in January 2012. And even then I refer to it as being ancient!

A few days ago I found it in a box, and thought it just needed binding, so thought I could do that quickly and then call it a finish. Once I'd machine the binding to the front I realised that it hadn't been constructed in my usual method, and therefore hadn't been quilted AT ALL!!

So how to quilt after binding? It's not brilliantly made, so there are some chunky joints, so in the ditch or echoing wasn't going to be brilliant - then I looked at the embroidery machine and inspiration struck. There were three actions to make this quilt : cut, sew, quilt, - so I stitched these words over and over again

  

  

Not very legible in the photos, but I love it!  The letters are about 3" high, 1.5" wide.
I have now finished the binding, despite the 'help' of the hardest-to-photograph cat in the world!

So: a finish

Can I start something new?

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Basted, then Bed

Back to work yesterday, and then gym, post office, food shopping, vets, and then finally home!  

I got Tara's quilt assembled and basted last night , but was too tired even to blog!

Hopefully I'll get the quilting started today after work

Blissful Blocks in Bulk

Oh the bliss of working on blocks with a friend! This afternoon we had a production line going - Me cutting, Jackie sewing, me pressing, Jackie sewing!

From blocks

 

To half square triangles

 

to *lots* of HSTs (half square triangles)

 

Each HST opens to a square

 

These can be pivoted to make the pinwheel

Pinwheels are then arranged ...

 

We had planned on leaving a gap between each block (sashing) but felt it was looking a bit bland ...

So we look away the gaps: and doesn't it look great! Hope you like it Tara!

 

(thanks Katy for your suggestions: we sorted the directional fabric so they "flow", and put the flowery fabrics in groups of similar colours)

And THANK YOU JACKIE! Team work is such fun :-)

Two crafts in one day, so two posts in one day!!!!!

 

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Pinwheels and Plum

A lovely surprise was waiting when I got home a few days ago - the lovely Plum has sent me some selvedge edges - they look like the edges to her seriously yummy purple quilt.  Thank you Plum, have a great Easter :-)

Thanks for all the suggestions as to what to do with Tara's fabrics and the proposed pinwheel quilt.  I played around with the fabric and the different suggestions, but rather than using stencils, (thanks Sue) I did some very basic work with the paint program, and came up with these ideas

Using the flowery fabric as blocks, and matching a colour and using it as a solid for the pinwheels and for sashing, and a small section would look like this

Or using the flowers for the pinwheels and the geometric fabrics as the blocks.  I have shown the same piece of fabric for each sail of the pinwheel, but in reality they wont be the same, but I can select 'best fit' when I come to assemble them, so a small section could look like this

Or all pinwheels with added solid.  Here I have shown a small section of the flowery pinwheels with different sections of the fabric

Hadley asked about quantity: there is a yard each of the blue with cream, and of the flowery, with about a yard and a half of the yellow with blue.

Tara: any of these could instead be set on point - at 45 degrees, to have a very different look: the second green one becomes this

OK, my eyes are square, and I'm done for the evening - suggestions please on a post card!

Hoping for Help

A niece has asked me to make her a quilt; she has sent me some lovely fabrics, and she's been pinning quilts that she's seen, and loved, on Pinterest

These are mostly Pinwheel quilts, but I wonder what your thoughts are regarding the fabrics she's sent?

I'll get some off-white fabric to go with the patterned fabric to make the pinwheel blocks (the off white she sent is minkie, I might use it for a border) but my thoughts are:

• Are fairly geometric designs, (ie the yellow and diamonds and the Moroccan style aqua) suitable for pinwheels?
• Will the large scale pattern fabric (left) risk looking like unrelated fabrics when chopped into smaller pieces for a pinwheel?

What do you think of using the large scale print fabric as a plain block? Either randomly or in a pattern with the pinwheels?  Tara pinned this one

And I found this image when I did a Google search on "pinwheel blocks with large scale prints", and I wonder if it would work?  This second one would showcase the flowery fabric in bigger chunks - better? Or not?

I'm hoping some of you will have alternative suggestions??

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