Wednesday 22 April 2015

Lozenge layered

Forgot to post the photo of actual Spring flowers last time so here they are: early dog violets in all their modest beauty.



There is not much depth of field with my little automatic camera so please forgive the less than professional shot, I just wanted to capture the intense purple and green, not colours I tend to choose for my patchwork, but so lovely in nature.

On the sewing front, I have almost finished my second batch of small taupe circles for my Quartet BOM, but I thought I would show you the Lozenge EPP top which I finished putting together recently.  Here it is all layered up ready for handquilting.



I started the quilting today so it is my WIP for today's WIP Wednesday with Lee at Freshly Pieced. This little quilt will be a WIP for some time as I am pretty slow at hand quilting.  And EPP for that matter - this has been my take-along project for quite a while.


I am off to Nantes on Friday for the quilt show organised by Quiltmania, Pour l'Amour du Fil.  I will be away all weekend with two quilting friends - what a treat!  Hope to show you some photos next week.  Till then, enjoy your quilting.

Friday 17 April 2015

Spring flowers

My finish today is the Disappearing Hourglass which I started here and continued here: a flowery quilt for the spring flowers and blossom we are enjoying at present.  It is not quilted but the blocks are all made and the top is together.  As I have to go shopping for a backing, that's as much of a finish on this project as I can manage for the time being.


The top ended up measuring 42" x 56", that's 48 seven-inch blocks set 6 x 8.  As I write this I think I might just add a narrow white border to float the blocks and give the eye a place to rest before the binding.  But I'm counting it as a finish all the same!


Lots of gardening at the moment, the plants are growing almost visibly in the glorious warm sunshine.  So quilting is taking a bit of a back seat.  Here is a glimpse of some of my ongoing projects though: I hope you will see them come to a finish in the next few weeks.





















I'm linking today to Crazy Mom Quilts: Finish it up Friday.  Hope you all have a great weekend!

Friday 10 April 2015

Friday finishes x 2

Yes, I have TWO finishes today - amazing, feels so good, as both have history.  It is great to get them completed.  I especially enjoyed handstitching the bindings, that final stage when you can take time to enjoy the process of completing.  It is almost sad when you get to the last stitch, as it's farewell to that quilt and on with the next!

So here we have the Flannel Square in a Square quilt with Flying Geese borders which was stitched on to Foundation-by-the-Yard.

All from stash, using up some flannels which must be at least 10 years old, ditto the foundation. Started here, so quite a quick turnaround for me.  It ended up being a fairly easy little project and I didn't agonise too much over which fabric went where - more a case of how big the pieces were and would I have enough...


Anyway I did have enough, and I even had a piece large enough for the backing (with a strip of green pieced in), and I also found I had enough large patches in a pink/tan/navy palette to make another small quilt top (41" x 52") in half-square triangles (5 1/2" block).







































This one isn't finished as I don't have a backing, so it will have to wait a while longer.

The completed Square in Square quilt was small enough (33" x 41") for me to quilt in the ditch around the shapes, as it did involve a fair amount of turning.  However there's not much point doing fancy quilting on flannel as the thread sinks without trace, and a grid of any kind I thought would be a bit heavy.




















The ditch stitching looks quite nice on the back as it echoes the geometry of the front. Lovely sludgy greeny gold Aurifil thread matched the backing perfectly, and I used a green Mettler thread I had in my box for the front.

Even the wadding was from scrap - so a totally stash project: hurray!

The flannel scraps that are left (remarkably there still seem to be quite a few) will be donated elsewhere - I am done with them.  Such a good feeling.


Second finish is the Remembrance quilt I last blogged about here.  Yes, I know that is quite a while ago.



I messed up the quilting and it puckered horribly - I was trying for too close a grid and I think the 80:20 wadding was just too lofty to lie flat and submit.  It has taken me till now to unpick it all, as I had done rather too much before getting the message to start again.  Also the thread colour was such a great match that I could only unpick in good daylight, which has been in short supply this winter.


Once the old stitching was out I found that I actually did not have to re-layer, a slightly surprising but happy discovery.  Less dense quilting was the answer: I ditch-quilted the verticals between the nine-patches and then went across the diagonals of the hourglass blocks and nine-patches.  It's enough, I think.


(In the photo above you can still see the Hera marked crease lines of the original grid - time to put the quilt in the washing machine...).  


So, after all the delay and despondency I am happy with the finish.  

The quilt measures 48" x 59", a good lap size, and it was made with the leftover fabric from the Album quilt I showed you here.  Backing stripe from stash with a bit of green textured solid pieced in.  Another scrap/stash project done: double hurray!


I hope you are able to press on with your projects this weekend, and maybe even enjoy a finish or two?

Linking today to Crazy Mom Quilts: Finish it up Friday - it's lovely to have Amanda Jean back blogging again.  Have a look at her gorgeous Birch Trees quilt.

Wednesday 8 April 2015

WIP Wednesday - Quartet BOM progress

Quartet BOM:  I have managed to finish my first circles block!  Despite my avowed dislike of applique I really got into it with this project.



I have even started on prep for the second circles block: only 49 more tiny treasures to stitch...




Sorry about the threads - rushed to get these photos and didn't check the detail..













I also joined both the Log Cabin blocks, having spent the usual ridiculous amount of time agonising over the layouts...  Mind you, it is a lot easier to shuffle around 49 blocks which only measure 2 3/8" each and can fit on a tea tray, than 49 regular 6" or 8" blocks which need a design wall or most of the floor for laying out.







































You will see that the first set of blocks (above) has a more random use of fabric whereas the second Log Cabin variation (below, at the layout stage) has the same fabric for each complete round of logs. Basically I got the wrong end of the stick with the first set, but I am making a virtue of it...  My BOM will be unique.




Linking to Lee at Freshly Pieced WIP Wednesday.