Redesign

This evening I finished the star quilt - I'll photograph it properly tomorrow morning, along with two others. Then I spent ages redesigning a quilt. It's rather overdue; mostly as I've had other quilts take priority, but also partly because I've been putting it off for a couple of reasons - one of which is that the design was really detailed and would have taken far longer than I have available to commit. I still feel as though I'm constantly playing catch-up with my quilt to-do list (although some recent decisions have helped) and how could I justify working on a quilt which would take as long as 3 or 4 others put together?

This is what I think I'll actually make (some of the fabric, notably the dots, are not to scale). It still meets my design requirements, but is also far more achieveable that the original. I think it's probably also more suited to its purpose. The final advantage of the redesign is that it leaves more open space for interesting quilting, which will be far more enjoyable - and therefore faster! I designed the original quite a while ago (and in a previous version of my design software) and my quilting style and abilities have evolved significantly since then. So, I suspect, have my overall design preferences!

Starry night

This afternoon I appliqued the star to my quick quilt, then cut into my bolt of navy blue for the backing. I bought the bolt close to 10 years ago, for a project I've long-since rejected, and figure it's about time I made use of it!

This is how the quilt looked from the back once I'd done the yellow quilting. I used a machine embroidery thread on the front and matching Aurifil in the bobbin, and it has a lovely sheen.

I've since also filled over half of the background with a loopy fill using navy BottomLine top and bottom. Another half-hour should see it ready to trim, bind and label.

How I wonder...

Before we left Port Hughes, I finished piecing the background to this baby's quilt. I'm actually a bit surprised just how well the free-pieced curves came together, given the lack of precision in their cutting. It lies almost perfectly flat. I'll definitely be doing this again!

Due to the heat (thankfully currently abated) and activities with my extended family, I've not done any sewing since we got home, but will add the applique star (which will cover the hole) tomorrow.

This quilt's predecessors were called 'Twinkle, Twinkle' and 'Little Star' - what should I call this one?

New Year's Day

With Adelaide's outside shade temperature nearing 42C, and something similar here, there was nothing for it but to stay in the airconditioning and start a new quilt. While James was having his swimming lesson a few weeks ago, I had inspiration for this quilt for a friend's new baby boy and sketched out the basic plan, with my thoughts of fabrics and quilting. Today I drew it out full-size on some large sheets of paper. It involves free-piecing lots of curves. Once drawn to my satisfaction, I numbered the pieces (there aren't that many - 18 pieces of background, and one applique piece) selected the fabrics for each piece, marked matching lines/points at strategic places on each seamline and cut the pattern up.

I added the (rather rough) 1/4in seam allowance as I cut. I tried various methods, including rotary-cutting straight around the pttern pieces, and marking with a white pen and then cutting with either sewing shears or the rotary cutter. They all worked ok, but none were perfect. I snipped tiny triangles at the matching points.

To join them, I pinned them at the matching points only, and guided the edges to meet by hand as I sewed. I had no clear indication of where the ends should meet, so started sewing at a pin in the middle somewhere and worked to one end, then restarted behind the oriningal point and worked out to the other end. I won't be able to tell just how evenly I cut and pieced until I press them in the morning, but they're coming together quite nicely from what I can see - and I'm confident I'll be able to 'quilt-out' any small areas of puffiness.

2011 at Sampaguita Quilts

Just a few hours into 2012, and I thought I'd post my annual summary of quilts.

My first finish for 2011 was In the Pink - a flannel baby's play quilt:

Next up was Jazza - a surprising baby's quilt in eye-catching black and white skull prints:

My third quilt of 2011 was Cuggle; made for the director of James and Eleanor's child care centre, and with far more pieces than I'd realised at the design stage:

Fourth was Growing, made from a Verna (by Kate Spain) honeybun for another member of staff at child care.

The fifth quilt was Transitions; a simply-pieced quilt using Vicki Welsh's gradient hand dyes with silver snowflake quilting, and featured in Austraian patchwork & Quilting Vol 20 No 6:

My sixth finish was quick; Night Snow is a snowflake wholecloth I'd already started, and which I gave to my mother for her birthday:

Seventh was Building Blocks, using lots of bright scraps, and which we recently gave to one of the Kindergarten staff:

My eighth quilt for the year was my contribution the DQS10; Crowing. It's one of my favourites, and one of the most popular, as well. It features a large range of techniques, including piecing, hand applique, trapunto and free-motion quilting:

Good Morning, Hoot was the ninth quilt; another flannel baby quilt, which I gave to some good friends.

Rounding out the first ten was another favourite; Pink Feathers, due to the dramatic piecing and the hot pink feather quilting. This was given to one of James and Eleanor's favourite (former) carers, but had an interstate holiday first, to be featured in Australian Patchwork & Quilting Vol 20 No 8:

The eleventh quilt was a quickie for a friend's baby. Colour Play again features Vicki Welsh's gradient hand-dyes:

Mother of Pearl made it a dozen. I'm still very proud of the centre block with 165 pieces, but managed to recently part with it for one of the Kindergarten teachers. It was featured in Australian Patchwork & Quilting Vol 20 No 12:

My thirteenth quilt for the year was Whispers; a play quilt for my gorgeous new cousin Allegra, who I've just met this week:

This was followed by number fourteen - Stars of the Sea is an enormous king-size quilt which was featured in Australian Patchwork & Quilting Vol 20 No 11 and which I'm saving for our bed one day:

I made the fifteenth quilt, Elephant Feathers, in lovely blue flannels for my sister:

Maple Syrup was number sixteen, and we recently gave it to the Kindergarten director:

You only get a peek at number seventeen; I made Reflections using Terrain scraps from Kate Spain, and it will be featured in Australian Patchwork & Quilting Vol 21 No 3 next month:

Quilt number eighteen for 2011 was the overdue completion of Springtime, which I custom-made for the big craft blog fundraiser for victims of the Queensland floods:

Number nineteen was White Sands - another peek-only quilt, as this one will be featured in Australian Patchwork & Quilting Vol 21 No 2 in a few weeks:

Taking the total to twenty was Portholes, made for my new nephew, who is currently here at the holiday house with us:

The twenty-first quilt was probably my favourite for the year; Feathered Friends was a commissioned piece for friends:

My twenty-second quilt was The Gardens Meet, which features some of my favourite Sandi Henderson fabrics and is heading shortly to Australian Patchwork & Quilting to be included in Vol 21 No 5, so there's only a peek:

Twenty-three was the recently-blogged From New Beginnings, made for James' prep teacher:

My final quilt for 2011; number twenty-four, is Little Bird in the Tree. This commissioned tree quilt is the one with this cute possum, and I will blog it once it has been received by its new owner:

I'm quite happy with this selection, which has taken the total number of quilts I've made over 150, and am looking forward to 2012. My aim is actually for a few less, with time to spend on a major piece, but with the number already competing for priority, anything is possible!

In and around the tree

I've been working on a commissioned tree quilt (the one with the possum) for a couple of weeks. It's now all quilted and ready to be bound, and here are a couple of peeks. I'm hoping to get it bound tomorrow (well, today really!) as my last finish of 2011.

I used the same background quilting as on my last few quilts - the paisley/swirl/feather combination. But for added interest, in contrast thread there's a small quote ('love is everything' - I've no idea of the source, or of the particular significance, it was just a request) and a couple of birds. Later I'll show the plumes of freehand feathers coming from the birds' tails - a very subtle effect, but one I really like.

From New Beginnings

I've showed a few progress photos of this quilt, but not the finished product - finished in a real rush fro James' teacher before school ended for the year. We've been really lucky for James to have had such a terrific teacher for his first year of school, and are hoping next year's teacher is as good.

It's about 60in square, and the palette was based around some Fleur Nouveau prints I had, which I thought his teacher would like. There are close to 800 1in x 4in (finished size) pieces in the background.

The applique took way longer than I'd anticipated, mostly due to the swirly shape I designed. I still love the look of the shape, but it was a curse to applique neatly - and I got tired of them well before all 16 were done!

To stop the dark background fabrics showing through the white applique shapes (whch I'd actually decided partway through to do in a soft green, then forgot when it came time!) I doubled them - i fused a second layer (of slightly heavier plain white) to the back of the fabric, then fused the shapes and cut them out. It worked well.

Positioning the applique pieces was done mostly by eye, although I did use a ruler to keep the distances from the centre even, and used some of the background piecing as a bit of a guideline.

Positioning of the background fabrics wasn't overly planned. I knew the effect I wanted (darkest in the centre, fading to white at the edges) and bore that in mind as I paired and pieced the strips. This method is much faster than working out an exact layout, but less precise, and I can see places where I'd rearrange a few pieces. But without a design wall, it's not really a practical option, and the overall effect is still good.

I quilted around the applique shapes, then filled the background with a variation on my current favourite - the combination of triple-paisleys, swirls and trios of double-feathers - with the addition of a heart-like shape to match the applique. You can see a heart shape in the photo below if you look carefully.

I bound the quilt in a spot print, which was a pain. I had to trim (waste!) a bit between each strip to get the spots even on each length of the binding, and then realised afterwards that although they all matched, the spots were poorly positioned. I ended up machining the binding to the back and hand stitching it to the front (the opposite of my usual and preferred method) to get some of the spots to show, and even then, they're not centred on the visible part. I'll think twice before using spots on a binding again! At least they're even - I hate seeing a spotty binding where the spots aren't straight; they make the whole quilt look wonky.

The quilt was well received, but classrooms are very busy in the morning in the last days of the year, and I didn't have a chance to take a photo of James with his teacher and her quilt.

Summer

We're enjoying a relaxing few days up at the holiday house, and I'm having fun with my new toy - Simon got me a laptop and mobile internet for Christmas, so I can keep in contact while we're here. The downside is that I've wasted rather too much time playing with my new toy, and done less quilting so far than planned!

Here are James and Eleanor at lunch this afternoon - being indulged in blowing bubbles in their drinks.

I'm not looking forward to the next four days; it's meant to be over 36C, and I plan to sit right in front of the airconditioner on New Years' Day when it's meant to be 41C - unbearable!

Merry Christmas!

The stockings have been hung, and Father Christmas has stuffed those two stockings within an inch of their lives (every trick in the book was used to get the contents in - removing packaging, stabbing holes in packaging to squeeze all the air out, repacking, clipping items to the stocking, hanging things over the edge, filling the pencil cases with things to poke out the top...)

He has also constructed a set of monkey bars in the garden, drunk a glass of water, eaten two home-made mince pies (and left behind a thank-you note and a trail of fine red glitter-dust) and placed the parcels beneath the tree. And now he's too tired to quilt, and is heading off to bed before either child (most likely Eleanor) appears for a midnight glass of water or a cuddle and wonder...

Merry Christmas to all

                and to all a good night!

Font and quilting

I've been busy quilting the last few evenings, but until tonight it's been quilting in the ditch around all the applique. With a tree, 7 blossoms, 21 leaves, a bird and 10 letters to go around, that took a while. It's not much to show on a blog though - despite the enormous but subtle benefit to the overall look of the finished quilt!

(appliqued bird prior to quilting)

But this evening I've quilted a quote and a couple of birds in a contrast thread (pinky-lavender machine-embroidery thread), fun free-hand feather plumes coming from the birds' tails in a lightly-contrasting thread (pale pink BottomLine), and a chunk of the background (cream BottomLine), using the swirls/triple-paiselys/double-feather-trios pattern I used recently.

And for the curious, the font I used for the applique is:

The Magic Cave

On Wednesday, I took James and Eleanor to see Father Christmas at the Magic Cave:

Thanks goodness for the drawing and reading books I took, a friendly mother next to me in the queue, and Simon for leaving work to come and take them out (to the free state museum across the road) for an hour, given ti was a 2-hour wait! Next year I'll take them out of school one day in early December and beat the crowds! Luckily it was worth the wait - they thoroughly enjoyed it. Thank goodness also for the revised Christmas Day forecast - instead of a stifling 37C, we're expecting a much more manageable 30C.

Preparations

I've been busy again on my current tree quilt - although I'm having an 'early' night. It's been after 4am the last three mornings, but after this I'm heading to bed .I'm planning to be in bed by 3am so I can get up relatively early and take James and Eleanor to see Father Christmas at the Magic Cave - early or the queues will be completely horrendous! While we're out I have to choose the Christmas chocolates (loose ones from the David Jones Gallery), get one last gift (Simon's! - I have 3 good ideas, so it should be reasonably quick/easy) and pick up a few items at the supermarket.

I'm actually pretty organised (well, apart form one quilt which just won't happen for Christmas), and am keen to get wrapping, but as we missed the Carols by Candlelight due to rain on Sunday, I'm planning a fun evening for James and Eleanor on Christmas Eve. We'll watch the Melbourne Carols by Candlelight on television and make a bit of an event out of it; light our own candles, eat chocolates etc. and wrap the presents together.

Tomorrow afternoon James and Eleanor will have a nap and then write the cards they made this morning and I plan to get this quilt top done and sandwiched, and hopefully spend some time refining a few new designs. There are only a few small appliques to add to this quilt now, and I've already marked a couple of quilitng designs. Today I finished adding a name (love the font!), added the border and did lots of prep work.

(please ignore the ironing-board cover print showing through!)

Becoming visible

Just like Hush, my possum slowly became visible, from the tail up...

I'm delighted with how she turned out! The twice-stitched applique is hugely effective - I used about 8 threads all-up, with many, many thread changes as I went.

All done by machine - except the whiskers, which I hand stitched with a single strand of charcoal BottomLine.