What can you do with 8 blocks?

While I was having a cuppa at a break while visiting the Dublin branch of our guild we had a chat about WIP's and unfinished quilts.  One lady had 8 blocks made and suffering from repetitive block hell was struggling to make just one more and as you couldn't do much with just 8 blocks.  Well that got me thinking!  So I started playing with 5 blocks...

Then 10...

Then 5 again...

Then a bit mad with blocks!

This one I think I'd like to make as Gordon is a rower and this reminds me of rowboats!

Finally 8 blocks!  Anyone else have a layout for 8 blocks they'd like to share?

All of these blocks are from Amy Gibson's Quilt Block Cookbook.  While Jenny Doan's of Missouri Star Quilt Company was the first Craftsy Class I saw and inspired me to make a quilt, Amy Gibson's 2012 Free Block of the Month series taught me how to piece and the importance of a scant 1/4".  Not affiliated with them in anyway but have a further look if you like and want to find patterns for these quilt blocks!

Stash manifesto!

Things have gotten a little bit out of control!

Mini Muu by Koko Sei - not 1 but 2 bundles

There might have been a little bit of Massdrop madness just before Christmas.

Modern Solids by Denyse Schmidt

And a little bit from Fat Quarter shop!

Moda Bella Spring Solids Collection

And the quilt shop Tuam..

Didn't need these but warms greys make a change!

And Patchwork Plus!

Traditional bundle not like me at all and Gardenvale by Jen Kingwell

Seems I am on a bit of rainbow binge at the moment.  I have a quilt design I have been playing with in rainbow colours that I have not gotten around to using and it seems to be in my head every time I look at fabric bundles.

Loominous by Anna Maria Horner

Two solutions to this problem - make the quilt and get it out of my head or stop looking at fabric bundles!  Maybe even do both!

I dream of a fabric stash like this:

Selection on Display at Pine Needles Quilt Shop

But have a full Ikea trolley with no room for rainbows:

Love volume fabric from Westwood Acres: Inside Voices monthly bundles

Storage boxes are kind of full too!

So I guess I'm just going to have to make a few quilts and use this fabric I've been obsessively buying!  So that's going to be my Stash manifesto for the moment - make these 2 quilts:

Rowing boats design inspired by Jen Kingwells Glitter Quilt

A Christmas star design, exercise in Alternate Grid

Now the next question, solids or prints? 'Cause as you can see I have plenty of both!

Linking up with Jen:

Design Wall Monday -a design process

Last week, some books I ordered from the Book Depository arrived and we spend a good bit of time pouring over them at our Thursday night sewing group. A quilt in one of the books, Quilt Lovely by Jen Kingwell, really caught my eye. 

This scrappy quilt is made up of blocks that are 31/2" x 9 1/8" so  really thin and long, and there are lots of them.  I really like the look of this quilt and part of the charm is the amount of blocks but I knew I probably wouldn't make over 150 of the same thing all in one go and it would take me a while to get through it.  Like maybe, years!  But I really like the design and trying to figure out what it was that was drawing me into this one I decided to draft it in EQ7. 

#1

My first thought was to make the blocks bigger and easier to rotary cut & machine piece (Jen Kingwells design uses templates and gives the option of hand piecing or machine piecing Y seams).
I quite like this coloured in with Moda Bella solids and it's only 40 blocks!

#2

I thought I'd try a half drop repeat and was delighted with myself figuring out how to do this in EQ7 - starting to get to know this program better! (For some really good tutorials Cheryl@Meadow Mist Designs is doing a series of EQ7 tutorials.) Must be the Christmas feeling as this one reminds me of icicle decorations for the Christmas tree and its only 18 blocks.

#3

Taking the decoration theme further some baubles, longer and thinner or grouped in an oval using a few more blocks still with a half drop layout.

#4

Trying to move away from a Christmas theme I ended up with a heart using 12 blocks

#5

Then I had a go at making my own long skinny block and got this:

#6

I thought the shape of this one was very like a flickering flame so I re-coloured it to this design using reds and oranges:

#7

This one reminds me a little of the blog colours at Freshly Pieced, same block shape just different colouring.

#8

To make this block is a bit tricky involving templates, so I played around some more and got this, almost back to where I started!

#9

This is one of the reasons I don't use pen and graph paper too much for a finished quilt design. I really enjoy playing with a shape and seeing where it leads to and to do that, it is so much easier on the computer to try variations than sketching and re-sketching on paper. I also pretty much design only in solids and afterwards, when I settle on a design, I think about maybe making it in prints. But most importantly, I have learned when I stumble across something I really like, to pause, take a few minutes and draw it out by hand to get the design into my head, and then take it to the computer to play! What's your design process? Anything like this?

Any of these catch your eye to play with? 

Design Wall Monday–still playing!

 So I’m still playing with pups and making Dog Gone Cute blocks!

It’s funny how so many of us saw Lorna’s pattern and wanted to capture our own dogs in quilt form or make a memory quilt of sorts of past pooches. I love how Gayle @ Pedal Sew Lightly is making a portrait dog bed of her Jack Russell Cooper with the large block in the pattern. I immediately thought of my pal Charly when I saw the pattern and our previous JRT’s Toby and Patch.

Having made Wilbur it was time to immortalise Charly & Co. in quilt form. Meet the trio! These are made with the smaller block and sashed with 2.5” strips. This will become a large floor cushion about 24” x 24” when I can figure out how I want to quilt it. Any suggestions?

The doggy designs are still ongoing. I did have to take a break and make bee blocks and I have quilts to baste and finish but these are just so much fun, I can't seem to stop playing with them!

Anne @ Playcrafts, proud owner of a St.Bernard, told me to think big, really big and S shaped when doing the ears. Ears are hard – so far they have been the trickiest bit to nail down. I’ve modified my St Bernard block – I think I’m getting closer. What do you think – does it look right, or at least more right than before?

Chatting to Carla @ Granny Maud’s girl about her gorgeous furball, I came up with this – kind of a Bichon Frise I think.

Lastly I managed a retriever type dog – not sure if this works for a Labrador or just generic water dog!

Of, course it’s not all play! I do have to start writing the instructions up at some point. When I asked Lorna which of the long floppy earred designs she liked best she said both! So, I put my thinking cap on and in keeping with Lorna’s pattern tried to get a design that had a basic shape but could be coloured or customised a number of ways.

I settled on this spaniel/hound version, that depending on the ears and how much jowl you want in your dog could give a different look.

As I’ve changed the angles a bit and made the ears wider all my testing on Wilbur's block has gone out the window bar the nose! But having worked through Wilbur I have a good idea of what I’m doing now. And I have yet to make Ben!

Hoping to have a 9” x 9” and an 18” x 18” block written up for the blog hop!

And I’m making the 60” x 60” Dog Gone Cute Quilt for myself!

After all, I think we can all agree I am a big child when it comes to dogs. Fabric is picked out and cutting has started. Really looking forward to this QAL and blog hop!  Are you tempted yet?

Lost in London - a finish for Make Modern Magazine

Ever come up out of a subway or metro station and not know which way to go?  That was us on holidays in London looking for the British Museum.  Turns out it was right around the corner!  Same thing happened in Moscow looking for the train station to St. Petersburg.  So this quilt was nearly called Looking for Leningradsky but Lost in London sounded better to me!

I'm so happy to finally be able to share a finished quilt with you today. Published in issue 5 of Make Modern Magazine this month, this is my second published pattern.  It makes an 84" x 84" bed quilt using warm colours on a low volume background.  It is inspired by the vintage London Roads block which is a 12" block with small arrows going around in a circle.  I was reminded of that feeling of not knowing which direction to go and decided to point the arrows towards each other.

The second design intention was to make the arrows really big and scrappy.  I chose red as the accent colour and pink, yellow and orange for the other arrows to keep it warm.

Those of us living on this side of the pond might remember Trinny & Susannah from What Not To Wear?  When wearing red they always advise keep it hot and that's what kept running through my mind with this one!

As this is the biggest quilt I've made to date and quilted on my home machine I kept it simple and used a meandering all over pattern.  I find it really quick to do and it took me three evenings to quilt up this baby!

So there you have it, my secret project that has taken up quite a bit of February and March finally shared.  I love how it looks in the spare room here but guess who nabbed it to cover her sofa?  Yup, mum made off with it as soon as I had the photographs taken!  To be fair she did help with holding up the background stand!

There are 14 projects in this month's Make Modern with the cutest cat made in a geometric style that I am itching to try.  There are also interviews with Cotton + Steel and Weeks Ringle & Bill Kerr.  It's available to buy here for 6.95 Australian dollars, about 5 Euro so great value for a quilting mag!

Linking up to the Friday Finishes!

Design Wall Monday

I finally got my Lost in London quilt for Make Modern completely pieced over the weekend and am basting at the moment, which freed up the design wall for another project.  Yay! I am so happy to have the space to layout these gorgeous blocks I received from my hive mates in Modern Quilters Ireland 2015 Bee.



I asked for houses on a blue or pale background, any design and shape and to add some embellishments if liked. Some added fussy cut pieces for the windows, applique trees, fences, a swing and even a dog! In addition, there were some very generous additions to the blocks. I’m loving the socks (so cute!) and the tissue holder is very apt at the moment (on steroids and more antibiotics for sinus – grr wish it would just go away!)

Helen even sent me the dog template she used so I am going to give Harvey (that's what I’m calling him!) a brother and a dog house and fill in some of the other spaces with applique clouds, maybe a clothes line and some garden flowers.  This is a happy fun eclectic neighbourhood. Any idea what I should call this quilt?

I’m loving all the colour up on the wall, it is so very cheery at the moment.  We’ve had horrible wind, rain, hailstones, thunder and lightning and snow this past week – hard to believe it is March and Spring! Thank you ladies for such beautiful blocks.

Linking up to Design Wall Monday and Thankful Thursdays!

I’m not the only one loving my Design Wall!

I found these photos while backing up my SD card and thought I might share them with you.  They are from New Year’s eve night, when we babysat my 2 little cousins.  They are really good kids and are both quite artistic.  They are easy to mind and end up drawing and making mosaics or colouring in.  Truth be told, a half an hour doesn’t even have to go by and I usually end up joining them!



Normally, they would be in bed early but as it was New Year’s, they wanted to stay up for the bells and fireworks on the TV, so we put on the movie The Princess Bride and tried to figure out what to do to kill the 3 hours until midnight.  Excuse the quality of the photos, it was very late with mixed lighting from the kitchen, telly and overhead chandelier.



They decided they wanted to play on the design wall and wondered if I had any fabric we could use to make something.  Luckily last year Cindy@ Fluffy Sheep Quilting & Irina @ El Petit Taller organised a charm swap.  We each had to choose 2 yards of a colour (mine was yellow) cut them into 5” squares and post them to our swap mama.  In return we got 112 different charms of all colours.  These were perfect for them to play with.



Their first go on the wall was quite simple enough with the charms folded into quarters and made into a rectangle, then some diamonds, then some zig-zags.  I didn’t help at all just kept them plied with juice and yoghurt!



Within a very short time they come up with this!



Talented kids, don’t you think?  K wanted to make it into a quilt there and then but L patiently explained it takes a long time to make a quilt.  He was having none of it!  Said he’d help and if we started now, we could finish it in the morning! 

You have to love his enthusiasm.  So now I think I have to add this one to the list and turn this into a finished quilt for them for their playroom at home.  Design walls are really great babysitting tools!

Linking up today to Design Wall Monday.