Finishes - Clocks to Cosmic colour!

So while I was in Cork, the Limerick Quilt Centre were down too with their pop up shop for the Southern branch's meeting.  And you would think that being a regular customer I would have no need of anything but I succumbed to impulse and bought a fabric clock making kit!

A few years ago I bought the lampshade kit in the same range (haven't used it yet!) but thought I'd get the clock kit out and up and running.  It was really easy to use and I love how it looks with this Karavan print from Valorie Wells.  Can I call this a Friday finish?  Is that cheating?

One thing I can definitely claim as milestone reached is my Rainbow Rose quilt top.  I finally made a decision on the applique and went all Orla Kiely inspired on the corners.  It's now with being quilted by Tomomi@Slaney Handcraft.  I asked her to give it the Tomomi Treatment and you should have a look at the beautiful quilting that is being done here on instagram.  Awed as always by Tomomi's quilting!

Lastly, the deadline for Aurora, a co-exhibition between the Irish Patchwork Society and the Northern Ireland Patchwork Guild, is this Friday so I had to get a move on to get my quilt done.

Inspired by the colours that digital cameras can pick up that we don't see ourselves, I tried to pick a vibrant selection of yellow greens, mint blue, magenta, reds and berry colours to symbolise the Aurora Borealis against a starry or city at night sky. 

Circular quilting to depict our planets motion and wavy quilting in straight lines for the light that we see.

It's now all bound and labelled and just needs a hanging sleeve!  To see the amazing quilts Tomomi and Lena from Quilt Arts did check out these links here and here.  They are incredible and I hope my simple quilt is hung right at the other end of the gallery!  It's going to be a fun and very colourful exhibition and I am really looking forward to seeing their quilts up close in real life.  They will be on display in Dublin in May and in Lisburn after that.  Might have to visit twice!

Fun with scraps - ticker tape pictorial quilts

Just over 2 weeks ago, I had the privilege of teaching a ticker tape class in the Cork branch of the Irish Patchwork Society.  We looked at examples of Quilt-As-You-Go and joining blocks but spent the most of a beautiful sunny afternoon playing with scraps making pictorial ticker tape quilts from scraps.

In addition to redesigning Wilbur, I had prepared a class sample showing the technique of a guitar and brought with me templates of shapes I thought peoeple might like, as not everyone is lucky enough to have their joy of Basset Hound pups, taking up all the sofa space in the house!

As it is quilt as you go and involves basting and messing about with scraps of all colours, quite a few people took to the floor!  Some decided to make a Rose...

One musical lady tried out my guitar...

There was a dolphin...

And yes one or two Basset's!

Quite a bit of progress was made on the day.  I love this very Bohemian looking guitar.

And Joanna's original circles design for a baby quilt.

Lastly a new puppy!  Assumpta was so speedy in getting this little guy filled in.

Thank you ladies for a brilliant afternoon and I hope you had as much fun as I did!  I love visiting the Southern branch and hope to be back again sometime soon!

Happy St Patrick's Day!

This month in Modern Irish Bee, Erin asked us to make a tri-colour Washington star in the colours of the Irish Flag.  This is as far as I've gotten today!

I have to leave this for now and come back to it later as we spend the day with mum, watching the Limerick parade, quick visit to the pub and then home to mum's for dinner.   I thought it would make a nice photo to wish everyone a happy St. Patrick's.  Hope you enjoy the day!

WIP Wednesday - the colourful ones!

In between getting ready for our Modern Irish Quilters Sewing Day this past weekend, I have been preparing samples for a Quilt-As-You-Go class showing the ticker tape process and using scraps to make a wall hanging like Wilbur and QAYG panels like this version of a pattern by Stitched in Color called Bottled Rainbows. 

Rachel's pattern uses 16 rectangles to make up the quilt.  I'm using 9 bigger square blocks measuring 20" square.  I don't have as much variety in my scraps to get panels of both orange and tangerine so I've tried to come up with 9 colours I think work well together and pick scraps that live in that colour family that go well together.

Not having that many yellow scraps I've included some gold and browns.

I'm hoping this will be a handy quilt to use for teaching the colour wheel for the Rainbow Rose quilt in April too and I like it's bright and happy feel.   Hard to resist a rainbow!

The other project I'm working on is for Aurora, a co-exhibition between the Irish Patchwork Society and the Northern Ireland Patchwork Guild.  Inspired by these photos by Mike Taylor which shows how digital cameras are capturing intense colours when photographing the Aurora Borealis, I tried to pull fabrics from my stash that matched that intensity.

To give it a bit more impact I've made Dresden blades by resizing templates from Aneela Hooeys Bloom pattern. 

 I'm really liking this colour combo against the dark blue background fabric.


And while I've been so busy Maggie has been in chewing mode so I've had to keep the dogs far from my end of the kitchen where I sew.  She has quite a few toys but still manages to eat what she shouldn't.

I normally have Charly beside me while I work and Wilbur finds the comfiest spot to snooze on but if Charly is with me Maggie wants to be too and gets bored, poor pup. So in fairness I have them all barred from the sewing space and Charly is not one bit impressed. 

Can't blame her, Maggie destroyed her bed while I was out at our Modern Quilters Sewing Day and its G's fault as he had a nice lie in and left them to their own devices!  Just as well the daylight is getting longer as we need to walk the legs off the pup and do more training with her to get rid of some of that excess energy.  Busy, busy weeks ahead.

I was thinking of making Charly her own dog bed but I might just wait a while yet!