Rin A Long - Starting and Procrastinating Already!

I think I might have a little fabric problem!  Yes, I definitely have too much fabric but that's not the problem.

The problem is I can't decide what fabric to us for the QAL with Meadow Mist Designs and Hyacinth Quilt Designs.  It's a needleturn applique project with a special cutting technique to make the rings and a big fabric square to applique them onto.    The pattern called Rin is by Carolyn Friedlander and  calls for 20" squares but I am hoping to eventually make a throw quilt and use up some fat quarters I've not broken into ever.  So I've resized the templates down 10% so I can use 18" squares and fat quarters (not sure this is the best idea as smaller curves are a bit hard to sew but I'm going to give it a try!)

I have a bundle of Cotton & Steel Halloween fabric - thinking weird circles could be fun in spooky patterns.  I also have this bundle of Cuzco - my first proper fat quarter bundle (40 of them!) I bought for myself for Christmas 2012 and still in its packaging.

I love the bold colours and the shapes Kate Spain uses in her fabrics!  Wouldn't they make for great backgrounds with maybe a low volume print for the circles?

And then I have this oh so soft bundle my cousin bought for me from the Modern Quilt Studio.

I am a little obsessed with bird prints at the moment and am heavily leaning towards a delicate quilt after all the vibrant colours I've been working with lately.

Funny how that indecision has crept its way into Kenny the Koala below (yes settled on Kenny for the name, though he is the spitting image of Buster from Sing - thanks Lena for the suggestion).

I wasn't sure to make Kenny in solids or print and pulled out all my prints, really loving these two but don't have enough fabric to make him as a cot quilt!

So I pulled out all my solids and I do have enough of these.  Is this blue too mad for the background? do I have enough contrast in the greys?  Maybe an orange background?  You see how my head is wandering and not settling anywhere at all!  Maybe its the unusual sunshine and warm temperature or maybe its just that is been so busy a year so far, my brain is already on summer holidays.  Whatever the reason my poor noggin is not in the decision making space this week!

Still, when I laid all the >1/2 yard fabrics I had on hand I thought they looked gorgeous together, this bunch is saying sunshine and cocktails to me.  A Mojito sounds quite nice about now...  I can always make fabric decisions later... or go to the quilt shop on Saturday morning ... do I really need an excuse to go to the quilt shop?

So while my brain is wandering through la la quilt land, what do you think? Any of these catch your eye?  Have you been hoarding a bundle or two you haven't broken into yet?

Finish it Friday - some quilt flimsies using up bee blocks!

In the middle of our holiday we had a few days at home while Maggie, our puppy, was having her neutering operation.  It was a good time to do it, as we had to keep the other two away from her for a few days, in case they would go at her stitches and she was able to keep me company, while I caught up on a few things and not get too bored all on her ownio!

While sorting my stuff to tidy up before my cousin came to visit, I found some stash bee blocks made for me, from stash bee 2014!  I had picked the Spring Blossom quilt block by Charise Creates and didn't really have a plan in mind for them.  As always with Bee's you get unexpected things, sometimes blocks are a little too big or a little too small, or an odd colouring to the other blocks like the navy centre one above.

I had recently bought Amy Gibsons Quilt Block Cookbook with 50 block patterns in it.  Having been a big fan of hers since I learned how to piece blocks on her free Craftsy Class Block of the Month 2012, I knew I was going to really enjoy her book.  The blocks are fun but even better are the 7 layouts she gives for using some of the 50 blocks, to make a not so traditional sampler quilt.  The few pages at the end of the book got me thinking and made buying the whole book so worthwhile.  So I took apart a version of my star crossing block above, in navy and lemon, and used the pieces to frame the flowers.

I managed to get a small cot quilt out of both and really like that the navy in the squares now makes the dark flower centre work!  There are 5 blocks left still, so I had a go at putting them into a flower garden of my own and another of Amy's layouts from the books using columns of colour.

I think I am going to go with the layout from the book below but would like to come back to the garden for another go at it as I think there is something there.  I can complicate designs and sometimes I think simple is best!

Not having gotten around to that one yet, I did revisit the blocks I made in 2012, that were still sitting in a box!  I made the mistake of buying the cheapest fabric I could for my first quilt and not really liking it much, I still liked the blocks but didn't overly love it enough to finish the quilt.  I now only buy fabric I love and try not to think too much on the price (unless its Liberty at 24 a metre!)

Using Amy's celestial layout, I picked the blocks that I thought would work well together and added in a lot of Kona Snow, that I had on hand on a bolt. (I bought a whole bolt of Snow and White and it was the best decision ever as you can get right to making when inspiration strikes!)

At our last branch meeting, I showed my two new finished quilt tops - all from my WIP box and no new blocks needed!

And for the stuff I should have been making?  Finished my Snowflake Shimmer quilt (QAL with Quilting Jet Girl) and there is good chance I will have this finished for Christmas!  Made lots of progress on my round on Erin's Round Robin quilt!  200+ paper pieced sub-units later...

This seemed like a great idea when I first started it.  When I realised how long it would take me, I did think twice but it felt like the right thing for the quilt and I didn't want to let Erin down by doing something not as good so I just had to get on with it!

Nearly there now!

So a bunch of finishes and a lot of work in progress!  Happy Friday everybody!

Mod Bear Paw

I seem to have a love/hate relationship with the Bear Paw block. I've never been really drawn to it as a traditional block on its own, preferring the round surround blocks like the Dutch Rose (aka Swoon) and the star blocks like the Ohio Star (probably my favourite traditional block ever!)

When preparing for the class I gave in Cork this summer on Traditional Blocks Made Modern I deliberately chose it as a challenge to play with and see what happened and the result was Big Bear, Little Bear!

So colour me surprised when I saw Lorna's version of a quilt with the Bear Paw Block and I instantly loved it!  Lorna has a real talent for making fun and cute animal blocks and very generously gives the instructions away for free on Quilt-A-Longs.  I have to admit Dog Gone Cute is still my favourite but there is something about the bear climbing in and out of the grid below that appeals to me!

What doesn't appeal to me though is the 20+ Bear Paw blocks I'd have to make.  It took me 2 years to finish up Swoon and it has only 9 blocks! Knowing me and my temperament, I decided to have a good look at Lorna's design and see what bits about it really resonated with me.

The bear for starters!  So I took out all the blocks not touching the bear and tried to fill in the space with a woodland print by Westfalenstoffe, I previously bought from LoveFabric.ie.  In the larger bed quilt, Lorna's use of  the paw print border is really clever and fun! So I added it in the middle to break the fabric join up a bit.  Looking back on Lorna's bigger quilt, I really like how she frames the bear with the borders and thought to be truer to her design to add some of that back in so came up with these in the end!

Feeling happy with this I bounced the idea off of Gordon:
"Yeah it's nice but it clashes a bit!"
"What do you mean clashes?"
"The colours, the blue and the brown."
"But that's a classic colour combination."
"No it's not."
"Yes it is!"
"On what planet?"
"This one!  Blue sea, brown sand."
"I prefer the pink, it goes better."
"Pink? "

So this is as far as I've gotten, I'm not sure I want to make a pink bear quilt! Still I really like that fabric which is Enchanted Forest by Natrual Wonder also at LoveFabric.ie

I'm planning on this going on the single bed in the boxroom and am still gravitating towards the blue and brown!  The key to making this work for me will be the fabric above the bear.  I think the Westfallenstoffe might be too small a scale so I'm hunting for a medium to large scale woodland scene in blue (or pink!) that might work with a brown bear! If you guys comes across anything that might work I'd be very grateful!

Lorna kindly gives lots of colour options on her blog post so I put in blue and black just to see.  I love the impact of the black but I find him kind of scary!  So I'm holding out for a brown bear still. A grizzly bear, I think!  What do you think?  Clasic or clashing colour combo?

So this will be QAL number 3 on the go at the same time.  I just can't resist.  What about you guys - are you tempted?

WIP Wednesday: Can’t seem to make my mind up!

I don’t know what it is about the middle of the summer. This time every year, the desire to sew goes on the back burner and instead my eye turns to the house painting and decorating. Maybe its the long days in the summer when its bright at 4am and still bright at 10.30pm that means I’m looking at more of the house or the same bit for longer! Last year was the same, I got stuck in with painting stained wood Jasmine white in an effort to brighten up the kitchen. This year the living room and hall are getting an update and I only realised after getting half the hall done that the colours I’ve chosen are remarkably similar to my fabric pull for Yvonnes’s Snowflake Shimmer QAL! I’m decorating the house to suit my quilt!

In the end I picked a grey with blue and white (Kona’s Shadow, Lake and bright White) but my inspiration image is really close to the Natural Harvest, Pale Peacock and Warm White I've been putting on the walls!  Isn't it funny how the brain works?

It’s been slow going as I am managing a disk in my back but I’m getting there. Trying to remove flaking paint meant taking off a whole strip of paint right back to the grey base plaster so I ended up stripping down one whole wall! Won’t be doing that again!!!

At first I thought the Natural Harvest colour was a little bit boring and not too different from the pale gold colour in our living room but with the addition of the blue it feels fresh and a nice bit brighter! It’s a work in progress (houses always are I think!) but this week coming is a long weekend with Monday off so fingers crossed it gets all done and dusted. 

I’m also distracted by the new puppy at every opportunity! It amaze me how uncomfortable they can look while sleeping - she snores and it's really cute!  We have her bed in the crate so she can get used to it as a safe place.  It is too big for her for toilet training but we are trying to get her used to it as this is what we have in the car for the dogs when we are traveling.  So hopefully she'll be happy to go in and out of it - so far so good.  I keep throwing her toys in and have fed her in there too so I think she's happy out!

I did manage to get my 80” x 80” Rainbow Rose pieced and laid out on the floor for a photo. My back isn’t quite up to basting it yet so my link up to the Rainbow Rose QAL is a finished flimsy!

 

In writing the posts for the Modern Quilters Ireland group I had a clear idea of what I wanted to include about the colour wheel and the instructions to make it but have not had a clue how to quilt it. It has been brilliant to see how those making the baby version have quilted theirs so I can get some ideas! I am half tempted to hand quilt it and did buy a bundle of rainbow colours of perle cotton on Massdrop. I haven’t hand quilted a quilt yet only added a few embellishments and this could be a fun one to try over the summer!

The other thing I haven’t decided on yet is to add the applique or not – I just can’t seem to make my mind up on it! I keep going back and forth between images and think I have it sorted only to change my mind again! Oh well there is no rush now so maybe I’ll let it stew in my brain for a bit!

Lastly joining in on Cheryls Meadow Mystery QAL I’m still picking my quilt colours. I think I have it down togrey and white for the background and either light, medium and dark toned reds or a buttery yellow, sky blue and pinky coral colour.

I just can’t seem to make my mind up these days at all, at all…

Essential sewing tool - a camera!

I don't know what it is about the process of making but sometimes you can get tunnel vision in trying to complete a block and when this happens, somehow, I just can't seem to see what is right in front of me. It's only when I go to upload a photo for the blog, that I properly see what I've made.  Sometimes it works our brilliantly and I get perfect points;

but most of the time its because I've gone and done something daft like this:

For the second time last week, I managed to piece some green triangles in the wrong way around!  I didn't notice I had one of the star points made into a mountain instead of a star in this Stash Bee block until I was writing my stash bee post.  It was a case of run to the hall table, take back the parcel, rip it open and start unpicking again!

Of course when I ripped it apart I poked a hole in the white with my seam ripper and had to re-cut and re-sew quite a bit of the block!  Doh!  That's what I get for rushing.

My camera came in really handy on Saturday too as I was out in the Limerick Quilt Centre buying fabric for Yvonne's Snowflake Shimmer Quilt-A-Long.  I wanted a subtle kind of a snowflake quilt so was going for bright white, a frosty blue and a warm grey.  I thought Kona Ash might be too dark so picked shadow and blueberry.

The shop didn't have these but did have Lake and Silver.  In the shop light Silver looked ok but in B&W on the back of the camera it looked far too similar to work.

So its back to the Shadow again!  The QAL has just started and its fabric selection in the first week so I have to get some ordered!  And the silver?  I have plans for that for another Christmas type quilt ... and I may yet go with Ash.  Decisions, decisions.

So after all that fabric selection and unpicking of green HST's it was nice to have a random improv style block to make for Stash Bee July!

This HST block is made by randomly selecting squares, making HST, putting them in a bag (I used a big Ikea basket bag to make sure I didn't peek!), randomly pulling HST out and sewing them together - only rule was one of the triangles had to have a pop of colour suitable for a boys quilt.  I picked green - I was on a roll at that point with green, right?  This block is impossible to sew things in upside down, well you can but it doesn't matter!

Thankfully it wasn't all unpicking for me with this one -back to perfect points - at least in the centre section anyway!  Taking the small victories when they come.

Wilbur on the other hand had enough of me messing about with the camera and the seam ripper!   It might look like he was keeping me company while catching up with Stash Bee but no, he strategically placed himself between my machine and the ironing board and had a great chat with me,  telling me, via whistles, whines and Mutley mutterings it was time for a break and our evening walk!  He also woke me up yesterday morning before 7 to go outside and get his morning tablet for epilepsy (with Philadephia cream cheese!)  Better than an alarm clock. No snooze button though ...