Honeysuckle House

Here's the last birdhouse for Leanne Beasley's Down in the Garden stitchery quilt. The curling vines and three petal flowers in the original design reminded me of honeysuckle. So, I chose a light yellow floss, and, after some trial and error, settled on these pistil stitch flowers instead. I think I left the best until last, because this one is definitely my favourite!

When you stand back, the birdhouse shape is dominant, which is what I hoped to achieve with the light-coloured flowers. This will be a wall quilt, so I want the structure to be clear from several feet back. Then you can step in to see the details:

Beasley has a great eye for line, and I really love the natural movement in all these curling vines!

Over the winter I seriously considered changing all the birdhouses to applique, and skipping the vines, but I am glad I stuck with the easier path. Now all four birdhouses are done:

Next up will be the four watering can stitcheries, which have some wickedly difficult applique butterflies. I guess I can't avoid them any longer!

Slow Sunday Stitching

Today I'm linking up with Slow Sunday Stitching over at Kathy's Quilts. With all the disruption here I feel like I've earned a quiet day!

As you can see, the third birdhouse from Leanne Beasley's Down in the Garden stitchery quilt is now complete. Since all the birdhouses are the same banana cream colour, I've been naming them by the colour of the flowers instead. So, this is the "blue" birdhouse.

I was careful to "book" the green variegated thread around the window. I pulled one strand of floss and stitched it from the bud up to the centre flower. Then I pulled another strand from the same length of floss, so the variegation would be the same, and stitched it up the other side. It was also important to do this around the outer edge so there would be no obvious breaks where I had to end the thread. But otherwise, I let the colours do their own thing.

Today I will work on the fourth and last birdhouse. The flowers will probably be this light yellow:

On this one I will do the vines first, so I doubt I'll get to the flowers today. That's not a worry, because I really love this green floss, DMC Color Variations 4050. None of my photos do it justice. I think there must be some ultraviolet dye in there that doesn't show up, either in my camera or on the monitor. It glows! My belief is that when you are stitching narrow lines like this on a quilt, the floss should either be dark or bright, so this has been perfect. Quilts are usually viewed from several feet away, and if the stitching is too pale, it disappears.

Anyway, enough chatting. On to some stitching!

WIP Wednesday

Isn't this Jolly Jungle fabric cute? I just adore it. I remember that the local quilt store where I bought it sold out very quickly, so I know it was popular.

I know I have been MIA for the past two weeks. I had volunteered to take over WIP Wednesday at The Needle and Thread Network, but then that weekend our basement flooded, again, So that resulted in a quick change of priorities, and I had to bow out. We've had two more floods since then, so I think that was a good decision! We have a big job now to get it all fixed. But, I am happy to report that my stash is still ok, thanks to the plastic bins I use for storage!

I've had very little time to sew, but today I finished assembling all the rows on my Collector quilt, and I joined the last three to make the bottom corner:

What a relief to get back to some sewing!

My original plan was to make the setting triangles out of solid black. But, when I went to my stash the solids were way at the bottom, and this new colourway of Kaffe's Millefiore, "dark," was sitting on top, so I used that instead. I think it is better. Weather permitting, a couple more days of sewing should get it to the flimsy stage.

I'm also still plugging away at the hand stitching on Down in the Garden (DitG). I took a photo last week after I finished all the flowers on the "blue" birdhouse:

To me, the flowers look like butterflies! The vines are nearly finished now, so hopefully this one will be done soon too.

My resolution to stick with one hand and one machine project at a time is still working. I'm very keen to finish them so I can start something else! So that's motivating. And, I think the balance is also working well, with one "quick" project and one slow. After Collector, I have one more quick UFO to finish up, or maybe two, and then I may start something new!

DitG Pink Birdhouse

Here's the second birdhouse stitchery from Leanne Beasley's stitchery quilt, Down in the Garden. Now that it is summer it so nice to be able to take things out and photograph them in the sunshine. What a difference!

Although it is not this obvious in real life, you can see in the photo above that the green Pigma micron pen that I used to mark the stitching lines did run a bit when it was painted over with the pale yellow Tsukineko ink. I have read complaints that the blue Pigma pen tends to run as well. I assumed that there was some chemical in the Tsukineko ink that was to blame, but maybe it is just the blue Pigma ink that is unstable. Anyway, I don't mind it here, I think it adds to the atmosphere a bit.

The flowers are simple chain stitch lazy daisies with long anchoring stitches, and the buds are also short, round detached chain stitches.

I really like the curling vines on these birdhouses. It's a lot of flowers! But I made a push last night so I could get it in just under the wire for WIP Wednesday at The Needle and Thread Network. Why? Because this week will be Monika Kinner-Whalen's last week running it, and next week, I have agreed to take over! Yes, another Monica. I am excited, because I have a lot of ideas for it.

Out in the backyard, our young lilac is putting on its best show so far:

And, while I was out there taking photos, this butterfly came to visit:

Lucky shot! Except for the blog name (and resize), the photo is completely unedited. Don't you love that combination of lilac and sky blue?

Last 9 Stars

The fun thing about a charm quilt like this is admiring all the fabrics. I absolutely love this green fabric! I may use this colour scheme in a future quilt. I have no idea where I got it, which is rare. It must have been from a show, maybe back in California.

Most of the Kaffe Fassett fabrics are from Glorious Color. They provide very good service, and I love that they have all the fabrics in all the colours.

I'm pretty sure these are both discontinued now, but sometimes they re-release them in new colours. If anyone from Westminster is reading, I'd love to see the Star Flowers come back! And the Lichen, that looked amazing in quilts too.

Anyway, here are the last nine stars:

Next stop, flimsy!

In the Groove

This was on the radio the other day, and I've played it quite a few times since then!

I was pretty rock'n'roll when I was younger, but these days I mostly listen to dance music. I like the happy upbeat mood of dance music, and I think I'm too old for all that rock'n'roll angst.

I am really enjoying my new "one at a time" approach to my projects. It's so much easier, and a lot more relaxed. Less angst. As I mentioned in my last post, I've pared it down to one hand sewing and one machine sewing project. My machine sewing project is an old one, Collector, started back near the beginning of this blog in 2012.

In January I was re-evaluating all my UFOs, and I decided to make this one smaller than originally planned. Just nine more star blocks would be enough to finish it up. Here they are!

This one is my favourite. Remember this old Kaffe Star Flowers design?

What an edgy mix of colours!

These went together pretty easily, and I already had so many other good fabrics pulled, so I've decided that I have room for 9 more:

Then that really will be it. The original plan was for 9 x 9 of the light blocks, which would have been about 76" square. I realized that would be an awkward size, too small for a bed and too big for a lap quilt. The new size, with the extra 9 stars, will be 9 x 7, about 76" x 59".

The alternating dark squares are also all cut now and ready to go:

It's going to be fun to see how it all looks together!

DitG Block 5 finished!

We've had some beautiful, clear sunshine today, and I was finally able to get a good set of photos for this block. It's the centre, Block 5, of Leanne Beasley's stitchery quilt Down in the Garden. Yes, I know it's wrinkly, but I don't want to iron it until I'm ready to assemble the quilt.

 

There has been quite a lot of "let's see what happens" so far, but in the end I'm well pleased with how it came out. I really like the double curve, ogee outline around both this block and the birdhouse blocks. I also like the way Beasley used the green sprigs and the outside points to suggest a diamond shape inside the curves. I chose the coral and pink colours for those flowers to emphasize the diamond, and I think that worked well.

My original plan for the small lazy daisy flowers was to make them dark blue, same as here. It was not successful, and I am sorry that I didn't take a photo to prove it! In the light blue, the small flowers provide some contrast and support for the large flowers. I was really surprised by how much better the large flowers looked once those little blue flowers were stitched! It was a good lesson to me. And, I think that same colour of blue is going to fix my problem with Prairie Star as well.

With all the stitching completed, this block has ended up quite a bit darker than the light, watery effect that I originally intended. This was mostly because the Tsukineko inks were too difficult to control when they were really watered down, so I had to keep them more intense and pure. I think this has also made the project more formal, and I'm not sure all those gingham fabrics that I hoped to use are appropriate any more. But the inspiration fabrics by Tamara Kate still work well.

It's a big block, 15 inches square, and a lot of stitching. I really like all the words and sentiments in the poem, but gosh, the words were boring to sew! Fortunately, my commitment to stick with just the one project made it easier.

I keep thinking that now I am mostly done, which is not true at all! There are still 3 more birdhouses, and all four of the watering can blocks to do. The applique butterflies on the watering cans are wickedly difficult, but I think I have them under control now.

In any case, my plan to focus on just one project at a time is a big success, even though I have changed it to two projects - one hand sewing and one machine sewing. Momentum is building, and right now I'm not even tempted to change projects. I'll show you the machine sewing project next time -- I think it will be a surprise!