Tuesday, August 24, 2021
Just Start
Monday, August 23, 2021
Good Fortune Flimsy
Thursday, August 5, 2021
String Tulips Sprouting Fast
Good Fortune Border Decision
Friday, May 21, 2021
AHIQ String Tulip Quilt Along
One of the AHIQ founders, Ann of Fret Not Yourself, has been hosting a quilt along with a really charming recipe that combines string pieced blocks and string pieced applique tulips. I've been lurking and admiring it for a while, but I didn't think I had the bandwidth to make it.
After I finished the centre of Rose Boll and made the dubious decision to put it away, I pulled out Ontario Shores. I finished all those blocks,
...and made a start on attaching all the sashing. It's looking pretty good. But I just ran out of steam. Time for something new!
I like almost everything about Ann's quilt except the size, so the first thing I did was that sketch at the top to see how it would look larger. Think it's going to be pretty good. 😊
The string tulip quilt along has an improv mindset, so there is plenty of encouragement to do your own thing and run with it. And everyone knows I change designs all the time. 😂
But I do try to preserve the things that drew me to the project in the first place. In this case there were several. Ann has made two versions of this quilt now, one with a blue background and mainly red tulips,
Photo: Fret Not Yourself |
- I love the string pieced X blocks around the centre. That's probably my favourite thing about the quilt so I'm keeping that.
- I prefer the light background and the red tulips, so I'll combine those two things in mine. (And hey, another mainly red and white/neutral quilt. 😉)
- This is a great opportunity to practice turned edge machine applique with a simple, forgiving shape. I'll just change the design a little.
- In general Ann matched the centre colour of the tulips with the colour on the main diagonal of the X blocks. I think that's important repetition, so I'll keep that.
1. Because I'm going to do the applique with my little Eversewn Sparrow, a smaller block will be easier to handle. I broke it down to 10" squares with one tulip each.
2. Rather than Ann's dots I may add leaves to the tulips. My first thought was to sew on spiky triangles after the applique was done. But I didn't love that. It just feels too sharp and aggressive. I love the wider tips of the X blocks, so I'm thinking I'll try that shape for the leaves too. You can see that idea in the bottom left of the first photo at the top. That will have to be pieced before the applique is attached. Or, maybe those could be appliqued too. Idk yet. 😄
Wednesday, May 19, 2021
Rose Boll Progress
As I slowly excavate back through my UFOs, the next one that caught my eye was Rose Boll, started in 2017 and last seen here in June 2018. I have to admit, every time I read back through those old posts I just laugh. So optimistic!
Anyhoo, I don't think I ever gave much detail about my process on this quilt, so I'll cover that a little now. As you see above, most of the blocks have the same red fabric in the centre as well as the HSTs in the sawtooth edge. 20 HSTs are needed for each block, but I foundation paper pieced them in sets of 24. So, there were leftovers.
I decided to use the leftovers in the main quilt also, and made a few scrappy blocks. Since they were different anyway, I used different colours from my stack of floral "neutrals" for the centres. The gold and pink are from the same collections as some of the reds and whites I used, so it still ties together.
When I started to work on it this year all the string blocks were done, and there were only about 6 of the sawtooth blocks left. I finished those, laid it all out, and sewed together the centre.
As always, lol, I had considerable debate about the border. Bonnie Hunter's original quilt has 3 rows of diagonal set squares in the border that looks great. I sketched a few variations on that, and decided it was too much in my busy fabrics. A single row of squares looked a little better on paper. But, once the centre was complete I realized it's more than enough as it is. I'm just going to do a narrow inner border in gold and a wider outer border in scrappy chunks of red, and call it done.
And then I did a Very Dangerous Thing, and folded it up and put it away without finishing the border. I just wasn't in the mood to iron and cut those red chunks. 😂
insert optimistic closing here
And then I pulled out another project. 😜
Wednesday, May 5, 2021
Border Disputes
So apparently in 2017 I was under the impression that the border was ready to sew onto my version of Bonnie Hunter's 2015-6 mystery quilt, Allietare. But obviously that didn't happen. 😅
I had SO much indecision about the border for this quilt. I know I bought 3 or 4 different fabric combinations for it. A couple of them were even in my Allietare project drawer!
When I finally pulled the project out again, it seemed to me that these Kaffe fabrics were ready to go. The fussy cutting was done and I just had to sew them on.
Those waves you see in the photo are just where the fabric got caught on the carpet. Hopefully.
Nothing a long arm couldn't quilt out, right?
Anyway, I am so impressed with Bonnie's design on this quilt. It looks so complicated, and I'm rather amazed I pulled it off! I'm pretty sure if I saw the final quilt before I started it I never would have attempted it. But the instructions break it down into very simple steps, and it's kind of magic how it comes together. It's funny that the hold up all these years has been these last strips of fabric around the edge. In any case, I'm very glad to have another top done!
"Keep calm and carry on" would probably work as a title for this post as well. 😂
Monday, May 3, 2021
Cheddar Broken Dishes Top
When I first picked up these cheddar and indigo broken dishes blocks last autumn, my intention was just to organize the project rather than actually finish it. I had things in several stages at once, with many many plastic baggies of HSTs and broken dishes units. And as you can see, my project storage system wasn't 100% foolproof. 😂
So I just wanted to make sure everything was accounted for and get things to a more consistent state of completion. But, the blocks went together so easily that I decided to keep going and get it done.
The original historic quilt that inspired this pattern had a few irregular blocks with some pink, light blue, and cranberry fabrics thrown in. To me that was a big part of the initial appeal of the quilt, so I threw in some non-conforming broken dishes here and there.Saturday, May 1, 2021
Technicolor Turkey Together at Last!
Thursday, January 30, 2020
Good Fortune Progress
A little late, but happy Lunar New Year/Spring Festival everyone! It feels appropriate to have progress to share on Bonnie Hunter's 2019 mystery quilt, Good Fortune.
All the blocks are done! 🎉🎉🎉
Assembly has started! 🎉🎉🎉
I'm just laying out 9 blocks at a time, and trying for an equal distribution of dark and light values in each section. The orange blocks with the skinny inserts will be in the centre of the quilt, and the string blocks are going around the corners. It's already a very active quilt, so I decided a symmetrical layout would be best.
This is the point where you find out how accurate your sewing was last year. 😂 Fortunately, I tend to sew scant, so it's easy to trim the block or tighten up a seam if necessary. And fortunately, that hasn't been too often.
So far, so good! 🎉🎉🎉