Welcome! This is the blog of Wendy Whellum and Legend and Lace Designs

Welcome to the Blog of Wendy Whellum and Legend and Lace

To find out more about Legend and Lace please visit the website http://www.legendandlace.com/



Quilt Gallery

Tuesday, January 19, 2016

Peonies applique block




This is your new block for this month.  It is called Peonies.  I quite like these cross over kind of blocks with a bit of red and green.  If you go to the RHS of this page, and click on the photo it should take you straight to the spot where you can print out the drawing.  Set your printer so that it does not scale and just prints to actual size.  It is an 8"block, but you can increase the size if you want.  I made it 8"then I know it prints on one page only.

It is still terribly hot here, and I have not had much inclination to do any more of my cleaning out and decluttering.  I did get a few cool-ish days and evening, and was able to start on the hand applique of the Birdy quilt. 
 As usual, I had no clue as to how I was going to quilt this quilt.  My usual approach is to quilt around all the shapes, and in the ditch, if there is any pieced parts (like borders) and while I am doing that, I start to get a feel for what might suit.

I settled on doing echo stitch in all the background of the centre part of the quilt.  It takes a while to get into the swing of it.  Best part is that you do not have to mark the lines!  saves heaps of time.
 I did start on one of the borders as well, which I did have to mark.  My favourite marking pen for this kind of fabric is the wash out blue pen.   There are lots of brands on the market, and they have never let me down.  They have never "not come out" or never "reappeared" or never left any marks, so I keep using them.  The ceramic pencils are very popular now, but I find with hand quilting, and handling the fabric all the time, they tend to rub out.  Also, the new iron out pens - Frixxon - are a bit scary in my opnion.  Anyway, I don't want to iron my quilt once it is quilted.

The design is pretty simple, and I can use my long ruler for this.  It is just 3 parallel diagonal lines 1/2"apart then a gap of 1"before I start the next set.  I started in one corner with the marking,  and worked down one side and back the other.  They all seemed to meet ok.  I read that this design was quite traditional for the time in which the original quilt was made.


With the echo quilting, you just go around everything until you come to a spot where you are kind of boxed in, and then fill in that part with the same stitches, at your chosen width apart. 
I guess mine are somewhere less than 1/2" wide and greater than 1/4".  I just "eye-ball" the width and it seems to work out.

I got a fair bit of my de-cluttering scrappy quilt put together last week.  So far I have made 9 20"blocks, and I want to make 4 more.......and I have enough left overs!  it is on the list for a cooler day this week.



Monday, January 11, 2016

So while I was cleaning and de-cluttering..........

I have not even started on my sewing room, but managed to find a heap of homeless blocks.  Some short while ago I saw a facebook post, referring to Quilter Stew.  For a long time, in fact close to 20 years, I have had one of these quilts brewing in my brain.  However, I could not actually work out how to go about it.

 the design idea behind this, is that you get heaps of orphan blocks, and sew them together in a random fashion and they all fit together.
These 5 stars are 20

some of the 12"blocks

10"blocks
 I don't really do "random" very well, even though I do with my colours, the rest really need to be kind of planned.
9"blocks
 You can see by these photos that I have lots of different sizes, so wondered how I could make them go together so they kind of looked "random".  I love the maths of quilting making and started thinking about that part of the plan.
8"blocks
 I came up with the base size of 24".  If I make up sets of blocks into pieces that measure 24", then sew them together with bits of cut up blocks, and strips of fabric, I might get that elusive random effect.
6" blocks
 8"blocks are easy, as you need nine of these, or you could have 2x 4"to make up the number.  With 9" blocks you can have 2, then add in a 6' block.
4"blocks

4"pinwheels

3"blocks
This is today's effort so far.  Top RH corner is a 20"star surrounded by 4"blocks, then below are 4 9"blocks, with 6"blocks around them.  In the centre is a 12"block, with 6"blocks added.  The bottom is the same, 12"block with 6"blocks added.  Not sure yet about the 9 x 8"blocks at the top.

I am just going to work on putting 24"squares together, then wonder later on how they will all meet up.  If you have any ideas on this style of quilt I would be happy to hear from you.


Sunday, January 3, 2016

Decluttering for 2016

Happy New Year to you all!  I am starting my new year by decluttering my house and life.  My plan is to do one hour a day, and then it is not a big chore.  Anyone else want to join me?   I created a FaceBook page for the purpose and you can join in.  I hope this LINK will work.

As a part of my need to get some order in my life, I started with my spare bedroom.  This is where things get STASHED!  No doubt, many of you will have such a room.
These are the bags I store my quilts in.  This IS NOT all my quilts, just those not currently in use around the house, or being used as teaching samples.  I have decided to bite the bullet and sell some of them.  Many that I want to sell have been published in Australian magazines, machine pieced and quilted.  Some quilted by me, and some by a professional quilter.   If you are at all interested, or would like some photos and sizes etc please contact me on this email address.

Below are a few I have selected.  There are many more!