I love scrap quilts!

I am just having a good time playing with all my scrappy fabrics, to make these great blocks.  So far, I have managed to make 12 blocks - and only that many because my DH is away.

On Sunday, I decided to cut up heaps of pieces, so that I could just pick them up and sew together.

 I was astounded at how many striped or directional fabrics I had to cut up.  I must admit that I have always favoured them, and buy some whenever I see them.  There is so much you can do with these fabrics.

Some fabrics can be cut so that you can use them in two different ways.  I have done this with a few of the fabrics.

Look at all these gorgeous stripey fabrics I found !  Just love them.

Then I started cutting up 2" strips of dark/medium/light fabrics for the rest of the blocks.  I have used most of these, and cut up a whole lot more today.

These are the blocks I made today

and these I made yesterday.  Once everything is cut up, it takes only 15 minutes to make one block.  I am on a roll.

Noughts and Crosses - a new scrap project

I started a new scrap quilt this week.  I had been eyeing off this design for some time, and had pinned a modern version of it to my Pinterest board 

I don't do too much with Pinterest, but it is a good source of ideas and inspiration.  It did look a bit complicated/fiddly.  I did some searches on the block, and found it under a number of names, but found that it was in Barbara Brackman's Quilt BlockBase attributed to Nancy Cabot......so it is not a modern block, it is in fact an old one, very suitable for my fabrics.

One of the the things with this block, is the need to use directional fabrics to get the full effect of the "cross"part of the construction.  Ideally, we would like to use fabrics with the stripe printed on the diagonal, then you don't end up with those scary "off grain"corners.  I don't have many diagonal print blocks, so used what I had and cut the others off grain, with the stripes going from corner to corner.  the above block turned out well I think.  I used some precious old pieces of the Reproduction fabrics.  The one in the centre is around 20 years old, and one of the first Repro fabrics I bought.  It is from the Cocheco Mills (*I think!) and I have the tiniest bit left. Love it to bits.

 This is the only fabric I used today, that is printed on the diagonal

 These are all on the cross

 The constructions is far more simple than I first thought.  the pieces go together like this.  Make the corners and the centres, then but them all together.

 this blue fabric is one of my precious scraps.  I used the last of it today

This is the first block I made, and I think the least attractive.  The top LH corner fabric I did not cut so that the stripe runs down the centre, and it just misses something.  Never mind, in the mix of things it will work out.

The blocks took me 30 minutes each to make.  This includes fabric selection, and cutting, and sewing, pressing.  Does not include runing out of thread in the bobbin - don't you hate that!--and taking photos of course.  I usually time how long to make them, and then I can set myself a target for how many I can make a day, and how many days/weeks/months it will take to make it.

If I am making something for a magazine, they usually give me a deadline, and i always make the deadline if I know how long each one takes.

I put these 4 blocks together and you can see that you get an interesting secondary pattern.  I think I am going to like this!

The blocks are 7.5"finished, and if I want a quilt 60"x 75"then I will need 80 blocks, at 4 a day then that is 3 weeks....that is if nothing else happens in my life in the next 3 weeks.......I will probably give myself a longer goal, maybe 3 months!

Now for something different.  Right now is Festival time in Adelaide, and in particular the Fringe Festival.  Last night I took my granddaughter to a light display in the city.  The old public buildings on North Tce  -  the museum, art gallery, library, and university have these light shows happening.  They are like a moving picture show from the turn of the century.  You can only really appreciate it in the moving form.  These photos do not give it justice.

It finished on Sunday night 28th February, so if you have not been yet, it is worth the visit.  Breathtaking!

New Block

This is the next block in the Red and Green block of the month.  It is called Lollypop......for obvious reasons I think.

It is not the first time I have used this block.  Quite a few years ago I used it in a 4 block quilt called Fruit Tingle.  The blocks in this quilt were 16".

Fruit Tingle

I used this quilt as a teaching project for a few years.  It was a good one to teach needle-turn applique.  The blocks, and therefore the shapes, are quite large, so new people can tackle the larger pieces, and get the general idea, before moving onto the more tricky shapes.

This Lollypop block is 8"finished, but you can increase the size when you print it, or photocopy it by increasing the ratio.  It is available now, and will be free of charge for one month.  If you look on the RHS of this page, you will see the photo and link.  Just click on the photo, and you *should* be able to print out the drawing.  If you have a problem, just email me.

I have had a really busy month with visits from my sister who lives in Newcastle, in NSW, plus my daughter is moving house next week.  The lead into the move has been really all consuming.  However, we did get a lunch day out when my sister was here.

Maz, Wendy, Di

We went to a fabulous place called the Bombay Bicycle Club.  this is an old pub, which has been converted into an Indian/English Raj themed venue.  If you click onto the link, you can see all the great images of the interior.  It is quite breathtaking.  They have palm trees growing in the dining room.

Natalie, Skylar, and Di at Glenelg

 Glenelg is one of our beach side suburbs, and we had a day out in the sun

Wendy and Di - Very bad selfie at Brighton

 
Edit.......
 I was asked about fabrics needed for the Red and Green quilt.     There are 12 blocks each needs to be cut 9"square....so you can cut 4 across the width of fabric, 1 metre/yard would be enough for the background. The rest is scrappy.....just use what you have. 

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.

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.

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!