Sunday 22 May 2016

Splendid Sampler Experiments

Really enjoying the Splendid Sampler project and not really for the reason I thought I would. I made the knee jerk choice of using cotton and steel bluebird range as I had fallen in love with it and wanted an excuse to buy the fabric.
BUT this meant I have had a very limited colour palette to work with, mainly blues, a little cream and a little grey. I added a bright lipstick red solid to lift the project.





As we have gone on I find the challenge is to make this work for each block and I love the playing around. However I find the longer I think about it, the less likely it is to work. I think  the subconscious is my arty bit, and if I start thinking about it too much with my scientists brain, it all goes wrong. Guess it relates to ' let the fabric speak to you'.

This my favourite block so far, love the simplicity and the light/shade




This bunny block hard for me, I don't like cutesy applique, but it forced me to get slightly better at the technique. Yay!




Also the challenge of something small regularly suits me   nicely. I love making single blocks, but the idea of loads of blocks makes me feel tired just thinking about it. The latest block 29, was a pretty scrappy heart on a background, and I thought it would be interesting to reverse the idea, with solid scraps and a patterned background. I love paper piecing , the accuracy is fantastic with minimal effort, and I love sewing down marked straight lines.......


Wednesday 2 March 2016

1718 coverlet love

I've realised that I find it hard to make multiple blocks that are the same......I get bored easily and my attention span is small.

So the answer for 2016 is to do BOMs, and sampler type quilts.

Splendid sampler is coming along, it is a challenge with a limited palette of cotton and steel's Bluebird....but fun trying to interpret each block in a style of my own





Today made March BOM for Pat Sloan's secret garden, I plan to use up my huge solid stash with only 2 prints/block




But my biggest challenge will be having a go at recreating the 1718 coverlet


isn't it adorable? its the earliest dated english patchwork surviving
made from silks , the silks of the day were hand woven and were in fact a tighter weave than today's silks which fray more.The blocks were paper pieced, mainly repurposed silks, with a little velvet and wool fabric. No batting, just backed...hence it is named ' coverlet'


The quilt guild made a lovely reproduction to show the original colours better


There is a wonderful book about this, and patterns to make the blocks, by Susan Briscoe


So much to do........and I've got 4 days off, whoo hoo!!





Saturday 6 February 2016

the splendid sampler and more

Finished my foundation  pieced geese crossing block, cushionised it, love love love the accuracy I can get with foundation piecing.






Couple of ladies are leaving our guild so very happy to contribute a block for each leaving quilt





Aim for 2016 to improve my machine piecing.......have finally worked out I have to have my needle 2 mm to the right for use with my 1/4 foot to actually get 1/4 "seam.

Have signed up to a couple of year long quilt projects to practice my piecing and use up my scraps
Pat Sloan's 'my secret garden', here's January and February's blocks. I aim to use a couple of prints and mostly solids on these blocks, don't really plan them out before, so it  slightly improv as I'm putting it together.


Signed up for the Splendid Sampler, and made a little folding block thingy which has a pocket for your square ruler, and opens to reveal a mini design wall, and  pressing area, sweet.




Also found out how to trim my HSTs properly using a square ruler, zapped on the QR code on the ruler and taken to nice video tutorial on Creative Grids site, brill!. Love it when IT actually helps you, as opposed to work where its always going slow, breaking down or giving you security warnings as you are trying to access work systems!

Today, Ted my schnauzer is looking quite triangular I think.


Wednesday 27 January 2016

quilt block clock time

A day off today after two very 'challenging' days in the ER. Woke up to rain and wind, grey.......
What to do?  A lovely little kit has arrived for me to experiment with; make your own fabric covered clock. 




Had been looking at this block I had made for Robert Kauffman rhoda ruth challenge last year, I love it, but not really doing anything  with it apart from smiling when it peeps out from the project pile.





Was not quite large enough, so bordered it with grey spottiness and followed the instructions. 
What I would say is.....try not to stick the supporting PVC to the right side of the fabric, a wrong sided fabric clock just isn't that attractive.

Using a block means you have to be pretty accurate in getting the clock mechanism to come though the middle of the block, and that was very fiddly, but just keep peeling back the PVC and starting again.

Here's the finished project, as you can see done by 0837!
Congratulated myself with a large bagel with jam and peanut butter and a small vat of coffee. Looking forward to daughter coming home from school and saying " Oh no, not not another quilt item in the living room, where's the old clock?"