VanEssa: Inspiration strikes

Well, I was thinking about caravan furnishings.

As you do.

And then it came to me. I will take my inspiration from an earlier plan. What do you get when you mix black and white (ie, the new caravan interior colour scheme)? Yeah, grey. And what do I have that was going to be named Fade to Grey?

This beauty is the last of my F²F blocks, and I’d planned to make a big quilt. But now I might make two smaller quilts, with the addition of a few more appropriately coloured blocks. Or perhaps wide borders. Or something. There are a few more blocks which aren’t shown on this layout, which I would add to the Husband’s less, er, hectic version, but then I could top up with a few more bright ones for myself.

And then of course there’s a padded headboard, and a couple of cushions, and a nice bright rug or two. And this caravan actually has a curtain rail across the width of it at at the foot of the beds, so you can curtain that bit off for more privacy or to let one person sleep while the other does something that needs light. So a set of full length curtains is also on the list. Also pot holders, tea towels and…. well, you get the idea. There will be a textile frenzy, and the colours will be fresh and bright, to give a nice pep to the clean black and white theme that’s already there. Think turquoise, green, orange and pink, and you won’t go far wrong. Hehehe… story of my life. I don’t do minimal. Or discreet.

I want to be…. Vivid!

Silver (grey) linings…

I have a big grey cloud lurking in my life just now.

So displacement activity was required to stop me obsessing about it, well… obsessively. What better to occupy my mind than making some F²F blocks for myself, with flashes of gorgeous brilliant colour amidst the clouds of grey? Having said that, the grey fabrics are lovely too, and don’t deserve their synonymity with depressing dreariness. Grey is my second favourite neutral, and with very dark indigo, are so much less ‘dead’ than stark black or white.

So anyway, here are the fruits of my displacement. I’ll probably make even more, since not only is it successfully distracting me, but I’m absolutely loving the outcomes – and I still have plenty of grey of the non-cloud variety! You’re looking at Circle of Friends, Perkiomen Valley and Chain Link, in that order.

Next on the list: Arkansas Traveller, Circle of Geese and one other I haven’t chosen yet.

Heaven for Beginners #4: All done – and Finish #4!

I’ve been plugging away at the assembly, to some effect.

The Husband’s fingers just visible. Too much rain for outdoor photography…

It’s all together. Actually, doing it in small amounts, in many sessions is quite effective. It’s repetitive work, not terribly interesting, but requiring you to be meticulous and careful. You get bored quickly, so doing it a bit at a time means you don’t burn out and start getting careless. Work for an hour, go and do something else. Work for another hour, read your book… that sort of thing.

So, here is the completed ‘Heaven for Beginners‘ quilt*, ready for the lovely Caitlyn to take to uni. I hope it keeps her cosy and comfortable, provides napping and sleepover opportunities for friends and family, and gives years of cuddly service.

As I did on the Hatbox Quilt, I’ve made a ‘hidden’ label you can flip over to read. Not very hidden, given the fabric’s different from the rest of the backing, but still… I did a wash-test sample first, to make sure the archival-ink pen and tear-away stabiliser I wrote on will survive the washing process. All good.

Thank you again to all the F2F members who contributed blocks to last year’s session. As you can see, your hard work was not wasted!

Now, on with the next thing 🙂

 

*For the background to this name, see my earlier post.

BougieNights #5: leaping ahead

Last time we looked at Bougainville Nights, it was just half quilted.

Just look at it now!  All the blocks are quilted, I’ve cut all the sashing strips, and have made a good run up at the joining. So, in case you were wondering, the sashing on the front is dark inky blue, and the sashing on the back is hot pinks and oranges. Most of the back is dark blue, but there is a chevron of blocks on the back too, so this will effectively be a double-sided quilt. Not large, but versatile. I’ll do a reveal of the back once the blocks are all together.

Another couple of days will see all the sashing in place and the blocks all joined up. I’m thinking a dark blue binding, but I might sneak in a colourful corner or two – it depends if I have enough blue of the right colour left over. Good to think that I’m getting closer to finishing this quilt composed of my F²F² blocks.

Better late than never…. 

And now for something completely different

Well, not THAT different. It’s a quilt, after all.

But you haven’t seen this one before. I’m calling it Bougainville Nights (or BougieNights for short). It’s composed of the blocks I received from the previous session of F2F, not the one that finished last month but the one before.

This is the initial layout for the front of the quilt. It’ll probably change again a couple of times, but this seems to be fairly balanced. If you have suggestions for improving the layout, let me know what you think.

Some of the blocks I received are not shown here. I’ll still be using them all, but six are going on the back, and one is going to make the front of a cushion. The ones not shown are either on light backgrounds, or they contain fairly large amounts of yellow or pale orange or pale pink, which read too light and don’t work with the other blocks. They’re all beautiful, but they don’t fit in this version of the front. For the back, I’ll probably have a mainly dark blue background, with these blocks arranged in a left to right pointing chevron. The cushion cover block is gorgeous, but has lots of bright yellow in it which stands out very strongly if used on the front, so I’m going to border it with more yellow to make a feature of it. I’ll use dark blue joining strips and binding it in hot pink and orange. Should be nice and bright!

I have no idea how much time I’ll be able to spend on this over the coming weeks. But it’s been agitating to get out of my head and onto the design wall, so I just had to get that done so the quilt would shut up! I have a feeling my sewing room is going to be fairly low on the priority list in the new house, simply because it’s not ‘necessary’. So I’ll just have to take advantage of what I have now for as long as possible. This’ll be another QAYG project, and each block is small enough to quilt in a short time. I’ll be grabbing half hours here and there, and slowly, it’ll get done.

And now, it’s time to get up and get going. Things to do, boxes to pack.

 

Tiling for quilters…

It has been a good day today. Unlike the day before.

Today we settled our purchase of the new house. In case you missed this bit of news, in a nutshell: smaller house (less cleaning, fewer stairs), smaller back yard (less mowing), huge double bay Husband shed and ginormous sewing room for me. It’s been comparatively painless, and the house is now ours, stripped bare and ready for renovations. We can’t move in till the kitchen and bathroom are renovated – the house was built in the 70s and not much has changed… While window shopping for carpet for the bedroom (the Husband likes it cosy under foot in the bedroom), I noticed these fabulous tiles. Clearly, they are totally aimed at people who make quilts, I will be buying them for the kitchen, and the only question in my mind is whether to go with the colourful or monochrome version. I’m currently veering towards the colourful one on the left. What do you think? (Click to enlarge)

The tiles are about 10 x 16 inches. Each square is about 2 inches across, and the squares have a slightly rounded surface – it feels really quilty!

After a rotten day yesterday when my mobile phone had died beyond all hope of resuscitation, losing (as I thought) everything on it, just days before I’d backed everything up and bought a new one anyway, happiness was restored when I discovered (duh…) that Auntie Google had automatically backed up my calendar and contacts as well as my emails, and when I signed back into my Google account, it all came streaming back into the new phone. Yes, OK, I am a bit slow with the tech stuff… I did lose my photos and SMS, but as I tend to do most of my serious photography with a camera and download onto my laptop, the loss wasn’t as dramatic as it could have been.

The good part of yesterday was finally being able to pick up the squishy sent by Kathy a while ago to the new address. We had to do a pre-settlement inspection of the house to make sure all was well, and were handed the envelope as we arrived. And here are the beauties that were in it! Again, click to enlarge.

 

 

 

 

I won’t say normal service will be resumed tomorrow, because the next week or so is going to be a bit crazy, but at some stage I’ll have to get back onto ITAA and get it done before 22nd March. It’s not going to happen at the new house, I guarantee…

More soon 🙂

More squishies in the mailbox!

While I was away, the postman brought me all kinds of lovelies.

First and best was a squishy envelope from Robyn, with three blocks for F²F (Footsquare Freestyle), as it’s my turn this month. Aren’t they fabulous? She’s used beautiful soft colours, just as I asked, and I can tell already that this quilt is going to be A-mazing.

 

 

 

 

 

Then there was my birthday present from the Husband. I’d been given the OK to order myself some fabrics from the wonderful Fifi’s Fabricology. It’s not cheap, but they have fabrics and designers I haven’t found anywhere else. Luckily, there was a sale on and two fabrics I’ve been pining for were in it, so I didn’t hesitate.

You won’t see these fabrics in a quilt except maybe as scraps. They’re going to become wearables, whether garments, scarves or whatever. When they’re worn out, then I’ll turn them into bits of quilt! From left to right, they’re Kaffe Fasset Orange flower border, Kaffe Fasset Blue Flower border, both from the Artisan range, and Holly Holderman from the Pam Kitty Picnic range in Periwinkle.

It’s taking me a while to catch up on things now I’m back from our trip. I’ve had piles of legal stuff to do in the run up to the settlement on our new house, and every time I think I’ve got a spare half hour the phone goes or the email pings. Never mind, only a few more days to go.

First things first, though. I’ve got a pair of wings to attend to!