Anemone: row 24 quilted

I decided it was time.

I’d been neglecting Anemone in favour of feverishly stitching away at Delft. I’ve reached the point with Delft that it can just sit for a bit until I’m ready to piece large sections together, never my favourite part. Anemone has been quietly waiting on my cutting table (and yes, taking up all the space and preventing me starting yet another new project). Time to start hand quilting again.

So that’s what I did. And now I’m up to row 24 and three more are marked up ready to go. It’s actually quite soothing. I can listen to podcasts or YouTube videos while I stitch along the rows of scallop shapes. Three rows at a time is about enough before the fingers get too sore and I have to take a bit of a break before starting again.

It’s still hexies, but at least I’m not sewing them together any more…

Anemone: 7 rows done

It may be time for a day off.

Not because I’m bored, or not enjoying this, but because I need to let my fingers heal. The calluses haven’t re-formed yet, and the needle sticks have become small but painful wounds due to the repeated damage in the same place. I’ve anointed them with spray bandage to keep them closed, since the stick-on kind is a pain in the backside on the tips of fingers. It may be enough to let me carry on working, but somehow I think it may be time to give my body a chance to heal itself without interference.

This is what most people would call big-stitch quilting. I do want to finish it this side of Christmas, which is why I’m not going for smaller stitches. Life is just too short, and I do very much like the soft texture I get with this clamshell shape and size of quilting. I also like the pink thread; it was a toss up whether I’d use white, grey or pink, but I’m happy with the decision to with colour – of course!

I’ve calculated this quilt is going to need at least 50 rows of clamshell stitching. I’m 7 rows down, so making decent progress. I haven’t quite got to the quilt-like-a-machine stage where I load x needles with x length of thread at the start of each row, but by row 20 I’ll probably be there… Making exactly the right size of knot at the start of each thread so that it’s still small enough to bury but too large to pull out, and the trick of forming and pulling down the knot to bury at the end of each thread is a skill you don’t forget after your first queen-sized hand quilted project!

Now let’s see if I can resist Anemone’s siren call….

 

Anemone: let the quilting begin…

So, it’s time to begin the final stage.

This quilt has been sitting on my work table for the past 2 years, waiting for me to get my act together. And today, finally, I did.

I made a clamshell template to fit the width of the individual hexies, decided on pink quilting thread, found my thimble and needle and squissors, and away we went. I’ve pulled out both my pale pink ceramic quilt-marking pencil, and my 0.1mm lead mechanical pencil. The former’s for marking on dark fabrics, and the latter for light fabrics, and both wash out or rub off with an eraser quite easily.

I have the first three rows done. I decided the bottom row was going close to the edge, particularly as this is a faced (rather than bound) quilt. That has the function of holding the edge securely.

After that first row, my fingers have, thankfully, quickly remembered what they’re supposed to be doing.

I’m looking forward to the appropriate calluses forming I must say, as my fine quilting needle has a distressing tendency to ram itself backwards into a random fingertip when it hits thick fabric, despite the fact that I’m using a thimble!

Three rows down, many, many more to go…

Bee, Myself and I # 36

Just one more to go 🙂

This is Block 29. Another gorgeous fabric from Philip Jacobs for Westminster Fabrics. One of my most favourite fabric designers. I got this one done during my Melbourne trip and after – I took two with me but that was overly hopeful, I was having waaaay too much fun to get both done. I’ve got this done and scheduled well in advance because I know that right now I’ll be in the middle of demolishing things, making lists, deciding where power points should go, etc.

Anyway, to return to the subject…. Bee, Myself and I is a forum for ‘selfish sewing’; any stitchery which is purely for pleasure and not to a deadline or for anyone else. The original concept belongs to Carla of Granny Maud’s Girl. To find out more, you can click through on either her blog link, or using the button a fair way down in the left hand column of this blog.

Till next time.

Bee, Myself and I # 35

And another one to add to the growing pile 🙂

This is Block 28. Just as No 27 was very appropriate for Christmas, this one is equally appropriate for now, as the colours are perfect to go with my colour choices for F2F – and February is my month!  I’ve chosen soft greys and lilacs, and you can be sure that the rest of the hat box fabric will be going into the fabric pull for my F2F blocks.

Two more blocks to go after this one. February is crazy (moving house, trip to Melbourne, working on ITAA month). So I reckon I might just be in a position to start assembling this quilt in around April. If I think of it, I’ll take the last two blocks with me as handwork for the trip to Melbourne – there’s a lot of hanging around in airports and I’ll need some evening handwork for the days we’re there. You never know, I might actually get them done!

Anyway, to return to the subject…. Bee, Myself and I is a forum for ‘selfish sewing’; any stitchery which is purely for pleasure and not to a deadline or for anyone else. The original concept belongs to Carla of Granny Maud’s Girl. To find out more, you can click through on either her blog link, or using the button a fair way down in the left hand column of this blog.

Till next time.

Colours of Happiness #16: completed

I got the binding finished and the label attached last night.

That’s a fair bit quicker than usual, but two things were in my favour: the quilt is not huge, and the Husband was on night shift, so I had the evening to myself to power through. After yesterday’s post went up, I made the binding and had it ready to go. While the Husband was getting his afternoon sleep before starting work, I got it all attached and made the label. So all I had to do was fold over the binding and stitch it down, and finally, attach the label.

There was sun this morning (no big surprise there, no rain in sight yet…) so I hung it on the line for the traditional photos. As always happens when I hang a quilt up to take photos, the wind immediately came up and started whirling the clothes line around, making it rather hard to get a straight, in-focus shot… This is the best of a bad bunch, and even so, there are blurry areas on both of them. Never mind, at least I have a record. (And do you see how dry the grass is, and the bare earth showing through? Please, rain….)

So, a fond farewell to Colours of Happiness. There’s a long list of jobs waiting for my attention, so I’ll do the usual tidy up in the sewing room and then decide what’s next.

You’ll just have to wait and see…

Colours of Happiness #15: all together now

All the panels are joined. Glad that bit’s over!

Now I have just the binding and a label left to do. I’ll need to piece some fabrics for the binding; I have one which is perfect but there isn’t quite enough, so I’ve decided to make a feature of the issue. This fabric will bind 80% of the quilt, but one corner will be different. Sounds odd, but I think it’ll work and look good; for the extra I’ll use fabrics already seen in the quilt, so it should tie together well. I’ll make my usual straight-grain double fold, but using 2¼ inch rather than 2½ inch, which I find a bit too wide; the slimmer edge looks better to me.

Once it’s made and sewn on, I’ll have a couple of evenings of gentle hand stitching to stitch down the binding on the back, and then I can take photos and fold it away carefully till February.

Not so very long to wait…

Colours of Happiness #14: centre quilting completed

OK, that’s the hand quilting finished, loud cheers.

So we have the big centre starburst quilted with radiating diamonds, looking a bit like shattered fragments of glass. It’s a pleasing contrast between the spiky quilting and the soft, puffy, cuddly feel of the quilt.

In the little border cornerstones, there are tiny simplified lotus blooms, referring back to the Dresden plate flowers in the big outer corner-stones. In the 2 inch border around the centre there’s a simple zigzag, also like the outside of the large cornerstones. Works for me… the quilting doesn’t distract from the colour and layout, but it does hold the layers together nicely.

It looks good on the back too, which is always a bonus.

I’ve enjoyed the slow interlude of hand work, but it’s time to speed things up again. So, what’s next? Trim out the sections to get rid of the extra batting and backing, and then it’ll be time to cut the strips I need for joining all the quilted pieces together. Orange 1¾ inch strips for the back, and pink 1 inch strips for the front.

A nice change of pace from sitting at the dining table, hand quilting.

Bee, Myself and I #32

Only one block quilted this month, I’m afraid.

I have been putting a lot of work in elsewhere, so I’m not going to beat myself up about it 🙂

This is block 25, so there are only 5 left to go. I’ve quilted around each butterfly, both the colourful ones and the gold ones, and the effect is lovely: they’ve puffed up and look a little 3D. You don’t see it very well in the photo. You also can’t see how metallic the gold is, which catches the light prettily.

Bee, Myself and I is a forum for ‘selfish sewing’; any stitchery which is purely for pleasure and not to a deadline or for anyone else. The original concept belongs to Carla of Granny Maud’s Girl. To find out more, you can click through on either her blog link, or using the button a fair way down in the left hand column of this blog.

Till next time.

Colours of Happiness #13: on to the centre

In the end, the quilting design for the centre was an easy choice.

As you can hopefully see, I’m keeping it simple and quilting diamonds in all the starburst squares, a bit more ‘sparkle’ for an already eye-catching arrangement of colour. As luck would have it, the design is one where I can quilt long continuous lines rather than stitch each diamond individually, which cuts the time it takes almost in half.

I used the same process on the final long side panel; I wasn’t sure if the fish-scale design would be quicker quilted diagonally or horizontally. Turns out diagonally is faster on this pattern too, and produces a very neat result. Something to remember for another time… And the Peace cornerstone is done too. So the ‘recipe’ for Happiness is finished as well: Family, Love, Prosperity, Peace.

Once the centre’s done, I have to trim out all the pieces and make the joining strips. They’ll be pink on the front and orange on the back, to match the backing colour so they disappear as much as possible. Still not sure about the binding colour, but there’s time enough to decide about that. Any thoughts on the subject, Vera my lovely? What colours do you think would work? I don’t promise to use any of them, but all suggestions are gratefully received 🙂

Almost time to swap quilting colours; I still have my BM&I post to do for the end of the month!