Go Teal it on the Mountain #13

Another squishy delight in the mail this morning!

These two beauties are from Kathy, who has embellished them with embroidery. Now I have another Delectable Mountain to add to the mix, hurray! Plus, look at the moon and stars in that top block. Soooo beautiful 🙂 (You might have to click on the image to see the gold embroidered stars at top left.)

I have enough now to give you some idea of what has come in.  More to come in the next couple of weeks, and if anyone else would like to contribute, there’s still a little time and space. Let me know in the comments or send me an email.

Because of the theme, and because I need to start quilting the individual blocks before I have them all and can arrange them, I’m changing my usual quilting design. On previous quilts, I’ve done freehand parallel wavy lines, arranged in a basketweave pattern. This time, I shall quilt freehand mountain peaks. I’ll start with a line bottom left to top centre and down to bottom right, and then infill inside and outside that line, with lines approximately an inch or so apart. No rulers or marking; I shall eyeball it and let the lines flow organically. Bit like Nature, really…

I have three F2F blocks to make, and then it’ll be time to get cracking. The backing and batting are on hand, I just need to clear the decks a bit and start my production line.

Let the Mountain-climbing commence!

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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 #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!

Go Teal it on the Mountain #3

And the next one.

A bit of straightforward appliqué this time. The pieces are applied using blanket stitch, strengthened with an inner line of straight stitching. I lightly spray-basted the pieces to hold them in position while I stitched them down, rather than fusing them to the background. This allows me to trim away the excess fabric at the back, which prevents the block getting too thick and stiff. I used tear-away stabiliser behind the pieces to stop the blanket stitch ‘channelling’ and drawing up the background too much.

I like this one a lot. The moon is a white on cream brocade print which looks like the cratering on the surface of the moon. I blanket stitched down the edge with cream, and then used a silver metallic thread and cream in the bobbin to do the inner stitching line. It gives the moon just a tiny hint of sparkle. Doesn’t show up in the photo, of course, but you can see it in daylight.

I’ll also have to make the usual teal Ovarian Cancer ribbon block to go in the centre at the bottom of the quilt, but I might wait a bit and see how many blocks I get in before I make any more.

Perhaps I’ll go a bit more abstract next time…

 

Colours of Happiness #5

Two long sides completed, two to go.

It’s fiddly work, it doesn’t go together as fast as the starburst, so it’s taking a while to finish each one, especially as I have to lay out all the pieces first. Left and bottom side are the finished ones, the top one is the layout template and will be stitched together last. I have the right side laid out on my cutting table to be sewn together tomorrow.

I thought more about the cornerstones, and the more I thought the less I liked the idea of big plain squares of fabric. Too easy, too simple, a bit of a cop-out. So I have something a bit more fancy-schmantzy in mind, involving a quarter Dresden, a couple of leftover strips from the three-sets, some unused fabric strips and a couple more contrasting squares. I’ll make one and then show you what I mean. There will be some gold hand-lettering in these corner squares, and again, you’ll have to wait and see!

I’m not going to add any more to the outside, and I’ll assemble the quilt in sections; I want to hand quilt, and it will be much easier to work on if it’s still in smaller pieces. So, the centre starburst and its border will be Piece 1, the 4 chequerboard borders will be Pieces 2-5, and the 4 large cornerstones will be Pieces 6-9. I don’t know if you remember the Cloths of Heaven quilt, but I put that together the same way (although I did machine quilt the borders on that one).

It’s going pretty fast, and I’m still loving it, still having lots of fun 🙂

Go Teal it on the Mountain: and so it begins…

If it’s September, it must be time for another fundraising quilt.

This is the last one we’ll make for Ovarian Cancer Australia, so let’s make it a good one. All future quilts will be made for the benefit of the Trudy Crowley Foundation, as discussed already with the fundraising quilt group. The Foundation is being set up following Trudy’s all-too-early death from ovarian cancer on Tuesday, in her memory and to continue the fundraising work she began so effectively. It’s the same cause, just closer to home, and a more personal motivation for me.

As you can see from the title, it’s going to be called Go Teal it on the Mountain. Well, you didn’t really expect an ovarian cancer quilt without Teal in the name somewhere, did you? The plan is that every block should feature some sort of mountain idea, whether it’s a simple version constructed of a triangle on a plain background, something a bit more elaborate, or even something pictorial. The design drawing shown here gives you some idea of the variety of shapes, sizes and layouts that are possible. I’m being as un-prescriptive as I possibly can here, so go a little mad if you’d like to 🙂  As always, the colours are shades of the Ovarian Cancer colours of teal and cream, from dark to light, fabrics plain or riotously patterned, and little bits of other colours are allowed so long as they don’t conflict or ‘read’ too strongly. It doesn’t matter if you do cream on teal or teal on cream, as a little variation will make the quilt more beautiful.

Here’s the list of people who have already put up their hands to contribute:

Lynn Hutton; Sue Brown; Carla Morris; Cathy Foote; Sandra Dorey; Robin Murphy; Gun Adrian; Emma Zocca; Lynda Swink; Tracy Pursley; Nanette Gilbert; Kathy Reeves, Jean Swenson, Jenny Ladbrooke and Margaret Creek.

If you’d like to join in and your name is not yet on the list, please let me know in the comments or send me an email. If you are no longer able to participate, please also let me know.  We have 30 blocks to make, and so far, 16 contributors including me, so you would be welcome if you’d like to participate.

The sizing follows the previous quilts. The blocks will finish at 12 inches square, and I’d ask you to give me an unfinished block of AT LEAST 12½ inches square, preferably a bit larger if possible. This will ensure that when the blocks are quilted I still have plenty of leeway for trimming out. It will, as usual, be assembled by the Quilt As You Go method. All participants need to do is send their block, and I will provide batting, backing, quilting and assembly.

This time, I’m asking for blocks to be with me by mid-December. I’m making a trip to Melbourne in February, and I’d like to be able to carry it with me to hand over in person to the lovely Emily at OCA. Hopefully that’s enough time for everyone to get their block or two sorted out. As always, I’ll be posting the incoming blocks as they arrive, to keep everyone’s creativity flowing.

So here we go. Time to bring out your teal stash, dear fundraising quiltmakers 🙂

ScrapHappy July

It’s the day my friend Gun in Sweden and I host ScrapHappy, a day for showing something made from scraps.

This month, we’re welcoming more new members to the ScrapHappy group. Last month, Jon joined us with a scrappy electronics project, and now, Joanne, Johanna and Dawn – who is bringing us some jewellery she’s made from scrap silver from other projects. I’m loving that the scope and range of scrappiness is growing beyond the fabric/ yarn format!

This month is our ScrapHappyversary. The first ever ScrapHappy post went up in July 2015, and since then, there has been a scrappy post from Gun and myself on the 15th of every month come rain or shine, with more and more people joining us as time went on. Go scraps!

Here’s my offering this month. You may recall that when I was making the original $11 Rainbow scrappy quilt I had a number of much paler blocks, pastel shades that didn’t work with the strong brights I ended up using. I’ve pulled the paler red, blue, pink, teal and green blocks out of the cupboard, and added pale yellow, grey, beige/brown and lilac to join them. You guessed it. There’s another rainbow quilt on the way…

That’s a dapple of sunlight making the pale patch on the design wall, not a really strange effect of the colours I used!

At this stage, I’m not at all sure I’ll have enough of the pale scraps to complete a pastel rainbow quilt the same size as the other one. I have a whole range of colour ideas for the sashing, but whether I can find any of them in a shade I like and a price I can afford (I have a nasty habit of falling in love with expensive shot colours…) is the question. For now, I’m thinking a cool grey instead of dark blue, and scrappy joining strips as before, but I’ll wait till the quilt decides and lets me know. Or how about a very low value, small scale print that unifies all the colours? That might look a bit busy, but it could work… If I don’t make more blocks, this version might also end up with much wider sashing to compensate for the lack of another row in each direction, or I could set them on point, then I just have to do triangular setting blocks? Tell me what you think 🙂

ScrapHappy is open to anyone using up scraps of anything – no new materials. It can be a quilt block, pincushion, bag or hat, socks or a sculpture. Anything made of scraps is eligible. If your scrap collection is out of control and you’d like to turn them into something beautiful or useful instead of leaving them to collect dust in the cupboard, why not join us on the 15th of each month? Either email me at the address on my Contact Me page, or leave a comment below. You can also contact Gun via her blog to join. We welcome new members. You don’t have to worry about making a long term commitment or even join in every month, just let either of us know a day or so in advance if you’re new and you’ll have something to show, so we can add your link. Regular contributors will receive an email reminder three days before the event.

Here are the links for everyone who joins ScrapHappy from time to time (they may not post every time, but their blogs are still worth looking at).

Kate (me!), Gun, Titti, Heléne, Eva, Sue, Nanette, Lynn, Lynda,
Birthe, Turid, Susan, Cathy, Debbierose, Tracy, Jill, Claire, Jan, Karen,
Moira, Sandra, Linda, Chris, Nancy, Alys, Kerry, Claire, Jean, Johanna,
Joanne, Jon, Hayley and Dawn

See you again, same time next month!