Tinkering

I am making progress, though I haven't done much more actual sewing.  Instead I am getting the feel for the new bits I made last time and working out whether/how they will fit into what I have already.  Here's a little sample.

As it happens I am going to stick with the darker geese in this spot, but the more I play around with the lighter ones, the more likely they are to end up with a place somewhere in the quilt.  

No red, but some new bits and pieces

I am itching to get going on something for the new AHIQ challenge, but have learned my lesson about multi-tasking: fine in most of life but a disaster for me in quilting.  So I am carrying on with my not-at-all-red Night Birds.  

I have started making a couple of new bits to add into the mix.  The first is not so much new, to be fair, as just a tweak.  I am making some geese in reverse, that is with dark middles and light edges.

I don't envisage using many of these but maybe they will give me an extra option when I want a lighter area. They're made of scraps too, so really, what have I got to lose?

These are the other new addition.

 And here's how they might work...

Hourglasses: done and dusted

Hooray - first finish of the year!  I hoped briefly that it might be the last finish of 2018 but that idea didn't last long. I'm very happy it's done now though.

I especially like the colours in this: the black print and those gold and purple triangles against all the sort of pastel colours, which rather smoosh into each other. It's really hard to get a good photo of the pale shades, even in  daylight, and this is the best I can manage.  If you want to check out the photo of the bundle of shirts I kicked off with, which gives you a much better idea, you can find it here.

The back is pieced, but unremarkable; the quilting is another go at cross-hatching, though this time I've used single lines, rather than double, and tried to be slightly more regular.  

The binding is this brown and white stripe.

As for the timings:

I started this on July 7th 2017 - and finished piecing on October 9th.

Started quilting on 1st of December 2017 and finished on 13th January this year.  That is pretty fast for me.

The wadding is my standard fallback 70/30, totally recycled option. It's quilted with perle cotton, in several neutral shades plus a bit of a yellow-y one. Basically I just went through my box and pulled out whatever took my fancy. 

I can't think of a better way to kick of my quilting year.

Back to real life

Well that was a longer break than I anticipated!  After a few days without looking at the internet I kind of got out of the habit and since I wasn't piecing much I just drifted happily along  through the mince pies and mayhem.  Now, though, I'm coming out the other side.  School's gone back, house is full only with those who live here, fridge is nearly empty (again!) and I am back at my sewing.

My plan to cut lots of bits while not attempting to get to a machine worked well; though I prefer instant gratification having all those pieces cut got me off to a good start this week.  

I am joining some of my bird bits together, though actually I ended up pulling two of the chunks above to bits, to take out a fabric that wasn't quite working for me.  In a general sense though, more is being sewn together than ripped apart.

Last year my sewing and blogging felt a bit disjointed, like I never quite hit a rhythm.  This year I am trying to address this, though since I have no control over the rest of life it will have to be a work in progress!

Over and out

This is my last pre-Christmas post, though I shall still be wandering around the internet seeing what other people have been up too.  

Here's progress to date:

There are a few more bits like this too.  

I think I need to have a think about how they are going to relate to each other now, so I can do that in the next couple of weeks.  I also have a cunning plan to keep things ticking over.  There's no prospect of  laying things out, which is just fine, but I know I am going to need more stars and more of the flying geese, so in quiet moments I will try to cut the bits for them.  I'm fine if I can't get to a machine, but this would let me get going again in the new year without a struggle. 

I wish you all a joyful holiday period: time to reflect and enjoy the things, and people, you like the most.

4 more sewing days till Christmas

I'm jumping straight into this one, trying to make the most of the last few days before everything stops for Christmas.  This is probably a good thing, as it's stopping me from overthinking the connection between this piece and Yellow Birds.

I decided to have one good look at that quilt and then not to look again until I feel like I've found a rhythm with this; I think if I keep checking back it could prevent me from finding my way.  What I took from that one look was a mental list of the different elements in the piecing: log-cabin-y bits with the birds at the centre, flying geese, some little strips of squares and rectangles and quarter sun blocks.  Oh, and words, which were a late addition last time but which I got printed up right at the beginning of this one.

I kicked off by cutting some bits of the lovely birds and starting to piece around them.  Sadly the pale fabrics lose a bit when the flash fires, but I'm sure as the light improves next year you'll be able to see them better.

I'm mostly still just making these bits and some geese, but have sewn one slightly bigger piece.

I am currently undecided about the suns.  I might try just making a couple, rather than a whole pile.  I am also wondering about throwing some stars into the mix.  Lots to consider!

Off I go again.

My aspiration to make something simple seems to have amused some of you, but I will rise above it.  I will concede that my brain tends to complicate from even the most straightforward of starting points but I am hoping that this new project will be simple-ish, at the very least.  

I have never revisited an idea, but that's what I'm going to do now, which is why I am hopeful that this might not be too tricky.  Here are my starting point shirts:

They haven't photographed particularly well, but there are blues and yellows, and yellow-y browns.  

Then I rummaged through my boxes and came up with this lot.

Looking at this photo, it seemed like I needed more yellows and I have, since I took these photos, added a very dark blue shirt, a black one, and a grey and yellow stripe.  I have also unearthed quite a lot of scraps (almost all yellow) from this quilt.  I am thinking I want to keep some elements from that quilt but make it more about the dusk than the dawn.  

Let's see if this goes as planned!