At least things look a bit better once I crop out the wonky background!
No better way to see out a year than with a last minute finish.
At least things look a bit better once I crop out the wonky background!
In fact, I have another quilt coming hot on the heels of this, which I am hoping to complete before year end, but for now I am going to pause and enjoy this finish.
This was a quilt which began life as an attempt to use up a handful of little butterfly blocks I made with shirt fabrics and floral scraps in April 2017. It's not like me to start something and not finish, so I think maybe they came from a phase when I thought I might do the Rainbow Scrap Challenge or something similar. They sat in a box for a while but in the middle of July 2019 out they came again, with the idea that I could combine them with some pretty florals - literally butterflies in a garden. Hah! What I remember is that my early attempts produced some very unimpressive examples of visual mush. Eventually, though I came up with this loose version of a Trip Around the World and things started to click into place.
I'm putting a pin in this and calling it done. It is a little smaller than I had thought I was aiming for, and I did have fancy ideas of what to add next, but there came a moment when I looked at it and decided I liked it well enough as it was.
Like some of the commenters on my last post, I rather liked the picture where my blocks were staggered, with quite big areas of empty space - ie floor - around them. The most obvious thing to try was adding in plain chunks of colour. I did NOT like this. Here is one iteration, but there were others. I varied the fabrics I used, cut some bigger pieces, played around with placement. Nothing was any better than this and this is most definitely no good.
I titled this post 'early doors' but now I wonder whether that is a phrase anyone uses outside the UK. Perhaps someone can tell me? We mostly used it in the days when pubs shut in the afternoon and reopened around 5.30.
New day, new pile of shirts.
This one is done now. I added what I thought might be a final row across the bottom, to echo the triangles near the top.
I definitely feel like I've hit my stride with this now. I added another chunk down the left-hand side, then more of the black and white bird fabric at the bottom.
One step forwards, two back. Or sometimes one back and two forwards. That's the way it's rolling around here at the moment. This is mostly, I reflect now, because I wasn't listening to the quilt. This had, quite early on, a medallion feel to it, but I had just done a medallion so I tried everything I could think of to avoid working in rounds. Some things I tried were okay, but nothing fantastic emerged. Still reluctant to give in I toyed with idea of building out on just two sides. But you know what? When I stopped thinking like a fool and just sat and looked, it was quite clear to me that this quilt wanted to be, if not a medallion proper than at least a fair imitation of one.
Kicking off the next quilt. I pulled these shirts, just because they pleased me.
All this time quilting is paying off, as I have another finish. This is a quilt that was pieced in 2019, so I am definitely catching up with myself, albeit slowly.
I had a song-and-dance trying to get photos. No prop for the clothesline, as previously mentioned, and no indoor options, so in the end I got creative with a length of downpipe and some clothes pegs. (The builders are coming in October and once they're done my priority will be an indoor wall set up for quilt photos. Something not weather-dependent.)
Like buses, my finishes are all coming at once. I have a finished quilt waiting to be photographed and this top too has gone as far as it is going to go. It is a fair size - I think about 65" - and , more to the point, I am down to tiny scraps and in some cases there's not even that much left.
Indoor pictures skew things, but my enterprising sister used the prop for the clothes line to mend a shed, so this is my only option until I acquire a replacement prop. In reality it is not so wonky, just marginally longer than it is wide.These colours are still much prettier than those I am normally drawn too but overall I nonetheless rather like how this had ended up. The touches of much deeper red, burgundy and blue are enough to lift it for me, so I'm feeling pretty happy with it in the end.
Now off into the drawer it goes and I have to start thinking about the next project, though first I have a quilt to sandwich.
As is so often the case these days, I seem to have trouble getting back to blogging. Best of intentions and all that. However, I had a lovely break in very beautiful places, swam lots in unfeasibly cold water and saw some much missed friends and family, so I do feel refreshed and ready for action.
Occasionally I add a note here to thank all the no-reply commenters. On my last post I had a particularly lovely, generous comment from Tawa, and couldn't respond directly, so I am hoping you might read this - thank you so much for taking the time, it made my day. I am grateful, of course for all the comments I get, and if there is an email I always reply. If you don't get a response, it means you are 'no-reply'. If you feel inclined, you can add an email address in your comment, or send it to me separately.
School's out here, so my sewing is slowing right down. I'm not complaining. In fact I'm pretty fed up that our summer break now lasts just over four weeks - it's just way, way too short.
We're off for a couple of weeks tomorrow too, so piecing will stop and probably blogging too, though I am travelling with quilting. Last year I took a quilt and a hoop but left the box with thread, scissors, needles, thimble behind. Fingers crossed I do better this year. I am not expecting much by way of internet for the first week (going on last year's experience) but may try to stick up some pretty pictures at some point. In the meantime, here's where I'm up to.
I wasn't planning to go awol, but last Sunday my kids got the message to self-isolate for ten days, as someone in their class had a positive Covid test. So without warning we were house-bound again, and all my sewing was out of reach. Never mind, we have come out the other side unscathed and they are back at school for the last two days before the summer holidays finally begin.
A quick dig around turned up these extra shirts.