Friday 15 July 2022

Phew

At long last I have got this top to a place I am happy with.  I'm not entirely sure why I've struggled so much, to be honest.  A lot of disruptions haven't helped, nor has working with what was probably slightly too little fabric, but I like the shapes and the colours a lot and have never had one of those moments where I just fell out of love with the whole thing.  Nonetheless, this is only the second completed top of the year and we are already in July.  

Here's the photo of quilt on shed

and here is a close up of quilt with teasel.
It is, theoretically a weed, but this is the wilder part of the garden and the goldfinches love them, so I seldom pull them up, even when they are photobombing my quilt pictures.  Also, look what a lovely colour match it is for this particular quilt!

It has to be said that I really, really like this quilt, so maybe all the time it took to get here doesn't really matter at all in the end.

Monday 11 July 2022

Done and dusted: my orange summer


My piecing may be slow, slow, slow, but at least I am keeping the quilting ticking along and as a result have a finished quilt. More to the point, I have a finished quilt that feels cheery and summery and perfect for the current weather. Here it is, nicely attached to the front of my little shed.  
I don't think it's as satisfactory a location for photos as the washing line, but I used to prop that up with a length of downpipe, which has now been used, strangely enough, for its proper purpose.  Until we devise an alternative prop, the shed is the best option.  
Having always worked through my quilting pile chronologically, last in, first out, I have changed my approach this year.  I am now working on two hoops, instead of one.  The first will always be something that's been waiting ages, but the other can be anything I fancy.  This particular quilt was only pieced last year, but I am still in an orange kind of place, so it pushed its way to the front of the queue.  It has made me happy, working on these colours and fabrics, so it was definitely a good choice.

You can see that I was really feeling the orange when I pulled fabrics for the back.
Mostly my backs are made using fabrics from the oldest part of my stash - so before I started only buying organic yardage and shirts.  I have started to contemplate what I will do once I run out of this stuff.  I am not keen on piecing all my backs from shirts and things like vintage sheets sound like a good idea, until you try to track them down - they are hard to find here and also expensive.  

I am really pleased with how this quilt turned out - I love the denim/orange combination and, strangely, haven't found the denim hard to quilt.  It has slightly more weight to it than an all-cotton quilt, but when the weather turns cold, I rather like something a bit heavier.  
So, down to the nitty-gritty. 

This was started on September 14th 2021 and piecing was completed October 14th.  I am surprised to see that this only took a month from start to finish. I think I started quilting it during the first week in January, and have been working in fits and starts until last week.  It was finished on June 29th 2022. 

I started with shirts and denim, and added in bits from stash.  You might recognise the black floral fabric from here.  Handquilted using perle no. 8.  I didn't buy anything special but just pulled the best options I had already.  I have been doing that for a while now, but think I will have to restock soon. The binding is a very old Oakshott stripe that has been in my boxes for at least seven or eight years now.  
My favourite parts of this quilt are the two strips of flying geese, and, specifically, the places where the geese change direction.  I will be making those again at some point.