All at Sea: done and dusted

The good thing about not being quite able to get all your binding stitched down before you go on holiday is that you're really, really close to a finish when you come back and pick up a needle again.  All at Sea is finally finished, probably two months after I first thought the end was in sight, but that's the way it goes sometimes.

This is a long quilt and I nearly despaired of getting a picture of the whole thing in one go; even my trusting washing line wasn't quite up to the job.  The two best shots I've come up with are on kitchen floor,

and this one, behind which lurks a husband, balancing on a stepladder and telling me to hurry up because his arms hurt.

Here's the back...

...the binding...

...and a couple of close-ups.

Details:
48"x 72".  

Quilt and backing made from stash fabrics.  I think most of the prints that leap out at you are Janet Clare (some Hearty Good Wishes and some Nocturne).  As a side note, Janet Clare is one of the designers whose fabrics I particularly miss while I'm just buying organic.  

Wadding is Hobbs wool.  Handquilted using Aurifil Lana (again) but also Madeira Lana, which was new to me and is pretty much like the Arifil but came in a couple of pleasing variegated threads.  I'm not sure anyone will notice that, but I know and it pleases me.

I pieced this between 9th May and 22nd July 2016.  

Quilting started 14th May, finished 5th September 2017.  Now that I see those dates I am thinking, 'blimey, this one took me ages' but the previous quilt got done really fast, so I guess it all balances out in the end.

I should also mention that this quilt would never have been made without the inspiration of Julie's book, 'The Free Pieced Barn Project.  It has it's own blog, so if you want to learn more, you can check it out here.

Linking up today with NinaMarie for Off the Wall Friday and TGIFF at Devoted Quilter.

Definitely Sunday

Sometimes in the summer I find I lose track of which day it is - usual routines breaking down and all that stuff.  As a consequence I haven't done a Slow Sunday Stitching post for weeks, despite having the best of intentions.  Today, however, I am on the ball!

All at Sea is coming along nicely.  In fact, the end is in sight.  I'm still quilting, but now it's just those bits around the edges that didn't make it into the hoop.  I know this bit always takes longer than you'd think, but nonetheless there that finish is, waving to me in the distance.  I even have my binding made, ready to go.

Considering my words

While I plod along with the hourglass project I am beginning to consider Ann's AHIQ challenge to make a piece that includes words, so I thought I'd stick down some of my thoughts.

I love words.  I love to talk (and talk, and talk), I love to read, I love my dictionaries, I am pretty fond of a nice list. No surprise then, that I have already included words in some of my quilts.

I have realised as I made these pieces that my interest is, specifically, in using words to add an extra layer of rhythm to what I am doing, rather than to convey any overt message. I like the challenge of including text but don't want the words themselves to distract or become the main focus.  I don't know if I achieve what I am aiming for every time, but that's the general idea.

This means that the ideas I have stored away fall mostly into two categories: names and descriptions.  The lighthouse quilt is an example of the way names might work, and the quilt that became At the Edge was build around dictionary definitions of colour.

In Yellow Birds, the words I chose were intended as descriptive, but also, in the end, contributed to a quilt with quite an optimistic, upbeat feel.

Using words in this way generates loads of possibilities: I might, for example, add labels to my little butterflies (though I don't think I'm going to).  I have a favourite photo of plant labels with botanical names that I have often thought was the starting point for something; I have several dictionaries/word books which provide fruitful pickings; I have more lighthouse-related ideas I'd like to get to and then there's always the weather...

Of the three quilts I've done so far, however, At the Edge was the only one where I planned to include words right from the beginning; in the other two it was more a case of 'I need something extra, what can I do?' So the interesting (maybe difficult) thing for me will be to start with an idea of the words and then see what else needs to go with them.  I am telling myself that if this proves to be a right royal pain in the neck I can always go back to making something and seeing what words might fit, but I'd like to start with the words if I can.  

Still quilting

I'm thinking it's about time for an update on All at Sea.I'm still quilting, though to be honest I'm going through one of those phases where I'm easily distracted.  There is progress though.  I'm maybe 2/3rds of the way through, possibly even a little more.  It feels like time to knuckle down a bit now.

Linking up with Slow Sunday Stitching at Kathy's Quilts today.

Retracing my steps

I am making slow progress with my hand quilting.  A combination of hot weather (gone now) and the usual distractions of family life has meant I've lost that habit of doing a bit every day; my quilting times seem to have been used for other things. That's fine, and I'm probably halfway through this anyway, but I'd like to give it a bit more attention.  However, I think I'm about to take a break from piecing for a week, maybe two, so I'm hopeful that I will be able to catch up a bit.  

Since I last posted, I have gone back and added a bit to the first couple of lighthouses I quilted.  I wasn't quite happy with the light beams - too much unquilted area in the middle of them.  Here's one I haven't tweaked yet...

...and here's one with an extra line down the middle of the beam.

I like this better.

Linking up with Slow Sunday Stitching at Kathy's Quilts.

Slow quilting, slow progress

Although things slow down a bit once the weather gets nice I am still quilting away, but this particular quilt seems hard to photograph.  Nonetheless, in the interests of record-keeping if nothing else, here are a couple of pictures.

Linking with Slow Sunday Stitching at Kathy's Quilts.

One door closes...

another one opens, and it turns out that behind every door is a top waiting to be quilted.  Next in the quilting queue was All at Sea, which was nicely backed and basted and ready to go as soon as I finished the denim circles.

Not much more to say about it yet, but here's a picture.

As usual, I'm sharing this for Slow Sunday Stitching at Kathy's Quilts.  

Quilting like a maniac

Actually it's hard to quilt like a maniac, what with hand quilting being such a calming activity, but I have been putting in a lot of hours and as a result I am now binding, so the end really is in sight for Quiet Quilt.

Yesterday I pin-basted my denim 365 circles.  In a moment of distraction I did this with the backing on top, but don't really mind that everything's back-to-front.  

I've also almost finished a back for All at Sea, but keep running out of fabric.  I am always surprised by how much fabric it takes to make a backing for a big quilt.  I've no idea why this comes as a surprise, especially when the top is sitting right in front of me.  Somehow I think a couple of fat quarters will cover the back of something 80"x 90". Yup, I know that's ridiculous but I keep expecting it to work that way.  

I'm linking up today with Linda at koka quilts and julie from julielou for their new link-up Sew, Stitch, Snap, Share.  

Looking back, looking forwards

2016 was the first time I ever set down even vague quilting aims for the year ahead but it has proved to be an interesting exercise and since Yvonne is encouraging us to share our plans for 2017 I thought I'd use the opportunity to reflect and maybe lay out some tentative goals.

It has been a bizarrely productive year for me: I have completed 5 quilts, which I know doesn't sound like much to many people but is a lot for me, and made another 5 tops which are now waiting their turn in the quilting queue.  

Some of my resolutions fell by the wayside pretty quickly but the one I stuck with best was my resolve to 'green' my stash as much as I could.  I had a brief moment of panic about what the implications of Brexit would be (prices have gone up and my favourite fair trade fabric source is closing down) but apart from that I have concentrated on organic lines.  This has its disadvantages (lack of choice, especially if you don't want lots of 'look at me' prints or cute stuff) but also an unexpected upside, which is that I have definitely bought much less fabric.  I looked a lot, to start with, and then talked myself out of things, but after a bit I didn't even look.  It has also pushed me to use the bag of old shirts I had accumulated.  

The other aim I expressed that has worked for me was to keep looking for opportunities to interact with other quilters.  Last year I tried Stash Bee; this year I had a go at joining in with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, but gave up after about three months. I love the idea, but the reality was that my scraps just didn't seem to work - not enough of them for a start, so I acknowledged defeat.  Quilty 365 on the other hand really sparked something. I didn't imagine at the start of this year that I would spend an entire 12 months making circles, but look at the tops completed this year - there's definitely a bit of a theme going on.

So, aims for 2017:

• Work on finding rhythm.  I've been productive this year but somehow it has often felt scrappy and haphazard and sometimes downright unsatisfactory.  It's down to me to work out how to juggle things (time and space)so that this feels better.
• I will try to keep up my approach to fabric buying.  I can't bring myself to completely give up on non-organic lines, but will keep up the focus on organic, fair trade, and recycled stuff. 
• There are a couple of things I've done this year that I would like to revisit or rework.  I've thought this before and not followed up the idea, but maybe writing it here will encourage me. 
• I still like the idea of finding ways to collaborate/link up with others. If anyone out there has the inclination to play around this idea with me, do feel free to get in touch.   I wish I could find a satisfactory real life option, but I'm not holding my breath on that one. 
• Finally, I just aim to keep going, keep trying, keep recording what I do, keep learning through my interactions on this blog and by seeing what other quilters are doing.

A final note - the AHIQ linkup will happen next week, just in case some of you are still sewing.  I'm secretly hoping I might sneak a bit of time in between now and then!

AHIQ - share your improv #11, and a finish

This is my Wall quilt, done dusted.

I started this on 1st June 2015 and finished piecing on 14th September.

Quilting started on the 29th May this year and it was finished on 24th July. 

It is not huge - a scant 60" all round, but that's big enough to cuddle under (and I had no more fabric!)

Mixture of fabrics (bet you can spot some of them) including Carolyn Friedland's Doe, Kaffe Fassett and Grunge.  As is my habit I have used a wool batting and it is quilted with a Sulky 12 blendable thread in a mixture of blue, green and yellow. 

The binding is a Kaffe Fassett stripe.

I know lots of people are away/on a blogging break over the summer but we're running AHIQ anyway - hopefully someone else is still out there!

An InLinkz Link-up

All at Sea - done for now

Having spent most of yesterday arguing with a hot, lethargic cat who wanted nothing more than to rest in the middle of the table, on top of my sewing, or on the floor, on top of the quilt, I gave up.  Today I packed up and went somewhere cat-free.

I started the morning looking at this:

I could have just sewed this to yesterday's chunk and called it quits, but I had a notion that I wanted to do just a wee bit more.  I wanted to add to sandy band at the bottom of row 2, as it was very narrow in places and I reckoned that by the time I lost the seam allowance it would virtually disappear.

Next I wanted to add to the bottom too.  This all went very smoothly, except it is now so long I can't lift the washing line high enough to get the bottom off the ground!  This is the best shot I can get of it:

And this, for now at least, is the best shot I can get of the whole thing: it has turned out to be blooming big!

I've had a great time putting this together, for all sorts of reasons, so thanks go out to Julie for writing the book and sparking the whole thing off.  Just in case you've somehow missed it, here's the link to her book's blog and if f you haven't tried free piecing, I would thoroughly recommend it - the possibilities are endless.

Since I don't often have the opportunity I'm linking up with Whoop Whoop at Confessions of a Fabric Addict and TGIFF at A Quarter Inch from the Edge as well as NinaMarie.

A happy coincidence

I am making slow progress still and might not have posted today, but I have had one of those lovely little moments when life comes together very neatly, so I thought I'd share.  

Talking to my sister, who is the keeper of the family history, a week ago she mentioned that we had a relative who was born in a lighthouse.  When she checked it out and sent me the details it turned out that my great-great grandmother was born in a  lighthouse in the early 1830s.  Her family then lived at two other lighthouses in the same part of the country. Funnily enough, this was all only about an hour's drive from where I live now (which is more remarkable when you realise that her family emigrated, mine were immigrants back into the UK, but that I have ended up in this part of the country purely randomly).  I am, for various reasons, feeling quite displaced and disconnected at the moment, but this has pleased me inordinately.

On to the quilt: the top two row area joined together: you can see I added little pieced strips on either end of the top row to make it long enough.  Since all the lighthouse blocks, and the word strips, are made without much reference to the size of what is around them, the word strips/lighthouses do not line up perfectly. This is fine by me - just saying.  What I have done is to line up the central lighthouses and let the rest do what it wants.

Next job, I think, is to print a few more names: the bottom row isn't as wide as these two and I'm pretty sure I'm going to add one more column of words down the right hand side to get it to the right width.

I'm linking up with My Quilt Infatuation today for Needle and Thread Thursday.

Piecing the last row

I have been putting off joining the last three lighthouses together as I thought this might be the trickiest row, but today was the day.  

There were two issues that were worrying me a bit: first that the word strip on the left hand side was made when I thought the little grey block would go there; the second was that there was still quite a big discrepancy between the height of the black and white lighthouse block and the other two.  

When it came down to it I thought the words worked okay so haven't touched them at all.  I think it helped that I haven't been rigid about the fabric choices in those strips but have mixed things up a bit.  

In terms of the height differences, I've just used the combination of sandy fabrics that have popped up in smaller bits elsewhere.  

I think the strips of the fabric with the little dark blue whales and ships and things on are maybe slightly heavy looking in this picture, but I am using them elsewhere so I'm hoping it will all balance out in the end.  

Next thing is to look at all three rows together, but that's a job for another day.

Linking up with Love Laugh Quilt for Monday Making and Patchwork Times for Design Wall Monday.

Making a decision, then making another one

After staring and fiddling and more staring and fiddling I gave myself a good talking to.  If I can't decide what is the best move, then I just need to pick something and then do my best to make it work, so that's what I've done.

In the end I have gone with plan B, which was to use the three smallest lighthouses together in what will probably be the top row. They look like this now.

So far, so good.

I think this project has sparked some of the most interesting, thought-provoking comments I've had since I started to blog (so a huge thank you to everyone who has taken the time to share your views).  Several people have suggested that I could do something interesting with the setting for these - for instance using them all laid out horizontally, like a landscape, or finishing them in sets of 3 so that they could be hung in different combinations. Now, I've banged on a lot about my preference for quilts that are big enough to be functional, but in this case this sort of approach seems like it could be very effective and I am drawn to try it out.  

There is, though a practical difficulty, which is that these pieces are pretty big (the strip in the picture is about 70" across) and I certainly don't have walls big enough to take them.  So this will be a functional quilt, but I am going to start again, making slightly smaller blocks, specifically with the idea of trying out a wall piece.

But let's get this one done first.

Getting it right, or not...

Not a huge amount of progress to show here; mostly because I haven't been sewing.   Today I could be sewing, but instead am sitting and staring. Nonetheless I thought I'd share where I'm up  to anyway.

One of the things about working the way I tend to (without a plan and often by making several chunks and then working out how to fit them together) is that you create problems that you would avoid if you planned more.  So, in this instance, I have lighthouses of differing sizes, some red and white, some black and white, some with bright backgrounds, some with dark backgrounds.  Add to that the fact that my instinct is to veer away from symmetry and it can be hard to work it all out.  

So, I had a layout which I shared in my last lighthouse post here.  Then I put it all away and when I got it out the size difference between the top left lighthouse and the other two in that row seemed too much.  

 So I tried in in the second row...

...and moved the little grey one up.  It is more of a size with its neighbours here, which would make things easier, though it doesn't fit so well with the names strip.  The top row would now have all three of the smaller ones in together, which again might be easier. I decided to work on that basis for a bit.

Now though, taking the photos for this post, I am thinking maybe I'll go back to the original plan. Then that I won't, then that I will again.  The questions I have to answer for myself are where to place the black ones so that they sit best with the others, how to balance out the sizes and how to work with the sets of names, which are with one exception already sewn (and which have been done with an eye to what I thought would be next to them).

The two things I can confidently predict are a lot more tinkering before I get anywhere and that despite this I won't be planning more in advance any time soon.

Linking up with Let's Bee Social today.

Cape Campbell

No. 9 done, so no more lighthouses for now; I need to concentrate on joining this lot together.

This is Cape Campbell, in New Zealand.  I thought I needed one more black/white one in the mix and this fitted the bill nicely. The little dome on the top gets a bit lost in the dark blue that surrounds it, but I am thinking that I will add light beams when I do the quilting and hopefully that will change the balance a bit.

I have played around with the placing of the individual lighthouses quite a bit.  I like the variation that the black and white ones provide, but it does make things slightly more complicated than if I just had 9 of the red and white.  My first attempt had Orkney (black and white vertical stripes) in the top right hand corner but that just didn't work for me - my eye just kept being pulled up there, no matter where I was trying to look.  I think putting it next to Dungeness has worked better and adding the third black and white one also seems to have helped.

Here is what I think will be my top row: two new, one old block.

My attempts to find somewhere to lay the whole thing out without capturing real life (ie horrible mess) around the edges led me to the garden.  This was a mixed success - lots of space, but it was a bit windy!  At least none of my pieces went blowing off down the river.

 This was the best shot I could get of all 9 together.  

No sewing for a couple of days now, but lots of live music instead, which can only be a good thing.  Next week I'm planning to join the 3 sets into horizontal strips and then think about what happens between them.  

Linking up with My Quilt Infatuation for Needle and Thread Thursday.

Cape Palliser

Cape Palliser, New Zealand.

I have definitely hit a rhythm with these now - each one seems to take shape much faster than the first few did. One more to go for now, though my list of lighthouses I would like to make gets longer all the time.

Orkney

A couple of weeks ago Catherine at Knotted Cotton tagged me on instagram to share a picture of Orkney lighthouse.  At the time I had six  done and was intending to stop there, but there was no doubt that if I revisited that decision, Orkney would be next up.  

In fact, the more of this I do, the more lighthouses I find that I want to make. This is funny as when I started I wasn't really thinking about making versions of actual buildings, more of just making my own versions of the generic shape.  As it turns out, making real places is so much more fun.  When I see a good one, I make a note of the name: I already have more than enough for another quilt! 

But let's get this one finished first.

Linking up today with Love, Laugh, Quilt and with Patchwork Times.

Three, six, nine

I have spent a lot of time considering my floors - one kitchen and one conservatory.  The dilemma has been that when I lay out my lighthouses and words, I haven't liked what I've been able to achieve with fabric as much as I have liked the tiles!  

Well I think I'm happier with my words encased in fabric now, but haven't quite been able to let go of the floor, especially the terracotta one, so in the end I went back to my boxes of fabric and found something that I think might do the trick.  Here is one of my shorter blocks, with the new fabric incorporated:

And here it is in its place, more or less:

I've also been pondering layout in a more general way:  I've been trying to make 6 lighthouse work, but I have a couple of problems with this.  Firstly the pieces I have now are very wide and I don't much want to follow any route I've come up with for adding some length.  Also, some numbers are just more pleasing to my eye: 3 is good, 6 doesn't float my boat, 9 is one I have kept coming back to in all sorts of contexts this year, so I am going to bite the bullet: 3 more lighthouses coming up.

AHIQ - share your improv #10

It's been a slow few days on the quilting front: I'm feeling a bit glum and not very motivated (and I dedicated all Sunday to sitting on a motorway which never helps).

Anyhow, motivated by the fact that it is link up week I pulled my socks up yesterday and went back to All at Sea.  I have joined another two lighthouses with a name strip to get this.

So now I have these two chunks.  This is not where they will sit in relation to each other, just me trying to fit things into the available floor space.  As usual when things reach this sort of size I am struggling to get a photo that doesn't include the detritus of everyday life around the edges!

An InLinkz Link-up