Not paying attention

You might think that for someone who finishes only a handful of quilts in a year, the moment of completion would be something to celebrate.  I certainly thought that.  Except...some time round about October of last year, I finished a quilt and completely forgot about it.  No blog mention, not even a dodgy photo on instagram.  In fact, the only reason I know when it was finished is the date stamp on the photos. Go figure.

Anyhow, here is my poor, sadly overlooked quilt, which was called In For a Penny (on account of the Coins).

Six shirts (if you want a reminder, you can see some of them here) plus scraps from my big box of random bits, pieced mostly as little strip sets, with the odd hourglass or pinwheel thrown in when I got bored.

Much of the back started life as a front, but at some point I realised I wasn't inclined to quilt it, so took to it with the scissors.  Some of it is in other quilt fronts now, and the rest has made this rather  satisfactory back. 

It was pieced between the end of November 2019 and 3rd March 2020, so it was my final quilt before lockdowns came and ate the rest of the year.  I have to confess that I don't know when I started quilting it, but it was finished on 17th October 2022, so I guess I would have started some time that summer.  

The wadding is organic cotton,the thread is perle cotton, just a random selection that seemed to go, and it is quilted with straight, vertical lines.The binding is one of the last Oakshott cottons that I have been hoarding for so long it's stopped being funny. It was just the right mix of yellow and pink tones.

It might seem, from my utter neglect of it, that I don't much care for this quilt but that's not the case.  In fact I like it a lot. I especially like the interruptions made by the hourglasses and pinwheels, the tiny bits of red and that bottom left-hand corner, which has a whole curvy thing of its own going on.  

And just like that...

This one is done (if only my quilting was progressing in a similar fashion).  I ran out of virtually all my original fabrics and the, to continue the theme, of most of my replacements, though to be fair they were only very small scraps.  If I had more I might have made this just a tiny bit bigger, but I haven't, so I'm calling it a finish.  And I'm fine with that, because I like this a lot.

Sadly I still can't get a really good photo that shows the fabrics off, but this is the best I could manage.  Maybe once it's quilted I'll do some close-ups.  

The hourglasses in this are a nod to the latest AHIQ challenge, though I am going to do something more hourglass-y next, or that's the plan.  In the meantime, though, on with the quilting.

Not even scraps now

This is officially the closest I've ever come to running out of fabric completely.  Of the fabrics I started with I am out of all but three (the light brown with a white spot, the grey/brown with the animals and flower design and the cream background with different coloured spots).  I am also down to the very last scraps of the black and white stripe.  Not even scraps left to piece of anything else, though I have a handful of strip sets still to use.

As you can see from this photo, I still have a way to go (I'm aiming to cover that last tile on the right).

Luckily all the times when I have run short before have provided good practice and I am not panicking. 

I had already added one floral into the mix and though I am reluctant to cut into any more yardage I have had a good rummage through my scraps and come up with these.

At the moment the yellow and the smaller check have not been pressed into use but the other three have.

This is the one area I've worked on that includes all the new additions.

It won't be a seamless transition, but I feel happy that the new bits sit happily enough with the feel of what I have already and should, just, be enough to see me home.  I am piecing much more carefully now, so thinking about what I need next and making for a specific space rather than putting together strip sets in advance and then playing around with them.  

Slightly optimistically I had set myself the aim of finishing this before the end of the month, but it will be done not too far into March.

A brief update on the hand quilting seems overdue too.  I am still quilting (or not) my second lighthouses.  I'm not sure why I'm not feeling the love for this as I work on it - I still like the piecing but am so not into quilting it.  However, and in my own defence, I did quilt a whole lego quilt in two months over December and January, so progress is being made one way or another.

Two more columns and bad weather

It seems like this quilt is being made two columns at a time.  That seems to be the most I have managed before running out of a) time or b) fabric.  Here's the current progress.

To get to a width I am happy with I need to cover one more floor tile, which I reckon will probably take four, possibly five, more columns.  In the normal scheme of things this would mean a finished top by the end of next week, since this week is fully occupied, but we shall see.

Currently we are more preoccupied with the weather than anything else.  We live about as close to a river as is possible - I've left the blurry edge of the window in so that you can get an idea.

We are in no danger of flooding, thankfully, so watching the river do its thing is fascinating but not scary.  To give you an idea of how high the water has been, the picture below is of the weir.  There should be seven steps but only the sill is visible, to the right.  Beyond our river is a canal, and then everything else that is under water is field.  This is the highest it has been in years.

Of course it's much worse elsewhere, but it is a reminder of how extreme weather is becoming.  

Bringing on the substitute

My fabric boxes and my ongoing project are currently not in the same place so I rooted through the boxes, pulled out what felt like they might be good options and then crossed my fingers that they would still look good when I put them with the top.

I have gone with the lower fabric, partly because I like the little touches of red and the way they echo the red already in the quilt.

 I am easing my way from the previous floral to this one by using my last scraps to piece coins that contain both fabrics - you can see a couple in the bottom right corner.  

It's entirely possible that I will need to find one more new fabric for this, though I'm hoping I might just scrape a finish without that bother.  I'll know next time.

Considering my options.

Slowly this gets bigger.  Rather more quickly my pile of fabrics is getting smaller, which is causing me a few dilemmas.

When I started today, this is what was laid out on the floor:

Currently it's only about 30" wide, so I've got a fair way to go.  I finished off the next strips on the right and then pressed on.

I don't know if you can see all the tiny little pink bits, straightening me up, but they are pleasing me greatly.  

The layout below is not at all under consideration, but when I was packing up I laid out all the strip sets I have made, to see how far short they fall of what I will need.  Quite a way is the answer.  

Initially I thought I would eke out the floral bits - sprinkle them here and there in such a way that they got me all the way over the the far side.  Unfortunately trying to do that left me mired down in a world of brown and grey, which wasn't where I wanted to be at all.  So I am going to use them as if there were an infinite supply until they are gone and then think about next steps.

I might try and find something similar.: a light floral or pink/yellow print of some kind.  Alternatively I can use the fabrics I do still have plenty of and let things get darker and moodier.  In the meantime, while I wait for inspiration,  I'll keep piecing together every last tiny bit I've got.

The sound of a coin dropping

Do you ever have those days when you feel like you've made lots of progress until you look at the photos?  I often do.  Sometimes there's a job that takes ages (in this case sewing on a new column) but at the end things look almost the same as when the pieces were just laid out on the floor.  Ho hum.  On the bright side, I have done one more very long, very bendy seam and let me tell you, that feels like an achievement.  

And yes, I know that the next one is going to be even bendier but strangely I'm quite looking forward to it.

Of course that's not all I have done; I've been plugging away at the top right too.  I tried lots of versions that didn't quite float my boat then had a moment of clarity.  When I started I was taking two sets of strips with one fabric in common, using the black to get them to the same width, then working with those longer units.  For some reason I had stopped doing that and was tinkering away with the individual, much shorter sets of coins.  No wonder I didn't feel like I was getting the same sense of flow.  As soon as the coin dropped (!) I went back to making the longer bits and things got easier.  

This is where I ended up (though as per the previous conversation, I may forget half of this when I get it out again.

And finally, as I get closer to the wire, here are the three fabrics of which I have the least left (the tiles are 13" squares).

Very long, very skinny

I am chugging slowly along, notwithstanding the challenges I have set myself.  Piecing together my very long, very skinny coin sets, with all their bends and kinks is definitely requiring me to concentrate. That pink fabric whose job it is to fill in all the little gaps is going to have its work cut out. 

I have used most of the coin sets I put together at the start, so now I'm putting together more as I go along.  Quite a few fabrics are already running short, but I am much more sanguine about this than I used to be - one way or another my quilts always get finished.  Interestingly I have much less of the lovely multi-coloured stripe than I thought; I have realised this is because it was a short sleeved shirt - that extra bit of sleeve from the elbow down must yield a lot of fabric.  

Working away at the top right hand side here.

Just slapping bits down and shuffling them around to see what clicks.

Eventually I got to this.

I started sewing some parts of this arrangement together but lost track a bit.  One of the problems with my way of working is that sometimes I pick something up and then can't remember where it came from.  In those moments I just give up and start figuring it out again from scratch.  But some of this will definitely be there next time you see it. And some, you may have gathered, most probably won't.  

Removing the lens cap is always a good idea

I did quite a lot of sewing earlier this week and took a few photos as I went along.  Unfortunately I didn't remove my lens cap at any point in the day so when I came to blog on Wednesday all I had was a collection of black rectangles which, lets face it, aren't going to enlighten anybody.  Yesterday I got the whole piece out of the box, laid it all out on the floor, took photos and then put it all back without sewing a stitch.  Needs must, but I have to say that just didn't feel right at all!

Right or wrong, though, this is where I am up to.  I have been working on three areas at the same time: bottom left, bottom of the next block over and top right.  I don't think it will get much longer but I'm probably only half way across.

Remember that long pink strip that I took out earlier?  That fabric is going back in but in much smaller bits.  Like the black strips, which I'm adding when I want to join two similar coloured strip sets of different widths, this has a specific job: I'm using it to straighten things up when a strip set is particularly curvy, like this:

 or this.

Once again, the combination of camera angle and winter light/flash seems to do the fabrics in this a disservice.  In the top picture a lot of things that have pattern read as solids to my eye whereas in fact there are only two solids in the whole thing.  Never mind - when I get to the stage where it's on the washing line for photos I know these things will be easier to see.

What remains

Two things are now gone, as promised in my previous post.  One is the long pink strip to which I gave serious consideration. In the end I decided that it wasn't adding anything, so out it goes.  In fact I like the way the black and pink checked pieces sit up against each other much better without it interrupting.

The other thing that went was a little piece at the bottom of the left-hand side, where I had added two horizontal rows.  Off they came - this piece seems to be working better if I stick with the vertical, although changing directions worked well for me in my last Coins quilt.  

This is the current state of play.

Cutting freehand produces strips with a lot of curve in them, so at some point that pink may be to go back in to help straighten things out but for now I'm just sewing together smaller sections and not worrying overmuch about the technicalities of construction.  

I seem to have gone over the course of about a week from groping around looking for answers to having a pretty clear idea of what I think I'm doing.  This feels good, though I'm not taking anything for granted - next week I may well be stumped again.  

Some things to keep, some to remove

Yesterday I thought I was going to take the little chunk I had pieced and work out from it in one direction or another.  But I couldn't come up with something I liked so I decided just to work on a completely different bit and worry later about how they went together.

 As it happens I think they sit quite nicely next to each other.

At least two things in this photo will be gone when you see these bits again though.

Chinese Coins: finally finished

Phew!  I though I would still be working on this at Christmas but Chinese Coins is done.

I usually choose the binding when the quilt is finished. This fabric, though,  was in the initial pull and I have kept it floating about in my eye-line rather than tucking it back into a box because I have always been sure I wanted to use it.

There have been (numerous) times while I was working on this that I wondered what I was doing.  This little quilt seemed dull and the freehand cross-hatching seemed like a good idea gone bad and was taking longer than even I could enjoy.   I wondered if I should have ruled all the quilting lines, worried that the variations in the grid would look sloppy, at one point nearly put the whole thing back in the cupboard (something I never do: I start, so I finish).  

But guess what.  Quilted, bound, completed - I just love this quilt.  I love the gentle colours and the shirt fabrics, I love the shapes and the quilting - just love it all.  Mostly I see things I would change at this point, but for whatever reason this one seems just fine exactly as it is.  Just goes to show you can't second-guess these things.

The details

Started 3rd February 2017 as part of the first AHIQ challenge, set by Ann.

Finished piecing 31st March 2017.

Started quilting 17th June 2018.

Completed 27th September 2018.
Finished size 69" x 71".

Made from a big pile of shirts and fabrics from stash.  

Bound with a stripe bought in the Oakshott warehouse sale about 8 years ago.  

Wadding is Sew Simple Supersoft Eco Blend (70/30, all recycled).  

Quilted, using ordinary quilting thread, with a mostly free-hand crosshatch pattern.  

Linking up today with Kathy for Slow Sunday Stitching.

Of soup pots and quilting

I guess most people will know a version of the story about the old woman and the soup pot that was never empty.  Well, I was coming  to think this quilt was like that, only in reverse.  I quilted and I quilted but it was never done.  

But the end is in side, though still not close.  I have one big piece across a corner and then just the bits around the edge.  So I am pushing on.

I have been looking at it so long I've genuinely got no idea of whether I like it or not.  

Just as I am struggling to get back into the swing of stitching post holidays, I am struggling with blogging, so I am linking up with Slow Sunday Stitching in an attempt to just get on with it.  I'm thinking that checking out what other people are doing might help me to regain some momentum.

Next quilt in the hoop

Having just made an entire quilt, from first cut to last stitch on the binding, in a matter of months, I'm back to quilting something that's been waiting a year.  I'm hoping to keep myself motivated with my quilting: it had definitely slipped a bit but I'm much happier when I keep things ticking over nicely so I shall try not to be so easily distracted.  My Chinese Coins, made for the first AHIQ challenge, was top of the pile, sticking to chronological order, so that's what's in my hoop now.

I don't remember the last time I did this, but I am using actual, proper, quilting thread rather than perle or wool or variegated Sulky 30.  I had picked up a reel of a Gutermann thread in a rather lovely brown-y shade - don't remember when or why - but it seems to sit nicely with the rather muted colours of the top, so I figured, why not? 

I'm marking the pattern freehand, so it's a kind of wonky grid. The lines are mostly relatively straight,  but the size of the boxes they make varies quite a bit.  It seems to go with all the different sizes of stripe.

Linking up with Kathy, just to show that I am still Slow Sunday Stitching.

Nearly there

Nearly there.

I have pinwheels on three sides now and definitely don't have enough for the fourth.  

I do have a couple of the smaller pinwheels that I found lurking in the bottom of the box and some scrappy bits and pieces.  After the weekend I'm going to have a play and see if I have the makings of something to go down the 4th side, though actually I like how it looks now, so it's fine if I can cobble something together and fine if I can't.

Linking up today with NinaMarie for Off the Wall.

AHIQ - share your improv #19

Nearly there with this now.  I had the idea in my head that I wanted to do a round of pinwheels to finish it off, but to make them bigger than the little ones I've used in the body of the quilt (they are 3.5" square).  First off I thought this wasn't feasible as I had nowhere near enough left of the brown fabric that I had used for the little ones.  Then I wondered if I could use what was left of my shirts instead.  So this morning I did a first pass - making just a few so that a) I could see if I liked how they looked and b) I could get some idea of whether I would have enough scraps left even for this approach.  

Here's what the first few looked like.

This was working well enough for me to keep going and by the end of the morning I had done 19.  

Nothing's sewn yet.  I know I've got enough fabric to get around three sides, though I have more of some than others.  Where I don't have enough to cut a whole square at a time I am cutting individual triangles (no scrap goes to waste).  It's slower, but worth it, I think.  I will probably go around all 4 sides if I have enough but will reassess after the first couple and decide how much further to take it. 

Unstuck

Strictly speaking I'm no longer stuck, rather than unstuck, of course.  

I'm short of time this week, but snatched a couple of hours this morning and did pretty much what I said I needed to do, ie added a bit of blue and put some verticals in where I had a horizontal.  I'm pretty happy with where I have got to. 

And it works from all angles, I think.  Here's a different view.

As it stands this is now about 60" square. There is a chance I'll stop here, but am toying with the idea of going round once again, if the fabric will stretch to it.  I am now completely out of the pink shirt as well as a couple of the other fabrics.  I have added a couple of new ones in the outer pieces but may still not have enough for what I have in mind.  I guess I'll just have to give it a go and see what happens.  

Getting stuck...

Well, this has been a slooooow week. I've been well and truly stuck, though I think I've got myself sorted out now.

What seems like ages ago I added the chunk at the bottom here...

 then swiveled things around... 

...and added a couple more rows.  Then everything came to a grinding halt.  I tried all sorts of things, including  going back and making a load of extra strips, but nothing pleased me.  So I put it all back in its box and let it stew for a day or two.  

In that time I came to think that maybe my strip sets needed to be a bit longer. I was still making them the same sort of size that I had started with, but now that the sides are longer it all ended up looking too bitty.  Luckily I could just add a bit to some sets, though I've run out of two fabrics, so anything using those will stay the size it is.  

Here's a less cropped view than usual, to show how it looks when I'm working. Mess all over the floor.  Ho hum.

I'm working on two sides at once now (left hand and bottom in this picture).  I want to manage how I use the remaining fabrics and this lets me juggle things more effectively I think.  As always, looking at the photos gives a useful perspective.  In the picture below I can see too much brown in the bottom left - I need to add some blue, I think, and maybe sneak in a bit of green too.  I'm also thinking I might shunt things over to the right and let the vertical lines from the side carry on down.  

For now though, it's back in the box for the weekend.

Breaking my own rules

I'm still rotating this, still adding bits and pieces.

In the normal course of things I avoid putting two pieces with the same fabric next to each other, but today I broke that rule.  You can see there are two strips of the biggish check next to each other in the bottom right corner above.  I tried every other fabric I had next to the inner one of the two but couldn't come up with something I liked.  I don't know why I stuck the second strip down, but I did, and then I decided that actually I didn't mind it there and it could stay.  It may be a slightly sad reflection on the rest of my life that this felt a bit risky when I did it, but the more I look at it, the more it seems just fine, and not really risky at all.

After adding those bits I decided I wanted to work in a slightly bigger chunk, rather than just swiveling with every addition and ending up with a log cabin.  I like the log cabin feel to it so far, but just don't want to get too predictable.  So you can see I'm working on a section at the bottom (of this photo, not necessarily of the quilt).  It's not all stitched together yet but I'm there or thereabouts.  Then I will swivel again.

Just stacking coins

Nothing earth-shattering going on here, but some steady progress.  I've spent a fair bit of my time just making coin strips and little pinwheels, but every so often I've stopped,had a bit of a tinker and added a bit somewhere.

Firstly, on the left-hand side, which got straightened up in the process..

Looking at this I realised that I had come to think of that mucky green strip as the bottom of the quilt, but when I started this I said I would go for something that worked whichever way round it landed, so I rotated it before working on the next additions (which went on what are now the left-hand side and the bottom).  

And so it goes on.

Linking up today with Busy Hands Quilts for Finished or Not Friday.