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

Slow Sunday binding

I'm really not sure how this has happened but today I find that my slow Sunday stitching is sewing on binding. 

And here's a reminder that the July's AHIQ link party goes live on Tuesday.

A bit of quilting, bit of circling

It's actually sunny here today, so my  slow stitching will be confined to the evening but I entertained myself for a while this morning taking shots of my 365 circle blocks:

Also, a quick update on Walls, as the end is sight, though definitely weeks away rather than days.  This is the last chunk that will fit in the frame, then I've just got to do round the edges.

Mind you, it looks like we might have 48 hours when it's too hot to sit under a quilt, so it will have to wait till the rain comes back on Tuesday.  

Wall in progress

Do you remember, in February after I had the flu, I said I was going back to basics: piecing one project, quilting one.  That worked well: I liked the simplicity and the clarity of it.  But I just did a count and somehow those two projects have multiplied and by my count I now have seven things on the go.  Ho hum.  Still, I am at least feeling on top of things still.  My 365 circles are up to date, I finished stitching the binding on my applique yesterday and current quilt in the hoop is progressing nicely.

A couple of quick progress shots for Slow Sunday Stitching:

Next quilt in the hoop

Lots of handwork for me this week: my second walls quilt has been backed, pinned and is in the hoop...

I really need to come up with a name for this one: I've just been calling it Walls 2, and often my WIP name for a quilt sticks in the end, but I don't like this one at all.  

I'm also doing the daily circles - six done so far, two to do today to keep up-to-date.  Here's one:

Speeding up a bit

I always do this when an end is in sight...start trying to sneak in more time for the quilting.  Build Me a Wall is, if not nearly done, definitely heading in the right direction.  I laid it out on the floor so you can see the bits round the edges still to do.

Of course these things always take twice as long as you think they should and I don't need to hurry, but still...obsessive?  Me?

AHIQ - do more, do less

Today I've got some musings sparked off by Stephie.   When I issued a challenge to people to cut up their most precious yardage, (and that sparks a whole other debate on what constitutes a big piece of fabric), she responded that she only has small pieces so her challenge ought to be using a precious piece without cutting it. (See what she did here)

This has got me thinking about my own quilting journey and some of the stages it has been through.  When it first occurred to me that I could just do my own thing, without all that tiresome following of patterns and matching of points (well, more like failing to match points), I made several quilts which were pretty much just big pieces of fabric, arranged in a way that was pleasing to my eye.  I don't have photos of all of them, but these two will suffice to make the point:

Then I read a few books, including Gwen Marston's Liberated Quiltmaking II, and started thinking I could put traditional elements back into what I was doing, which made me happy, and I have pootled along doing this making it up as you go along thing for a fair old while.

I still like doing it too, (and just this morning found myself making a couple of wonky stars, which is something I haven't even contemplated since Little Elephant) but at the same time I started to wonder if there was a way to make things simpler.  The last couple of projects demonstrate where this has taken me: working with what feels like quite limited palettes and deliberately sticking to just a few basic shapes/blocks.    

So what? I hear you wonder.  I guess what I'm saying is that whilst it's no fun constantly taking ourselves outside our comfort zones, maybe sometimes we can stretch by just making one small change, or a couple and this might be an easier way to grow as quilters than trying to make huge, dramatic changes and feeling uncomfortable with them.  Cut it if you usually work big, leave it alone if you tend to go small; add something if the last few things you've done have been simple, take something out if, like me, you have had lots of fun throwing in everything but the kitchen sink.  Do more, do less.

Finished for now

I'm done, for now at least.  Walls is joining my quilting pile.  

So now a couple of days, at least, trying to make headway with my current handquilting project.  I don't know what I'm going to do next with my piecing. I might carry on with wall-based stuff: there were several points when this could have gone different directions and maybe there's something interesting there. Alternatively I might do something completely different.  Not sure yet; right now I'm just happy this one is done.

Linking up as usual with Patchwork Times for Design Wall Monday.

Fitting things together

I am slowly but steadily heading for the finishing stages of this now.  I always find the last bit harder than the first stages; maybe that's because I start by happily making lots of separate bits but now I have to fit them together.  I have a few blocks and will make a few more, but this time with a bit of an eye to size instead of just doing what I feel like.   Right now I'm working on the bottom right hand corner, then I just need a slim piece to run down that side and I'll have got to my 60" square.  

Wall's growing again

Now that I've got my extra fabric I am keen to get moving on the wall again, so have been working hard, both on making some extra stones and on getting the next chunk pieced.  I lost a bit of time when I was winding bobbins and my spool pin suddenly flew off the machine and disappeared.  It took me half the afternoon of sorting through the mess on my table to find it and then it wasn't in the fabric piles at all but on the floor, neatly wedged against the table leg and almost invisible.

Right now it's looking like this. It's still in 3 big chunks so when I finally sew them together I anticipate both the gold strips and the horizontal strips in the middle ending up thinner than they are at the moment.

Linking up again with Patchwork Times for Design Wall Monday.

I am not a robot

And if I were, I wouldn't have a stupid dodgy leg that hurts when I sit down to the sewing machine for more than 5 minutes at a time.  Luckily I am waiting for the cavalry to arrive with my extra fabric, so I can take things a bit slower than I would otherwise want to.  I have sewn together some of my bits but now am going to pause until the post delivers.

Following the discussion about the horizontal strips I have trimmed quite a bit off the one that is sitting at bottom left (and of course will lose another little bit in the seam).  It looks much better, not so heavy now, and I am watching out where I need these strips to make sure I don't make the same mistake again.

In the meantime I am playing around with ideas and drafting a post or two for AHIQ - only a week to go now!  

As for the title of this post - I don't mind comment verification, understanding that it serves a purpose.  For a while I was even enjoying it, particularly when I was invited to identify 'all the cakes' or 'all the bread'.  Picking out street signs was less fun, but I discovered that if you got it wrong, they sent you back to foodstuffs.  But now, heaven help me, they are asking me to identify 'all the commercial trucks'.  Firstly, don't care about trucks of any description AT ALL, secondly I didn't even know there was such a thing as a non-commercial truck (am I particularly ill-informed or is it a more American thing?).  A robot has as good a chance of getting this right as I have.

Eking out the scraps

I'm still here, eking out my last bits of fabric for now, but I have to confess that I have asked Lara to send me her blue grunge.  I have literally used every single last tiny scrap and though I might not need much more of it, I am pretty darn sure I'm going to want at least  a wee bit more.  

In the meantime, more blocks with scrappy edges, like this little one.

I did a couple more like this too.

Interestingly, when I tried this one out, the gold didn't look right to my eye, a bit too heavy, so I tweaked it a bit:

Much better.

I am playing around with layout all the time too.  There are some chunks stitched together, but nothing much bigger than six or eight blocks, so it's easy to move them about.  It's funny how some versions look much better than others.  

I am trying to make sure any horizontal strips I use are a bit on the slimmer side now, and have moved the two heavy ones so they are no long right next to each other. I think this will work a bit better. 

Do you like how I have chosen to work in the doorway between two rooms this time, so that wherever I stand I end up with a bit of door in the corner of my photos?  I also knock myself silly on the top of the door frame every time I stand on a chair to get a picture.  I have only myself to blame!

Learning to stretch!

This is a post with two strands. The first is this:  I have been working away at Walls assuming I knew where the top was but yesterday I looked at it from a different direction and quite liked it that way too., like this:

Ignore, if you can, the longest vertical gold stripe, which is too big and too central (in this picture at least).  I think I am going to stick with my original plan, but this may at some point turn out to be a different quilt!  And sadly, one of the things that argues against this is that I like my tiny gold triangles to have their points heading upward not over to the side.  I'm not entirely sure what that says about me, but I definitely wish I could be a person less bothered by triangle points.  Funny how whenever I learn something about myself whilst quilting it turns out to go against my view of myself (less calm, less patient, and now more picky about little details - oh dear!)

My second thought for the day is that I definitely will not have quite enough of the fabrics I have been desperately trying to stretch.  I do have a virtual safety net in the form of lovely Lara, who has offered to send me more, but am resisting on the grounds that it will be good for my character to make this work the hard way (that's my Methodist upbringing rearing its head).   So, I am now going to push it as far as I can with the gold.  My latest block went like this:

Here it is in the middle of the rest.

I think it looks fine, so will try a bit more of this and see how far I can take it.

Leaving aside the mess of random squares on the right hand side of this (it's okay, I already knew I was messy!) I can see some things I don't like as well as lots I do in this picture.  At the moment the strip horizontal strips are a bit too chunky for my liking, but as they are not yet joined to anything else I'm hoping they'll look better once I've lost the extra bit in the seam allowance.  Also the lower gold strip is not right - I think I don't want it directly beneath the top one.  Luckily it's not joined to anything, it's just laid down there, so plenty of room for manoeuvre there. 

Finally, thanks to everyone who has expressed an interest in AHIQ.  It will kick off on September 1st.  After that posts will be on Tuesdays, and the linky party will be the last Tuesday of each month, so keep an eye out.  The button in the sidebar is just me trying to work out how this all works!

Backs and fronts

Well I managed to waste most of yesterday looking for the box I keep my hand-stitching threads in. Turns out it was in a box in a garage about 10 miles away from me (don't ask) so I achieved exactly nothing on that front.  I decided to try and rescue my weekend by doing some boring but necessary stuff.  I am months away from quilting Inner City, but keeping sorting past its leftovers in my scrap box so I started piecing a back. 

I have also been busily making blocks for my Walls piece (still nameless).  This picture, taken halfway through Saturday, shows how much I have got, though they are just plonked down every which way.  The top, bottom, left and right edges here, if I filled in all the gaps, would get me to a reasonable size.  I've made more since, so may just get away with this one. In any case I liked the gold insets so much I am thinking I might include those whether I need them or not.

Hedging my bets

Earlier this week I worried about running out of the fabrics I am using for the outer part of my "stones".  I have been thinking about this quite a lot. Usually I'm fine with having to work out what to do next, but this quilt has quite a different feel for me: I  have deliberately been trying to work in a simpler way, just to see if I can, and I'm loath to let things get too busy.  So, how do I make what I have stretch?

My first strategy is to make sure I use every single tiny scrap.

My second line of attack is to make some central squares that are quite a bit larger - I think this will work well in any case and as a bonus a large centre with a thin border uses less of my precious fabrics than a small centre with a chunky edge.

Mindful, though, that this might still not be enough I have been fiddling about with the two gold Doe fabrics as well.

I like how these work a lot, so might go down this road anyway, as long as I can do it without losing the current mood of the quilt.  I have lots of options, at least!

Brick by brick, stone by stone

My wall is growing.  

I started out trying to work outwards from the section I had sewn together on Monday.

 I liked this but kept getting stuck - going so far and no further, so decided to go back to making little chunks which I can put together further along the line.  I got this

and this.

I am also starting to think about what I'll do if I run out of the cream and blue fabrics I am using for edging.  I started with half a metre of each, so might just about have enough, but might also fall a bit short. Usually I use a lot more fabrics in a quilt but I'm liking this one with a relatively limited range, so I'm kind of hoping I won't run out.  If necessary I think I will go with using more of something that's already in the quilt rather than adding a new fabric - maybe sneaking in a bit more of the gold-y Doe somewhere?  

Making stones

Still building my wall.  I have gone back to making the square units, but just to stop myself getting bored, and to make putting the next bit together interesting I am making some with one odd side:

Laying a few out I got something that looks like this:

I need to keep going and make a few more, though, before I can go much further. Back to work.

Linking up with Patchwork Times for Design Wall Monday. 

Back to the wall

So, I have reached the point where all the excitement is over for the summer and we're just coasting along, trying to make the most of the sun, as and when it appears.  No more festivals, no more family gatherings, just back to routine and back to my sewing machine.  I have to say I am ready for this - I've been getting a bit twitchy and am happy to be looking at this wall piece again.  

(Note to self - I must think of another name for it as this is a bit misleading: it's not a piece for the wall, it's a piece inspired by walls).

I decided to take out the little checkerboard pieces I was playing around with when I last posted about this and replaced them with this:

I am happier with this, so have carried on and now have a fair sized chunk.

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

Filling in the gaps

 This morning I started playing around with my blocks again, looking at how I was going to get them to fit together.  First off I tried my little piece with squares in one of the gaps.  

I didn't mind this but thought I'd try stripes instead of squares. 

Decided to go with this, so did some cutting and rearranging, and a bit of adding on and ended up with these.

Sewn on they look like this:

Right now I am thinking that I like this where I have used it vertically (halfway up right hand side) but not so much horizontally (bottom left) but am going to leave it for now and see if it grows on me.  

I should add that I have rejected the idea of using 'cheater' strips, ie ones of the same colours as the existing borders.  there are two reasons for this: the first is a practical one as I only have half a metre of each fabric; the second is that I would prefer to come up with a solution that acknowledges and works with the odd construction rather than trying to hide it.  I could, of course, revert to plan b and use straightforward strips of a single, extra fabric.