Playing in New York

I've just been playing around the last couple of days, waiting till I know what to do next.  So I've made some log cabin blocks

and some other bits and pieces.

I've been playing with my other bits of the New York Fabric too, trying to see whether they're going to work better vertically, like this

which was my first instinct, or horizontally, like this...

For now I've left it like this

but no decisions have been made!

As an aside, I am finding as it gets darker that I am struggling to get good photos.  I'm only using a point-and-shoot, but either the exposures are longer and I am wobbling, or the flash is turning things dodgy colours or the daylight comes in from one side, so half is washed out.  Bear with me, I'm going to show a blurry one if it's all I've got to illustrate my point, but I'm taking loads of extras in the hope that I'll get something in focus!

Linking up with Blossom Heart Quilts for Sew Cute Tuesday, with Sew Fresh Quilts for Lets Bee Social and with Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednesday.

Still sewing the blues

This week I've been sporadically stitching away at my second attempt with denim.  This time I tried making a more traditional sandwich, with a backing, batting, denim.  The back was a scrap, the batting is a 70/30 cotton/polyester, made entirely from recycled materials. 

For those of you who have been asking about sewing through denim, this was way harder than my first go.  So hard that after an hour or so I cut the backing fabric off, which made it a much more pleasant experience.  I think if I wanted to back it again I would look for a fabric with a much looser weave; the stuff I used is pretty stiff and dense - bad idea.  

Without the backing this is much easier, especially since it's machined together, so there's no overlapping of the denim to deal with. I'm not sure if these photos show the slightly more raised surface you get with the batting underneath, but it does make a difference, honest.

I could stop here - I've learned what I need to from this, but will probably go on stitching until it's all pretty, just because I like it.

Linking up with Slow Sunday Sewing again.

New York under the knife

Last post I said I thought I knew what I wanted to do next with this, so here's what happened.  I realised that although I love the New York fabric, I was treating it with too much respect. I felt that in one piece like that it looked, well a bit lumpy, which is to say like it had been dropped in amongst the other bits I was playing with but didn't really want to be there.  Not dynamic enough I guess might be another way of trying to describe this. 

Looking closely at it, I saw that it is effectively made up of hundreds of different, tiny grids - that's right, they are windows (d'oh).  These are not great photos, but see what I mean?

That was my cue and this is what happened next.

Yup, I chopped it up and sewed it back together again.

Linking up with Nina-Marie for Off the Wall Friday.

New York, New York

That's not the name of this quilt (which for once I know already) but I had to get that post title in somewhere: On the Town is a favourite movie and that is a great song.

I've been playing around with inserting a stripe of some sort between the city fabric and the strip of rectangles.  Tried light grey, very dark grey and a black print with a bit more colour.  Didn't like any of them, but here they are anyway.

This I did like:

I made another strip, but smaller.

And now I don't like it again, but this time I think I know why and I'm pretty sure I know where I'm going next...

In the meantime I'm linking up with Lorna for Lets Bee Social - go and visit for Blogathon Canada, there's some great giveaways and a whole load of new blogs to check out. Also with Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednesday.

New York city, first pass

A quick update on this one.  I had in my head that this would be a pretty straightforward make; I have been imagining something based on Chinese coin quilts - simple rectangles in greys,black and whites.  First cut of the New York fabric looked like this.

Then I started on the rectangular chunks.

Of course these things are never simple, so I don't much like the side bit right next to the city fabric - I'm off to try putting something between them and see what that's like.

Linking today with Anything Goes Monday.

Stitching round the birds

I haven't got much to show this week.  Charley has moved on a fair bit, but I'm not sure if you can tell...

When I started I wasn't quilting around the birds, but I have seen the error of my ways and am both doing them as I go and using my little odd bits of thread to go back and quilt the ones I missed. They look much better with their stitch-y outlines.

I have also machined together some bits of denim, and sandwiched them with batting, for my next experiment, but no stitching yet so currently it looks like this:

Not the best photo, but it's been so dark I need the lights on and then my poor wee camera is not too happy. Grey damp days: great for stitching time, not so good for pictures.

Linking up again with Kathy for Slow Sunday Stitching - there's some great stuff there, so do pay a visit (if that's not already where you've come from!)

Saturday photos

I went for a lovely walk in Calke Abbey, one of my favourite places, as I've said before (here).  Usually I take about a hundred tree photos (yes, every time) but this time I started looking at all the  walls. I've added in one photo taken there a couple of months ago - yup, it's the one with the flowers.