4 more sewing days till Christmas

I'm jumping straight into this one, trying to make the most of the last few days before everything stops for Christmas.  This is probably a good thing, as it's stopping me from overthinking the connection between this piece and Yellow Birds.

I decided to have one good look at that quilt and then not to look again until I feel like I've found a rhythm with this; I think if I keep checking back it could prevent me from finding my way.  What I took from that one look was a mental list of the different elements in the piecing: log-cabin-y bits with the birds at the centre, flying geese, some little strips of squares and rectangles and quarter sun blocks.  Oh, and words, which were a late addition last time but which I got printed up right at the beginning of this one.

I kicked off by cutting some bits of the lovely birds and starting to piece around them.  Sadly the pale fabrics lose a bit when the flash fires, but I'm sure as the light improves next year you'll be able to see them better.

I'm mostly still just making these bits and some geese, but have sewn one slightly bigger piece.

I am currently undecided about the suns.  I might try just making a couple, rather than a whole pile.  I am also wondering about throwing some stars into the mix.  Lots to consider!

Off I go again.

My aspiration to make something simple seems to have amused some of you, but I will rise above it.  I will concede that my brain tends to complicate from even the most straightforward of starting points but I am hoping that this new project will be simple-ish, at the very least.  

I have never revisited an idea, but that's what I'm going to do now, which is why I am hopeful that this might not be too tricky.  Here are my starting point shirts:

They haven't photographed particularly well, but there are blues and yellows, and yellow-y browns.  

Then I rummaged through my boxes and came up with this lot.

Looking at this photo, it seemed like I needed more yellows and I have, since I took these photos, added a very dark blue shirt, a black one, and a grey and yellow stripe.  I have also unearthed quite a lot of scraps (almost all yellow) from this quilt.  I am thinking I want to keep some elements from that quilt but make it more about the dusk than the dawn.  

Let's see if this goes as planned!

Map challenge, done for now

I can honestly say there were moments when I thought this quilt would never be done but I think I have most probably finished the piecing.  Somewhere along the way I stopped taking photos of every version I rejected but suffice it to say I found the last few inches tricky.  In the end I used entirely dark blue strips down at the bottom and a combination of leftovers pieced together and the dark green shot cotton to compensate for my shortage of fabric.  

Once the bottom was sorted out I added the dark blue strip on the left hand side, which sort of squares things up, but also felt right in terms of the balance of things. For the same reason (balance, not excessive wonkiness) I added one more row of across the top, echoing the darker blue at the bottom.

And just like that I was satisfied and it was done!

Next up I think I am going to do something nice and simple.

Two blocks challenge: done and dusted

My piecing has slowed down this month, but at least my quilting has benefited.  Here's the quilt I made for the AHIQ two-blocks challenge.

I bound it with a really pretty Monaluna print that, honestly, I would have liked to use for something else, but of all the options I tried it was the best by quite a distance, so binding it became.

I started this on 25th April and finished piecing on 27th June 2017.

Started quilting on 1st October and finished on 29th November this year.

The wadding is the 70/30 all recycled mix that I am using for most of my utility quilts and it was quilted with this handquilting thread, which was new to me.  I was perfectly happy with it, though to be honest I bought it mostly because it came on wooden reels rather than plastic.  

Mr SewSlowly says it looks "old-fashioned" in a way that leaves me not entirely sure if that's a compliment or not, but I like it a lot. The thing I like the best is that it is a finished quilt, in a year when finishes have been few and far between!

A quick detour

I am still thinking about my map quilt, but haven't done much.  Instead I have been putting a bit of extra time into the hand sewing, since I have a quilt heading towards done.  I have also made two cushions (or pillows).  I've never tried this before but it's been kind of fun.  

Here's one with a pillow (or cushion) pad, though not one that's quite big enough, just one that was lying around.

 And a second one, which is smaller.

I have one more of these in the works, but I'm still quilting it.  

Scrapping the bottom of the scrap barrel

For once this quilt played nice and yesterday I had a happy couple of hours just quietly chugging away without too many dilemmas.  I went from this

 to this.

But now the fun starts.  The photos are a bit misleading in terms of proportion and in real life this is not long enough by maybe 6 inches or a bit more.  At the moment it looks slightly squat, which doesn't please me.  However, I am about out of most fabrics.  I have plenty of dark blue, and of the lilac and dark green in the little squares and I have about ten squares , mostly of the light blue shirting and the plaid, cut and not yet used.  No more of the white sashing shirt though.  

The obvious answer would be to work with the dark blue, but I am wondering if having too much dark at the bottom might mess the balance of the whole quilt.  I'll probably tinker around just to be sure but failing that I guess I either have to look for another fabric or consider doing something completely different across that bottom strip.  For now, I'm letting it stew.

Not too far to go

Again, not much to say about this, except that it's growing.

The dark blue bits on the left look a bit heavy, but they'll slim down once they're stitched into place. Suddenly it feels like there's not too far to go.