Across the top

I'm still plodding on with this quilt, but after a week of not working on it at all, it took me a while to get going again this morning.  Technically speaking I could look at the last photos on my camera and lay things out according to those - after all that's half the reason I take lots of pictures (in theory). Sadly though I never seem that interested in going about things the sensible way, so instead I pretty much start again from scratch.  

In the end, though, I did get the top left corner filled in.

You can see it's slightly wider than the pieces below it.  As I am going to add this one big strip across the top of the quilt, and will be trying to match up the diagonal stripes on both sides I am deliberately leaving myself a bit of room for manoeuvre.  

Next up is the gap in the middle at the top.  This may be a bit tricky.  I want to treat this as one big piece, but at the same time want the pale red strip (the fabric at the very bottom of the picture above) to stop just over halfway across. My first go at this had too many crosses - it seemed too static...

So now I am playing around with something more like this. Right now I'm not sure about the triangle strips, but not much is sewn together here so I'll just keep plugging away at it for now.

Linking up with:

Design Wall Monday

and

Monday Making

A scrappy finish

So here's a quilt that I've been making but not blogging, apart from a couple of peeps at the quilting.  It was a present for a friend, who really wanted something scrappy and loved the version of this that I have on the spare bed.  

I can't remember where I first saw one of these, but I think it might have been quiltdivajulie's  Dumpster Diving.  (Update: Julie reminds me that her quilt was 'part of the "lego" craze started by Tonya Ricucci (author of Word Play Quilts and former blogger at Lazy Gal Quilts'.)

This one is 70" square.  Strips were mostly cut 1.5" but sometimes I left them at 2" rather than waste fabric.  All scrap, including the binding.

It was pieced around other projects: I tried hard to be organised and used it as a leaders and enders project,  which I've never done before.  As long as I remembered I was doing it, I found it quite an efficient way to keep these blocks ticking over.  

I started quilting it at the end of July, finished it on 14th October, handed it over on 26th.

Finally, a reminder that it's not too late to link up any improv/modern utility quilting you've been doing with AHIQ, here or on Ann's blog.

Linking up with TGIFF this week at Busy Hands Quilts, 

and Can I Get a Whoop, Whoop at Confessions of a Fabric Addict.

AHIQ - share your improv #14

Having focused on little bits yesterday, I'll just share the bigger picture today.  This is where I have got to (yesterdays bits are not yet sewn together).

In trying to get enough floor space to take a photo without gratuitous shots of kitchen detritus I laid this out so that from my usual standpoint it was actually vertical (and then crouched on the table to get the shot above).  Vertically it looks like this:

It's not the first time I've got this far in a quilt, looked at it from a different angle and decided maybe the top isn't where I have thinking it was.  In this case I suspect that its current proportions are influencing me: I prefer a long, thin rectangle to a short wide one.  It could go either way, I think.  

What is really clear from both these shots is that while it is wide (or tall) enough - about 80" right now, it is nowhere near  tall (or wide) enough, so I'll have to think about what I do with that once I've finished the current top row.  

And now, if that hasn't fried your brains, it's your turn to share. 

Plugging a gap

The last few times I've posted I have pretty much just finished a section and then shared it, so I thought this time I'd share some of the playing around I do along the way.

If I've used up most of my little bits and pieces I always replenish the pile before I do anything else, but this time I had a reasonable stock.

At this stage I also know that there are patterns that have emerged that I want to repeat, so I will be looking to add the two blue fabrics that provide the vertical strips as well.  

I have also noticed that in a lot of places I have used the crosses in pairs (often two red/blue or two white/blue). Again, at this stage I will bear that in mind as I go.

Sadly I didn't have enough time today for any actual sewing, but thought this might be of passing interest.  Also, taking the photos is always a good exercise, so hopefully by the time I can work on this properly something coherent will have started to form in the deep recesses of my mind.

In the meantime, a reminder that tomorrow is AHIQ link-up day so hopefully some of you reading this will have good things to share!

Linking up with

Monday Making 

and 

Design Wall Monday 

It's been a slow week all round

...and looks like next week will be too, but I am happy to say that I am completely up-to-date with my circles. I thought I was there a couple of days ago but then realise that I hadn't done any for the week I was currently in, but I pulled my socks up and here they all are.  Of course I need to do one for today, but that should be a piece of cake (!) There will be 16 more little blocks, to get me up to my 365 completion date of November 16th, but I won't make any more after that; I'll just see what I've got and go from there.

I've done a wee bit more hand quilting too, and am aiming to make some progress today.  A couple of people mentioned the thread I am using, so here's a gratuitous shot - all of these are in with a chance of making it into the quilt as I'm just picking up what seems like a nice match each time I start a section. Sulky 12wt Blendables, one and all.  

Another gap filled

Slow but steady progress here.

I've included this first photo because I have been making more cross blocks and, having set out to cut a load of random sized bits it amused me to see that I had, in fact, done a fair job of cutting them all the same.  This speaks to the idea that if you cut freehand for long enough you end up with more control than you might expect (even if that's not really what you want!)

A quick progress shot...

and another little gap filled in.

There are a few places now where I will need to add bits to make things the same size before I join them (bottom right, left hand side) but this is still in several big pieces and some of the discrepancies will go as I sew them together.  

Slow catching up

In the pause between finish off one quilt and starting work on quilting the next I wanted to get my 365 circles up to date.  That's a bigger job than I like to think. I have a few circles done bar the embroidery.

That doesn't look too bad, does it?  But now look - all these others are much further from being done.

On the bright side, once I've tackled these I will be up-to-date.  But I have to admit I also caved in and started quilting, so it might take longer than you would think!

Linking up with Kathy today for Slow Sunday Stitching.