Lockdown Day 12

Another 12 hour shift at work today, so again, I won't be writing lots.

I thought I'd scan through my photos and maybe look for a UFO. And I found the perfect one.

This is in my 2015 photo folder, so um, yes, at least five years old (blush), probably older. This photo is taken hanging up on my wood stack from when I lived on a 10 acre lifestyle block, which was before I lived on a boat, which was before I lived here, and we've been in this house for two years now...

I called it creme brûlée. Not sure why, I think the classic colours and style maybe? It's made of a bunch of fabrics that I had been hoarding, and they happened to work well with each other. 

It's constructed of simple snowball blocks with corner stones in the sashing, which makes a nice secondary pattern of faux churndash blocks.

I still really like it. And it's still a flimsy! I did have it with a long-armer friend of mine, but she had to return it due to health issues. I have the backing and the batting, so now I'm looking at quilting it myself. But I'm completely blank on quilting ideas. I'll have to put it back on the to-do pile while I doodle some ideas.

Suggestions welcomed!

A Quilty Finish: Immersion. And Show Notes from Podcast Episode 5.

Here's some pictures of a quilt that was a UFO (unfinished object).  It's sat around in slowly progressing stages for a couple of years and I'm so glad that it's finally morphed into a useful 'finished object'.

My husband named this quilt Immersion.  It has a pretty watery feeling so I think that's appropriate.

It is about 60 inches by 80 inches, so drapes nicely on a single bed, covers an ample lap, or decorates the end of a queen size bed.

I have to confess that I LOVE the back.

I quilted chevrons in the centre square, pebbles in the next block border, a kowhaiwhai design on the two end borders and then piano keys on the final turquoise border.

And I do love me a dark grey binding.  I hand finished the binding and stitching it was never a priority so I guess that's why it took so long.  But now it's done, and even labelled.  Yay!

I talk about this quilt on episode 5 of my podcast.  I'm counting it as my finish to enter Lazy Daisy's UFO challenge, which I also talk about, but I mucked up and said that your finished object had to be posted to Lazy Daisy's blog, but it actually need to go to her Flikr Group.  Here's Lazy Daisy's rules, I copied this direct from her site:

2014 UFO Challenge!

Hi, and welcome! I thought I’d celebrate my birthday this year in a special way, by giving away a quilt. To enter, all you have to do is finish! Any sewing UFO that you finish before June 11, 2014, will earn you an entry into the drawing. All you have to do is share a picture of your finished project in the Flickr group. And I mean FINISHED! Quilted, bound, and everything! If it’s a garment, it must be hemmed and ready to wear. Finished means finished.  (side note- don’t forget to label your quilts, it’s important guys)

We’re relying on the honour system here, guys, so please.. Don’t cheat! I’ll know if you’re lying.. (really I won’t, but how could you sleep at night if you brought dishonesty into quilting?)

For the purposes of this giveaway,  UFO means that you started it before 2014, and finished it this year.

That’s it.

So, in summary:

1. Any UFO (unfinished object) started before 2014

2. Add a picture of your finished object, or “FO” to the Flickr Group

If you haven’t yet, check out the group for some pretty awesome entry pics!

Now, GO QUILT SOMETHING!! there’s a quilt to be won!

Thanks Daisy!

I talked about Susan Brubaker Knapp's Facing Tutorial and here's a link to it.  It's the best facing tutorial I've found so far.  It's a non-mitred one, but she has a mitred tutorial too if that tickles your fancy.

And then, I talk lots about the Whangarei Quilt Exhibition that I visited with my Friday stitching group.  But you're going to have to wait for photographs for another day, this post is getting too long!

Here's my podcast on Podbean: http://theslightlymadquiltlady.podbean.com/2014/03/29/episode-5-whangarei-exhibition-and-a-finished-quilt/

Here's my podcast on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/nz/podcast/the-slightly-mad-quilt-lady/id820121885?mt=2

(Please note that podcasts always take a while to show up on iTunes, so if you don't see episode 5, check back later.  You can subscribe to my podcast and any new episodes will automatically show up in your feed.)

Are you sick of UFO's yet?

I had this silk organza piece hanging around in my UFO pile.  I liked it but I wasn't sure how to continue (imagine it without the flax stalks and the Tui).  The reason was, I had pinned all the organza strips down and started to sew them down, but it was a royal PITA with all those loose edges!

So my solution was to fuse two fabric flax stalks over it and slide a few more bits of fusible web under the loose side edges.  That got rid of the pins and made it much easier to handle.  Then I took a bit of silk organza and ironed a freezer paper mask to it.  You can see that above, on the bench.

I then painted the silk organza with watered down fabric paints and heat set it once it was dry.  I was vaguely trying to follow the colours of the background, but if you look closely you can see that I flipped it eventually - one of the clever things about using organza.

This time the freezer paper is used as a stencil - see I get to use both the positive and negative cuts of the freezer paper - frugal, no?!

I stamped on the background using fabric paint and one of my own hand carved stamps.

Later I decided to stencil another Tui onto the foreground organza.  You can see the two separate layers in the picture and then...

This is how they looks once they are layered.  Still needs a bit of cropping.  I moved the appliqué Tui to the foreground as I decided I didn't like it behind the organza.  When I quilt it, I plan to quilt the outline of another flax stalk and another Tui as I like odd numbers of things.  

So big progress on that UFO!  I'm thinking I can now change it back to being a WIP...?

I've chucked another couple of oddities in the bin (like my unspeakable attempt at trapunto, ugh) and I've another few things on my radar - including the Oscar* quilt.  

*Oscar is what I'm calling Suz's UFO that she tried to chuck away and I rescued it from the rubbish bin - I'll show it soon, promise!!

And here is one for the finished pile.  A friend's elderly grandmother can no longer see well enough to stitch and all this project needed was a binding.  I sewed it on for her along with some hanging corners and now she can enjoy it on her wall.

'Summer Dragonfly' accepted to Living Colour!

So the good news is I can't show you my quilt that I submitted to Living Colour!  It's good news because it was accepted along with 31 others and will be travelling internationally for at least the next year.  Pretty exciting!!  These are the confirmed venues taken from the Living Colour website:

The exhibition will premiere at the Australasian Quilt Convention 10-13 April 2014 and will tour in 2014 and 2015. The following venues have been confirmed:

• Australasian Quilt Convention, Melbourne: 10-13 April 2014
• Creative Textile Show, Canberra: 2-4 May 2014
• QuiltWest, Craft & Quilt Fair,Perth: 21-25 May 2014
• Sydney Quilt Show, Craft & Quilt Fair: 9-13 July 2014
• Quilt Symposium Manawatu, Palmerston North, New Zealand: 15-21 January 2015
• Gosford Regional Gallery, Gosford: 21 March-22 April 2015

Apparently there were 177 entries so I'm feeling a little bit humbled.

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Today is Waitangi Day in New Zealand.  It's a public holiday and as we live pretty close to Waitangi itself, we usually go along.  But not today, it's rainy and windy and generally yucky.  We also planned to paint some more window sills but that ain't happening either.  So what's a girl to do?  More shelf cleaning of course!

I made this wallhanging for the NZ Hoffman Challenge quite a few years ago.  Then I folded it up and put it in the cupboard and it's been taking up space ever since.  I don't like it enough to hang it on the wall, but I can't quite bring myself to chuck it either.

Well, a few slices with the rotary cutter later, a bit of zig-zag along the edge,  a couple of buttons and I have a scissor or rotary cutter pouch and a pocket for my mini cutting board and a small ruler.   Perfect for a sewing date at a friends.

And then I found this little UFO.  It's silk roving type stuff (I don't know what you call it when it's silk) free-motion stitched down onto hand woven wool and I've begun hand stitching here and there.  But what on earth do I do with it?  It's too fragile to become a pouch or anything useful.  Any suggestions?

I think the next UFO I'm going to show you is the hated one that Suz mentioned in a comment on my blog yesterday....so come back again tomorrow!

UFO stocktake

Today (Wednesday) was the first day this week that I had to myself at home.  The kids are back in school after the Summer holidays and I wasn't working.  So I got stuck in to one of my quilting monkeys.  I braced myself and began sorting through my UFO's.

These were just (some of) the ones that had been piled on my sewing table and then shifted from there to become a pile on my laundry bench and were threatening to topple!

This is a block from a class called Serendipity Stars by Barbara Bilyard.  She was a very well known NZ quilter who, sadly, has passed away now.  I completed one block - and hated every second of it!  So I've pressed under the edges a quarter inch and am thinking of turning into a cushion.  What do you think of the ombre background?  Yes or no?  I stuck all the fabric I had in the bag back into my stash 'cause there is no way I'm making more of those blocks to make into a quilt!

Singing Tui.  He's all basted (with fusible) and just needs quilting - and binding and labelling and hanging sleeve....why do those bits always take longest?

Three little samples from my Gwen Marston class.  Pondering what to do with these......suggestions welcome.

Sample from Susan Carlson class.  Love her quilts, not so much her technique.  I won't get this finished and I'll never make a quilt like this so I binned it (gasp!), but everything is glued down so can't be rescued, and you know what?  It felt good!

Oooo!  Here's one of those garments I told you about.  Although technically it's not a UFO because I haven't done anything except pick fabric.  Still feel the love for this one.

This is just a fabric pick too.  A cute little wallet.  Gonna put the fabric back in the stash and put the pattern in a separate pile of 'patterns to make'.

Sooooo many 1 1/2 inch strips left over from my Dad's log cabin quilt.  I sat down and I've now sorted these into similar lengths.  I'm going to sew about four or five similar lengths together then sub cuts them into squares and make some sort of rail fence type quilt.  Sounds like a good idea for a leader and ender project.

I also found an orphan paper pieced block.  What to do with that?  Well I used it to cover a notebook but, duh, forgot to take a photo.

And to top it off, I worked on the lego storm in the lounge, vacuumed, did laundry and took a moment or too to polish my halo...!

2014

I've been spending some time thinking about what I'm aiming to do in 2014.  Yes, I generally steer away from 'resolutions', but I do think that it's a good time to review, take stock, plan etc.  And then I'll have a record about what I was planning for the year to look back on at the beginning of 2015 (and either pat myself on the back, or grimace and move on!).

I have a wall planner that I've written down my quilt related events.

On it I have two classes -

• Jeanette DeNicolis Meyer in March, a three day class held in Auckland about working in a series,
• and Jacqui Karl in August, a two day class/retreat held in One Tree Point in conjunction with Tulis Textiles.

My best quilting buddy in the last Jeanette class I took.

I have written down the dates for my Beginner Quiltmaking Classes, wednesday evenings for six weeks, beginning in February.

Then I have some hand in dates for exhibitions I want to enter - 

• 31st January, Living Colour - DONE!
• 1st March, Pour l'Amour du Fil, a French competition (themed 'Drifting Away') I found out about by reading QuiltMania (the link takes you to a page in French - if you can't read French, I have the details in English if you are interested).
• 5th April, Dorothy Collard Challenge hand in day, run by the Auckland Quilting Guild.
• 4th October, Auckland Festival of Quilts hand in day.
• 1st November, Manawatu Quilt Symposium deadline.

The other thing I've done is make some Quilty Resolutions (I know I just said I steer clear, but a girl has to join in sometimes!) and listed them with Quilting...for the rest of us.  Sandy, from Quilting...for the rest of us, writes a good blog and does a great podcast.  She discussed getting some quilting monkeys off our backs.  You know, those things that have been hanging over our heads - or on our backs - that we just need to get done and get out of our lives.

My three quilting monkeys were - 

• Boring, but necessary.  Taking stock of UFO's (unfinished objects).  Working on them, finishing them and getting rid of the ones that are just taking up space.
• Sewing a garment.  I started sorting my UFO's last night and I found at least three garments that I've started and never finished.  I need to sew a garment, even if it's just to say I can!  And then I promise never to buy another dress pattern again!
• Enter a quilt, or quilts, to the Auckland Festival of Quilts.  I've been meaning to do this for two years, I just need to do it and this is the year for it.

Yup, Blue Room is still not finished.

And Creme Brûlée needs basting and quilting.

So far, so good.  All pretty doable.

If you read this post, some of you might be wondering whether I'll be studying art.  Nope.  I had a long talk to my husband about what I wanted to achieve and where art study fitted in and we decided that it's not the year for it.  I want to eventually make quilting my profession.  How exactly?  I'm not sure.  But the people I've seen who do make their living from quilting seem to combine several strands to make it work - making quilts, teaching, fabric design, article and book writing etc.  So instead of spending a few years studying, I'm going to try and focus on what is already working for me - making quilts, writing patterns, and slowly getting my name out to the universe.  That's another reason why I'm starting to teach beginner quilt making classes - to dip my toe into teaching.

I'm being honest, this was my lounge this afternoon!

As for family/house goals - well, that photo might sum it up!  I have listed areas that I want to work on, and first up is the kid's stuff.  I've been really lax on cleaning, sorting and keeping chaos under control during the school holidays as it just gets undone so quick.  Nuff said.

We are still looking for somewhere new to live.  We've decided we really need to be closer to civilisation as the travelling with kids activities is getting tedious.  And hubby wants to be closer to the ocean for his fishing.  We offered on this block, but were rejected, even though we upped our offer to the registered valuation that we paid to have done.  So we are now preparing to offer on another block.  This one is bare land, no dump of a house thankfully, but it means it would be a longer process before we are able to move.

We've been spending some time doing much-needed chores around the house, just in case we will be selling or renting.

Much better now it

 

Wow!  This is turning into a missive, so I think I'll stop there.  I intend to revisit these goals and plans each month and see how I'm going.  I have a busy week ahead with kids back to school, work and a public holiday in the middle of it all so it might all fall off the rails....

Another UFO bites the dust

Sorry for the radio silence lately - my internet has been down - peaceful at first and then frustrating!

I've been thinking about my pile of UFO's or WIP's - yeah, I know, nothing new about that!  But I do want to whittle them down.  I was taking stock today and I saw this piece in the stack.

It's been taking up valuable real estate in my cupboard for several years.  I don't even know what it was intended to be.  Some sort of fractured/stained glass thingy that I had fused and then appliquéd random patterns, not even around each edge so not very stable!

So I shoved it under my needle and quilted it in black thread around each piece of coloured fabric.  It gave it a sketchy look I liked and would help hold the fused bits of fabric down.

Then I found Catherine Parkinson's tutorial on making little pouches/purses out of practice quilts and followed the instructions.  Catherine is a New Zealand blogger who quilts and photographs and sketches and is well worth checking out.

There were a couple of things I did differently.  In step 8, you need to put your pieces right sides together - but you'd have figured the out anyway.

When you are stitching two layers together around the edges to then turn right sides out and you have to leave a gap to turn them through, I always mark when I have to stop stitching with a double pin.  It must be the way my brain works, but too many times I've kept on going right the way round the whole edge - doh!

I used a popper, or dome fastener instead of stitching on velcro - but that's personal choice.  They are easy to put in, you just need a cheap tool that you buy at the same time as the domes, a hammer, some brute force and a little bit of patience to line them up.

I ended up with two cute little purses.  The back one has been claimed for my rotary cutter and the front one will go in the 'to be gifts one day' stash.

Yay!  One UFO finished, one cute pouch for me, one gift for my gift stash and one happy quilter! (and one gap in my cupboard - does this mean I can start another project?)

I'll leave you with an image of what's happening outside my back door.  Tui feeding on flax flowers - so lovely to watch.

My Oldest Work-In-Progress

I think this is my oldest WIP, but I'm not about to scrummage around in my cupboards to prove it one way or another.  I know it is at least four and a half years old because I have pictures of it laid out on the floor of my old house...so perhaps five or six years?  Ok, I just went and checked the date on those photos.....2003.  Hmmm, needs to get finished.

It's big.  So the design floor was brought into use.  There is actually not much to do.  I have to finish buttonhole stitching (machine) some of those leaves in the border, then attach the border to finish the little bits of bell flower applique in the corners.

And I want to rework the bird's wing.  This central design is from one of Material Obsession's books.  I can't remember which one - it was from the library.  But my husband said it looks like a chicken drumstick, and now that's ALL I see!  Blast him!

So I wonder how old those little yellow bits of post-it note are?  I've had to safety pin them on because they've lost their sticky, but they've marked the corners well, I would have been in a pickle with which corner was which if I didn't have them.  

My goal is to have this top finished by the end of the week.  Then it can move into the waiting-to-be-quilted pile.  Shall we look at what's in that pile?  No, that could be overwhelming....!

And thank you for your thoughts on my last post.  I think I just need more doing and less thinking ;)

Turquoise and Brown

My plan of working through my UFO or WIP pile is moving forward.  Today my hubby took the kids with him and left me gloriously alone.  And this is the result:  (plus three loads of washing, a little bit of weed pulling, house tidying and some dog walking)

It began life as a project done with the guild.  Suz, from All the good ones are taken, organised it.  Participants gathered eight co-ordinated fat quarters, cut them into different sized shapes and then each month put together blocks from those shapes.  Then came the choice of how to put them all together.

I joined my all together without sashing or background - the result is the centre square bordered by the thin turquoise strip.  It wasn't really big enough to do anything with so it's languished for a couple of years (!) until recently when I put the next borders on.  Today it's a finished flimsy, big enough for a single bed topper or a lap quilt.

Work in Progress Round Up

I thought I'd do a little round up of all the projects I'm working on at the moment.  Mainly so that in a year's time I can look back and gasp at how much I achieved is still a work in progress! ;)

My current project that I'm working on almost exclusively.  It's called "I don't feel lonely" and is an entry for the Beneath the Southern Skies exhibition.  Must be finished by the 25th of January.  No pressure or anything!

My 'night shift' quilt.  This is slowly turning into something that I really like.  And the vast majority of it has been done in the quiet bits of night duty.  All the rows except one (the one with little bits of paper pinned to it) are sewn together.  Now I just need to work on setting triangles.

A couple of bassinet quilts for the maternity unit.  A friend made the tops and gave them to me to baste (check), quilt (check) and bind (yet to finish). 

This sucker is just so big, it takes up my whole kitchen floor.

My big blue and white quilt.  No hurrying on this one.  It sat for a couple of years without even being touched.  Then I did a little flurry on it last year.  A few more flurries and the applique on the sides might get done.  Then it will be a marathon of flurries to quilt it - it's huge.

This is my hand-piecing.  I last showed this to you in a completely different layout.  I decided I didn't like it that way, took out all the squares that were part of the design and turned the diamonds into doves (or turtles as most people think they are).  Recently I've decided that I liked it better with the squares but I refuse to unpick all that hand stitching so one day I might cut a whole heap more diamonds and do another of the original layout.....one day.

I need to add another round on both these medallion quilts for a round robin sort of thingee I'm doing with my sister.  No hurry on this one, it's taken us a few years to get to this point!

I have a project that I'm enthused about that is still in the design stages and will use lots of my native bird and plant applique designs I've drawn previously.  I also want to make a quilt using some beautiful Japanese fabrics that my sister in law brought back from Japan with her.

There are other WIPs I have floating around, but writing this down has made me realise that I'm never going to finish those ones so they may as well get donated/chopped up/re-purposed.  It sounds like it's time for a UFO purge!

What have you got hiding away in your cupboards?