What's on Your Design Wall Wednesday

I'm trying to modify my working habits.  Usually I would flit from project to project.  If I get a bit stuck or frustrated, I'd put down whatever it was I was working on and start or work on something else.  I don't have the room to keep lots of projects spread out here and I know that if I put them away, a lot of them wouldn't surface again!

So I'm trying to stick one thing through until the bitter end.  With a bit of hand work when I'm out and about and a fairly simple piecing project for quiet times at work, I think I might be able to make it work.

The project I'm currently working on is one I started in my class with Sue Benner.  I made the background panel in class and then played around with different ways of constructing the shags/cormorants.  I was trying for a sketchy or loose look and the first two weren't right.  The last one was, but was too big for the panel.

Once home, I constructed more background panels to enlarge the quilt to fit the first bird.  I constructed two more birds, loosely working from photos I had taken out at Urupukapuka Island.

I played around with balancing the layout of the birds.  I'm trying to convey how I feel when I watch these birds - peaceful and calm and enjoying of the beauty of the scene.  So I want a balanced, tranquil feel to the quilt.  This means getting the layout right so nothing feels 'odd' or 'unsettled'.

Next I worked on the poles that the shags are standing on.  The mix of fabrics I used was too contrasting and too red to start with, so I used a bit of coloured pencil and a bit textile paint to tone the colours down and blend them together more.  These little changes can make a big difference.

More playing around with the layout of the birds.  Now that I have it up on a design wall I can use white cropping strips to see how it will looks once trimmed.  And that changes how the birds sit in the space.

Lastly, the reflections of the poles in the water.  The poles need to be placed in space with relation to their surroundings or they just look like they are 'plonked' there.  A few ripply reflections is giving them a relation to the water.

I think it's slowly coming together.  And I'm enjoying just keeping with one project and seeing it through the little sticking points.

So what's on your design wall?

Gentlewomen, start your engines!

February is when my year really gets going.  Our summer break seems to have gone on and on this year, but it's finally drawing to a close and the kids start back at school tomorrow.  I do get some quilting work done when they are around, but my concentration is constantly interrupted and it's just not the same as having unbroken hours to absorb myself in my work.

Summer in the Bay of Islands.

It seemed like 2014 was a year of major upheaval.  I'm hoping 2015 will be slower, with less excitement.  I've told my husband - no buying boats, no moving house, no expanding the business.

I didn't think I was going to have a word for this year, but one seems to have found me anyway and it's been floating round in my head unbidden....consolidate.

According to oxforddictionaries.com, consolidate is a verb that means to make something physically stronger or more solid; strengthen one's position or power; or combine a number of things into a single more effective or coherent whole.

And I think it suits what I want for this year.

I want to settle into this boat life and make it work for us.  I want to strengthen my quilt making and further develop my own style and way of working.  I want to gather my far-flung quilting supplies and fabrics and make an effective working space here on MV Cerego.  I just want to settle in and stabilise ourselves in all respects before we stretch our wings any further.  

So no goals or resolutions for me.  Just a word to remember (before I get excited and hare brained about anything new and shiny).

With this is mind, I've been working on organising my sewing corner in the boat.

I've had some fabric here and some at my Mother in Law's and the fabric that I did have here has been spread around in several drawers and cupboards, interspersed with batting and notions and everything else a quilter needs. (There is another cupboard identical to the one in the picture on the opposite wall, plus a small set of three drawers.)  I consolidated (sorry, couldn't resist!) the fabrics into the plastic containers that slide nicely under my Sew-Ezi table and now have all my sewing notions, sketchbooks, threads, iron, UFO's etc sorted and in order in the cupboards and drawers.  I've put my batting down below in a big plastic tub and eventually I'll get more of those shallow plastic tubs and move the rest of my fabric here to the boat too.  They will go down below in the kid's playroom on wide storage shelves.

I cut and iron and draw and work at the dining table.  The cutting mat and rulers slide nicely under the couch.  I have a small heat resistant pad for ironing that slides away behind the set of drawers, but need to make a bigger, sturdier one at some stage.

The major flaw in the plan is a design wall.  I've got a small portable board (you can see it in the photo above, beside the sewing machine table) but it's too small really.  I've been using the floor, but that's a pain when I want to slide out my fabric containers and sit at my machine.  And the cat likes to sit on my work and donate fur or rearrange my layouts.

That's Wild Puss helping me cut batting for the design wall.

So I've taken down my Swallow quilt and tacked up a length of cotton batting instead.  That wall slopes gently inwards so I had to tack it at the bottom too or it floated out and swung around.  I usually have polystyrene behind my batting so I can pin straight in, but this works for now, and is a huge improvement on the floor.

Step one in consolidation, done.

PS - Note to my Stepmother:  That is the wonderful sewing machine cover you made for me, it's just inside out!  I'll explain why another time xxx

What's on my design wall?

Chocolate fish if you can guess what birds these are.  My husband couldn't pick them straight away so now I'm a little worried that they are not obvious.  And they are a type of bird that I'm hoping is easy to recognise, so help me out and tell me if the clueless one is me or him!  (Maybe I just spend more time staring at the sky than him?)

Tomorrow is our second Saturday Stitch and Chat.  Our quilting club is holding one a month to try and encourage new members and people who can't make our weekday meetings.  Last month we had some total newbies and it was exciting to see them interested and keen.  So I'm off to my studio now to try and figure out what I'm going to work on and what I'm going to bring to show any potential quilt addicts.

Frump

I woke up this morning in a frump - a frowny grump.  I'm tired, the kids are home from school again with snotty noses and headaches and are stretching my patience, 'someone' (no one is owning up) squashed the vacuum cleaner plug so I can't clean the floors and they are crunchy with dirt, I've a to-do list as long as my arm and all of it tedious stuff, four calves to feed twice a day, it's rained every day for about three weeks solid...........see?  I could keep whining on and on but nobody likes a whiner.

So I gave my own butt a kick and decided to be consciously grateful for things today.

The sun is actually shining and looks promising for the whole day.  It hasn't done this for such a long time, it's so lovely.

Those calves that I have to feed twice a day are cute and healthy and that's a big thing.  I know how quickly bottle fed babies can get sick.

My five year old birthday girl wanted a simple heart birthday cake, not a mermaid castle masterpiece, and just an afternoon tea with her cousins - grateful!!  Gotta love the photo bomb by her cousin.

The first bulb is up in my orchard.  I planted heaps but thought the chickens might have scratched them all up so I'm very happy to see this early cheer.  And I can see an iris budding up too.

I've got my design wall up and functioning.  I might put another sheet of flannel covered polystyrene under this one but for now my long quilts can just hang.  So grateful to have a studio space to myself and room to have a big design wall.

Now hopefully I can keep my grateful mood right through the day, especially dinner time!  I'm off to enjoy the sun and get a little vitamin D in my system.

Old Maid's Puzzle

A while ago I showed you this pile of fabrics and told you that I was making a simple pieced quilt - suitable for fairly mindless quilting when I'm on night duty and have nothing to do.  So I've been nutting away at it slowly but surely and the other day I was at the stage of laying out all my finished blocks.

These will be eight inches finished.  Spot the Amish mistake block - I'll be unpicking that one, there are enough mistakes in it without a glaring one like that.

I'm really loving the colours and effect, but I've decided it's not big enough.  I've cut out and begun to piece another 15 or so blocks.  That will make it six blocks by six blocks.  With borders, that should be big enough to spread over my king-sized bed.

I'm making more dark with dark blocks and light with light blocks and that should help the colourwash-ish effect when I lay them out again.

One thing I do lack in my corner of the lounge where I sew is a large design wall.  But I find laying it on the floor is ok, especially when I take photos and look at them on the computer screen, things I want to change around become quite obvious.  I guess it's the same as taking ten steps backwards.

How do you lay out your quilts?  What do you use for a design wall if you are lucky enough to have one?