Scrap flowers to be quilted

Scrap flowers

Flowers were paper pieced then appliqued onto the machine pieced background.   Not sure when it will get quilted, maybe next year.

Davids I spy quilt

Poor snowmen have been visiting each week but I haven't got a lot of sewing done at all lately and as for the garden, the weather just hasn't been very nice.   But
a UFO completed.  I made the blocks for this quilt a few years ago when I started to make a quilt for our daughter, it took it on a life of its own as the blocks multiplied when Son wanted one too.   A great deal of time was taken finding novelty fabrics for adults.  Once enough blocks were made they were spread over the floor and they each picked out a block in turn.  Daughters was made a few years ago, spare blocks were made into a cat quilt for sons cats but this one, sort of lingered,  anything that could go wrong did, a block upside down., a tuck in the backing, an ink blot on the back when I place it on top of a pen.  But its finished complete with bag so it could be carried as hand luggage by son moving interstate as it didn't quite get finished quick enough to go with the furniture.

White Woman Lost

,Sydney May 2008,  wandering around Paddies Market, we found some Aboriginal style fabric,   most was packaged in skinny ¼, 3 to a pack so I bought 2 and a separate strip.  Brought it home and there it sat waiting for inspiration with no future project in mind other then I liked the difference of it to the rest of my stash.

Even though my stash is not huge being by nature a bit frugal its more then I feel comfortable with,  so 2009 my aim was to resist the purchase of fat quarters as they don't fit my category of scraps and are not big enough to be really useful
                                
September 2009 it  got my attention again, the time had arrived to  decide what I was going to do with it.   Placing them all together I decided I wasn't so keen after all and that damn cream stood out like a sore tooth but it all had to be used.  I got out pen and paper and did some sketching,   decided on large blocks so I could keep the pattern of each, interspaced with smaller pieced blocks.    None of the strips were cut straight  and I had already realised that the very thing I liked about the fabric was the tone of the colours.  I was having difficulty finding fabrics that blended in with it, so I went to the quilt shop in case they had any, but no, plenty there but being on a minimal buy year if it didn't match any better then what I already had,  well maybe a bali pop will do.   

But no, once together they clashed dreadfully,   using what I had I  cut the small squares,  placed them out on the bed and decided I liked them better on point.   I needed more squares,  large and small ones.  I got the last of my strips, some were only narrow, other bits were smaller squares

Well this is patchwork and doing match the pattern at my age is good brain gain training.  They still weren't quite big enough but a glance into my stash cupboard and I spotted some orange,  just the right shade, by trimming a fraction off the largest squares and putting a strip around each block I didn't have to  change the size of the 12  square blocks.  This quilt seems to have a mind of its own,  after another  search of  all my pre cut squares and my scrap bin and fat quarters I managed to find enough for all the 12 sq. blocks,  and most of the outside triangles that putting it on point had materialised.

                              

Next step was the edge.  That orange strip!!.   it was a ½ meter wrapped around a larger piece but once opened up it was different dye lot and it showed.   MY slow brain remembered the quilt it was bought for and the reason  it wasn't used and why its been in there for so many years, now if I had used the larger piece I would of had enough.          So now I had the dilemma of what to put around the edge.  I tried black but it was to heavy.  I liked the brown but the pattern design was just wrong.    going for a good contrast rather then a bad match I tried the green and blue.   Blue won out.   Well the blocks are made up, a project all its own as it was such a dilemma trying to keep the woman's and mens corobaries separate as I'm sure they shouldn't be side by side, then there was that cream.

Now they need to be squared up and placed together but Christmas arrived and other things have taken priority so it could be some time before it sees the light of day again.  with better planning I suppose I could of thought up a better pattern, maybe bought more of the fabric in the first place, some witchery grubs wandering out of the block or maybe some footprints  would finish it off,  maybe when its finished I will  hate it but so far its actually got to be fun.

More of the Calender Quilt

Spring showers
Only block that I have so far managed to follow, well except for the flowers. every Spring garden has to have flowers, can't help feeling it needs something behind the fence or maybe a little blue bird sitting on it.

Problem with having so many interests is that its hard to know what I want to do at any given time. I have more UFOs then projects on the go and more ideas in my head than the both put together, it usually means I draw up the pattern, pick out the fabrics and so it goes on. Then theres the magazines, always something in them to be reproduced, they'd get finished quicker if I actually followed the patterns.

This one all started with an ATC swapped on Chains of Hearts with Wilma, (she knows who she is). It was blue, it coincided with a block in Magic patch 42 magazine. Magic Patch is to blame for much of my planning and mind wandering.  I’ve been getting it since issue 1 and only missed one. Wonderful mag but gives lousy instructions but since I never follow them anyway it doesn't really matter. The block was red and white, the quilt was to be red and white, a search in my fabrics, didn’t turn up enough red and whites to do more then a couple of blocks and this was suppose to have 12, but well you remember Wilma's ATC, I was sure it would look good in blue.

First blocks went well. I think December is a Christmas church with snow, the snow look had to go but since I haven't decided what month its to be the wreath became a window, not sure yet what I will do on the door but inspiration will come eventually.

January had a pair of skis in the front and since we do actually get some snow I built a snowman instead. January will have to become May or June and since I just uploaded the wrong block it could be May before you see it.

I was soon waiting for the next issue, 3 in it but with a note on the page saying pattern was wrong, issue 44 didn't have any in it 45 had one I don’t like and no promised pattern correction so I did my interpretation. February is definitely the right month, the rest are undecided as of now the count is 7, trouble is I have found a picture of the finished quilt on the web so may need some inspiration for more then one block, beach huts are just not Aussie and the note about keeping the scraps of fabric for the finishing of the quilt didn't say long strips, might have to have crazy blocks between each one, got an awful feeling it may become a UFO.



This is the school not very Australian but I like it, type you see in childhood nursery rhymes and story books still needs a bell and a sign, it did have a banner across the front but I replace it with some "iron trim"