WIP Wednesday: the one with sprinting

It's been a month of finishes - or it will be, once I actually quilt and bind my two show quilts. Rush rush, time's getting on!

WIP

Swarm

At the Sydney MQG sew-in:



Complete! (With butt-stamp of approval by cat.)



A glimpse of the 'feature' block:



And choosing backings:





I think I'll go with the bees and the butterflies and the flowers to separate them...

The Promises Of Spring

a.k.a. "The Snowflake Block quilt"

Y-seams are exhausting things; especially when you've cut the corners on your blocks!



But the overall effect is pretty stunning:





Although I'm not looking forward to filling all that whitespace - especially since I tore a muscle in my left calf at hockey on Sunday and am now limping through life - and will be limping for at least the next month... Free-motion quilting on a longarm is usually a breeze...this time, it's probably going to be a chore...

millefiori madness

Very little progress on this and no photos...

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Do you ever get depressed by how productive other bloggers are? Those women who have photo after photo after photo of quilting and crafty things in a neverending stream? I'm feeling a little flat about my own output lately.

So how are your WIPs going? Linked up to one of the linky posts of the week?

WIP Wednesday: the one with Tula scraps

Not much to report. Kind of did myself in with all the sewing the other weekend; this week has been The Writing Week instead.

WIPs

Tula Pink MiniQuilts

Yeah, I kept going with the scraps after my #aussietulapinkswap was done.



The quilting is very experimental, although it looks great from a distance. I'm just...I feel bad about giving it away as a gift to a quilty person who I feel will be all "ugh, they're giving me this - but it's so bad!"



I've been the recip of an "ugh, this was badly made" gift before; it's not fun, and so I try not to be That Person.



I have another set of half-square-ish triangles blocks which I'm going to use to make another one.


Swarm By Sel

Or: why I will never win a show.

My seams are entirely too flexible.





Another six rows put together. And I'm running out of small triangle blocks. Which means a whole new set of making is going to be necessary.

It's going to get messy...

Other things

1. Thinking of buying a Bernina 750 QE - assuming I can get one at Kim Bradley Creations' VIP Sale tonight. Not sure I'll make it in time to snag a machine, though. I also need more of the C+S neutral basics to finish Swarm.

2. Going to need to do a lot of sewing this weekend. I was hoping to have Swarm done by Quiltmarket, just to have something to show off amidst the stream of fabric envy posts.

3. I really don't like the new Flickr update - in order to share a picture now, I have to select the 'share' button, select the size, select the code, and 'cut' it for pasting to, say, a blog post. That's four discrete actions, as comapred to the two it used to be. The size used to be automatic to the last setting, and the code was already selected.

Why the extra steps? Unless they plan to put advertising into the whitespace, like they do everything else. I'm a computer programmer, I know about user experience - and this is BAD user experience.

Linking up to WIP Wednesday...

Sydney Quilt Show

Haven't gotten my acceptance letter yet.

Maybe I didn't get in this year?

WIP Wednesday: the one with Tula Pink

Oh it's been such a fortnight! Life happened last week, and I didn't get around to doing a WIP Wednesday post.

Done

#aussietulapinkswap

I only realised this was due when I started seeing Instgrams about people posting theirs! So it was a rush job, over the weekend:


Full post HERE!

WIPs

Swarm

Slowly moving - I'm a bit tired out by that Tula swap!


Birthday Swaps

Yeah, a mini quilt. Of more Tula. This time it's scraps and a bit of improv.


To Do This Week

1. Swarm
2. Birthday Swaps (before I get behind again!)

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Linking up to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced!

The Aussie Tula Pink Swap

My first problem when creating a quilt is fixing on a single idea. I have no shortage of creative ideas in any sphere; my problem is less one of creativity and one of focused creativity.

So, for instance, I had a dozen ideas of what to do for this mini-quilt, and about all I'd managed was pulling out my box of Tula.


Yeah, not very helpful, really.

Then, while digging through my pattern books and templates, I found the Marti Michell Hexagon Ruler - and spotted a pattern on the paper instructions that I rather liked. As it turned out, it's called Ring Cycles, but I pretty much just worked it out off the pattern on the label. (I'm really awful at following patterns, but great at working things out myself.)

Except the fabrics I started with didn't work together:


The raccoons from Acacia (and the associated fabrics) were just too strong for the Salt Water octopus and the Fox Field prints. So I took them out (and will make a mini up for a friend in the US.

Change up the Acacia fabrics for some Fox Field, and BAZINGA!


Much better!

And then there was the quilting:


I think I've become a convert to the school of Angela Walter's "quilt it until it's good and dead"...


As in, really really dead.


Really really really dead.


Bound and finished - and Smokey gave it the buttstamp of approval! (Admittedly, that is not difficult in this household.)


It needed some blocking, so I started off steam-blocking it, and then just ended up wetting it and laying it out flat.


I'm quite happy with it, and if the recipient doesn't like it...I'll be more than happy to take it back off her and make another one!