Finish Friday: seven little quilts!

It's been a month since I posted. In that time, I have:
- had covid (ugh, do not recommend)
- bound 7 quilts
- started binding an 8th quilt
- prepped 2 more 'Restless' stars for sewing
- made plans to prep another 'Restless' star for sewing

BUT ALL THAT IS GOING ON HOLD (okay, maybe not the eighth quilt binding)

I'm going to attempt to make a quilt - two quilts, in fact - in two weeks.

The quilts are for two cousins – E1 and G2 – the two older cousins. G2 is, at the time I am posting this, about to be married. Making quilts for them (for all the cousins) is a project I've had on the books for YEARS (literal years) and I'm planning to turn it into a video project.

We'll see how it all goes!

The pattern I'm using is this one or something very like it. It's just so nice and simple, but effective, and hopefully bright. Plus, I have plenty of jelly roll strips.

Mind you, it might end up a bit scrappy.

OH CRAP. I also have to get the Show Quilt at least sewn together. It'll be another Scrappy Block Quilt, because that's what I have available right now.

Penny Patch Rooftop Gardens - FINISHED!

It's been a while, and my attempt at Midweek Modsquad sadly died after a couple of weeks. There's been too much and not enough going on for me.

I have a new job with a client in Canberra. I'm working from home, it's...not too bad right now. But I still haven't really felt the push to do much sewing. Creativity has felt beyond me, what I could manage was mostly tasks.

However, I have finally managed to finish what originally began as the "c4quilts" - that is, a set of four quilts that were going to be for a quartet of cousins. The fabrics would be from the same line, the theme would be different for each, and the result would be something that was individual to each cousin, while still being connected.

It didn't work. Or, more correctly, I didn't end up liking it for the cousins in question. But I'd started cutting it all up and...well, I figured I'd just continue on.

They're more busy than I like: too much movement in the fabric, too much movement in the blocks.

I think this pattern does best when used with very small prints, 'reads as solids', and plain old solids/neutrals. Large, bright patterns don't really work very well. I should have left the bigger prints for the large squares.

Well, we live and learn.

However, I'm quite happy with the results, even if they're not quite what I envisioned. These will just be quilted with a stipple and...honestly, I'll probably just give them away to any friends who want them.

Final note: We've lived at this house for five years and it only just occurred to me to use the long stretch of the driveway fence as a quilt hanger!

Isolation Finishes and Flimsies by the dozen! [FINISHES]

For the first quarter of the year, I've done almost nothing so far as quilting goes. I tried to make dresses, failed rather significantly, and then went on holiday.

When I came back, my focus was on my garden rather than on sewing things. My sewing group managed one in-person meeting before COVID-19 hit Australia and we went into 'social distancing' mode. But I wasn't doing much; I drew up a plan for the Sydney Quilt Show entry, and then it got delayed because of the coronavirus.

And then I started cleaning up my quilting room and all the bags sitting around full of stuff.

I started with some charm squares that have been sitting around forever. I bought them back in 2009 when I first began quilting and before I learned there were modern colours and styles and patterns.

The original plan was to cut each charm square into hexagons and then sew them together prettily. Let's just say it never happened, and as the years went on, my desire to work with this fabric faded. So when I dug it out, I was quite ready to be done with it. I just picked whatever I had and sewed it into rows. Luckily, I'd sorted more or less by colour, so the shading works okay.

Next up were silk squares that I got from a sample book that I found in my grandmother's house, stocked away after my grandfather died. My granmda died in 2011. My grandfather died in 1995. I found the squares and always planned to make something. Exactly what? I didn't know. I still don't. But I sewed them together anyway, so they're a single piece, instead of bits lying around.

Actually, I think I'd like to make a dress out of those silk samples. Or a top. It would look weird and patchy, and it would need to be lined, but...it would be kind of interesting, I think!

There's been a lot of 'oh what the heck, let's just do this' in my sewing (in case you hadn't guessed from the previous two). This one was based off a design I saw which just seemed really simple, worked well with directional prints, but could be done 'interesting'. And I had all these colourful charm squares sitting around doing nothing...

I signed up for a small craft swap among the Sydney Spoolettes where we exchange a sewn gift - you had your choice of three to make, and they matched requests with makes, so if you wanted to make, say, the potholder, then you could make the potholder for someone who wanted the potholder.

I signed up to make and receive the Apertio pouch and just in case it didn't go right, I did a test run for a friend's 40th Birthday:

This is the pouch for sending out. I have to fill it with stuff and then send it. It's not going too far, just outside of the Sydney area.

It's a pretty neat and easy pouch to make; although I can't say I'm fond of how they decided to do the sewing the lining and outside together.

Then there were blocks I had leftover from other quilts I'd finished - you know, the ones that are made in excess, or the wrong style or not quite right? And they were just lying around, waiting to be sewn together. I have quite a lot of those.

This one is of leftovers from a quilt I made on commission for a friend to give to her daughter:

This one is leftover from the blocks and backings for 'Break Free or Build Upon?'

Speaking of which, I dug 'Break Free And Build Upon' and was thinking about cutting it in two, but I've entered it into the Sydney Quilt Show as a full size quilt, and my sister thinks it will go well on the sofa when it's done. So.

And now that I've sorted through a lot of stuff that was just left in bags, I'm having to look at my UFOs. I feel like I should make a list, but I'm scared that if I do, I'll never start becuase it'll just be too daunting. Then again, if I could do one block a day, that would be a good start. Just one block...

--

It's not strictly the 2020 finish-along because I don't think I signed up for either Q1 or Q2 - too much happening at the time. But I'm getting the tops done. Of course, once I get the tops done, the matter of getting the backings done and the whole thing quilted rears its ugly head...

Ah well. We sew on.

The Parisville Bowl Bag!

You know when a really valuable fabric comes into your hands and you're stuck wondering what to do with it?


Well, that was my problem with the length of Tula Pink's Parisville Cameo that I bought in the last year. Yes, it was ridiculously expensive. Yes, I bought it anyway, because I liked the pattern. The colour wasn't quite right, though. A little too clashy for me to match with anything I had. So when one of those instagram quilty pay-it-forward kind of things turned up in late 2016, I asked if anyone was willing to swap me another colourway of the Parisville Cameo.

Enter myfabricobsession on Instagram, who was willing to swap her Cameo in Mist for mine in Pomegranate. ALL GOOD. And she was even willing to send me a little more than I had! (THANK YOU!)

And then I stashed it. (Because that's what you do with a fabric that you really like but which you're not entirely sure you have a plan to use just yet.)

I finally decided what to do with it - make a Fireside Bowl Bag (from the book 'Big City Bags' by Sara Lawson of Sew Sweetness) with the contrast of some beautiful royal blue leather. And as it turned out, she's running a bag making competition during April! What luck!

It took a while to complete - about two weeks on and off - but it's finally done!


There were complications - mostly in the form of cutting angst (measuring twice, cutting once), the grim terror of sewing expensive leather that you really don't want to mess up, adding external and internal pockets (because I don't need a billion pockets, but I do like a few inside and out), and the terror of pattern adjustments required when you cut a piece of 'gusset' a little too short and have to 'make up' the length...or else cut down the outer pattern.


I also added feet, so it wouldn't have to sit on the ground. Sadly, cafes in Sydney are not yet quite so sensible as to have a hook under the table for women to hang their handbags off so they don't have to sit on the floor, or else hang off the back of the chair and be in the way of the waiters.


I like at least one external pocket, suitable for stashing a phone, or a transport pass, so I don't have to fish around inside my bag for it. Unfortunately, the Fireside Bowl Bag pattern doesn't have any pockets, internal or external. So I just designed a external pocket and a couple of internal ones to suit my needs.

The external pocket doesn't work quite as perfectly as I hoped - the strap pulls the pocket open rather more than I like. But it's a pocket and I figure more people won't notice.


For the lining of the bag I used Bats In The Belfry and Tudor Windows from the Elizabeth collection since I started with just Bats and then realised I didn't have enough for all the lining and the pockets.

I made one zipper pocket and one internal slip pocket, utilising the pocket-making skills I learned while making the Shiloh Mermaids Bag. The 'slip pocket' is supposed to be large enough for my purse and my phone to sit there, but it will probably end up being my purse and my glasses case.


Yes, I know it says "This Quilt Was Made By Sel C" but I have dozens of these labels and a need to use them!

The strap gave me a great deal of trouble, because the bag instructions were for a cloth strap, not leather. And I discovered that doubling, then quadrupling the leather that you're sewing through is a sure-fire way to give even your industrial strength Juki TL-99P a headache! So instead I made the strap half-leather and half-fabric. And I figured I should use the selvage while I'm at it... I tend to throw the selvages out half the time - or sell them.


All in all, I'm actually pretty happy with the form on this bag - usually I find myself a little dissatisfied with the way everything fits together, but this one has a good shape and a good form. For the record, I used a very stiff, felt-like bag-making material which is pretty spectacular at holding its shape - but I don't know the name of it! I don't even remember where I bought it!

The last Fireside Bowl Bag I made was with Cotton+Steel and it was a lot more squishy than this one - and I like a solid, firm, keeping-it-shape bag.


As bags go, this one is sharp, stylish, and definitely a keeper!

COMPLETED TOP: Friendship Supernova

Q1 link-up

My Q1 List Of Goals
I started this quilt a couple of years ago - a friendship block swap of Supernova blocks back in 2014, where the colours were blue, green, and yellow. My partner was Sandra from the USA and it took us a little longer for both of us to get the blocks sent out than most.



And after receiving all the blocks...I just sat on them. For, oh, ages. Until one day I was digging through my quilting supplies, found the bag of blocks and went, "oh, I really need to finish that...how about I make it BIGGER!"




So I found myself making an extra four blocks - five, actually, since one of the blocks sent by Sandra had since gone missing. And that took, oh, another couple of years...



Anyway, it's finally finished!



Can you tell which blocks are mine (11) and which blocks are Sandra's (5)?

I'll hunt up a backing for this one and send it along to my quilter. It might suit for my half-brother's wedding in HK later this year...

COMPLETED TOP: Meadow Quilt

Q1 link-up

My Q1 List Of Goals
So, the Meadow Quilt by Lizzy House...

As anyone who knows my quilting can tell you, I'm not very good at following instructions.

Sure, it says to do 12 blocks of 3x4 but I want a quilt that's bigger, so I'm going to make it 4x4.

Yes, the instructions for the quilt indicate that there are twelve quilt blocks but I'm tired of making them, so I'm just going to make eight of the blocks, split them in two, and then do nine-patches for matching quilts.

Of course I can make an open bag out of a closed bag pattern! Don't be silly; it'll be easy!

The Meadow Quilt, designed and taught by Lizzy House, is a 4x5 arrangement of 12.5" 'flower' blocks with coloured-in sections between the flower petals. She teaches it as a class, and I attended the one in Sydney back in 2015...and then left the pattern for forever. In December 2016, I finally decided to get it done (see the hashtag #SelWIPsItGood) and did the cutting and sewing in January, before completing the sewing-together at the first sew-in for the Sydney Mod Squad quilting group.


There were issues, of course. The block itself as given by Lizzy involves curves and bias cutting, and then, on top of all that, the pattern doesn't precisely fit. Lizzy's advice was to ease-ease-ease, then starch the living heck out of it.


Which I did, but every block I made had a wobble to it. It was a PITA.


In the end, I went by trying to keep the blocks flat, rather than trying to keep the seams at a quarter-inch. Which is why the circle in the centre is weirdly positioned, and the seam practically runs over it.

And that was all the blocks! It was so frustrating!

In my despair, I cried out to the quilters on Instagram, and they heard my cry and delivered me to Renee at Quilts of a Feather. Renee had created a fix it tutorial for how to make the blocks lay flat, and reading it was very helpful! Of course, you needed to read the fix before you'do done the cutting out, which was too late for me...

In the end, I squidged the edges, but the fix would be helpful for friends who have the quilt pattern and haven't yet completed one (just like me, only even more delayed).

Then there was the small matter of the layout - as noted, the usual layout is a 4x5 rectangle. Which looks lovely but is kind of...boring.

I...modified it a little:

At first, I was going to make the 'colour blocks' between the flower petals different colours, but then I decided that I liked the colour fill, so I rearranged:


There were issues sewing it all together, of course:

But I had a plan! (In my quilting bullet journal; I'm not a devotee, but it is pretty convenient in many ways.)


One thing that Lizzy said was that if you make all the 'eyes' (the centre piece of the block) then you'll make the quilt, because those eyes are pretty useless for anything else...and they're watching you. Which, yes, is a little creepy, but accurate.


Even once I had all the blocks, there was some residual anguish about putting it all together. This is customary and should always be ignored. My first instincts are usually right when it comes to quilt design - or, at least, everyone is too polite to say my design sense sucks to my face - but the second-guessing takes a toll:

And yes, I unpicked a block to get the Chinese characters the right way around. It wasn't too terrible, just a bit of a pain. However, a quilter's gotta do what a quilter's gotta do...

The result is pretty good, though - I like it as much as I thought it would. And although I worried that the three-quarter fills might look a bit out of place, most people seem to like the variation in design, too.

I think this will go as a wedding present to a couple who are getting married this year. I'll have to get it quilted before then, though - luckily, I have quite a bit of time on my hands in the coming months thanks to a work redundancy...

Finish Friday: "Black Widow Wee Wander"

Okay, so this quilt name makes no sense when looking at it from the finished front:


But it's all in the hourglass blocks, which I laid out and sewed together wrong when I first put this together:


I don't remember much of the other blocks, but I remember the hourglass blocks! Ugh! And, Marvel Cinematic geek that I am, I instantly associate the hourglass blocks with the character of Black Widow, a.k.a Natasha Romanoff, played by ScarJo.


And the back has the Wee Wander night fabric on it, which is possibly the cutest fabric in the history of cute.


Hence the name Black Widow Wee Wander. (Yes, this is how my mind works. No, it's not Earth logic. Shush. It's my brain and I have to live with it.)

The quilting is straight line and very light. I probably should have done it more detailed, but my machine was acting up and I didn't want to risk screwing the whole thing up.

It's a baby quilt comission for a lady I know from hockey, who asked me to do a commission. I don't usually do commissions because, well, they're pricey to make and not worth my time. I wouldn't do them for a living, for instance (but I sincerely admire those who do), but I'm happy to do quilt commissions for friends.

Black Widow Wee Wander
pieced, quilted, and bound on domestic machine (Brother NS-50)
size: 60" x 60"


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I'm going to try to document my finishes this year, instead of just squirrelling them off somewhere into the dark black ether of Completion.

Quilt-top Roll-call of 2011 - the story so far

Tops completed in 2011:
1. Penny Batik


2. Modern Rail Fence


3. Central Park Boxes


4. Supernova


5. Sanctuary Kaleidoscope


6. Santorini Sun And Sea


7. The Colour Of Magic


8. Gothic Summer Sampler


9. Go Back To The Jungle, Turn The World Around

(a.k.a. "the fabric that went to the quilter's a backing and came back a quilt")

Quilt tops on the schedule to be done by the end of the year:
- UberQuilt Blogfest: This is crazy fun and really easy. Lots of HSTs and log cabins, and while the palette is a little too purple/pink for my tastes, I think it's going to work pretty nicely.

- Mum's Impstar: I've finally got enough fabric, now I must start cutting out blocks and sewing them all together. Goal is to get this done, quilted and bound in time for Christmas.

- Harvest HSTs: I don't much like this quilt, but it needs doing. They have to be squared off and sewn together at some point, and it's the piecing that's going to be the painstaking part, I suspect. And the strip of 'inexact seams'.

- Dead Simple QAL: So I decided (with a little help) that the Fallen Hues colour palette was best for the DS QAL. I've pulled out every fabric in those shades that I have and I'm going to start cutting strips next week. I'm going to strip-piece sections of this one some in order to make it a faster project. We'll see how it looks when it comes out in the wash...

So, I could perhaps do 13 full-size quilts in 2011? If I join the Christmas QAL and complete it by Christmas...that'll be 14 quilt tops in 2011...

Of course, there's the small hump of actually getting them done...