WIP Wednesday: the one with organisation (sort of)

Okay, I need to finish off gifting quilts to my bible study group of the last five years. I've been intending to gift them a quilt for the last couple of years running, but now the group is splitting up (just switching things around and also different timings), so NOW IS THE TIME.

I feel like I need more quilt tops and designs to offer them. *sigh*

Also, I have collections that need using: Joel Dewberry, Kate Spain, Tula Pink, the Chinese silk I bought back in 2010... They're great collections, but they should be used together! 

QUILTING

I have five quilts to head off to the quilter, although she may only be able to do 3 of them. 2 are ones that I should be doing myself, but actually getting them done is the tricky part; I don't know if I have the time/energy to quilt them myself! Although it would also be good practice, right?

Quilter has time from next Thursday, which is later than I liked, but the response would be to give her a bucketload of quilts and then leave them in her care. I can do that, if I can get things together this weekend.

Break Free Or Build Upon - quilts 1&2 are the quilts that I have 

BINDING:

Still at least four to quilt. I should borrow L's tapemaker, I have that much tape to make... Although really the hardest part is selecting the binding. 

BORDERING:

Okay, I decided I would turn the French General 'backings' into tops. One rim-border in sharp scarlet, and then maybe a small 'extra' border in cream and pattern. So those need to be done. 

PIECING: 

As I said, I need more patterns - nice large, easy ones. I think doing more with the Disappearing 9-patch might be an idea, and can be done in many different styles and types and kinds. What about "A Year Of Disappearing 9-Patches" for a theme?

Curtains for the front windows.

Layer Cake Lollies pattern: here

Star Chain Quilt: here

Pop Shortcut Quilt:here

BACKING:

Tula Pink 'La Luna' quilt has been one of my Halloween hangs for a while - just put it up in the window, let everyone look at it. Need to actually back it and get it off to the quilter, so there's that. I think one of the postage stamp quilts also has to go.

THOUGHTS:

I need more batting. Must work out where's a good place to get it from - would much rather a LQS than a big organisation. I don't even know where the LQS are anymore after COVID, although there must be some still in existence...

And finally, some patterns that I spotted while travelling that would probably make great quilt tops!

You've Got Mail! (*bing*)

Our Book Depository, which art in the UK,
Hallowed be thy name,
Thy shipping free o'er land or sea,
In Australia as it is in England.
Give us today our daily mail,
And judge not our purchases,
As we judge you not for charging our card.
And lead us not into the path of exorbitant postage,
But deliver us free packages.
For the ISBN, the barcode, and the pricetag are yours,
Now and forever,
Amen.



Don't you love it when you get mail?

And finally finally finally I can start on my March block for the Modern Books And Blocks Bee which has been stalled for a lack of instruction manual (argh grargh yarg).

Yes, I got the Farmer's Wife Sampler book. I might use it as a doorstop. [KIDDING] We shall see what can be done with it. Once I wrangle those damn one-pattern-piece-per-page pages into some modicum of environmental friendliness.

But I'd like to do something with it like this dear jane quilt (2nd quilt down here if you want to look at the collection of quilts documented in the blogpost)

And the 50 Paper Pieced Stars.

*sigh* So many projects, so little time...

I bought two fiction books at the same time as these - Angels of Darkness (compendium, Nalini Singh, Ilona Andrews, and Meljean Brooks), and Heart of Steel (Meljean Brooks).

Book Depository is great for purchasing books these days. Free shipping! There's no quilt shop in the world will offer you that. Unless you know the proprieter and she's coming by for dinner on Saturday. Different kettle of chips.

Amazon may be wonderful if you're in the US, but in Australia I end up paying more for Amazon's shipping than I do for the books themselves. There's something intrinsically wrong with that.

Strangely, all got delivered in separate packages instead of one big one.

Quilting Inspiration

Travelling through China has been wonderful, and I've got pics and a travelogue up on my 'personal' journal. But I can never quite turn the creative switch 'off', even when travelling! As a result, while travelling through China, I spotted a few inspirational things along the way.

Like this painting:


It's an actual painting, but wouldn't it make a wonderfully eye-catching bargello/postage stamp quilt? Complicated to put together, but so effective!

And this tile pattern near the place where we were staying would make a fantastic quilt block:


I think it would be roughly based on the kaleidoscope block - the octagonal one with the four corners. Tricksy with the curves, perhaps, but the result would be utterly stunning!

And sometimes it just takes things like hotel cushions to catch the eye:


To say nothing of those hotel gift shops full of nifty little ideas that are so nice to give to people:



Then there was the quiltspotting! Not that one sees too many patchworked/pieced quilts in China, but we were in a silk market looking through the shops when I spotted these quilts in one of the stalls:


With the kind of quilting detail that is more usually found in exhibition quilts:


I have no idea if it was handmade or machine made, or whether it's cotton or anything like that. I just passed the shop, stopped by, and took some pics! But the detail is lovely, whether it was programmed or someone did the painstaking machine quilting.

And, of course, one can't talk about China and fabric without mentioning the silk:

The silk markets I mentioned had three stories of fabric and clothier shops - mostly silk and wool suiting, some shirting cotton, a few dressy-materials. I looked high and low for something that might approximate quilting cotton, but they didn't seem to have anything - woe! Still, the vendors would not only sell you the fabric, but also make you gowns, dresses, suits, coats - whatever suited your tastes.

I was looking for silk. To whit, enough silk to make a decent-sized quilt.

There was so much colour and so many patterns! The range in the market was much much bigger than anywhere else I'd seen, and it was all beautiful quality and vivid colour. Enough to send even the most restrained fabric buyer into a tailspin!

So I went twice. Once to get a look at what the options were, before turning around and coming out and clearing my head so I could work out what I'd actually need and not go crazy on the spending. :)

I did the calculations and ended up with about 16m, or ~17.5 yards of silk in two colourways:

I'm calling this one "Violet Nights":


And this one "Dragon's Blood":


Don't you love the colours? I swear I must have yanked out just about every bolt in the shop to get combinations that worked - but the finished result is going to look SO AWESOME.

The patterns are a mixture: there are feathers and flowers and animals - dragons, cranes, and what look like some more tribal birds, Chinese characters, medallions and scrolling... All beautiful, and I can't wait to get into it!

Violet Nights with the black (which is going to be the binding):


Dragon's Blood with the black:


And both sets of fabric!


Does anyone know if you should use silk thread to patch together silk quilts? Like the "cotton thread for cotton quilts" rule? I notice there's a company called YLIC that makes silk thread for quilting - has anyone used their products before?

Tomorrow, the parentals and I fly back to Sydney from our present locale in HK. We've been staying with the stepdad's older sister, and it's not a bad location - just a little out of town. And I've been sick for the last week (pretty much since we left China) which hasn't been fun at all. I'll be so glad when we're back in Australia, and I can get antibiotic for this baby!

And, of course, there'll be the sewing to get back to! I'm looking to land a job in the coming weeks, so I'm going to have to get a move on my finished quilt tops for 2012...

But more about that in the WIP Wednesday post tomorrow! :)

In the meantime: Happy Lunar New Year! KUNG HEI FAAT CHOI! Bring on 2012 - Year of the Dragon!

Sydney Quilt and Craft Fair 2011

Some gorgeous quilts at the Sydney Quilt And Craft Show 2011!

I took some photos of my favourites - where the tag is clear, I've got the quilt name and who made it, but sometimes the photo was a bit blurry and the tag wasn't easily seen. I've marked these 'unknown' for the moment, but they were made by someone and if you happen to know, please tell me.

Being me, I went for colour and cut over quilting and stitching. However, the quilting and stitching on all these were amazing and really added to the overall look of the quilt.

Unknown

The pastels aren't my thing, but the pattern is simple yet very effective - stars on point. (Ohio stars?)

Waste Not Want Not - Jacky Barton

I love the colours in this one - so vibrant and scrappy! Again, a very simple block but a very stunning look!

Luminous Diamonds - Lorna Haigh

HSTs! The black and white 'background' is wonderfully contrasted with the coloured squares.

5. Old Delhi Snake Charmer by Unknown

This deserved a picture simply because the detail made my jaw drop. I'm not an 'art quilter' but I definitely can appreciate the work that's gone into something like this!

Unknown

As I noted before, I'm usually a colour-and-block kind of quilter. But the quilting on this baby was uh-may-zing! Actually, the quilting on all the quilts in the show were pristine - some very complex and complicated patterns. One had the teeniest tiniest stitches you ever saw...and I don't think they were machine stitched!

7. Loga-Rhythms - Jennifer Ramsey

The programmer/analyst in me is wondering if there's a secondary meaning in the pattern on this quilt - maybe a shorthand mathematical formulae or something? I love anything artsy that has a 'hidden' secondary message in the design.

Summer Sea(?) by Unknown

This was probably the 'simplest' quilt in the show - but very effective. In the centre of each square was quilted a perfect circle. Beautiful! I gotta try this one myself.

Unknown

I can't quilt curves to save my life. but I love this design. Love Love Love Love. It's the sunburst pattern and the reds and blues and yellow-oranges all together that get me. Someday...

9. Kyoto - Jackie Barton

Another very simple but very dramatic quilt. I have a bunch of fabrics from the Robert Kaufman Imperial Collection (one of them) and they're due to be made into a quilt for my mum...I was thinking a disappearing nine-patch, but this could work just as well...

11. What Can You See - Natasha Rutter(?)

Once again, so simple and yet so very effective!

16. Soul Searching - Kathy Doughty and Katie Cox

Jelly rolls in black-and-white, and in colours. Another colour contrast one. And the quilting of this was all these lovely swirls which you can just see in the close-up pic.

15. Pinwheel Scrapyard - Judith Thompson(?)

I gotta try this.

29. Convenient Butterfly at the cabin - Jane Griffiths(?)

It's a postage-stamp quilt of sorts! Each block is strip-pieced, nine-square. Looks really good and I love the gradated shading. Another one to try with my voluminous stock of jelly rolls...

23. Behind the Hedge - Marina Dharmides (?)

This quilt got me because it was still made up of squares - but the flowers were designed around and in and through the squares. Art-quilting within blocks...it's just amazing. And I loved the overall floral pattern.

As for me, I came out of the quilt show with more stash. More pics on that later, perhaps?