Wednesday, August 25, 2021

WIP Wednesday: kitchen curtains

Progress on the Power of Three Kitchen Curtains!

Side #1 is pieced, now I just have to work out the spacing between the rows to have the fall the full length of the window.

Kitchen curtains

I'll put a light backing on the curtain - probably a cotton voile or something equally light - partly to add opacity to the blind, partly so it's not just the raw piecing on the backside. Or maybe I should just make a second

Kitchen curtains

Probably going to take my cues from this link: How To Make Roman Blinds on YT.

The only thing is that I really want something that I can pull off the window to wash when necessary, so the dowel rod holders need to be sleeves rather than being permanently sewed in.

Wednesday, August 18, 2021

WIP Wednesday: 18th August

Many moons ago, there was a regular WIP Wednesday post by...I don't remember whom. Possibly Lee from Freshly Pieced.

It kept me going, kept me accountable, and I quite enjoyed it. Admittedly, it started during a period of my life when I had more time to do quilting, and wasn't so squished in with everything else going on: gardening, writing, keeping house, activism. But it was good to post things and have people see what I was doing, and see what they were doing in return.

I'm going to try doing that again. I've got a little tag on my wfh computer, that says: Monday - gardening, Wednesday - quilting, Friday - cooking. The visual reminder will help me remember to post. That's the theory, anyway.

So the main thing I'm working on right now is the kitchen curtains. The ones that I've been planning to complete for, oh, around 7 years now. I made curtains for the study, for my bedroom, for the dining room, and for one set of lounge room windows (with the other yet to be completed). Now it's time to do the kitchen. But not just curtains; I want blinds - ones that sit close to the window frame and which can be lifted to various levels to allow a little bit of sun or a full flood of it.

For it, I'm using the Robert Kaufman linen blend range in navy, and the Reece Scannell shot cotton series that I've had lying around for a decade or so. I've used it in the Plain Jane Passacaglia, and in some of the other pieced curtains, so it's time to use more of it for the kitchen:

Power of 3
Power of 3

For pattern, I've chosen the Power Of Three. It's one of those designs that look stunning, but are really quite fiddly when you're trying to put all the pieces together. And there's a lot of measuring of bits and pieces, trying to use as much of the fabric as possible. But that just adds more fiddlyness.

Power of 3

I'm thinking that this pattern is probably best with all the pieces pre-cut before starting, and then done a few blocks at a time rather than all at once. The small squares are pretty dainty (the small block fits in the palm of my hand) and doing it chain-piecing would probably be less mentally tiring. Then again, everything is mentally tiring lately.

Power of 3

I hope to have some decent progress by next Wednesday. Until then, as the ladies of the Pantsuit Politics podcast like to say: have the best week available to you.

Thursday, August 12, 2021

the backings project

I have a new longarm quilter in my local area. She's very fast (turnaround time one week) and very quick (about half of what my previous longarmer was offering). And considering I can afford it right now, and I have a ridiculous backlog of quilt tops, I am getting quilts done.

I have already handed in The Friendship Supernova and 3:10 to Mendocino, and will be handing over the penny patches:

#pennypatchontheroof 2020 #pennypatchontheroof 2020 #pennypatchontheroof 2020 #pennypatchontheroof 2020 #pennypatchontheroof 2020

And the scarlet split squares. There are two others, but I'm not sure that I have pics of them.

Isolation quilts
And that's only around half the quilt tops I still have tucked away all over my quilting room... Also: I have Roman blinds planned for the kitchen window - the kind that you pull up and down with a cord. I really should try to get those done during this lockdown...