WIDRN Wedneday: the one with Show Plans

April could be quilting month...

March was gardening month, and tbh my quilting activities have largely fallen by the wayside.

My focus on April would be getting a quilt submitted for the Sydney Quilt Show (run by the Quilt Guild of NSW). And HALLELUJAH it doesn't have to be a finished top!

In fact, last year (or the year before) the guild was saying they would require a fully completed quilt in the coming year, completely ignoring that most of the younger quilters are entirely deadline-driven, in part because we're so busy (this is a hobby-in-the-middle-of-a-full-life-of-survival, not a something-to-relax-into-in-retirement), in part just because that's how we've been psychologically trained (last minute assignments, anyone? Anyone? BUELLER?)

Also, by 'younger', I am meaning "under 50" because that's how old I am, and I'm technically GenX. And yes, I am in the 'younger' cohort of quilters. When I started quilting around 15 years ago, the women quilting were all over 55, which makes them in their 70s now.

The new NSW Quilt Guild committee have also scrapped the rule that you can't show your quilts on social media before the show. So that's nice - not that I expect anyone will particularly recognise mine. I'm not exactly famous in the Quilt Guild circles.

Anyway, I have thoughts and scraps and definitely want to make a scrappy quilt.

I need to get past the 'but before I start on this project' mindset. I have two quilts to bind - they've been sitting around for a year or maybe more - and they have to get out to friends by the end of this month (arbitrary, just because it's abruptly gotten cold at nights here in Sydney).

It's just binding, I tell myself. It's easily done.

And it is! But actually getting myself to the machine to do it? Something else entirely.

I really do wish I could make my quilt 'Swarm' again. It was just so finicky, with so many pieces! And has gone to someone who doesn't appreciate it, I suspect. And people have wanted a quilt pattern for it for YEARS. If I'd capitalised on it a decade ago when quilt patterns were the thing...

Anyway. The pattern I have in mind is very simple - just solid squares and HSTs, in a gradating rainbow of colours. It's finicky on the seams and putting it together will be hellish - but that's part of the challenge, right? Also, it will use a BUNCH of my HST scraps. So many of those...

WIDRN Wednesday: the one with peacocks!

I swear this is one of the fastest quilts I've ever made. Less than a month from pieces to full top!

The Communique Quilt is a pattern set up by Andrea of Mouse In My Pocket and I've had this fabric collection (centered around the Timeless Treasures Plume collection of 2013) for, well, a decade and change. I added a few extra fabrics to it - at least one of them is from 'Valley of Kings', a Robert Kaufman collection of the same vintage as Plume - and popped in a blender or two, and a solid here and there.

I laid out a few blocks to get a feel for the design, and in the end just decided to go for it.

And boy howdy!

It seemed once I'd started putting this together, I couldn't stop. I've spent almost every spare hour on this thing since I started, all the way up until Sunday night when I finished the last seam. WHEW.

An initial problem with the quilt is that the pattern has finished block sizes, and I forgot that... Cue me cutting all the peacock blocks a half-inch too small! ARGH! So I ended up having to put borders around them all and...I think it works better in fact! The framing really draws the eye to the block, highlighting the panels in a way that the other 'panel pieces' (the butterflies) don't get. And the colours are just a beautiful mix - azure and gold and aqua and jet.

The pattern size was for a 'throw', but even that was pretty huge, so I took two twelve-inch-high sections out of it (the quilt is built in rectangles, so you can pieces bits of it and then sew them together) and replaced the second 16" block with another panel and some more blocks. I had some blocks pieced, but they just didn't work for the quilt. I'm using them in a 'remainders' quilt with the rest of the scraps from these two quilts. And there are still scraps, of course. There are always scraps...

I took various pictures of them by internal lights at night, a few bad ones during a morning where there wasn't enough sun, and then I just took them outside and photographed them against the neighbour's hedge. I think I might end up doing that more often with my quilts, especially the large ones!

It was going to be for a couple of cousins, but after B1 saw it, she was all "Ooh, I'd like it!" And I figured that I haven't given her and B2 matching quilts yet, so they're getting these two and the cousins can have something else.

I'm kinda glad that they're going to the twins rather than the cousins, tbh. I'll make something else for the cousins...

WIA Wednesday: the one with missing pieces

I have continued making the blocks for the 2nd Teal Stars quilt, it's about half done. It's mostly just having the cutting board clear and laying it out, cutting the block, arranging it, and sewing it together. Four blocks down, five blocks to go.

I can do it by next week if I do one a day.

One a day. It's not difficult. Just one.

I finished another row of stars for the Restless Hands quilt:

If I was going to do this quilt again (ahahahahahaha no) then I'd do lots of neutrals for the background and most of the stars, and then some swathes of stars with a little bit of colour before sweeping in to more vivid hues, so there are all the stars in the sky...but not all of them are visible at once.

I think two of the stars are switched around. One has a piece where there doesn't need to be a piece, and the other has a gap - a piece is missing. So do I swap the piece around, or do I move the stars entirely?

Otherwise, it's a really busy week for me on several fronts so not much is going to happen.

WIA Wednesday - 'Where I'm At' Wednesday

WIA Wednesday: a general update, because so often I haven't done anything much at all, so the WIPs just sit there unmoved.  

This week, I made a cushion envelope for a cushion whose envelope had disintegrated, and I sewed a quilt block for the Teal/Blue Stars, and finished a couple of stars for the Restless Hands of Sel.

It's not much, but it's some progress. Progress on my creative stuff is difficult when I'm prepping for the winter garden, when the world is on fire, and when I'm trying to help out with a local electoral candidate. All worthy causes, but hoo boy, I kind of miss the days when I didn't have to think about anything else.