WIP Weekly, fabric purchases, and colour choices

To start with: WIP Weekly





The pic's rotated itself through 90degrees, thanks to Flickr - I think it was too wide for Flickr's parameters, so it turned it over.

But the circles and diamonds are very clear now, although I still think the fabric choices are too busy for the kaleidoscope pattern. My bad. And, uh, almost nothing meets at a point. *coughs*inexact seaming again*coughs*

I am not the most precise quilter - how y'all manage such exacting points and precision I don't know but I really admire! People say that it helps to starch your fabrics to keep them in shape...I'm definitely considering that.

Then again, it might just be me...

I kinda rewarded myself for some (non-quilting) work done with a spending spree at Sew Fresh Fabrics...

I bought about, oh, eight yards of various fabrics. Mostly stash-builders, because I looked through my fabrics and I have a lot of pre-cuts, but not quite as much yardage as I'd like (except in batiks, where I have a whole box full of batiks...I love batiks).

A handful of the fabrics I picked:



Nice punchy colours to add to my stash. I need more bold colours. And some blender fabrics. But that's for later perhaps.

This week was a week for spending:

I also bought a full yard of each fabric in Kaufman's Valley Of The Kings Jewel Colourstory. Hopefully I can put it together in a way that does the fabric justice!



Finally, here's the fabric choices for the Kaleidoscope Quilt-Along at Don't Call Me Betsy:



After the craziness of the Sanctuary Kaleidoscope, I'm going for something a lot more visually stable. A white almost-solid, a leafy autumn pattern, and a bunch of strong colour accents:



I'm hoping it'll produce a quilt with some good movement, but also a nice stable pattern that doesn't give people migranes.

WIP Wednesday!

1. Sanctuary Kaleidoscope

Just before I left - the very day I left, in fact - I sewed up the last octagons for the Sanctuary Kaleidoscope and took a photo which I never had the opportunity to post.



I was pretty pleased with it.

Then I had to pack everything up and put it away so my sisters wouldn't mess it up while I was in Europe.

Now that I'm back, priority #1 is to get this baby finished.

Now that I have the quares blocked it, it's easier to see the finished product:



Excuse the blurriness. I took it on my camera phone which isn't an iPhone and so the pic didn't turn out too well. Apparently I have three cameras and not a single battery charger between them. Go figure...

I wish I'd put another 'circle' in the top right corner of the quilt to balance things out, but...I didn't. And it's a little late now to be adjusting.

It's busier than I like, but pretty striking, I think. Next time I make a kaleidoscope, I don't think I'll use such bright, patterned fabrics.

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2. Supernova Quilt Along

I wasn't able to get my Supernova Quilt done for the quilt-along, but I did get the top finished!



I offered it to the stepbrother for his upcoming wedding in Jan, and he didn't mind it but wasn't sold on it. He and his fiancee think I should surprise them...

Hm...

3. Other WIPs
Binding:
- 3 quilts
- 2 table runners

Binding is clearly my nemesis...

we're back!

So, after losing my job, going on holiday, and having my cat die while I was away... I am unemployed, home, and catless.

I think the worst part about coming home is the loss of the cat. Because my life used to side-step around her, and now I side-step...but there's no reason to do so. That's the 2nd hardest part of missing her. The hardest part is wanting to cuddle her and pet her and listen to her purr...

*sniffles a little*

In quilting news, while I was on holiday, I took a bag full of HST's to hand-sew...and didn't touch them once! Oops.

Now that I'm back, the UFOs are still circling my lounge room. I have three wedding quilts to bind, two Christmas table runners, and that damned Sanctuary Kaleidoscope, which is kicking my ass something horrendous.

I have three more weddings to make quilts for (stepbrother, hockey friend #1, hockey friend #2).

And I've decided to join in with the quilt-along at Don't Call Me Betsy...for another Kaleidoscope Quilt. EEP!





I'll learn my lesson this time and go with fabrics that are much much less busy...

And, in a possibly fatal move, I'm going to a fabric warehouse with a friend tomorrow morning. She says she's a fabric enabler. I think I'm a perfectly good enabler all on my own, but we'll see...

so long and thanks for all the fish

the Manifesto Of Creativity

My Manifesto Of Creativity

1. I like what I like. You like what you like. They may or may not overlap. And that's okay.
2. Perfection is not required, but I personally like to take some pride in what I've done - to do it reasonably well. And then see if I can do it better. (Note Rule #1: my 'reasonably well' is unlikely to be your 'reasonably well' - see "inexact seams" in previous post. And that's okay.)
3. Take shortcuts whenever possible (and where it doesn't interfere with Rule #2). Time is one thing humanity always runs out of faster than we think we will.
4. Perfection can wait. Done is the engine of More. Get it Done. (Full text: Cult Of Done manifesto)
5. Creative endeavour is (mostly) a hobby to me. It should be enjoyable wherever possible. If a part of the process is a chore, then it's not fun anymore.


tl;dr: Everyone's different. Don't be a hater. It's more important to Do than to Be Perfect. And the Doing should at least be Enjoyable, if not outright Fun.


Small technical issue

I'm sorry if I don't respond to your comments. How on Earth does one respond to comments on Blogger? I'm used to blogs like LiveJournal which allow threading of comments, as well as emailing individual replies to the people who are being replied to. It's much more convenient for holding conversations with people who respond to your posts or your comments in posts, and allowing them to be publically viewable. Sometimes people other than the questioner are interested in the answer.

Do I have to email you all individually or something? Or do I just respond in the comments?

Usually, I'm an "ooh, what does this button do?" kind of person with technology and applications. But I have the feeling I'm looking for a functionality that doesn't exist on this platform. (Technobabble translation: "Blogger doesn't have it.")

WIP Wednesday!

The supernova quilt top is this close to being completed! Extra-long weekends are awesome for getting a move on projects!

So here's a look at the 4x4 sewn together, and the borders laid out but not sewn on.


Borders are going to be a mite tricksy, because my seams are...well...inexact. Sounds so tactful, doesn't it? "Inexact." Frankly, I reckon they'd make any of the bloggers I follow throw their hands up in horror...and they don't even have to sew them!

*coughs* So, inexact seams. Which means the distance between the starburst verticals varies between 15" and 15.5" according to the individual blocks. (I did say they were inexact!) So I'll have to do some careful pinning and probably some sewing-on-the-run to make sure the seams actually meet up where they're s'posed to.

I've only just begun contemplating the back and whether I'd like to do some piecing on the back. I have a bunch of fabric lengths from the top that should probably be used - although I'm thinking about making another postage stamp quilt with them.

The truth is that my backs are usually a plain cotton sheet, with edge-to-edge computer-patterned machining c/o Thirroul Custom Quilting. They do lovely work, and I adore the designs. Jo, who runs Thirroul Custom Quilting, has been awesome to speak with about patterns and designs, and I love looking at the quilts her other customers have brought for her to work on. Before I discovered the quilting blogosphere, her workshop was the place where I was most heartily reminded that I'm a beginner at this and have many miles to go!

I know there's a fair amount of disdain for sending quilts away to be quilted, but the truth is that the joy of quilting for me is in the design and piecing. I love the colours and fabrics, the patterns and geometry of piecing; the 'will it, or won't it' of putting it together and the problem-solving aspect of how to make it as fast and efficient a process as possible.

I've machine quilted my own quilts, and hand-quilted a couple of baby-quilts. It took forever, looked clumsy, and was a deeply unsatisfying experience.

The truth is that if I had to quilt my own quilts, it would become a chore and I wouldn't enjoy quiltmaking. And I wouldn't get the lovely works of art that computerised machine quilting produces, because I can't do that with either hands or machine myself - I don't have the time, the hands, or the equipment to create that kind of artistry.

And isn't that why we're in this hobby? To have fun and be artists - each in our own way - and incidentally to make something useful that will function for years and possibly even decades or centuries?

Or maybe that's just my humble beginner-quilter perspective on quilting?

--

Other WIPs
1. S and V's quilt binding
2. C and K's quilt binding
3. AD's Sanctuary quilt
4. My own quilt binding

...I should probably face it that the binding is never gonna get done...

easter/anzac weekend consideration

For those of you that celebrate the Easter story, I hope it was a weekend full of memory and thankfulness.

"But they took him and they nailed him to a cross made of wood,
And they raised it on the stony barren ground where it stood,
And the blood that flowed to the ground below
Brought forgiveness to a world that had treated him so."

For those of you that don't, I hope you had lots of hot cross buns, eggs, and a good rest!

--

ANZAC Day is a kind of Australian Memorial Day - chosen for the doomed stand by Australian & New Zealand Army Corps (the ANZACs) at Gallipoli in WWI, on April 25th, 1915.

"They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them."

Lest We Forget.

an actual WIP Wednesday!!

Mostly pics this week:

The Supernova Quilt - 9 blocks!


Since I'm doing a 4x4 layout, there's another 7 blocks still to be pieced together. Luckily, I have all Friday off, and plan to make some serious inroads then.

Two more of the blocks:



I went through The Fat Quarter Shop today and picked out all the fat quarter bundles I wanted to buy, just to see how much they'd cost all together. Final total? $500+

I didn't. But it was a close call there for a few moments...

WIP weekly!

Right, so we have a lot of projects in place right now.

Supernova Quilt Along

Still putting together the supernova blocks - there simply hasn't been time to do them before this.

It's a little pedestrian compared with the other supernova quilts featured on the Flickr photostream, but the stark colours work for me.

I've decided I like the monocolour ones best - the blue and the pink blocks. The contrasting colours isn't bad but...the contrast is a little stark, without enough gradation for my tastes.

Using the different white fabrics worked very well - good decision, there!

The corners may not match up as precisely as a master-quilter would have them match, but they're adequate to my amateur sewing skills!


Sanctuary Kaleidoscope

I've only managed to sew together the octagons of the bottom row, and I'm making my way up the quilt. The hole in the 2nd-last row is where I've collected the wedges to sew together. I really like this design (even if the sewing is painstaking!) and I hope that the recipient does, too! *gnaws nails*


potholders

Okay, so this is just a small scrappy project that I was hoping to do for a gift swap. However, the gift swap is supposed to be in the hands of the recipient on the 20th and...I'm not sure I'm going to make it. :/

They're supposed to be potholders, although I don't like the one with the white and coloured blocks interleaved.

The paper pattern was the pattern I was hoping to quilt it with using my brand new quilting food. Within about ten minutes, I realised I was hopelessly outclassed, and instead found myself giving up and just unpicking all the work I'd done on Tuesday night.

Wednesday, I ended up quilting the potholders with the coloured stripes with a simple stitch-in-the-ditch along the white bars, and a swirly 'bumblebee trail' pattern over the coloured bars. I gave up on the quilting food and just ended up using my usual sewing foot and doing wide turns - sometimes with rather odd-length stitches!

They're not masterpieces of handiwork, alas, but I shall consider them on my learning curve. A new skill to master in small before I even think of trying to work with a full-size quilt!

Does anyone have any recommendations for sites that help beginners on quilting with a quilting foot. The simpler the better!


plans for this weekend

1. Finish putting together the Supernova blocks. All of them. PIECE ALL THE THINGS!
2. Get through another two rows of the Sanctuary Kaleidoscope blocks.
3. Finish the binding on the quilt for Suds and Vern because it is WAY WAY OVERDUE:

Thursday planning post!

So, um...not my WIP Wednesday post. (Up tonight after I sew together the Supernova Blocks - promise!)

I've been eyeing off a couple of FQ sets from FatQuarterShop for a while now - the Serene Tea Garden:

and the Tranquil Tea Garden:


And now they're on special at ~20% off! And they're so pretty and bright and modern - I bet I could make some spiffy totes from them!

Except that I wasn't going to buy any more fabric this quarter...

My only planned fabric purchase in the next couple of months is the Robert Kaufman Valley of the Kings in the Jewel Colourstory:


And I am hanging for that to come out so I can start a quilt for a friend of mine who's a big Egypt-fan - Jo Graham, author of the three books Black Ships, Hand Of Isis, and Stealing Fire, all set in or around Egypt.

Current intended recipients of quilts for 2011:
Mum: I've promised her a quilt for several years now. Have the fabric (RK Imperial Collection 6-ish in Blue), think I have a design (fussy-cut disappearing nine-patch), need to get it done.
Alli S: might like the Red-White-Blue Off-The-Rails modern railfence? Or else the Penny Patches postage stamp quilt?
Sue: a scrappy mountain magic in harvest colours (June project when I get back)
Bec&Wes: something in a traditional style with modern colours
Amy: a traditional pattern, darker colours?
Lola: whichever one Alli doesn't get?
Ali C: traditional pattern, brighter colours.
Simone: Birthday quilt - perhaps the railfence?
Lara: Wedding quilt.
Jo: RK's Valley of the Kings series in Jewel...and I haven't worked out a pattern yet.

bits and stuff and pieces

1. Have started sewing together the octagons of the Sanctuary Kaleidoscope. It's looking pretty good. Design photo will go up on WIP Wednesday.

2. Am working on a couple of quilted potholders as a gift. It's new territory for me, so I don't know how that's going to go in the end! I should really try making one of those extremely neat tote bags that people are always putting out patterns for.

3. A friend got married on the weekend and I'm going to see if she wants a quilt for her wedding gift. Or if she wants one of the quilts I've already made.

4. Last night, I just realised how much material I really have in my stash when I went looking for a plain backing for the quilted potholders. And winced.

5. Still haven't pieced any more sub-units of the supernova. Maybe a couple tonight?

6. Will get WIP Wednesday in on time this time!

WIP weekly

I admit, I feel like a complete slacker when it comes to comparing my quilting efforts with the quilters whose blogs I follow. My quilts make infinitismally small progress from week to week, while y'all seem to whip up a complete quilt in a matter of hours. I really don't know how you do it!



Anyway, it's WIP Wednesday Thursday Friday and I have made a leetle progress this week!

Got my half-yard of each fabric in the Berry colour-range of the Sanctuary collection for my Sanctuary Kaleidoscope:



Sliced and diced them over the weekend and during the week, and started laying them out:


Click on pic for bigger version

I'm thinking that I either need more browns or more whites. The problem is that there's essentially no 'middle ground' when it comes to the browns: it's either completely brown or mostly brown, but no half-and-half the way there is with the pinks, or even the orange or yellow fabrics, which makes them stand out very starkly in the midst of the pattern. *scratches head*

It's presently 8 blocks long by 9 blocks wide, and I'm wondering if it should be 9 blocks by 9 blocks...except that would mean needing another cutting spree to get the requisite number of blocks. Cue Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader: "NOOOOOOOO!!!!"

Maybe I could just make a border for it? *looks hopeful*

--

In the meantime, WIP #2 is the Supernova Quilt-Along from over at Freshly Pieced. Which got to four sets of subunit blocks and stalled.



4 down, 12 to go. 6 down, 10 to go... If I were doing the 9-block, I'd be mostly done! Damn my large-size quilting ambitions!

I did spend a great deal of Sunday watching Fringe (great TV show) and drawing diagonals on my white squares, though, so that's one less thing to do for that. Now I just have to get a move on with the other blocks...

But they do look very nice when laid out!


Click on pic for bigger version

--

Still to finish the binding:
* Suds and Vern's quilt - bali popboxes.

Still to bind:
* Chris and Kate's quilt - Double Irish Chain.
* Shaz and A's quilt - Sunshine And Lollipops in North Wind.
* my own quilt - stack-and-whack "cathedral windows"


In the works:
* an engagement gift for my stepbro and his fiancee: a set of prettified sheets

Just received from the Fat Quarter Shop:
* Old Denim Kona Cotton Solids FQ pack! (blues)
* Hot Spice Kona Cotton Solids FQ pack! (reds/oranges)
* 3 yards White Kona Cotton Solids
* Lumiere de Noel FQ pack!

I can really understand why people go gaga over the Kona Solids series. This is some very nice fabric!

Unfortunately, still waiting on the People Eater Kona Cotton Solids FQ pack (purple). Will contact them if it hasn't arrived on Monday next week.

--

I also have a 'new' camera, bought from my stepfather who's purchased himself a new model. I love new tech, but I'm not one to go out and buy it the instant it comes out - I'm what they call a "late adopter". My stepdad's an "early adopter" - he usually has it in his hands the month it comes out. Boys and their toys, I suppose! At any rate, the new camera is smaller, with a bigger display screen, and I have to learn how to use it, so the pics may not be as clear as usual - at least, not until I work out exposure times and how to take photos without the flash and whether I need to hold it steady or what.

First On the 1st April?

Okay, well, it's not the 1st anymore.

*coughs*

Oh well. I'll only do this once: this is the first quilt (one of two) I made for my sisters' 21st birthdays. (They're twins.) They received them when they turned...oh...about 26.




I was brand new to quilting, and everything I knew about quilting had been imparted to me from my aunt, who did some beautiful show quilts back while her children were in school.

Well, I had to start it somewhere...so it started there.

She explained about cutting with a board and a roller cutter, how to sew the strips together to make a tube, and then how to cut the tube into further strips, and unpick at a different seam each time so the pattern emerged when the strips were sewn together.

I quilted this quilt myself, mostly because I didn't know that there were people who'd do the quilting for me. It's straight lines (zig zags) because that's all I could do on the sewing machine I had at the time!

So it's a very simple quilt. But they were started, oh, some 15 years ago now, and my sisters still have their on their spare beds. :)

I really should look at making them new ones...

binding and finishing

Bah. I just recalled that I have four quilts to bind and finish. Three of them are wedding quilts, between 18 months and 6 months late. And I have to get a move on with them!!

Dang and bother and blast and...

I admit, I dislike the binding and finishing part of quilting - not the result, which is always a quilt that makes me want to quilt-nap it - but the actual process of hand-sewing the binding together. My brain keeps telling me about all the things I could be doing instead of sitting here, creating callouses on my middle finger from pushing the needle through the fabric.

How do you guys reading this manage to do your binding and finishing? Do you watch a movie or a tv show while sewing? Do you listen to music? Is it peace-and-quiet time for you, or do you think of it as 'dead time' - time when you could be cleaning the kitchen, or sorting through your wardrobe, or reading a book?

WIP Wednesday, credit card CPR, and time

1. Sanctuary Kaleidoscope

The fabric to complete the Sanctuary Kaleidoscope quilt has arrived and I'll be doing some more cutting of kaleidoscope pieces on...Sunday? I have some time first thing in the morning, midafternoon, or last thing at night.

Once it's cut, the arranging and sewing should start. When I'm going to have time for this, I don't know, but I'm beginning to think I should set, say 45 minutes down for quilting in the evenings, complete with timer to bing me out of the zen. From 9:30pm, perhaps, until 10:15pm?


2. Supernova Quilt-Along



Colours picked, arranged, and cut.



Background fabrics cut. I calculated that I'd need (8) 3" by 5.5" strip and (8) 3" by 3" square for each block, which makes it (128) of each for a 16-block quilt.

Thankfully, I'm now working with yardage with a ~42" width instead of FQs - and I love my cutting template with the 0.5" slots for easy cutting of strips! One of the best quilting investments I've made of late!






I figure I'll leave the borders for the moment and perhaps deal with them later.


oh credit card, my credit card!

Right, so I bought 4 FQ Bundles from the Fat Quarter Shop. *coughs* At 20% off!

Three Kona Solid fat quarter bundles (Hot Spice, Flying People Eater, and Denim) and one lovely red and white/cream set that went by the name 'French [something]'. I came this close to buying a Kona FQB of Candy Corn (Sunshine Yellow!) and the pink FQB was just that luv-er-ley and pretteh, but I'm not a pink person most of the time and neither are my friends so it would not likely get used.

In addition to this FQB spree, I purchased four yards of Kona White Solids. The shipping nearly killed me and my credit card is still gasping. However, I got my bonus in March and it was very good and so the ccard will not be gasping for long.

I wonder if I can keep myself from buying anything else (other than the Kaufman Valley Of The Kings set that's due out in April-May which I am going to buy if I have to hock my house for it) for the rest of the year. I've bought much too much fabric this year, and I fear even 12 quilts are not going to use it up.

thoughts and more thoughts

So, I spent a chunk of the weekend cutting and sorting for the Supernova Quilt-Along, and am debating the relative wisdom of increasing the quilt 'stars' to 16 blocks instead of 9 blocks. I like large quilts and I think I have the fabric for it, so...now it's just a question of making the adjustments appropriate for the borders.

And, uh, finding the time.

April is going to be One Of Those Months. The Winter Hockey Season has just begun, so I have a game on Sunday (open competition), a game on Monday (veterans' competition), and training on Tuesdays. I also decided that I would attempt Script Frenzy this year, in which I attempt to write 100 pages of script in the 30 days of April.

I have two short stories due in April - 1000 word minimums, then one short story due in the first week of May - 2000 word minimum. And I've offered to help with a guidebook for newbies to online interests that a friend is compiling.

Plus there's still that Sanctuary Kaleidoscope sucking floorspace in the lounge room, and which I'll need to have laid out and either sewn or sorted out by the time I fly out to Europe on the 6th May...

Busytimes.

Away from the 'why do I overbook myself like this' front and back to the quilting front, I've decided I need more solid fabrics. All these lovely quilters around me are doing wonderful, beautiful things with solids and patterns and I have lots and lots of patterns...but nary a solid in sight!

WIP Wednesday (a few days late)

(Okay, so it's Thursday night, but it's been a really busy week and next week is worse!)



I finally have the layout working for the Sanctuary Quilt!
Thanks for the advice and encouragement, Lee!



It's still a lot busier than I like, but the pattern is coming much clearer now. One thing I'll have to keep in mind when cutting and placing the rest of the blocks is that the darker and solid colours will become the visual anchors for the quilt, so I should use them very deliberately.

Also, I've run out of fabric, so I've had to order in some more yardage to complete it! These are all the wedges I cut laid out with some of the corners filled in - I'm thinking the final configuration will be at least 9 blocks by 9 blocks, which should be about 60"x60". I think I might make some borders for this, although I'm not sure exactly what, or whether I really want to go through another round of piecing.

That's unlikely to be finished before I head off to Europe in May, though!

---



I finally got my act together, picked my fabric and photographed them. The new phone is a little dodgy, so it's not a fantastic piece of photography:



I figured I'd use up some smallprint FQs I bought in a bundle aeons ago, as well as drag in a bunch of whites-on-creams that I have lying around. It should be a pretty, bright, classic quilt. Theoretically.

Now, the really tricky part will be actually quilting it before the deadline for the comp!

(And, crap-o-rama, I have to start working up my patterns for the Moda challenge thingy.)

WIP Wednesday: the Sanctuary Kaleidoscope

I finished the Moda Jelly Roll competition design. Now I have to put together instructions for it and photograph it. Easy peasy! (hah)

Which brings us to the quilt for April 2011 (we're ahead, I know; that's okay) - the Sanctuary Kaleidoscope.



I really like the fabric choices in this FQ bundle - Berry Sanctuary, I think it was called at Fat Quarter Quilting. So bright and beautifully contrasting!

The fabric stack:


The fabric spread:


This was my first attempt at laying out the pieces in a kaleidoscope:


That was just a starter to get the feel of the colours and fabrics and to work out how it was all going to fit together. And whether it was going to fit together.

Initially, I liked the strong patterns in the layout but then while sewing the blocks together, I decided I wanted to break it up more, which gave me this:



I'm not sure I like it so much now: the pattern gets too easily lost in the noise. It's salvageable - there's still have about half to two-thirds of the blocks to make - that's only 26 blocks there and I was hoping for an 8x8 block quilt (at least 60"x60") which means another 40 or so to go.

Redesigning with an eye to what I still have and what effect I want would probably be the best process to finding a good solution. Lay out the existing blocks and work with/design around those until I have something that maintains the shapes and colour blends, but still contains enough diversity to make it interesting for the eye.

I also need to be more careful when sewing - at least one of the blocks in there was supposed to be pieced differently and then I got my wedges out of order while sewing and it all went haywire.

This weekend is either going to be the Weekend Of Working It All Out, or the Weekend Of Sitting In A Blue Funk Wondering Why I Do This To Myself. I have Sunday mostly free at least...

Supernova Quilt-Along

Joining the Supernova Quilt-Along over at Freshly Pieced! The last quilt-along went so well, I think I'll try this one! And I certainly have sufficient stash for it!

Hopefully it doesn't go into May, because I'm probably not going to finish it if that's the case.

WIP Wednesday tomorrow. The nightmare that is the Sanctuary Kaleidoscope to be displayed...