All the squares

 

 

It's been a funny old day.  The morning was really productive.  I've now made enough blocks to make a decent sized scrappy quilt, and sewed all the squares together.  It's not bed-sized, but a generous lap sized quilt, and it certainly doesn't lack colour!  It'll join the queue to have wadding, backing material and binding added.  I've got scrappy blocks to spare, so might either make up a cushion cover with them, or maybe in the long run another quilt?  

I've also been making a quilt for a last-minute birthday present, and decided to use of some of the Terry Rowland style Colourwash blocks I'd been amassing.  Mainly blues.  It's easy to assemble, but involves an awful lot of pins to ensure the seams of the blocks line up neatly.  

I like the pops of colour from the plain centres.  

This quilt will probably have to take priority if I'm to complete it in time for the birthday surprise it's meant to be.  

After a morning's concentrated sewing I took a walk this afternoon, nipping into a few charity shops on the way.  I'd seen a craft blog recently where someone made beautiful cushions from men's ties, so I snaffled a couple of those, 100% silk.  Let's see how tricky or otherwise it'll be to unpick those.  Hopefully I'll find a few more in my second-hand rummagings over the next few weeks.  I've got a theory that pretty much everything you need or want turns up in a charity shop sooner or later.  Haven't you found that to be true?

Feeling blue?

 Well, it's been a frustrating couple of days.  My charger gave up the ghost, meaning I can't charge my phone or laptop until Amazon delivers a new one.  Of course, like 90% of the population I've got a whole heap of chargers from devices long gone. There's a box of tangled cables on top of the wardrobe.   And of course, not a single **!??** one of 'em fits my current phone or laptop.  There really ought to be a universal charger that fits all electronic devices, but I suppose that's too sensible an idea, eh?  

Anyway, I ventured on to the allotment today, and rapidly decided that was not a good move, seen as it's been flipping freezing today.  I made a feeble effort to pull up a few weeks, but my heart wasn't in it.  Instead I lay on the sofa like a beached whale, ate far too many snacks and finished the sublime 'Demon Copperhead' by Barbara Kingsolver.  

I'd given on on my last book - can't even recall the title of that, it started off wonderfully then tailed off until I lost interest entirely and left it on the local supermarket's charity bookshelf - so immersed myself in 'Demon Copperhead' instead.  Ooooh, it's so good.  A modern re-interpretation of David Copperfield, set in the America of the rural poor.  If you've not discovered Kingsolver, then you're in for more than one treat.  'The Poisonwood Bible' is a showstopper too.  

On the crafty front, I finished piecing together this denim lap quilt top the other day.  I'd found a pair of wide legged jeans in the charity shop, not stretch denim, and the wide legs provided more than enough material.  This patchwork will go in the pile of those waiting to have wadding, backing fabric, binding added.  Yup, there's a queue! 

Okay, I'll post this, then it's a Sunday evening with David Attenborough on the telly and lots of jaw dropping shots of the natural world.  I'll do some hand stitching while I watch, and hopefully won't raid the kitchen cupboards for any more snacks in the meantime.  Bye!

Seeing red

 

I've been cracking on today with my latest project, based on an illustration from this wonderful book.  I decided to do a patchwork version of this page (top photo) with its vivid red background, the splash of white and flowers on the right side of the picture.  A lot of cutting, sewing, slicing into and rearranging later, here's my pieced fabric.  It was all trial and error, making shapes fit together, just finding something that was pleasing to my eye.  

I think it'll end up being a wall hanging of some sort.  

Now, you're thinking 'hang on, where's the hare?'.  Well, I'm imagining embroidering several little hares running friskily across this panel.  Maybe using a gold metallic thread.  I'd like to embroider flowers and leaves too, though my stitchery isn't advanced much beyond beginner level.  I can do a running stitch and chain stitch, but need to learn some other fancier techniques.  But I like the thought of lots of hand-stitching and quilting, really working into the panel, and giving it lots of extra interest.  Possibly even adding a few tiny beads?  

What do you think?  

Flowers, a tortoise and a hare!

Okay, before I explain the above image, I'll witter on for a while about what I've been up to.  Yesterday was a beautiful spring day, so I headed to the allotment.  The wallflowers and spring bulbs are blooming, and the plum tree has plenty of blossom on it.  Last year a late frost meant sudden death for the blossom and consequently not a single plum to be harvested.  Fingers crossed this year will be better. 

I took a couple of photos of the quilt I mentioned yesterday, the grid pattern improv quilt that's still awaiting its binding.  

On to today, I had a walk into town to buy groceries, and decided I'd nip into a couple of charity shops too.  Now, this is where the image of the Brian Wildsmith book comes in.  I absolutely love the illustrations.  They're so vibrant, and cry out to be interpreted in fabric, wool or embroidery.   Ages ago I'd had a try at capturing the hare in a small piece of needlepoint.  

I stitched it, thinking vaguely it might end up being a pin cushion, but it eventually got incorporated as part of a large needlepoint floor cushion.  Anyway, I decided to try making something in patchwork that was based on another page of the book.  This one with a mainly bright red background.  I'd already got some reds and pinks, but could do with some more.  Hence the intention to rummage around in charity shops.  

Hmmm ... I came back with a cream coloured fleecey blanket, two paperbacks and two bags of mainly blue fabric scraps.  Oh well ...

This is the image I want to - not exactly recreate - but do my version of, however abstract that eventually becomes.  

I started playing about with the material I already have, including a vivid red Monsoon skirt I'd never worn so it ended up being cut up for my fabric stash.  It featured a lovely embroidery of flowers and leaves.  I've made good progress today, so will carry on tomorrow, and see where this latest quilting adventure takes me.  

 

In Praise of Improv

It began with a book.  Okay, it really began decades ago when a girl at school turned up with a bag of patchwork pieces, and I was envious and thought ‘I want to try that.’  Which led on to years of me patiently sewing together hexagons.  You see, it was English Paper Piecing that grabbed me, and hour after hour of slow stitching followed.   

I’ve always liked making things, but was hopeless at dressmaking, and failed miserably to impress during school needlework lessons, not helped by my inability to use a sewing machine.  Later, I did try buying a machine of my own, but couldn’t master it, or even become vaguely competent.  I kept trying and failing to get the tension right and my clumsy fingers struggled with bobbins and threading it.  This meant I never strayed far from hand piecing and hand quilting, and the machine was relegated to a dusty corner, and never used.   

But it always niggled me that I couldn’t machine sew.  That’d be quicker and there were so many block patterns I saw in quilt books that looked fun to make.  Anyway, a couple of years ago I bought myself another sewing machine.  Perhaps things might be different?  It was worth a try.  An impulse online buy from John Lewis, I immediately took to my smart new Brother.  Technology had moved on since I was a girl, and it was a doddle to use.   

I even got to grips with rotary cutters.  I’d failed with those in the past, but persisted until I found an Olfa cutter and a Quilted Bear cutter that felt good to cut with, and – importantly – were suitable for a left-handed grip.  Armed with a sharp blade and an extra-large sized cutting mat I started assembling machine sewn blocks.   

Then I stumbled on to YouTube videos.  A fantastic source of info about techniques.  I learnt about leaders and enders, about chain sewing, and the wonderful quilts of Gee’s Bend.   

But the real change in my craftiness came with a book I treated myself to.  Having seen videos about something called improv quilting I browsed Amazon and stumbled on Sherri Lynn Wood’s ‘The Improv Handbook for Modern Quilters’.  Subtitled ‘A guide to creating, quilting and living courageously.’  That seemed a big claim for a craft book.   

At first the author’s language put me off.  It was all rather New Age, airy fairy, taking itself too seriously.  You didn’t choose your fabrics.  You curated them.  You didn’t have a think about the colours and patterns you wanted to use.  You meditated on your choices.   

But pushing that aside, I began to really pay attention to what the author was saying. It was all about being spontaneous, putting aside the ruler and cutting freehand, coming up with designs that were truly individual.  

I dived in. The author sets several exercises that she calls scores. The concept is that they’re like jazz scores, where there’s a basic structure to a piece of music but room for the musician to improvise within those parameters. The first exercise – or score - I tackled was to do with squares and rectangles. You choose a restricted palette for your fabrics, with two main colours and a filler. You cut different sized squares/rectangles and arrange them in a pleasing pattern, using the filler to plug any gaps.  

I differed slightly in choosing two main colours, two additional colours and a filler, mainly because I was using fat quarters and didn’t have enough to make a decent sized quilt without adding the red and pink.  

If I was making this quilt again, I'd use a light grey for my filler, instead of the white with little stars. A filler needs to recede into the background, whereas the white’s too stark, and the tiny gold stars are too fussy.  

The second exercise I tried was about varied shapes. You assemble a quilt row by row, each of the rows being based on something different, eg: squares, curves, triangles, log cabin, strips. The first quilt I’d made had been a lengthy process. I’d spent too much time pondering over each decision, concentrating too much on getting everything ‘right’.  

But this second quilt was much speedier, and consequently more enjoyable. I did a row of triangles, then a row of squares/rectangles, followed by a row of curves, then wonky log cabin blocks, strip piecing, another row of triangles, then a row of long strips down one side to make the patchwork top more of a useful size.  

The result is lots of colour and pattern, and something I’m really happy with. I should’ve been bolder with the curves I cut, making them stand out more, but on the plus side I love the pops of bright red and also the use of denim which I reckon is an undervalued fabric. We’re so used to seeing it as just ‘jeans’ that we forget what a handsome material it is.  

My third quilt wasn’t so successful. It’s still unfinished.

I assembled the patchwork top, but it’s not been fully backed and quilted as I’m not sure I like it. Too jumbled. Too brash. Too yellow. I don’t want to bin it, but I resent spending any more time on it. So its banished to a corner of the spare room. I might retrieve it at some point and decide it’s worth working on again. Not sure yet.

 

Which leads me on to the fourth exercise from the book. This is about using a grid pattern. Again, working with a limited fabric palette, repeating a grid pattern but maybe making it smaller in places or perhaps supersizing it. I improvised by adding small amounts of extra colour here and there, to break things up a bit. Around the grid pattern you’d to add a border. I practised sewing big, bold curves, using a vibrant polka dot material, along with plain blue and purple.  

Then decided those curves were too overwhelming, so sliced ‘em in half, which made a border I’m much happier with.  

And that’s as far as I’ve got. Though I haven't a photo of it here to show you, I’ve nearly finished the grid pattern quilt, the binding being the main thing left to do, then I’ll have another delve into the improv book and see what exercise I’ll tackle next.  

It’s a book I’d recommend if you want to re-energise your quilt making. It gives you permission to play, and helps you learn, so why not give it a go?