HST Finish

It's taken a while what with one thing and another, but my HST quilt is finally finished!

I made this quilt with scraps plus the colours I pruned from the 60+ Kona colours I bought for this quilt also blogged about here.

The back is kona Peridot and some left over triangles joined end wise and trimmed. Actually I sort of forgot I'd lose the points so ended up cutting them in half lengthwise and making a couple of stripy strips instead.  But I'm happy with it although it wasn't my original idea. Sometimes mistakes end happily!

After some debate I decided to straight line quilt it in offset triangles.
While I was doing it I worried that it would overwhelm the interplay of the piecing, but it turned out OK.

Bound in 2 1/2 " wide Espresso again but I needed to do a bit of clever cribbing and hide the seam inside as I almost didn't have enough..

Loosely, I did denser lines on the darker rows and more widely spaced lines on the lighter piecing, but of course the pattern of the triangles is irregular so it's not too strict. You can see it better on the back, except where the lowering sun washes it out!

And a couple more gratuitous shots with the trees in the setting sun...

And I need to say that I was hugely inspired by Katie with this and this!

WiP

Work in Progress is a little slow, but underway in a couple of areas.

Just one to show you today.

I had some encouraging feedback from this post, but wasn't feeling happy with those squares so have made a few changes, which will become apparent in due course.

For now this is how it's looking:

I'm using a mixture of masking tape, chalk and the edge of the foot to find my way here.

And the back so far.

I've done a few big lines to anchor things and now just have to fill in...!

I'm not going to have a chance to work on it for a wee while, but I'm looking forward to getting back to it.

I'm linking up with Creative Spaces on Village Voices today and




What have you been working on?

~ Camilla

Quilting Dilemmas

Pin Basting HSTs

And

Trying out some quilting possibilities...

At this stage I'm not sure on the squares? I've since rubbed out some of this but my general idea is to emphasise the patterns by close lines on the dark and wider lines on the lighter meandering lines, but not sure about what to do about the squares and the areas where the  pattern is less distinct?

Also, will I drive myself mad trying to quilt close lines with tight angles?

All input valued...!

Works in Progress

Somehow I've ended up working on three quilt tops fairly concurrently...


My HSTs have migrated from the design wall, one row at a time to the machine and the top is coming together quite quickly now.

My improvised squares have been pieced into the background, so now I'm thinking about the back for this, which will probably be pieced from odds and ends, since this quilt is mainly that.

I'm sort of reluctant to post this yet because I know that the individual pieces in this top will really "meld" by the time I've quilted it. It's going to be a bit held up though, because the Copen (Kona solid) I chose for the back really isn't as good as Cadet would be... It is so hard to choose a colour from a card with 1" squares and I haven't found a shop here which sells solids. Such a shame to have to buy more fabric ;-)!

Speaking of which, I bought this lovely stack of Moda Grunge (plus bonus Habitat on sale)  for a project I have in mind inspired by our Cambodia travels and a particular spot in Battambang. 

I think there'll be a bit of the Grunge left over and I rather like the look of it with the Habitat Peach Pollen, which was serendipitous rather than planned, so it'll be interesting to see what comes of that!

Holidays

I've been having a winter break with the kids over the school holidays, so it's been a while...

It's been a great time and I've enjoyed:

Having the big boy back for a break from Uni in NZ

Walking with the family in the beautiful Grampians National Park in Victoria

Spot the Kangaroo

Also on the menu has been a bit more interesting cooking without the usual time pressure, and making the most of winter warming type dishes.

A Moroccan recipe book is currently undergoing a renaissance in our house.

This tagine uses chicken and preserved lemons. Our friend Nigel laid down the lemons for us, from the plethora on our tree, when he was staying earlier in the year.  This tagine recipe uses two preserved lemons, quartered; which made it pretty lemony. Delicious! Green olives were called for and these gorgeous buttery sicilian olives are my current favorite and complemented the lemons well.

On the sewing front, having finally finished the trimming, I have been fiddling with triangle placement.

I'm going around in circles a bit (so to speak!) with all the possibilities that value differences create. I quite like the zigzag pathways happening here, but have toyed with both something more random and something more regular. But I think I'll save the regular pattern I have in mind for more scrappy fabric. A few things jumped out at me from this photo that I have since changed (e.g. the matched large green triangle near the centre bottom). But I'm not sure how I'll ever finish fiddling with it?

I've rigged up a temporary design wall in the absent Uni boy's room, (but never fear, it's not a bathroom yet- in-joke for those that know that Australian ad!) over the top of his notice board and I must say it's GREAT to be able to leave the pieces up and muse on it! 

I've also ordered some fabric online... and have been pondering my blue and purple improvised squares and trying to figure out how best to piece them into the background...I decided on aqua in the end.

I have done some work in the "real job" too, so you can see I've been relaxed but not idle!

Terribly Tedious Triangle Trimming

It was great to have my friend Liz to chat with as I trimmed this pile! She seemed to be getting on much faster with her basting and quilting...

I'm being particularly fussy and exact which seems to take me ages; but I do want the points to match in this potential HST quilt in more gum tree shades (mostly colours that I didn't end up using for this). I'll let you know how the point matching goes once I'm done with this tiresome task (nearly there)!

Please tell me the done pile is bigger than either of the to do piles? Actually I don't think it is in this photo, but I've done more since then-really!

I've had some relief from triangle trimming in the guise of unpicking and re-sewing a few of the improv squares I made the other day!

I didn't like the way some of the colours were (or weren't) playing together so I switched some around. The day was particularly gloomy so the photos aren't the best.

The wonky stripes were a bit much, so morphed into 

this

 Likewise these didn't do it for me... so I've changed them.

When I show you the finished quilt top, you'll be able to see if you can spot what remains of them in their new guises.

Yesterday Liz helped me audition a few options for a field colour for the 12 blocks. This is a bit of a challenge when I don't have all options available, it is hard choosing from a 1" square on a colour chart and I'm thinking I might need to refine my digital skills in order to visualise the options. 

Do you have any tips as to how you do this part of the design process if you don't have the colour you want to use on hand? Do you get out your coloured pencils, or are you more technical about it?

Gum Tree Quilt finished!

Despite this quilt being so simple it has taken me almost a year from first idea to finished article. 

When I was uploading the photos of the finished quilt the other day I noticed that the date on the original inspiration photos of the gum bark was 31st May last year. I have been making other things in between but still...

Overall as my first real attempt at improvisational work I'm happy enough. I once heard a well known quilt artist speaking at a workshop, can't remember who it was, being even before I really got started with this faffling; but I do remember her saying that the best design advice she'd ever been given was: "if you like something, do it again; and if you don't like something, do it again!" And in terms of refining an idea and a skill, that's got to be good advice.  The other thing I remember was her proudly showing a lot of her work, from her very earliest quilts, which she described as ugly; but what was significant to me was her affection for these as part of her learning and her first attempts at conveying an idea in fabric.  That's encouraging! And an approach to self that I'd like to cultivate. It's easy for me to see all the things I don't like in my work and for that to put me off the enjoyment of the process and the play. Do you think about your process, or wrestle with yourself, or is it only me?!

I like the "back" with its tiny strips of Kona Pomegranate, like the tiny hot pink gum flowers on some species of tree and I think I'd like to try this strip of improvisational piecing amidst the grey again in a different project.

You can see my process was very simple; to cut pieces of fabric a bit bigger than the finished blocks of 19.5 x27 cm (71/2 x 101/2 inches) slash them in to three or four and recombine them

The quilting was decided before I even started, once I'd seen the lovely job Amy did on The Real McCoy. She even has a tutorial of her quilting of this one here; which shows how she manages quilt bulk. Amy's quilting is denser than mine, but the general idea is the same.

I auditioned several binding possibilities but the Kona Espresso won out. That's the darkest brown I used in the top and in real life it's not quite as dark as it looks in these photos. I wanted a skinny binding, so cut it 2" wide and binding this in the traditional way, sewing the doubled over binding on to the front and hand stitching the back, certainly was skinny, a bit of an effort actually- maybe I'll go for 2.5" next time!

So now that's done, I'm working on an HST quilt with scraps and unused colours ( I bought 60 something and only used 20 something) from this quilt, inspired by this one! 

And also in the pipeline is a simple piece based around this fabulous fabric from the 60s or early 70s 

which was languishing for many years in Mum and Dad's kist where Mum keeps her fabric. I love it and she gave it to me years ago, since when it has been languishing in my fabric storage, but its time has come (the walrus said)...!

So I have gathered it some friends, which are sitting together in an inspirational little pile. 

What do you think? Does it all look too "medium" to you? Any that don't belong? I'd love to read your comments.