50 shades of green

I do love the lush greenery of the month of may. And how it displays itself in 50 shades of green.

This top is 63" * 63" and I am planning to quilt it by machine. My first attempt at trying out the fun Quick Curve Ruler. Finishing the top in mid may, it really mirrors the wonder that is happening outside my window in the south west corner of Norway. My favourite season and the prettiest time of the year around here.

The idea for making a green version of the pretty pattern Chic Country by Sew Kind of Wonderful has been on my mind for a while.

As a quilter I am inspired by colour, and take this opportunity to enter my 50 shades of green in the Pantone Quilt Challenge 2017 : Greenery.

vertical

Vertical basting - basting on the wall. My latest quilt top "vertical", composed of horizontal rows of strings of different widths. Scrappy. Green with accompanying yellow / orange and pink.  

About 60" * 80". Quilters Dream Select cotton batting. Pinning standing up or sitting / standing on a chair... Considering how to quilt it.

Can you believe this is my post number 400! Thank you all for being part of my blogging with kind and lovely comments and questions over the years.  To celebrate I want to share how to do this vertical basting.

A short picture tutorial:

• the backing up first, curtain clips and painters tape
• the batting up second, same curtain clips, just smoothed out with the quilting ruler after softening the crinkles with a short spin in the dryer
• the quilt top up last, sticking to the batting, being smoothed out with the same ruler until satisfying result is achieved
• pinning as close as prefered

not shown: removing the quilt sandwich from the wall, cutting off excess batting (leaving at least 2" extra batting and 4" extra backing. Folding up the excess backing over the excess batting and thread basting the edge. This prevents loose fibers on your clothing while handling or hand-quilting.

Wish you all a beautiful Sunday!

; )

summertime

it is summertime, and some sewing still takes place:

a pink & green take on a previous made quilt. This is a gift to be.

Had some luck harvesting red currants, raspberries, red gooseberries and black currants yesterday. A taste of summer...

; )

longing for spring

This spring I keep looking through wip boxes, and one of them contained a fair amount of 2.5" strips in pastell colors from maybe 2 years ago. So I decided to move along and empty out the box.

These 16 patch blocks ends up a square 8", and I was aiming for a 64" by 80" layout. Easy piecing, but still a bit of puzzle to find a good balance and nice contrast in the final top. 

A few pastell marzipan eggs was consumed during constructions, as may be expected of a easter time endevour as this... Appropriate, I would say, as they were an important part of the inspiration regarding the color palette. 

Did you ever make a quilt inspired by a favourite snack or sweets?

; )

taking inventory

A new year is a good opportunity to take inventory. Tidy up a bit, rearrange, revisit quilt tops that has been maturing for a bit...

; )

I was lucky to match up ten tops with ten potential backings. Hopefully a few or all of these will be finished up during 2016.

We'll see... But most important there need to be time to play a bit, and to make from stash. I think that is my plan.

tag poppin' in ballard

My latest quilt top on the design wall, in the process of being put together.

This is my third time sewing with reclaimed shirts. I think they are a bit more challenging to use than quilting cotton, as they vary in weight and weave. So I went with simple shapes.

I also wanted to make them a bit big to show off the pretty fabrics that are generously gifted from a dear friends stash and joyfully selected on a memorable day of tag poppin' in Ballard, Seattle.
Happy memories in each square of fabric!

The colors is a hommage to LeeAnn's stash and love of a beautiful warm palette. I always admire her way of choosing colors.

The design is simple, 9 patches measures 7.5" finished size.  The medallion / trip around the world variation is inspired by a golden brooch from viking times found in a creek near my grandmothers childhood home. A true fairytale that is now exhibited in the archeological museum in my home town Stavanger. As a stark contrast my grandmother was one of 5 girls raised by their mother with no such luxury. They learned to make do and mend. My grandmother was an excellent cook and a seamstress.  And I was lucky enough to spend time with her and my grandfather in the summertime with my siblings and cousins, completely spoilt on homemade bread and cake, fish from the fjords and fresh vegetables from their patch. This spring we have been spending a lot of time refreshing the gardens of this place, her childhood home, chopping down trees and clearing brush.

Visiting LeeAnn I was privileged to see and touch her quilts and quilts of her good friends in the Rebels quilt group. The softness of those quilts made from recycled shirts are just wonderful!

For me, so many happy things come together in this simple quilt top. tag poppin' in ballard is 67.5" square and I will spend some time wondering about adding a border or not.

The mystery of the struggle accessing my blog and uploading pictures are still not completely solved. It seems like our service provider might not be consistent in providing stable lines. Hopefully there will be more posts this summer. The weather is only good for indoor activities right now...

; )

flower garden

layout of blocks on the design wall

I have a finished top to share: my flower garden is 57" * 72". With the dark and rainy days of christmas this year, if felt good to bring out some colors and put together these easy 12" blocks.  Some Kaffe Fassett charms and jelly roll strips from stash made for easy and rewarding sewing. Playing around with the layout and try to balance the colors is one of my favorite parts of the process.  I ended up replacing a few of the outer strips trying to calm down the effect of lots of prints.

sewing the rows together with kona snow sashing

and a close up of the finished top

So happy to have started using my new camera. The hardest part was waiting for some proper light to take the pictures as the days keep being very grey...

Wish you all a good weekend and hope you'll be able to add some colors to it!

; )

wordless wednesday wip

scrap busting I and II

Late spring cleaning in the stash and scrap department produces a few quilty wips:

small pieces are made into colour blocks of 15" squares

like a very happy accident they complement the 19 blocks of bigger scraps for my "missing U" wip (from the book sunday morning quilts)

and voila´ it's a top ....

; )

We are enjoying some sunny days. Very little time has been spent visiting blog friends. Sorry about that! Summer days are few and precious. Happy sewing, everybody!

sunny

I have been thinking about making a yellow quilt for a while. Monochromatic color quilts is a challenge. I would like a whole series. So, maybe start with the color yellow?
I decided to have a go using 2.5" strips, both long and short. Stash and scraps. Starting with a few Kaffe Fassett and adding on....

The top came together fairly quickly. You can do this in a jelly roll race technique. I used my design wall to have better control over the color (hue and value) distribution. The top is 60" by 75". And needing a infill patch in the bottom jagged line. Maybe you spotted it?

Top catching the early tuesday sun rays... Wish you a sunny day, too!

five

My latest quilting adventure started with some beautiful field study fabric and a wish to try making Kathy Doughty's Fractured pattern using 2.5" strips WOF.

I pulled out a warm palette to complement Anna Maria Horners Field study from my stash: orange, pink, red purple and gold. Making blocks and putting them up on my design wall I decided my fabric selection didn't work out, so I put some of the blocks and ready cut strips aside. Then I finished the purple fractured top shown in picture 4.

The spare blocks from this first fractured quilt top kept calling me. I put them on my design wall and decided it was half a top worth of pretty blocks. So I pulled more fabric from stash and made the pink fractured quilt top shown in picture 2.

This second fractured top is slowly being hand quilted on wool batting and a voile backing. (see picture 3). It is softer than butter and oh so tempting to work on.... The key for me is to go slow with the hand-quilting. I have spent all my money at the chiropractors office lately. Not fun! I have to find a way to go back to spend my money on fabric instead.

The center 4 patch in the first picture are made from spare parts from the second fractured top. They were just winking at me saying "don't we look pretty? All we need is a few star points from the scrap bin."

So we are down to picture 5. The spare parts from the spare parts formed a figure of five stars. Reminding me to tell you it's been 5 years since I started this blog. Thank you all for making it such a great place to share ideas and inspiration!

Wish you all a great wednesday and hope you will have some pretty spare parts tempting you to get creative! Me, I am trying to go real slow. 5 years is not so long, I do not want to stop quilting and blogging just yet!

; )