Thirty Twenty Five

Can it be that I’ve now crossed the line of 30 years of quilting?  I’ve celebrated by streamlining my garden shed, tossing out all (well, most!) unwanted/unused items that I’ve collected over the years and always thought I’d get back to, someday…  And many of the picture frames that lurked in dark corners are now up on the wall.  Dress fabric I’ll never use has been donated and now I’m eyeing off boxes of quilting fabrics I purchased all of those 30 years ago…  Will they ever come back into fashion? I think not.  I’ve slowly been reducing magazines and sorting patterns.  It’s all so cleansing and I feel quite virtuous although at times it can be hard to let go. 

From this to

This in 30 years.....

I’ve also realised that I’ve been with the RLI girls (yes, I know we hardly meet that definition now) some 20 years and although at times I wondered whether I’m feeling a little “P&Q fatigued”, something happens; someone finds yet another perfect quilt to make, a new pattern or exciting magazine finds its way into our meetings and I’m inspired.   I think of summer lunches in the garden, the many “I don’t need any more fabric” shopping trips and visits to exhibitions and galleries.
 
It seems hardly possible that it was 5 years ago that I started this blog, a personal voyage documenting my journey so far.  This process too has helped me sort and sift through collections of “stuff” to assemble a physical quilt journal of sorts.  The value add of blogging is that I can post photos and diarise this, my quilting life.

Its all been a wonderful journey. 

Christmas Lunch at Fiona's

Visitors arrive on Dangar by ferry

A Grand (Purple) Idea

Moroccan Mosaic: 2016  (Started:2011)

When it’s finally done, I think I’ll have to call this one the “Will I or Won’t I Quilt”….

Source: Quiltmania #68, p21
Now I look back, my quilt doesn't look anything like this at all!

It all started as a grand idea – an inspiration stemming from an old quilt (19^th c_Piece 67) I’d seen in a QNM, then again later in a 2008 Quiltmania mag (#68 p21).  After lots of sketching and thinking, I gave up the idea of circles on squares (but not before cutting out a heap of fabric circles) and went with another idea I’d sourced from a new Kaffe Fassett book^^ I’d picked up in Camden ME (11/9/10), land of the real windjammers.  Kaffe’s quilt design is called Tilt and it’s a delicious field of colourful rectangles.  Those rectangles spoke to me.

So, with the few leftovers from my already cut circles (damn!), I managed to scrape together enough pieces from my Purple Patch collection plus a few little extras from the stash to put together an interesting background  of rectangles.  The circles however looked insipid on it and I was really searching for “Something Flashy” so it was back to the drawing board for a (long, long) while. 

It was those wonderful paper pieced circles made from scraps (Circles of Fun) pattern that jolted me back to this quilt.  Some of the girls were working on a COF quilt in late 2013 and that inspired me to make scrappy but colour controlled circles which would float on top of my restrained rectangles.  Wow!   It worked and saved the quilt from being wholesome, predictable, and a tad boring even. 

So here we are in early 2015, still piecing this top.  Only the borders to go now!  On reflection, isn’t it rather odd that I’ve yet again decided to branch out on a design your own quilt based on grandmothers fan.  Ring any bells?  Why yes, it’s those still unfinished silk stumbling fans….still crazy after all these years.  Perhaps I should rush out and buy a lottery ticket.

^^(Kaffe Fassett’s Simple Shapes Spectacular Quilts, Tilt p46.)

So here we are in March 2016 and finally I can call this one finished.  I used bamboo wadding and whilst it needled beautifully, it also fluffed a bit and needed fairly close stitching.  Not sure I'd go for it again.  For the record, I quilted this one using Perle #8 in three colours; a lush fuchsia, a rich dark purple and a cakky green (yes, that’s cakky! not khaki & I realise there’s a joke in there somewhere). 

Just for the Record:
Quilt Finished Size: 134 x 191cm
Block Sizes: 11.5 x 6.5”rectangles; 14” & 8.5” circles (diameter)
Cut in: 19 Feb 2011
Piecing Began: 14 May 2011
Pieced & Basted: 3 Apr 2015
Quilted: Hand 2015-16
Quilt Type: Interpretation of Traditional Quilt
Quilt Finished: Mar 2016
Exhibited: No
Collection: Home# 052
Pattern Name: Own Design
Pattern Source: Background - Kaffe Fassett & Wheels - Sue Ross
Fabrics Purchased: Purple Patch
Fabric Design: Purple Patch Collection & Kaffe Fassett
Fabric Style: Modern
Materials Type: Printed Cottons
Wadding Type: Bamboo
Backing: Pieced using left-over remnants

Absolute Magic

Garden Games: 2015  (Started:2014)

Garden Games

In March 2013, some of the RLI Girls were busy working on a pattern called Circles of Fun by Sue Ross.  Fun - sure!  What I really did like about it was that the pattern could handle a variety of colourways (antique, vintage, and classic to modern) and still look great.  Best of all though, was its paper pieced rings of scraps (the classic pattern is called wagon wheels) and the dreaded scrap basket certainly could take a beating with this one. 

After some convincing (almost 12 months) and the gift of an enormous bag of leftover scraps (Did I really need more?), I started work on my very first paper pieced project.  The machine hummed and so did I.  My bin began to fill with teeny fabric bits, and although I rescued a few large enough for applique pieces, I rather enjoyed seeing a diminishing scrap box.  Work on the quilt resumed after a long break and by mid-March 2015, the borders were ready to go on. 

Fitting the borders was the most touch & go part of the whole process – fitting a curving border is especially challenging.  Despite all my concerns, it went together quite well and I had the quilt backed & basted only a few weeks later.
 
Quilting is the bottleneck in my part of the woods, so I didn’t quite get to hand quilting until October of that year.  I wanted to use a few shades of DMC Perle #8 in yellow– perhaps to tone down that “interesting” choice of green that I’d made for the background.  One thing about using Perle #8 is that big stitches makes the task a lot faster and luckily, this effect seems to rather suit the look of this project.  I’d wrapped it all up just before my self-imposed New Year deadline in late Dec 2015… Yahoooooo!!!

Somehow, the dreaded scrap box has appeared to replenish itself.  Is it related to the Cut & Come Again Pie?  (“The Magic Pudding” by Norman Lindsay is one of my all-time favourite Australian children’s stories.)

Anyway, so began my obsession with wagon wheels…..

Just for the Record:
Quilt Finished Size: 158 x 158cm
Block Sizes: 55cm
Cut in: Apr 2014
Pieced & Basted: Apr 2015
Quilted: Hand; Oct 2015
Quilt Type: Modern/ Vintage
Quilt Finished: Dec 2015
Exhibited: No
Collection: Home #058
Pattern Name: Classic Wagon Wheel
Pattern Source: Circles of Fun by Sue Ross
Fabrics Purchased: Scraps from the burgeoning stash…
Fabric Design: All Welcome, especially uglies
Fabric Style: Random selection
Materials Type: Printed Cottons
Wadding Type: Cotton
Backing: Pieced using left-over remnants

Fiona's (top) & Erica's (above) versions of this quilt. 
That stripe outer border fabric is all machine pieced too!