Update and New Project

Have not posted for a while because all sorts of things are going a bit haywire at the moment. My midarm has developed a fault and a time had been set for possible repairs...then we went into lockdown due to the Covid Delta strain. On top of that I developed a migraine which always takes me a few days to get over. Our lockdown is hopefully only for a week, but of course I had all sorts of appointments which all had to be cancelled and re-scheduled which left me somewhat 'out of sorts'. Structure, plans...all gone out of the window, not something I cope with very well at all.

So, all in all, a very unproductive week. In the end I started on a new pattern for my Etsy shop which should be quite fun to put together.

My test blocks

Even with that I made a mistake with my migraine brain. Cut out all my fabric needed for the pattern and then did several test blocks to work out how to best press the seams and check on accuracy, meaning I then had not enough to actually do all the blocks, then mis-cut some of the red fabric...the list goes on. You have to laugh sometimes. Today I have a clearer head and we are back on track. Found some more red fabric in my 'bitses box' which saved the pattern and in thinking this through realised that I can make do with what I have. Was able to knock off the Woven Ribbon blocks and am starting on the other block. Should come out nice and colourful. Even made some notes as I went along so the write up of the pattern should not take that long.

Hopefully things will start to settle down and our lockdown will finish next week so that I can get back on track.

Karin

Bits and Pieces

Finally finished the Charity quilt. Just now have the binding to go on that one and another one. Had some machine issues so this was a bit of 'stop and go'.

Did a simple wavy feather border which looks quite nice. 

When I went to the dealer the other day, they had Amanda Murphy rulers in the shop. Could not believe my luck as I have been looking at them for some time, but could find nowhere in Australia where I could buy them. I was after her circle ruler set. I have a Handiquilter circle ruler that I got last year via the Internet however that one is rather large measuring about 10 1/2in x 4in. It has a number of circles in there which I thought was great, however it is awkward to hold on a sitdown machine when doing just one size circle in a row. Ever since then I have been on the lookout for something different. When I saw a video of Amanda Murphy demonstrating her circles, I thought that that would be easier as the circles come in individual sizes.

So took them for a spin the last two days

These rulers have a non-slip backing and are very easy to hold. Apart from a number of alignment lines they also have the finished circle drawn on in four directions. When doing a row of circles I found this particularly useful as it helps to align them without much effort as you can see your stitched circle overlapped by the drawn one on one side and another drawn circle on the other side that you can line up with the space to be filled. I stitched a row of different sized circles a number of times on these samples, each in their measurements (which you probably would not do as it needs to fit exactly) and found it very accurate.

The only drawback of these circles is that you need to be able to lift your presser foot to get in there and if you are planning to use two different sizes in a row you would need to tie off to get out of them. I was aware of that and it is not an issue for me, as I wanted them mainly to do rows of circles in sashings and the outside of course is hassle free to use like any other ruler. Did some arcs, overlapping designs, orange peel designs and some scallops. Easy peasy...

Karin

A Year of Stars with Natalia Bonner - Spider Star

And another month has gone by...

This is the Spider Star all dressed up

Head over to Piece N Quilt if you want to find out more about this monthly quiltalong.

Karin

Lucky I Like Quilting

I developed a sort of love/hate relationship with the quilt I am currently quilting. This is one of the charity quilts I am doing for the Orange Tree Quilters group. Initially I thought...great, will put some feathers in the open spaces...no worries!

Well, wrong...The little blocks are merely 3in and arranged in an somewhat unusual way. While I could have done one feather display in the white space around the center elements, that idea fell to bits when I looked at the surrounding areas. Repeating a similar feather would have been difficult in the next space and in any case they would have ended up a bit small in places. Then looked at different feather designs, different ways to arrange them, but nothing really worked. I think after that I looked at alternating feather surrounds, i.e. some feather work in the white spaces alternated with some sort of filler. Drew that out but still did not like it. 

I think after all that I just kept looking at this quilt. Quite like it, the fabric is really cute and I like that dusty pink colour. This would have taken ages to construct and I did want to honour the maker by chosing something that would suit and highlight the design. The day before yesterday I thought I might echo around the dusty pink shapes...great idea on paper, however in reality none of the curves are exact, so following that with a circle would have meant a lot of fudging, aligning and would then highlight some of those little imperfections.

Yesterday then I thought that this is ridiculous...there has to be a solution! I needed something that I could put into those spaces which was flexible enough to be extended or shrunk as needed and fitted in the repeating spaces while at the same creating some unity. In addition it needed to be a quasi standalone design that could end in a pleasing manner in all three spaces.

This is what I have come up with

Photo is a bit dark...it's cloudy and rainy over here.

Well, decided on a scroll. Did the center motif first. This is a stencil from Cindy Needham's Border stencil package. Particularly like that one and was fixated on using it. So I repeated that in the semi border around the main design. The scroll is a very old stencil that I forgot that I had. Fitted perfectly into the white space surrounding the center and was flexible enough to be massaged into the second and third white space. Having it in the middle also meant that differences in the available space did not become that noticeable and given its odd spaces it was easy to align because nothing really matched (hard to explain but there were some surprising discrepancies). The only thing that could have been done better is that I did not stitch every seam down...I went around the pink bits to secure the quilt rather than do every single seam (because initially I thought that all the white bits would be stitched down with feathers).

Almost done...will do a simple feather border and then it is done.

This certainly gave my brain a workout and a half!

Karin