Sunday 22 June 2008

Shortest Day

Yesterday was the shortest day. It seemed quite long to me but that is because I was fretting over some things that are happening at work, and trying to decide how to deal with them. I hate those situations where people behave badly and force you to either let them have their way (walk all over you) or fight a battle you don't want to be in. I'll have some interesting negotiations coming up this week. We drove to the beach to distract me...



Today I've been doing quilt-therapy. These little ones are 18 inches square for a neo-natal which put out a call for quilts through one of the on-line quilting groups I belong to. They take very little fabric, use up left over batting and are easy to quilt. Perfect for a rainy day like today. At the beginning of this year I made a very lofty goal to donate 4 quilts to another charity but I haven't made a lot of progress. With these 2 complete I feel that I've made a start at doing something to help someone else.

Sunday 15 June 2008

Little Bits

I've done quite a bit of quilting this past week. As well as putting together the pieced borders for my Orange Crush quilt I've worked on some little pieces, so I have pictures to share.

This first if my June journal quilt. The technique for the month was "metal foils or wires". I got the idea for this from a Christmas embroidery design by Bronwyn Hayes. The hats her ladies wore got me thinking about some metal foil I had saved from a champagne bottle which would make a perfect crown. Her figures were too small so I sketched a larger version and then kept drawing my own and changing the shapes so that the applique would work. It looks really simple, and now it seems surprising that I stitched every night for a week to finish it. I almost exhausted my bead collection on the jewellery - clearly I need a much bigger selection :o)


Next is a very simple landscape using Karen Eckmeier's techniques. This was so quick to put together using little scraps.


Lastly a favourite photo my grandad and niece, printed on fabric and embellished. This one has got all sorts of techniques in it. I used part of an old tablecloth behind the photo with added fabric paint to enhance the colour of leaves. The flowers are bonded and painted plastic bags with centres made from Cherry Ripe wrappers and these are sitting on stamped silk scraps, with loopy ribbon leaves. For the mesh at bottom I used solvy over yarns and organza (this was intended to be the background for the flowers but it didn't work that way).

My next project is to get those borders on the Orange Crush quilt and get it finished. Today is a beautiful sunny day and I should be in the garden but I really want to get this one done (and the leftovers tidied away).

Sunday 8 June 2008

Crushing is done

Yesterday was our monthly quilting day so I was able to get my Orange Crush mystery quilt together.I have to say I'm not thrilled with it. I spent a short time thinking about what I could do to make it "work" a little better but then decided to cut my losses and just get it together. I hate to let partly made projects sit if I'm not happy with them because I spend too long thinking about what do with them and how to make them better. Now that I see Sandy's quilt with a much more subtle accent colour (my blue) I think I should have gone with something a little less bold. Oh well, that's what happens with mystery quilts. The ladies I was with yesterday thought it would make a great picnic quilt - nothing would show because there are so many different scraps in there.

We're off to lunch now for DH's birthday. It's a lovely day after stormy weather yesterday so we will find a nice place in the sun.

Monday 2 June 2008

More of autumn




I've finished all the Orange Crush blocks. I still have lots of fabric left so I'm hoping that Bonnie has a setting planned to use that up and pull it all together to make it look stunning.

I've also been working on my next journal quilt. Also the stitchery BOM from Capricorn Quilts - I'm a few months behind on this one so it's time to get back into it.

The autumn photos are for Sandy as inspiration for her leaves quilt. The trees are really starting to be past their best now - a bit much wind and last night it rained hard so they all lost more leaves. I love autumn.

Sunday 1 June 2008

Doing the Orange Crush - Part 2

The whole blocks are finished and now it is on to the half blocks. I have laid these out in the setting that would seem "obvious" and they look ghastly. I'm hoping Clue 6 will contain a miracle that completely changes the way it looks - LOL. I still love my feature fabrics, but they all just seem to blur into one when I alternate the blocks. That the "joy" of mystery quilts I suppose :o)

Doing the Orange Crush

Today I'm working on Clue 5 of the Orange Crush mystery. I'm excited because I get to use my orange and blue,which is actually 5 different blues because I fell in love with them all and couldn't narrow it down to just one.


Don't they look awful on the ironing board cover?

Around here

My sewing at the moment seems to be focused on a couple of quilt-a-long projects I've joined. For a while now I've wanted to use u...