A glimpse (or two) of an Irish summer garden

Earlier this summer I wrote about the Irish Summer Garden Quilt I started, inspired by my Irish summer garden. I finished the top and have layered it up ready for quilting.

In the mean time I have been playing with some scraps, making mini quilts at about 6 inches square. I am thinking of them as glimpses of an Irish summer garden. At the same time they gave me an opportunity to practise quilting a few ferns before tackling the bigger sister. I am so happy with the results that I am inspired to make more small quilts now!

I also experimented with the binding, making it narrower than usual which I think suits their small size. I'm working on a tutorial for that...

Sandra

Summer Garden Quilt

If you've been here before you'll know that our garden is one of my great pleasures. So it's no real surprise that it sometimes influences my quilts, too.

After someone remarked "you never use green in your quilts" and realising that the view outside my windows is actually mostly green (this is Ireland after all!), I decided to look for green fabrics in my boxes. Turns out I have a few!

As so often happens, the quilt changed a few times while making it. I started with a plan for a huge quilt, sewing strips of varying widths to a length of 80 inches or so. Going from darker to lighter green and back to dark. And I didn't quite like it... So the strips got cut in half, going from dark to light, and aiming for a smaller quilt.

I debated on orientation of the dark/light: Random? Alternately light one way and the other? I decided they needed to go in one direction, dark at the top, light at the bottom. A bit like the border from my kitchen window.

Then I realised that it needed something more to break up the green a little bit. Little scraps of purple and red were added here and there to represent the fuchsia flowers and foxgloves that are plentiful in the garden, too. And that the strips needed to go horizontal rather than vertical. So this is where it is at now, shown in its natural environment:

There is more to do, and I am already thinking of how to quilt it...

Sandra

Making a charity quilt

Recently I received a call for craft items for an auction at work to benefit a local cancer charity. And since I had been thinking of making a simple quilt from some fat quarters I had, I suddenly found myself with a deadline.

Not a bad thing, since I seem to need a fixed deadline to finish a project these days...

So I started cutting...

Making it a challenge to cut as many blocks from a Fat Quarter, I managed to make five blocks out of most of them, ending up with 59 blocks. Of course it should have been 60, but well, let's say mistakes were made...

I decided on a 7 x 8 layout, and used the remaining 3 blocks on the back.

I quilted with straight lines on my domestic machine, bound with a solid light green, and of course finished with a label.

The auction was a great success, and the organisers donated the money last week. I have no idea how much the quilt itself made in the auction since I wasn't able to go to the auction myself. However, I have no illusion it will have fetched as much as it would be worth commercially.

But this is the way I look at it:

• I have made a quilt I loved making
• I had the opportunity to refresh my memory of a pattern I enjoy
• I have used fabrics from my stash
• I have contributed to a great charity
• I have contributed to the success of a fund-raising event which is now to be repeated next year
• Someone has ended up with a quilty hug to enjoy!

 Win-win-win in my book!

Also, I am considering writing the pattern for this, would anyone be interested?!

Details:
Size: 46" x 52" approx.
Fabrics: 12 (metric) fat quarters for the top
Wadding: lightweight cotton
Threads: Aurifil 50 wt colour 2479, used for piecing and quilting
Photos: phone camera in poor indoor lighting (sorry, the weather isn't on my side these days)!

This is a finish from my Finish-A-Long Quarter 4 list, too, and is linked up with the Finish-A-Long. My full Q4 FAL list can be found at this post.

Sandra

Snow days

As you probably know, I live in Ireland. Which means mild, wet winters and cool, wet summers.
To be more specific, I live quite high up in the south of Ireland. A bit less mild and wetter than the very west or the south coast in winter, and a bit cooler and wetter in summer. We have some snow most winters. But not really like we have had the last few days.

This time, the whole country got snow. So much snow that a red weather alert was called for the whole country. Schools closed, universities closed. Libraries closed, shops closed. Before that the shops ran out of bread and milk. Fortunately, being at risk of bad weather most winters, we always have the freezer well stocked up.
We are now four days since the bad weather started, and the red alert has become amber. It has started thawing slowly (and it snows again). The traffic is still limited to farmers, mostly on tractors.

But it is still pretty out in the garden. 

We are comfortable, warm and dry, and we have plenty of food, though milk is running a bit low.
The best thing: I have been sewing. If it continues this way, I may have a finish before the snow is forgotten! Fortunately I obtained fabric before the snow stopped postal deliveries, and it is perfect for the sashing of my log cabin quilt.

So now the top is sewn together, and I am stitching up the backing, using up some coloured leftovers from the front to make it big enough.

A silver lining indeed...

Sandra

A quilty hug...

Sometimes you know of someone having a difficult time, and you really would like to give them a hug. Tell them you're thinking of them, hoping with them that everything will be okay soon. Listening to their story. Being a friend. 

Sometimes you are physically too far apart to act on that, so what does a quilter do?

I am not always great with words, but this is why I love to sew.

Sandra

Twinkles

My latest project - that is the project I started most recently. I don't want to imply that any previous projects have been finished. Don't get your hopes up yet - is a major undertaking.
Not only is it a full size bed quilt, for our BIG bed, but also it is the final item to be made for the City and Guilds Cert course. So it has to be designed with the brief in mind, and executed to the best of my ability. Now I can do this, I know I can. But being me, I am not going to make it easy for myself, am I?! And I want to make something that I am proud of, that I will be really happy with. No pressure then!
I have long been wanting to make a medallion; I love medallion quilts, and I have never made one. And a square shape will suit our bed so that's ideal.
Also, I have once made a throw size feathered star quilt top (still to be quilted...but that's another story), and I would love to make another. So that's what it is going to be; a medallion with a feathered star centre.

Fast forward some weeks - this has been started a month or two ago - and the brief is written, fabrics gathered, feathered star pattern drawn, and order of construction worked out. Templates have been made, and used, and the feathered star has been sewn together. It is an elaborate feathered star (told you I was not going to make this easy) and I LOVE it.

The rest of the medallion is build up of plain strips, squares, and half square triangle (HST) strips. Which seems rather boring after the intricacy of the centre. So I have decided to liven it up a bit. I am introducing a bit of a sparkle, and a touch of improv, into an otherwise very strictly geometric design. It will be only a touch, mind you, but I do like to introduce a little twist or two into a project.

The first twist I have added, is what I am calling a twinkle - it most likely has been done before, and may have a "proper" name, but I don't know. So I may as well give it a name I like! - Twinkles are small strips of contrasting colour inserted into one round of plain strips in the medallion, in this case to indicate a touch of a starbeam showing - I cannot find "starbeam" in the dictionary, but in the context of this quilt it obviously means a beam of star light - This is what I did:

 * Place the strips where they are to go (around the existing centre), and indicate with a pin where the twinkle will be. In this case I placed the tape measure across, and stuck a pin at the correct angle into the right hand strip, and in the bottom strip:

* Take the medallion strip to your cutting board:

align the twinkle strip (yellow) with your marker (pin)

cut the twinkle strip even with your base strip (blue)

cut the base strip along one side of the twinkle

the pieces you end up with

 Now the most important step:
* Mark 1/4" from the edge that is to be sewn to the main strip (on the wrong side of the fabric). I marked only at the edges which will be in the seam allowance so the marks will not be visible later.

marking 1/4" from the inserting edge

marked 1/4" on both sides

* align edges to be sewn. Make sure that the twinkle fabric (yellow) is shifted so that the 1/4" marks are placed at the edge of the main strip (blue). The pieces are sticking out and do not appear to be correctly placed (but they are...):

* Sew a 1/4" seam, and repeat for the second seam. And there you have it:

twinkled strip sewn to medallion centre

I am happy with it and it went together so easily!
So after all that back to the cutting board. After all, I have a load of HST to be cut for the next border...

Sandra

Seasons

If the gap between blog posts means that the last one was then:

...and this is now:

I suppose you could say I have been missing here for a while!

Since it has been such a long time I am not even going to try to fill you in on anything specific that happened these last months. Suffice to say that it was summer (and a good one, too!), and school holidays, with travel and a visitor (who is very much missed now she's gone home again) and lots of time in the garden, and not much sewing being done at all...

But now the days are becoming noticeably shorter, and school and college have started again, it feels as if the sewing season is starting, too. And so it is high time to get actively sewing again and get some a lot of projects finished. A final serious effort is being made now to get my coursework completed. I have not (yet) dared to make a proper list of everything that needs to be done, because I am afraid that panic will set in when I see how long that list will be! But I know there are legions of small and larger projects started, but not quite finished.

And even though there is a lot still to be finished, I HAD to start sewing on my final (master?) piece for the course, item 5, the bed quilt! Not only because it needs to be finished as well, but also because I really look forward to making it. And in between projects that need to be finished, but are not my favourites (any more), it is good to have one that I really look forward to!

a glimpse of the final course item

And now, in between reactivating my sewing, also a blog post! It seems miracles do happen...

Sandra

Playing around

The biggest advantage of doing a course is possibly the excuse it gives me to play around more than I usually would:

Not only are we trying out things for our project ("sampling" in course-speak), but also more literally playing around with the blocks that we're making to find settings that can be made with the block repeats. And it is surprising how many different settings can be found!!! Of course, first you come across the most obvious ones, and the ones that are commonly used or the ones that are stuck in your head. But then you find settings that are not often used and some of those are actually very pleasing.

An example is the different settings you can come up with for a set of 16 half square triangle blocks:

One of the most obvious settings...

And some others... 

I think I ended up with 30-odd different ones, but I'm sure there are even more to be found.
Try it yourself: Sew some (or a lot) half square triangle blocks and lay them out in as many settings as you can come up with. You may be surprised how many options are out there, and you may find yourself making your next quilt according to your own original setting!!


Have some fun and play around!!

A simple design - squares

It doesn't always have to be complicated.

Using simple blocks can be very effective. Today I'm looking at squares.

Plain squares can be joined together to achieve chequerboard effects of many different types. The effect depends mainly on the choice of colours, and type of fabric print, as well as size of blocks.

Probably the simplest effect is achieved by using high contrast between the blocks, though I would not go for black and white as that will be very stark. A dark and a light grey will achieve the same result, but is gentler on the eye:

plain checkerboard

Two colours can be a bit plain, even boring. Try adding a few "surprise" blocks and the effect is already much more special:

checkerboard with "surprises"

Different colours can be used to completely different effects:

vibrant

calm

Instead of just two colours, the use of two ranges of colours gives already a more playful effect:

a range of blues and pinks

 Lastly, a scrap quilt can be absolutely stunning!

note the alternate use of dark and light

*all quilt designs shown here were produced by me using EQ7