Saturday 31 December 2016

New Arrivals .. of a crafty nature!

Not one, but two new arrivals in my sewing room, and its annexe, the living room, this week.

Firstly some fun fur yarn from Lee Anna .


She had lost interest in knitting it and was looking for a new home for it. Now I often wear black or dark green and enjoy bright accessories and this is right up my street. I was really surprised when I found I'd won the giveaway. I've never knitted anything fluffier than mohair so this is going to be a new experience. I can't wait to get the needles clicking! I'll shortly be dazzling everyone around me, literally. I can't get over how generous the quilting community is, so big thanks again to Lee Anna.

Secondly a Q Frame quilting frame, which is small, but still too big for my sewing room.


This I bought about a month ago, but only put together yesterday evening. The whole thing went together surprisingly easily (compared to IKEA furniture); you can see the clamps next to it. They are off at the moment because I took a break from pinning to go shopping and to take a photo. I also bought an extension set to increase the length of the back legs to make quilting more comfortable. I'm using it in the horizontal position to sandwich Allietare!; it's about time I did something with that top that was finished almost a year ago! I shan't be hand quilting it but once it's ready for quilting on my domestic machine I shall load my appliquéd circles quilt, because that I am going to quilt by hand. Crawling round on all fours to sandwich a quilt had been becoming very difficult over the last couple of years and, even after my hip operation, is still a trial. The only crawling  done yesterday was to cut the wadding to size and even then my husband had to help me stand up afterwards.

I'd like to wish you all a prosperous and healthy 2017. May the new year be full of interest, and friendly faces; may we all face the challenges with optimism. I am ever grateful that I have control of my own life and am not dictated to by anyone. Not everyone in the world can say that; may 2017 bring more freedom to the oppressed.

Happy sewing

Marly.

Quilting Goals for 2017.


http://quiltingjetgirl.com/2016/12/15/2017-planning-linky-party/
Yvonne at Quilting Jet Girl is holding a link up for 2017 goals. Click on the button for the link.

At the eleventh hour I'm posting my quilting goals for 2017.
  1. Tidy my sewing room (aka guest bedroom), so that next year it might even be possible to see the guest beds!
    this was one year ago, and now it's even worse!
    And hopefully use them. And secondly (more importantly) possible to know what I have in my stash and where it is, in order to avoid spending an hour looking for "that dark purple with owls and spiders" which never did turn up! The current mess is thwarting creativity.
  2. Make a planner. I have an old filoFax, from the pre-digital planner days, I'm going to chuck out the remaining pages and repurpose it for a quilting journal and planner, with my own page layout.
  3. Continue trying my hand at improv.
    copyright infringement? - a view of a corner and it's been boxed

    Finished: Crossways QAL Instagram: #crosscutquiltalong 

    Score #1 from Sherri Lynn Wood's The Improv Handbook for modern quilters: "so far, so good!"
    This year I started three projects; one is finished, one is on-going, but the first one I started was shelved following an unsettling article in the Dutch Quilt Guild magazine about copyright law infringement. I hadn't realised that taking inspiration from a work in one medium could constitute copyright infringement. I shall finish it, but won't be publishing until I know it's safe to do so.
  4. Decide which of my WIPs are really UFOs, and make, or join in, a system for resurrecting  UFOs.
  5. Linked to no. 4 above: try harder to resist the temptation to start something new!!
  6. Try to find other, preferably "modern", quilters locally (area of The Hague, Netherlands) who would like to sew together with me on a regular basis. At the moment the world wide web is my quilting community, and much as I love you all, some face-to-face contact would be welcome.
I've been reading other posts on this link up, and some contributors have such detailed lists; they are already far more organised than I am. My list is a start and I'll be filling in the details in my new planner as I consider the items above more deeply.

Have a good Hogmanay everyone, and may 2017 bring everything you wish for.

Happy sewing

Marly.


Monday 26 December 2016

En Provence part 5

Friday's clue in the Quiltville 2016 mystery quilt was 64 HSTs. As I'm only making half, here are my 32:

32 x 3.5"square HSTs in purple and neutral
I found the last one on the floor this morning, unpressed and untrimmed. It was nearly too late for the photo shoot!

I have visitors arriving soon, so that's all for today.

Later today I shall be linking up to:
Quiltville's Quips & Snips
where lots more HSTs in purple and other colours are waiting for your viewing.

Happy sewing

Marly.

Monday 19 December 2016

En Provence part 4

For the forth clue in the En Provence Mystery Quilt, Bonnie Hunter posted another triangle in a square block, again with a neutral large triangle, but this time with mixed dark purple "wings". As I'm only making half the number of units as are in the original, my total for this week is 40. Here are the first 21 units.

When I've made 10 units I pin them together to make counting easier. That didn't work here though, somehow an extra 3" square got into one of my bundles! The other nineteen units are cut and waiting to go next to the sewing machine.

I'm looking forward to using yellow and green; so far my units are a rather dull and dreary lot - to match the weather of the last few days. I'd like to move away from lavender, much as I love that plant, and move on to bright sunflowers! It's time for a bit of sunshine!

I'm linking up to
Quiltville's Quips & Snips
where lots more quilters are displaying their purple (and other) triangle in a square units.

Happy sewing

Marly.

Monday 12 December 2016

En Provence part 3

The third clue of En Provence, Bonnie Hunter's 2016 Quiltville mystery, was posted last Friday. I started cutting on Saturday and sewed 32 purple 4-patches on Sunday morning.

32 purple 4-patches

Some of these squares look blue (even my white design wall looks blue!) in this photo. In reality they really do look blue, seen against the other purples, but lay them alongside blue, and they look purple! I need to make approximately 50 more to have half of the original number, which is what I'm going for at present.
Last week I managed to make my full quota of triangle in a square units, so the next 50 4-patches shouldn't pose too much of a problem.

I'm linking up to

 Quiltville's Quips & Snips

on Monday afternoon (Central European Time), so click on the picture to see more purple 4-patches.

Happy sewing

Marly.

Friday 9 December 2016

Poinsettia wall hanging

January 2015 I started this Poinsettia Quilt following the instructions given by Anne Deister (SpringLeafStudio) The idea was to make a Christmas quilt, but as I don't have any use for bed quilts I decided to make a smaller version - four blocks instead of Anne's nine.


Finally finished! It's not big; it wasn't difficult, but sometime in May, I decided to hand quilt it! That was not really so slow, I just kept putting it off.

Hand quilting: big stitch in red and green 12 wt cotton on the leaves and petals; regular hand quilting in Yli 001 Natural in the background and border

The photos are all of the same quilt; the first two in artificial light indoors, where the quilt hangs in the corridor which doesn't lend itself to getting a good angle for photos, but the weather has been grey and dark all week. All week until this afternoon, that is, when the sun just popped out to say hello before setting at about 4 o'clock.



Statistics: 36" x 36"
Fabric: from FQs from stash, from various fabric designers and manufacturers
Piecing thread: Aurifil 40 wt.
quilting thread: Aurifil 12 wt. 2260 (red) and Venne 12 wt.7-5002 (green) and Yli colour 001 Neutral
Wadding: cotton

I'm linking to 
https://anjaquilts.blogspot.nl/2016/12/tgiff-makers-tote.html 
where you'll find more of this week's finishes


Happy sewing

Marly.

Monday 5 December 2016

En Provence Mystery - clues 1 & 2

It's that time of year again; Bonnie Hunter's Quiltville mystery month! Somehow I just couldn't resist!
I couldn't post last week because I was away from home, and hadn't even been able to get started, but this is my progress so far.

unlikely but possible layout!,
I'm only making half the units and at present have some 40 neutral 4-patches (clue number 1) and 30 triangle point squares (clue no.2). The remaining pieces for the 50 triangle points are ready and waiting, along with some 6x2" strips for the 4-patches which I'm in the process of joining as leaders and enders. I'm going to need many more of them!

Finished units on the left, waiting pieces on the right.
I've finally gone wild with the concept of "neutral" being anything which is at least 50% neutral, so there are elephants and moose in there as well as flowers and leaves and the odd text. I'm enjoying the result of so much variation in neutral! My photos don't do justice to the lush dark pink batik I'm using for the triangle points. This was the only fabric in the whole shop that approximated to the shade of Bonnie's fabric. Had any other customer wanted the bolt of Bella solids "magenta" that afternoon she would have had to fight me for it, as I lugged it from shelf to shelf tying to find a low volume print a few tones darker! We do have paint chips here, but in a different language the colours have other names! So Moda's colour chart came to the rescue. Normally batik wouldn't have been my choice to mix with ordinary cotton print, but scrappy is scrappy, after all.

I'm linking to the Quiltville linky party.

 Quiltville's Quips & Snips
Hop over there to see more Southern French inspired delights.

Happy sewing

Marly.

Saturday 5 November 2016

Scrappy weekend

Each month Angela gives a colour for scrap using, and some suggestions for blocks to make with that colour. This year I've been making Bear Paws instead of Angela's row quilt. One month  I misread the instructions and made extra pink blocks instead of red. Silly me! This week I made a set of red paws so now I've caught up for now:


although I'm not sure how I'll pair them up with some of these:


I've decided to continue with these blocks next year until I have enough for a lap quilt. Incidently those 2" b/w HSTs make very good leaders and enders!

I also sent off two blocks for a charity quilt:


both are gloriously scrappy: a mixture of  civil war and 1930's reproduction, and some modern pieces as well. They're not trimmed because the only measurement given was 26cm square, but no mention of  whether that was the finished or unfinished size, nor of whether the width of the seam allowance  was to be 0.5 or 0.75cm, both of which are common here. Whoever has the task of joining the donated blocks will have to decide that one for herself. I do have a question though for those of you using metric measurements: how wide do you make your seam allowance (when you're not using 0.25", that is!)


I'm linking to 
RSC16  and toQuilting is more fun than Housework  
so go and visit them and see more beautiful scrappy creations

Happy sewing

Marly.

Monday 31 October 2016

Floating squares


I'm working on Score 1 from Sherri Lynn Wood's "Improv Handbook for Modern Quilters".

This photo is the result of yesterday's effort; I really was on a roll for the first time in three weeks!

Since I last posted on Floating Squares I've added a fuchsia and orange and a brown and orange section. Two days ago it looked like this; those green squares had been hanging around for about ten days, and I couldn't think what to do with them. They've gone back in the box. Maybe they'll be back; who knows!


Time to change the background:

Added yesterday: orange (again!) and pink with dark green background
 Not only the background, but also the arrangement. And to ditch the orange and use bright yellow.

Work in progress

Now I feel like making a section with royal blue and emerald green! But first finish the yellow/pink!

I'm linking up to
AHIQ

Call in there to see lots of fabulous improv patchwork and finished quilts.

Happy sewing

Marly.



Saturday 29 October 2016

Autumn Sunshine

Angela at Soscrappy gave yellow as this month's colour.

Bear's paws basking in the sunshine
I had lots of 2" yellow strips left from last year's Quiltville mystery from Bonnie Hunter. But if  I needed confirmation that my guest bedroom/sewing room needed tidying I got it when I couldn't find them anywhere! Yesterday evening, having just finished sewing these, guess what ... I found the 2" yellow roll already set aside and ready to use!

A week or so ago I laid out all my bear's paws to date to see what I had and how I could mix the colours. 

I still have to make two red pairs and at least one more blue pair, and split the purple and pink combination (top right) as there's too little contrast. I'm certainly nowhere near being finished with this one! I don't even have enough for a lap quilt, but I hope to have some of these units joined into blocks before the end of the year. Next year will see the same quilt moving along with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge!

I'm linking this post to
RSC16
Pop over there and look at all the creative yellowness!

Happy Sewing

Marly.

Saturday 1 October 2016

Wide open pouch

Last week I posted this photo:

The coloured fabric is the front, the grey raindrops the back.
as a sneak preview.

Here is the whole thing:


I used Noodlehead's free pattern for the "open-wide pouch". It all came together really easily, although the lining doesn't sit as neatly as I would have liked. That was my inexperience, I'm not complaining and I shall certainly be making more of these, also in the larger sizes.

pale grey lining: easy to find things
And one last photo: with a few small things; you can't give someone an empty pouch, now can you!


I shall be giving it to a friend this evening. She should have it by the time this goes online.

Happy sewing

Marly.

Star Light, Star Dark finished top, plus ...


For the Star Light ,Star Dark quilt along at Quilty Habit I made a big effort to get my quilt completely finished before the link-up ends on Monday. I know now I'm not going to make it! There is no way I can quilt the right half, join the two halves and get on the binding by Monday. So, although half quilted, I'm linking this to the "finished top" category.

On 3 September I took this photo of the blocks, more as a reminder of the layout than for publication, but it's the only one I had of all the blocks before today.

3 September


1 October: left: quilted; right: only layered and pinned!
here are some close ups of the quilting so far:


dark green with small stars

dark yellow
dark purple

The reverse of the dark purple star - poor quilting: to unpick or not to unpick, that is the question!
 On the large dark purple star I quilted feathers, from the centre into each of the star points. At least I tried to quilt feathers, but this bird had weathered a hurricane! Feathers of very dark and busy fabric was a mistake: I could hardly see where I was going! I'm seriously considering unpicking, but as my husband pointed out, "No-one can see them on the dark purple anyway!". Of course we can see the mess on the back, but looking now at the photos I see that the purple insert coincides with the worst of the feathers! Maybe they'll stay!

small dark purple star

small dark yellow star

Reverse, showing the quilting:
















 
(I really wanted to put these two photos side by side, but my Canon software doesn't seem to run to making a panorama view and Blogger won't co-operate either.)




I'm not proud of the dot to dot quilting: the lines are far too wobbly, but I'm leaving them. I hate unpicking quilting.
Statistics:
Fabric: Assorted FQs from stash, Bella solid "sand"(?) for backing with an inset from stash (nameless)
Thread:  Aurifil 40 wt - 2324 (light khaki) bobbin; 5017 (green); 2540 (purple); 2130 (yellow)
Wadding: Cotton
Quilted on my Bernina 440.
Now I'm going to further plan the quilting of the light side. I hope I'll have finished by the end of this month.

I'm linking up to 
 Quilty Habit
Pop over there and see all the fascinating interpretations of this quilt. 
Don't forget to look at all the categories! 

Happy Sewing

Marly.