Improvisation progress in May

This week I did a little work on my improvised quilt inspired by Piet Mondriaan's "Composition in Red, Yellow and Blue".

Last month I showed some red half rectangle triangles I wasn't satisfied with. This month I sewed the red triangles together along the short side; that really did seem to be the best arrangement. The yellow and blue I cut as flying geese right from the start. I didn't manage to work out how much extra I needed to cut for the seam allowance, as a result most of the geese have been beheaded!

This week I'm going to make two more blue "geese" and continue to make my Mondriaan inspired block. Then it'll be time to think about the other corners - more triangles? more squares? And it needs more fabric on the left hand side, probably empty space, but I just don't know yet.

I've been trying to make a circle a day in the Quilty 365 project, but I've fallen behind. Here are this month's improvised circles as of last Wednesday. I'll be showing all May's circles here on Tuesday.

I've recently learnt how to make free-hand curves; I bet you'd never have guessed! Even so, this one, with all straight lines, is my favourite:

with 21 pieces. cut-offs from various farmer's wife blocks, and they are tiny pieces to start with! Although it will look better after pressing, it's not a very circular circle!

I'm linking to the Ad hoc improvised quilting link up hosted by Kaya and Ann

Click on the button to see more improvised patchwork quilts.

Happy sewing

Marly.

May greens for RSC 16

Each month Angela chooses a different colour for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge and this month that colour is green.

I'm making bears' paws this year and here are my four green ones. After stepping in green paint these bears have all painted their nails black and white for a change! an idea I copied from @hoosiertoni and Jessica at Quilty Habit.

I've been making the HST's as leaders and enders while making other things, mainly 1930's Farmer's Wife blocks. I seem to be forever cutting black and white triangles, but all the rest is pretty effortless, unlike the FW blocks!

I'm linking to 

   and  

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Happy sewing

Marly.

Quilty 365 scrappy appliqué circles May link, April progress

Audrey at Quilty Folk issued a challenge last autumn to appliqué a circle onto a square each day. I joined in on 1 January and  made these blocks in April:

April's blocks in chronological order, starting with the short column on the left: 1, 2, 3 April.

making a total of 121 blocks to date.

All the squares measure 4.5 inches, and most of the circles 3 inches in diameter. Special days' circles are 3.75 inches and there are three: family birthdays on 6 and 8 April, and a public holiday (King's Day) on 27 April. The pieced circles are all made from scraps, but I have cut into a few new fat quarters this month to achieve enough variety. Two of the squares are prepared, but not sewn yet! I hope to manage to sew three today, and be up-to-date by the end of the day!

I have been thinking about the layout and at present favour something like this:

most of the circles from the first three months

a rainbow arrangement of the background colours, although the regimented straight lines need some mixing up in the final arrangement. It definitely needs tweaking before I start sewing them together.  The main trouble with this layout is that I have to find a way to include these:

about 15 squares in non-rainbow colours

I've also started sewing the circles cut from behind the appliqué patches onto a 4.5" wide strip and

intend including them in the final quilt.

I'm looking forward to seeing more layout ideas.

I'm linking to:

     

Click on the buttons to see more quilt blocks from scraps

 Enjoy your Sunday everyone, and have a good week!

Happy sewing
Marly.

Scrappy orange; yummy orange!

Yummy orange

Last week I wrote that Wednesday was the King's birthday. Unfortunately the weather was really not what we expect for the end of April: 7°C, rain, thunder and high winds, so I stayed at home, and didn't see more than three people with orange hats and scarves! I guess everyone else stayed at home too! I had ventured out the day before, however, and bought these:

of which I had one with my morning coffee!

It's a fairly ordinary cream slice, but with orange icing. Unfortunately, only the colour is orange, not the flavour; that would would be really special. It's also a calorie bomb, so strictly rationed!
Late in the afternoon we joined with other residents in the central hall in toasting the King, and one another! I'm not in the photo, but my husband is, and two of my grandchildren who acted as waiters!

Scrappy orange 

orange crumbs, and a few narrow strips.

is all used up!
 
I've been working on 1930s Farmer's Wife Blocks this week and making black and white HSTs as Leaders and Enders.

2.5 inch HSTs

Here they are waiting for next month's colour to be announced. That's all the RSC sewing I've done this week, and no orange at all! My orange blocks were finished (and shown) last week.

I'm linking to 

Click on the button to see orange scraps in beautiful projects.

Happy sewing

Marly.

Improv composition in red, (yellow and blue) in progress ...?!

Kaya and Ann are giving hints on improv patchwork on their sites as they host the Ad Hoc Improv Quilter's link up.

In January's linky party Monica enthused about the book "Cultural Fusion Quilts" by Sujata Shah which had been the inspiration for much of her own work. I agree, it's great to see haw Sujata has taken the patterns presented by everyday images and turned them into quilts.

Sujata Shah's work as well as that of Kaya and Ann is very inspiring and has given me lots of ideas, but last week I was quite suddenly hit by the work of Piet Mondriaan. Not really HIT you will understand, although I live within ten miles of the largest single collection of his work in the world, but such close proximity to a masterpiece would have got me arrested. Inspired by his famous Composition in Red Yellow and Blue (there are several of the same name) I added red, yellow and blue solids to my FQ collection (white I already had, but I forgot the black!) and got cutting. Hmm!

Using Sujata's method of stack and slash, but going for straight cuts, I cut white and red 8 x 4" rectangles diagonally. The result was disappointing really as I was going for arrows, so I cut the next two pairs of rectangle in half vertically to 8 x 2"

The narrow points won't do! (on the left) They curl outwards and when they are joined it's even worse (on the right): all that fabric coming together at the point, just wouldn't come together. Nor would it lie flat.

I haven't tried joining the wider ones, but expect that those bulky seam ends will be just the same.

Rather than go on with yellow and blue I tried some other arrangements:

I quite like this one; this afternoon, at least

and ended up with this:

which looks highly conventional!
Feeling somewhat disheartened I made some highly conventional HSTs (as opposed to HRTs) to get myself back in balance.

I haven't given up on this project, but don't want elongated pinwheels. So it's back to the drawing board for me and into a little zip-lock bag for  the fabric! It's still on the cutting table so not shelved yet, but I need to decide on what sort of triangles, and how to construct them. As this is my first improv attempt I'd welcome any ideas on how to go next. Perhaps I should have tried a wonky log cabin first!... to be continued ....

I wrote this post a month ago, but missed the link up by a week! (Wrong Tuesday - silly girl!) In the meantime I've done nothing with this project except think about it now and again.

The Quilty 365 project is proving an easy project for improvised piecing as the scraps in my scrap bucket are getting smaller and in March I pieced more circles (although one is not improv!)

And pieced more circles in April, although not so many:

Not to happy with the fabric repetition there, but they won't be together in the final layout.

I'm linking to:

Click on the button for the link to more amazing improvised patchwork.

Happy sewing

Marly.

More bears' paws

Angela at Soscrappy has given us orange as the Rainbow Scrap Challenge colour for April. The month is almost over, and I'm interested in which colour we will be moving on to. In April I have made four orange units and two have already been included in a finished block.

Here's my first bear paw block completed:

I've paired two of the orange units I made this month with the two brown units I made earlier in the year. The bear paw units finish at 6" each and I added a 1" wide sashing within the block. I haven't yet decided on the sashing for between these 13" blocks.

I made two more orange units, and here they are on the design wall, temporarily paired with the two blue units I made earlier. I'm not joining these yet; I'll wait until I have more options.

This week not just my sewing room, but the whole of  The Netherlands will be orange: more orange than usual, that is! It's the King's birthday on Wednesday, and for that we have a public holiday. Many people who follow soccer will know that the Dutch team always wears orange, but for other sports the national teams are also dressed in orange. Orange is the national colour. The national flag however is red, white and blue, but the royal family is the House of Orange, and their heraldic flag has a lot of orange on it. On Wednesday an orange pennant will be added to the flags flown on public and private buildings in honour of the King's birthday.

grandson escaped!

My 9 year old grandson is already wearing an orange, white and blue trainings jacket, and of course our patriotism is being encouraged by commercial interests:

King's day display in the supermarket: orange hats, scarves tee-shirts and tooters, beer in orange tins, cakes which usually have white, or pink or chocolate icing now coloured orange. All at "special" prices!

and if you drink enough Heineken you can buy a King Willem-Alexander tee-shirt!

I hope to have more orange festivity photos later in the week.

I'm linking to :

    

(click on the button for more scrap quilting ideas)

And on Tuesday to 

Free Motion on the River 

(click on button on right side bar)

Happy sewing

Marly.

RSC 16 an orange bear

Angela has given us orange as the Rainbow Scrap Challenge colour for April.

Last week I showed orange and black HSTs that I'd made as leaders and enders while making 1930's Farmer's wife blocks. This week, however, I haven't been using orange in my leaders and enders, but making black and white HSTs. 

Black and white HSTs: some made, some prepared for stitching

Then I put them together in a 16-patch bear paw. 

An interesting discovery was finding it easier to get a good square result when I first joined the squares and HSTs into 4-patches, rather than in four rows of four. I find it easier to trim a square than a long row.

I wrote the above while waiting at the hairdresser's this morning where I was surrounded by orange:

1970's retro orange; 2016 art with a dash of orange (one of a series called "through the curtain" - this one reminds me of a Goya veiled nude)

more retro orange

I'm linking with

Click on the button for more juicy orange.

Happy sewing

Marly.