A noisy companion

This charming fellow kept me company while I sewed last week.

I'm guessing it was a male tui, as he was a bit on the slender side. He guarded this tree from all-comers, and was very noisy. Not quite a dawn chorus, but he did his best.

All stitched up

The week away was productive, with my first version of Jen Kingwell's Gypsy Wife quilt finally finished, basted and the hand quilting has begun.

I sewed the sections I had already completed, shortly after arriving.

Next came sections 8, 9 and 10. It was slow going, and being a bit under the weather with the first cold of the season meant section 9 was unpicked four times.

Nevertheless it all came together with a bit of perseverance.

On the way home, I stopped at Waipakihi Road on the Desert Road for a photo. There is an extensive red tussock-wire rush mire there, but we stayed on the road for the photo. Unfortunately the wind was up a bit, so I will have to wait for a fine sunny day at home for a decent photo.

The No.8 perle cotton is out, and quilting has begun. 

A scrappy Postage Stamp quilt.

When I started out as a newbie quilter, I thought it a good idea to undertake a postage stamp quilt to play with fabric, get to enjoy something improvisational. I enjoyed shopping for little bits of fabric, 10-15cm wide, from every shop in town. I used up scraps from a couple of earlier quilts, and using my old Bernette, tried to achieve a perfect quarter inch seam.

Like most of my projects, it turned out to be a little more colourful than I originally anticipated.

As I quilted, I discovered that all those fabrics played and stitched differently. Some were stable, some stretched. My quarter inch seams were irrelevant given the stretch in some cheap fabrics, compared with the batik scraps I used. And so I learnt to buy more expensive fabric (it's $30-32/metre in NZ), and stay away from budget fabric stores, unless they just happened to have some designer fabrics come in.

Luckily my youngest daughter loved the colour(s), and calls it her happy quilt. I go away on retreat next week, and the plan is to finally quilt and bind this one, in time for winter. Her love for the quilt doesn't go far enough to undertake that aspect herself.

It will certainly brighten up her bedroom! 

A hexie-shaped moment of insanity?

I thought I would take note of today, and mark it with a short post. Today is the day I gave in, and started using the 1 1/2 inch hexie papers I bought about a year ago. It all started with a migraine, and the need to do something small, while inhaling a new series on Netflix. The series is called "Surface", and was released in 2005. I suspect it never made it onto NZ screens, as I can't recall seeing it.

Ten episodes down, I have a small pile of hexagonal goodness. Before I went any further I thought I should come up with a plan. That sort of goes against the grain, but after the Pansy Monstrosity (still unfinished), I have decided plans can be good. So, the current plan is to use up some 1930's style prints, each flower having a consistent centre colour or print, possibly yellow. I will find a nice white tone-on-tone for the space between the "flowers" in my version of a Grandma's garden quilt. Having decided this, I now need to find another use for some very bright orange hexies.

Making art, or a mess?

This is my daughters workspace. If you look really closely, you can see a small area of green cutting board free on one side. I would like to say that this was a bad day, but I would be lying. Isn't it funny how one person's workspace is another person's idea of chaos. Despite the mess, she has a high turnover of work, mainly experimental pieces trying out bits and pieces she has learnt in classes.

I am recording the chaos, just for that day when she finally makes it as a textile artist, and I can share the photo's of what used to be.

It has been a quiet week, four days of migraine in total. I have made a few blocks for my Gypsy Wife quilt, but had to keep unpicking as my head couldn't make sense of the instructions. I will post an update of the blocks later in the weekend.

A birthday celebration for a sewist

So what do you get a 20 year old sewist for her birthday?  3 yards of Anna Maria Horner knit fabric from the USA. Luckily for her it arrived on time. Thanks Pink Castle Fabric for your sale, and fast shipping to this corner of the globe.

Daughter #2 is currently attaching the neckline to a dress, which I have been informed she will be wearing this time tomorrow. If only my output was that fast....sigh.

A quilt for Vanuatu

After the recent cyclone in Vanuatu, the call went out to New Zealand quilters to donate their orphan quilts. Dianne at Village Books and Crafts is our local drop-off point, and so this quilt will be dropped off there after Easter.

It started life as a couple of cheap charm packs picked up at last years Tote-n-Glote. My youngest decided to take up patchwork, and lasted long enough to make some 4 squares from the two packs. Since then it has been nothing but art quilting for her, and so they were languishing in her pile of "stuff".

After observing in the pile for six months, I decided to turn the squares into an improv nine patch quilt. It's a little on the bright side, but that is what they have requested for Vanuatu. The binding was done by my daughter, as part of her binding-for-board money swap.

One less WIP in the pile.

Flying away home

This quilt is about to fly to a new home. It's the second Coin Quilt made with the left-overs from an experiment in making postage stamp quilts. Lots of scraps, with a generous helping of Kona Snow to bind hem all together. It turns out that producing perfect postage stamp quilts like those of Red Pepper Quilts is not so easily achieved. Lots of mismatching points, and a riot of colour that only a teenager would like.

So, a change of plan later, and two new lap quilts were made.

As you can see its still warm here, and a few flowers like these Cosmos are hanging in. The nights are getting cooler though, so soon it will be all bare twigs and winter Polyanthus.

I've also discovered a new way of binding quilts....bribing a teen sewer. My daughters skills on her new Bernina are in a league beyond mine, so I substitute a board payment for binding a couple of quilts. She buys new clothes, and I avoid an unwanted task. A win-win situation. She bound the above quilt, otherwise it would still be in the WIP pile with its friends. As I write this, she is on a bus to town, to lay-by some new shoes.

Gypsy Wife 2: the saturated version

Last year I pieced a lovely, version of the Gypsy Wife quilt based on the Sidewalks range by Riley Blake (Note: pieced, not actually all constructed). Everything co-ordinated, and was so nice! I decided to do another Jen Kingwell quilt, and ordered a copy of Midnight at the Oasis, but then stopped dead. That quilt scares me. Paper piecing, templates, appliqué etc. It contains so many new skills, I haven't gotten further than opening the pattern.

So, what's a girl to do but start another quilt until courage returns. Since I have conquered the Gypsy Wife, I thought I would make another version, but this time using a colour palette that is a bit more of a hot mess. Maroons, purple, brown, ochre, deep blues, everything except a soft pastel in sight. I am using the fabric I bought for Midnight, plus the scraps I was gifted at Symposium at the Sarah Fielke workshop I volunteered for. Lots of Kaffe and Rowan scraps in a range of colours.

Only time will tell if this ends up a complete mess, or a boundary-pushing success.