28 Jan 2012
Swoon
{ part 4 }
You may recall from my last Swoon post I
was trying out a red and aqua theme and it just wasn’t working. I really loved
all the feedback I got and decided to ditch the red and aqua and make a multi
coloured Swoon. At the bottom of the post is a layout that I’m toying with so
if you’d like to give more feedback but don’t want to see the individual blocks
please scroll down :)
I was going to sit on it for a while and
mull over fabric choices, but because the Swoon-a-long is on with over 650
members, how could I resist??
So I pulled more fabrics and this time I
made five blocks at once!! I do love an assembly line for Swoon, but I have to
admit it did take me two weekends to get these guys done.
So here are the newbies:
Fabrics are Amy Butler Soul Blossoms and
Happy Mochi Yum Yum
Fabrics are Sweetwater and Happy Mochi
Yum Yum
Fabrics are Denyse Schmidt from Spotlight
Fabrics are Sarah Fielke From Little
Things
Fabrics are Amy Butler Soul Blossoms and
Sarah Fielke From Little Things
So I now have 11 blocks and I only need
9! I think I will take out one of the plainer aqua ones and make a baby quilt
with it. Here is the layout I’m considering – what do you think????
And here are all 11 blocks for you to see
if you think I should change what gets kept!
that's
me at the other end perusing the blocks (although you can't see the glass of
wine in my hand which is required for such tasks!)
I would love your feedback!
14 Jan 2012
The
Farmer’s Wife Quilt-a-long {round 5}
2012
Another batch of Farmer’s Wife blocks! I
included seven in this batch to take my total blocks up to 40! I really enjoyed
this batch and am happy with my colour combos. Let me know what you think…
Block 39 Friendship:
Fabric is Treasures and Tidbits (blue and
red), Kaffe Fassett (green), Happy Mochi Yum Yum (yellow) Dear Stella (grey).
Block 54 Kitchen Woodbox:
Fabric is Loulouthi (green), Terrain
(floral) and a Spotlight spot (pink).
Block 58 Mother’s Dream:
Fabric is Loulouthi (blue corners), Kona
Tangerine (Pantone colour of the year!) and I think the other is an Echino.
Block 61 Northern Lights:
Fabric is Happy Mochi Yum Yum and Kona
Plum.
Block 69 Practical Orchard:
Fabric is Terrain.
Block 81 Snowball:
Fabric is Loulouthi and Kona Cerise.
Block 109 Windows:
Fabric is Sketch (blue centre) and
Michael Miller Aqua Red (red centre and aqua border).
6 Jan 2012
Swoon
{ part 3 }
2012
For me half of the time spent making Swoon blocks is checking and double
checking I’m sewing the correct pieces together, so once I’ve got my head
around that it’s far more efficient to make more than one block at a time. So
this time I went for three. They are really big blocks – over 20″. Feels
strange having such big blocks, especially after playing with the Farmer’s Wife
blocks!
I’m doing aqua and red on a white
background. Over the last few months I’ve been buying fabric for them and I
have been focussed on making each block either predominantly aqua or red. I’ve
been trying to mix up the fabrics and not end up with a group of blocks that
are all from the same line.
I’m not sure if I like them. I think latest aqua blocks are too samey? I think the Swoon quilts in the Flickr group I love have better contrast in the colours used within the same block as well as the overall quilt. Not sure what to do now? Do I leave it at these six? Do I use the blocks for smaller projects? Do I leave the samey ones out and try to bring in more colours? Do I just sit on it for a while and see what I think of them in a couple of months? Do I keep going and choose fabrics with better contrast? Is it just my terrible photography skills?
4 Jan 2012
Sewaholic
crescent skirt
Alas I am back at work today so the
sew-a-thon is over :(. I still can’t believe how much I managed to achieve in
the break, it’s been great! It’s really quiet at work so I thought I could
sneak in a post!
Some wonderful friends gave me a Kelani
Fabric voucher for my birthday! I got a load of
patterns from Alice at Backstitch and
decided to try the Sewaholic Crescent skirt.
It’s gathered onto a yoke. I wanted something fun and a bit quirky so I chose
this folksy matryoshka doll, windmill, horse, bird and heart design.
As always pattern sizings confuse me and
according to the pattern packet my body measurements range from a size 10 to
16!! I decided to make the size 12 which ended up way too big. I probably
should have gone with the 10, maybe even the 8. It’s still a little on the big
side even with all the excess baggage my waist is carrying from Christmas! I
think it would look better fitted so I’ll need to motivate myself to take it in
a little more. I’m really happy with the way it turned out, it will be great
fun for Summer weekends.
Thanks B&R for the great gift!
2 Jan 2012
The
Farmer’s Dozen {round 4}
Jan
02
20
Wow, now I am really on a roll with
Farmer’s Wife blocks! Instead of my usual 5 at a time I have managed a dozen!!
This brings me to a total of 37 blocks. The official quilt-a-long is up to week
27 so that’s 54 blocks. I have no idea how many blocks I’ll end up making
although I know I’d like over 50. I’m along for the ride so we’ll just have to
see where I end up. I’m definitely more motivated now I have more than just 5
blocks!!
For the first few in this batch I think I
was after quantity more than quality. I’m sure you’ll notice that I’ve taken
the easy option of selecting fabrics from the one range. After 3 blocks I think
I realised this takes the fun out of it so I started to mix it up again. Block
5 Bat Wing is pretty terrible but I’m not a re-do kind of girl. I’m a
let’s-hope-when-the-whole-quilt-is-made-it-won’t-stand-out kind of girl.
I introduce to you….{insert drum
roll}…the Farmer’s Dozen…
Block 2 Autumn Tints:
Fabric is Hullabaloo
Block 4 Basket Weave:
Fabric is Terrain
Block 5 Bat Wing:
Fabric is Treasures and Tidbits
Block 7 Birds in the Air:
Fabric is Denise Schmidt from Spotlight
and the dots are from Spotty also
Block 8 Bouquet:
Fabric is Liberty, Sweetwater and two
from my stash
Block 10 Bowtie:
Fabric is Amy Butler, Happy Mochi Yum Yum
and Kona dark rose
Block 12 Broken Sugar Bowl:
Fabric is Loulouthi and Kona Lagoon
Block 17 Cats & Mice:
Fabric is Amy Butler and Kona pomegranate
Block 18 Century of Progress:
Fabric is Denise Schmidt from Spotlight,
spots from Spotlight and Kona aqua
Block 19 Checkerboard:
Fabric is Terrain and the background is
from my stash
Block 31 Evening Star:
Fabric is Kaffe and Kona tangerine
Block 84 Spool:
Fabric is Tula Pink and Amy Butler
Block 88 Star of Hope:
Fabric is Portobello and Kona aqua
1 Jan 2012
4×5
Modern Bee {round 1}
Jan
01
2012
for
Laura: green, grey and aqua on white
I want to join every swap, bee and
quilt-a-long I see. I can’t help myself when I see all the gorgeous things
being made and I love the sense of community it brings. I love the concept of
sharing with folks on the other other side of the world and I love stumbling
across folks who are actually right around the corner!
for
Leona: blue, green and white
Alas I can’t join in everything and I
have to be careful that my sewing time on weekends doesn’t end up becoming
consumed by little bits. Having said all this the 4×5 Modern Bee is right up my
alley so I joined up last quarter and got partnered up with some great ladies.
The flickr group for the bee is such
inspiration to me – the block, the colours, the fabric choices – I love it all.
If you’re not familiar with this bee you make a block of your choice in the
colours requested by your partners – so five blocks in total plus one for
yourself if you like.
for
Naomi: navy, lime and aqua
I got a bit carried away deciding which
block to make and originally decided on one of the Camelot blocks. The block I chose
has over 60 pieces, hand cut and hand pieced. It didn’t take that long really
to prepare my sample block in my own colours, but then it dawned on me I’d have
to do this five more times and that would take quite a chunk of time.
The Camelot quilt has 16 blocks and is a project that you don’t tackle
expecting to finish in a weekend. It’s high on my list for this year and when I
thought about the fact that I could have made 6 blocks for this I realised how
overly ambitious silly I had been!!
test
Camelot block
So, back to the drawing board! I’ve had
the book Modern Blocks: 99 Quilt Blocks from Your Favorite Designers compiled by Susanne Woods on my bedside table for a while and the
bottom left block on the cover by Lara Finlayson caught my eye.
They were great fun to choose fabrics for
and pieced up really quickly. I made my block the traditional pattern – I
didn’t do the extra block in the bottom left like the book. It was being off
centre that I loved.
for
Jess: aqua, yellow and grey
My bee blocks have been packaged up and
posted off the the US and the UK and I’m looking forward to receiving five in
return!
for
Jill: robin egg blue and apple green
I’m going to continue to join this bee
each quarter until I have enough blocks for a quilt top. You’ll notice I still
have to make this block in my colours red, aqua and orange! You can find the
flickr group here.
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