Wednesday, 11 November 2015
finished flimsy
Thursday, 23 July 2015
there is work in progress
In May, it was announced at our quilting group that there was going to be a log cabin challenge for all of us to use up scraps! Seems like I was already ahead of the game! LOL
I searched the internet for inspiration – I had absolutely no idea how to put those blocks together given their different sizes and shapes. But sometimes, I just have to be patient and let ideas percolate. In the end I decided to go with a wonky setting but I still had no idea how to go about it. I started looking at tutorials, but all the ones I found were for making sashing on all four sides of he block. I wanted to add sashing on only two sides. In the end, I found my own away to do it – the wider you cut the sashing and the more fabric you are prepared to ‘waste’, the better this works. Again, it didn’t occur to me to take photos of my work in progress – you can see how out of the habit of preparing for blog posts I have become!
Armed with twenty blocks (I made the extra one), I headed to class at my LQS. They have a design wall – I do not! My teacher, who loves traditional patterns and Civil War fabrics, is quite bemused by me sometimes, I think! Here I was with a totally radical modern approach to quilt blocks and I hadn’t even consulted a pattern! I did take a photo of my layout on the design wall but have since deleted in from my iPad – because I’ve finished the quilt top. Here it is for your enjoyment:
I have also finished the backing.
The fabric used for the sashing and the backing is Saffron Craig’s Ginkgo Blossoms (c.2009). I used about three and half metres to make this quilt which will finish at 52” x 64” and is made up of twenty 12” blocks plus extra sashing down one side and across the bottom.
This one is basted and in the process of being quilted.
While I was on a roll, I made the backing for another quilt which I had finished in October last year.
It is made from ‘Disappearing Nine Patch’ blocks with one modification – I made the neutral pieces of the nine patch smaller than the coloured parts; thus giving a thinner sashing than would otherwise be seen.
Here is the finished backing, containing my signature panel. the blue sashing gives a completely different look to the neutrals on the front! I have laid the blocks differently too – to form a type of ladder. The backing fabric is a small yellow check, not the solid it appears in the larger photo.
My sewing time is taken up with quilting the Wonky Log Cabin quilt; then I’ll get to the Scrappy Disappearing Nine Patch.
In the meantime, my knitting time is spent trying to catch up with my mum who is powering ahead knitting blanket strips. Come back for my next post and see another of her knitted blankets that I have finished.
I'm linking this post with WiP Wednesday over at Freshly Pieced blog. Why not pop over and see what other crafters are up to?
May your stitches bring you much joy.
Lynne
Sunday, 19 July 2015
Violet & Friends and the Scrappy Churn Dash
Saturday, 28 March 2015
finishes!

I’m hoping to see another quilted finish and another knitted finish before next weekend! Hey, when you’re on a roll … LOL
Sunday, 1 March 2015
saying goodbye to pink
It hasn’t been a very productive month, sewing-wise, for me. In the middle of the month, my uncle, who has been researching my paternal family for many years, sent me some information from a distant relative that neither of us has met. At first I only glanced at it, then I decided to read it, then I compared it to the information I had in my family tree. I was hooked! I spent all my days working on my family history – refining and adding. I’m an “all or nothing” kind of gal; when I get involved in something I don’t do it by halves; and so (almost) the rest of month passed without a stitch of sewing!
I did, however, do some knitting! Don’t fall down in shock! Last Saturday, I had to attend a meeting of the local branch of the Knitters’ Guild (I was tutoring on ‘planned pooling’) so knitting was needed! I cast on a sock during the meeting and finished on Friday afternoon. I don’t normally knit during daylight hours but I had dropped a couple of stitches and couldn’t see by the poor light in our living room to pick them up so I had to do it while the sun was shining! And, as luck would have it, the sock is knitted in Moda Vera Noir (a sock yarn) in the colour way “pink mix”!
I say “luck” because pink was the colour for this month’s the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. At four o’clock yesterday afternoon, I settled into my sewing room. I had told myself that I would spend an hour cutting and sorting but that just depressed me – after two weeks away from my sewing room (I didn't even attend class last Monday because I had a raging headache) I just wanted to sew. Knowing that it was the last day of ‘pink’, I decided to use my pink crumbs and have some fun. I started out with the intention of making 4.5” squares and just started sewing crumbs of roughly the same length (on one edge) together. Then I sewed those pairs to other pairs and, in the end, decided I would just sew them together “free-form style” (a knitting term; I guess it’s just a form of crazy patchwork!). I deliberately cut things on strange angles – nothing mattered to me except stitching straight lines (so everything would lay flat at the end) and making sure I had a minimum of a quarter inch seam allowance (some seams are a bit wider wider)!
I finished with a rectangular piece of fabric (15” x 9.5”) that is made up of about 70 pieces of fabric! It will go on the back of a quilt – at least that’s the plan till I suss out the situation in my quilting group: will a truly modern quilt be acceptable? The next piece of ‘crazy’ patchwork will have even more odd angles – the ones I’ve cut here barely show in the finished piece! The bottom right side is looking really good! That’s what I was aiming for!
So it’s goodbye to pink sewing for now (I will knit the other sock – I don’t like Second Sock Syndrome! Besides, sometimes my tension/gauge changes if I leave too much time between the first and second sock).
Autumn began here today so I’d go for for red, brown, orange or yellow as the colour for March! But Angela, who hosts the challenge, lives in Florida and there’s no chance she’s thinking of Fall now! I’ve just checked…
…it’s yellow!
Are you participating in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge? Even if you’re not, why not pop over to Angela’s blog and see what other’s are up to with their pink scraps.
Thursday, 12 February 2015
pretty (scrappy) in pink –- a work in progress
![]() | ![]() | ![]() |
Tuesday, 10 February 2015
it’s February and some people’s thoughts turn to hearts
I have to say, this soon-to-quilt-top is one of my favourite projects ever and I’ve blogged about it several times but it’s never had it’s own post.
In 2011, DD and I , with two month old Younger Grandson, made the hour and a half trek across Sydney for the inaugural meeting of what was to become the Sydney Modern Quilt Guild (now the Sydney Modern Quilt Group). We needed a hand-stitching project to keep us busy (well, DD had her hands full anyway) during the three hour meet-up. I had recently acquired an Accuquilt Go! Baby and had been keen to try it out.
I’m glad I learnt how to do fused appliqué in the few quilting classes I had taken at that point. I had also done embroidery in my past which, of course, included blanket stitch. Putting the two skills together, I was able to work on some of these:
Over the years, DD and I carried appliquéd hearts to meetings of the Caring Hearts Community Quilters and eventually I had thirty blocks done. But they were only 6” (yes, I was a new quilter and forgot to add seam allowance when cutting the squares) so I needed more blocks – or I needed to enlarge them somehow.
Inspiration came from two sources: a chance overhearing of a comment from someone in our quilting group on the merits of appliqué and/or scrap quilts; the other from the Dresden wedding quilt made by Jess at A Quilty Habit.
I enlarged my blocks and made them scrappy!
And I worked on the layout until I came up with this:
So, the obvious question is: if I love these blocks and this layout so much; why has the project stalled? Well, firstly, we moved house! That slowed all projects down for several months! But, more importantly, I know I need to add white sashing between the blocks but I'm not sure how I want to quilt it (using a walking foot; FMQ is out of the question for now). I think I want to echo quilt around the hearts but dragging the whole quilt though my domestic machine (even though I have a 9” harp space) doesn't inspire me so I’m considering QAYG row-by-row (gasp!)
What would you do if you were a novice quilter with little FMQ ability?
Wednesday, 7 January 2015
works in progress
- four patch quilt – to be bound and labelled
- triangle brights and flowers – to be bound and labelled
- pink brights and gingham – backing required
- K’s project – quilt, bind and label (binding supplied)
- QAYG string blocks – 14 more blocks needed




