Making Progress

When this past week's quilt block for the Solstice Challenge was published, I wasn't sure if I really wanted to do it. It's an applique basket and I didn't feel that it was consistent with the fabric I'm using and the look I am aiming for. But I decided to do it anyway. However, I first had to tidy up the basket. Sorry, Pat Sloan, but it was too sloppy for my liking. I folded the pattern in half to make sure both sides matched. used a ruler to make all of the straight lines straight, used a round object (my paper clip holder) to round off the handle and made the pattern all one piece, rather than the basket and handle separate. And I still didn't like it. It's just not right for this fabric.

When I posted it to Instagram, I noticed that other quilters had customized their blocks and decided I would, too. I had been looking for an opportunity to use a fussy cut of the deer in this fabric, so decided this was the occasion, and made the deer the centre of a square in a square. 

And I love it! See the finished block below.                             

It's gotten a LOT of likes on facebook as well (over 400 last time I checked), 

Here are the two blocks side by side. 

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the original block. I would have liked it better leaving the centre without the applique. Maybe I'll remove the basket. 

I've also been plodding along on Damian's train cardian. It definitely needs blocking, but I'm pretty happy with my first (and maybe my only) attempt at intarsia knitting. It's a size 4 and he's already 4 years old, but fortunately not big for his age. I need to get this done while it will still fit him. Hmm, is that sleeve supposed to be that big? One more sleeve to go, then the button & buttonhold bands and neckband. 

And today I'm very happy to have finally finished the Stars All Around quilt top for my great nephew Aiden. I think that gives me 4 quilt tops that I need to find time to spend at the longarm studio in order to finish them.  

Hook & Needle News 14/01/17

I am grateful to report that the Floating Stars quilt top is finished.

I'm not sure when I'm going to get the opportunity to quilt it, but at least this much is done. And, I have to admit, I think it rocks! 😃

And this week's Solstice Challenge Block:

I am really loving this monochromatic colour scheme and the fabric. Can hardly wait to see it when it's all finished. I ordered some fabric from Sew Sisters that I'm hoping I might be able to use for finishing this quilt, if I need another fabric. We'll see when we get that far. But summer still seems like a long way's away and this Solstice Challenge goes from winter solstice to summer solstice. But it gives me a chance to get other things done.

I didn't take pictures of it, but I'm really making progress on Damian's train cardigan: left and right fronts and back done, and I'm almost finished one sleeve. I need to finish that before he outgrows it!

Floating Stars and Wintry Woods

After completing blocks 2 & 3 of Pat Sloan's 182 Day Solstice Challenge in this fabric, I've decided that I love the look of this colour scheme and will continue with the challenge.

Green is my nephew Justin's favourite colour and so it looks like this is going to be his quilt. I just wish I knew what the finishing is going to be so that I can plan my fabric purchases. However, I will just start with buying more of these two fabrics. I think I'm going to call it Wintry Woods, but I also keep having the Robert Frost poem, "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," run through my head, so that might end up being this quilt's name.

This evening, while working on January's UFO, I've been listening to this CD:

I love classical music and this is a great selection from various composers. However, after listening to it multiple times, I'm getting rather tired of it and need to rummage around and find some of my other classical CDs.
Here's where I am so far with Floating Stars:

That's actually half of the top, minus the borders, of course.

I'm getting sick of trimming half square triangles. The fabric squares are cut out at 4". Once they're made into HST units, they have to be trimmed down to 3-1/2". I'm thinking that the next time I do HSTs I will spray starch the fabric to help keep the bias from stretching and cut the squares at 3-7/8". That way I shouldn't have to trim. Trimming vastly increases the amount of time and effort required to make a quilt. And I'm basically lazy (😃) and don't have a whole lot of time. Besides, I realized that the quilt I was making for my great nephew Aiden didn't make it onto my UFO list for 2017 and he was born last spring, so I really need to get that one done soon! Not enough time to waste trimming HSTs!

By the way, the Floating Stars quilt is from this book:

 It's for my nephew, Bradley, who bought himself a house this past year. We had his housewarming party in September. Some day maybe I'll catch up. Maybe even get ahead so that I can actually give the quilts on the occasion they were intended for.

Looking for an Aggressive Fabric

Have you ever thought of fabric as being aggressive? I haven't, at least not until I was looking for fabric to use for borders for my Stars Over Africa quilt. The quilt is a project I'm working on to enter in the Johnson's Sewing Centre/Quilter's Dream quilting challenge. I purchased a 4 fat quarter bundle and have to use some of each fabric in my quilting project, and can add whatever fabrics I want. The quilt has to be a minimum of 16" square, but can be a bag, a jacket or other quilted project - not just a quilt. I opted for a throw size quilt, and here's what I have so far (ignore the purple square as that's part of a different project):

These are the actual fabrics in the bundle (Northcott's Karma Spirit):

Those elephants were just begging to be fussy cut. Originally I was planning on doing a scenic childrens quilt with elephants, water (aqua fabric), grass (green fabric) and flowering shrubs (pink fabric). I purchased the blue batik in the photo below to use as the sky:

I also added the coral fabric, just because I liked it and it seemed to fit in the colour scheme. However, if I wanted to win the challenge, I felt that I needed to come up with something better than a funky elephant scene. That's when I decided to use the black fabric and make the star quilt. However, I wanted it be at little more interesting and decided to set this section on point. I want to put a border around this section, add four more blocks (not sure what those blocks will be yet) plus setting triangles for the corners, then a final border. The setting triangles will likely be the blue batik. But coming up with a fabric for the borders is another matter. I'm trying to avoid purchasing more fabric, so I rummaged through my stash. I had to find something that both colours and patterns suited the rest of the quilt. Because the colours and patterns in the fabric are definitely not subdued, I realized I needed something "aggressive." 

Upper left and centre fabrics are just too "wimpy" for this quilt. Top right fabric is not quite the right colours, and the pattern is definitely not right. Lower left - the pattern is great, but the colours are not quite right, though I haven't totally ruled this one out. 

These two are awesome colours, but not bold enough for this quilt.

More great fabrics, but nothing really aggressive about any of these.

Ouch! The colours are right, and it's definitely bold, but the pattern really doesn't work.

The one on the lower left is what I purchased for the binding. I will probably use the one on the lower right for the first border. I don't want to use it for the outer border as it doesn't contrast sufficiently with the binding. I'm not really sure if the orange fabric in the centre will work, and there's not enough of it for the outer border. Still considering... I may have to break down and buy some fabric, which, of course, will be such a hardship. LOL!

Meanwhile, in my 5 days off work over Easter, I did a couple of mini quilts to enter in Moda's contest celebrating Electric Quilt's 25th anniversary. I would have dearly loved to win a copy of EQ7, but I didn't. I had fun anyway. 

This is Summer Star.

Here you can see it's been cat-tested and approved.

And this is Spools. 

And yes, I actually did free motion quilting on my domestic machine on both of these quilts. 

That's all for now. Time to give my grandson a bath, which is Grandma's privilege tonight.