Yes, more quilts...

Here are a few more of the many quilts around my house. Yes, my entire house IS covered in quilts (and what's wrong with that?).

This piece is from a private swap that I did with Andrea, for our 40th birthdays, which were near one another a few years back. I made a blue and yellow quilt for her, which you can see over here.

This beach hut piece is not so much a swap as a challenge - it was a UFO challenge with the Textile Arts group, where we swapped small unfinished UFOs in the hopes that whatever was stuck would come unstuck, etc. I sent off the beach hut piece, which looked like this at the time (scroll to the bottom of the post), and got something completely different to work on - I've linked to all the posts about it because I think it's an interesting process to see... I love the finished beach huts and it hangs in my kitchen (but not too close to all the grease and grime generated by cooking!).

I've been trying to remember exactly where this piece was from - I think it was another Textile Challenges piece, but it's possible it was from somewhere else. I know it has a label on the back, but it's actually stuck to my wall with blue-tak, and I don't want to pull it off, as it will probably take some paint with it. Anyway, doesn't matter, it's a nice piece wherever it came from!

I won't force you to look at the mending!

Did a load of stuff today - most of it either secret (Exquisite Corpse) or boring (mending - yes, mending!). But there are a few things I can show - the first is this block, which is for the Around the World Quilting Bee - it actually doesn't look nearly as dark as in the photo.



The other thing I can mention is the UFO challenge - I decided that it was done after the beading, and put some binding on it tonight. I still can't work out which way is up, so I put tabs on all four corners and will let Deborah worry about it.

FFO...

...or, Finally Finished Object. This is the quiltie I got in the post today from Deborah (for whom I am finishing this piece) as part of the UFO Challenge swap. This top was made a long time ago as a start for a challenge piece with the theme of summer. I got as far as the beach huts and then lost steam. Deborah has kindly sorted it out for me and it looks great. There is detail that doesn't show in the photo, such as some fringe at the top of the sand and the bubbles quilted at the top of the waves. The piece really works now, and I'm delighted with it. Thank you so much, Deborah!

more UFOs

Well, although the weather was not as bad as predicted today - indeed, it was quite nice this afternoon - I still managed to get some time this morning to work on quilty things, and chose to do some more quilting on this piece for the UFO challenge. After spending some time browsing various sources and doodling, I decided to fill with wavy lined columns, then connected spirals, and finally finish with bricks, to echo the previous hand quilting and grids.



So here's the finished piece - or rather, not finished, but I've done all the quilting on this piece that I will do. It now tells me that it wants beads, so that's next. Not sure what I will do for binding - probably something fairly traditional, but I guess it will depend on what I find in the way of fabric. Anyway, beads first and then we shall see.

UFO challenge

Although yesterday was full of other bits and pieces, I did manage to snatch an hour or so to work in the UFO challenge I am doing with Textile Challenges. You may remember that I received this piece to work on - I have started out by filling the background with very dense quilting. On the left you can see the quilting that was there to start with - in the very left-hand section, the hand-quilted grid. I have added the dense swirls below the red object and the circles above. In the right hand photo, you can see a mostly machine quilted grid of varying density - Deborah had already started quilting a grid in this section and I felt the best way to handle the quilting here was to echo that. I'm very happy so far with how this is working, but haven't decided yet how to proceed in the next section. At some point I may go back to circles, but not yet, I think.

Interesting challenge

My group Textile Challenges is doing a UFO swap/challenge (due at the end of June) where you swap small UFOs with someone else in the group, finish each other's piece off and send them back (they are also doing one where you keep the UFO rather than sending it back, but as most of my UFOs are larger rather than smaller, I decided to only take part in one of the challenges). This is the piece which I received from Deborah to work on - it may actually be upside down in this photo - I'm nbot sure yet which way is up. Or maybe it wants to go sideways. What you may not be able to see is that she's done some hand-quilting on it, very small stitches close together - in sort of bands across the piece (with other, unquilted bands). I have several ideas brewing on how I want to tackle this (it won't involve hand quilting!) and I think it's going to be fun to work with. I won't do anything with it right away as I need to get a few other things finished first.

I also received the next round of the Exquisite Corpse to work on - this one has a black background, which is different from any of the others I've had so far - and I will be working on the hips & upper leg region. Not sure what I'll do for that yet, but I'm sure something will come to me - it has for the other three parts, eventually! I won't be able to show it until the very end, of course, but someday it will sure be fun to show all these things...

I've not done any actual work today, I confess. I did empty all my bookcases, repair the backs (most of them are the cheap type with heavy card backs, which after a while, come loose), get rid of lots of books (not so as you'd know it from looking), help the kids organise their books, and so on, but no sewing. I woke up with a very stiff shoulder, which put me off - tomorrow I do hope to get some work done, though as it looks to be another busy week coming up.

Not giving things away - part 1

Whenever I give stuff away I get a lot of comments about how much stuff I give away and so on, and my response is always that I have loads of projects and what I give away hardly makes a dent. That is perhaps a slight exaggeration, but I thought you might find it interesting to see all the tops, sets of blocks and other UFO/WIPs which I am NOT giving away. So I braved my sewing room storage area and dug out all the things and have taken photos - this is a very photo heavy post - sorry about that! But hopefully it's a bit interesting. I also hope that it will serve as a bit of a nudge for me to actually get some of these projects finished. I did fairly well last year - didn't add to the unfinished stuff too much and did complete a few things as well, but I'd like to do even better this year.

Right. So here goes - "finished" tops first, in this post. I think I'll do separate posts for the blocks and other projects - way too long and photo intensive otherwise. And maybe even two posts for the finished tops - there are a lot (ok, 24, since you asked! Some of those are little.)

1. "Scrapbuster" quilt. 80x92". This came from a swap on Scrap Quilting Forum on Delphi back in (um, goes to check) late 2006, early 2007. We swapped blocks of 4x4 squares (the squares are 2") - unique fabrics in each block. I decided to "sash" mine with 2" black squares as well. I intend to use this as a picnic blanket, and even went so far as to look for backing fabric at the Farnham Maltings sale a few weeks back, but didn't find anything - I think I might use fleece or minke as it will make a better weight blanket, but I may change my mind and just do it the normal way. I don't really want to quilt this on my DSM as it's fairly large, but on the other hand, it seems silly to send it away to a longarmer - and my favourite longarmer is living in India at the moment, anyway, which is rather inconvenient of her. Also, it seems a lot of money to spend on a picnic blanket. So, it's in statis. I'm sure something will happen with it someday!

2. "Autumn Sampler". 66x80". 2006? I think this top came from blocks from a swap on the Quilt Shoppe Forum on Delphi, but I couldn't find it in the forum list - might just be too old to show in the discussions. Anyway, the swap was for any size or shape block, so long as it had an autumn theme, and it produced some wonderful blocks, as you can see. It took me a while to work out how to put them together, but I think the result was worth it. It has a border of vegetable fabric - like an autumn harvest, sort of. It's not been quilted yet because I'm wasn't really sure how I wanted to do it at the time, so it got stuck away until I came up with inspiration. And so it sits! Now that I look at it again, I think I will just echo around the applique and in the blocks and meander everywhere else. Maybe some leaves thrown into the meander. Nothing too complicated, but more planning required than an all-over pattern.

3. "Antique Neutrals". 66" square. Spring 2006. Again, a result of swapping - this time definitely on Quilt Shoppe Forum on Delphi Forums as I was able to find the discussion. No excuse for not finishing this one, other than inertia. I keep thinking it would make a nice wedding present for someone (which it would) but none of my friends seem to want to get married. Probably because most of them are already married. Or have been with their partners for so long without getting married that they are now unlikely to ever do so. Maybe someday I will finish it up anyway. Actually, this is a strong contender for the longarmer, when Lana gets back from India - and no, it's not really that silly to plan for something several years away, as it's already been sitting around not being quilted for several years!

4. "Bali Hai". 74" square. not sure when it was made. I got the pattern in a Christmas Scavenger swap - probably Christmas 2006, might have been Christmas 2005. But not sure when I made the top. It's all batiks and is very pretty. This would really suit an all-over pattern, but again, it's a bit big to wrestle with under the DSM, so unless someone needs a gift in the immediate future, I think this one will also wait until Lana gets back from India. And of course, even once she gets back, I can't afford to have more than 3 or 4 quilts longarmed in a single year, so... If it's a specific wedding present, that's different, but if the quilt is just being quilted either for me or to get finished "in case a present is needed" then I have to budget a bit more!

5. "Ostrich". 76" square. BQL Challenge, 2005. It's called an ostrich because it's kind of like a round robin (in that you have a different theme each month and add to the quilt in rounds) but it doesn't fly (i.e. you work on it yourself) and you had the option of "sticking your head in the sand" one month and not doing that month's challenge. I was very pleased with this top when I finished it, but at that time, it really exceeded my quilting abilities, so I didn't want to tackle it. And I was debating whether I wanted to try big stitch quilting with orange thread, or machine quilting, or what. I'm still not sure, but I do feel more confident about my quilting abilities, so might give it a go. I'm also debating adding some applique in the large blue triangle areas - celtic knotwork or something? Can't decide. So, nothing happens! It's not that I never finish anything, mind you - the BQL Ostrich for the following year, 2006, I did finish - and it hangs (sometimes) in my mother's house.

6. "Flying Pigs". 82" square. Oct 2005-Oct 2006. Another "ostrich" type project - Nesting Round Robin, they are also called. This one was on the Scrap Quilting Forum on Delphi. Each month one of the players gave an instruction as to the type or style of border. I made my quilt entirely in hand-dyed fabrics - most of them mine, a few from swaps with others. On the right is the whole quilt - or as much of it as I am able to show indoors on my bed - the twisted ribbon border is the outer border. On the left is a little more detail of the central part. If you want to see the whole thing from centre to complete top, I have an set of photos in my flickr album. Once again, this originally wasn't quilted because I didn't feel my quilting skills lived up to it. And I didn't know what I want to do with it. Still don't!

7. "Participant's Mystery Quilt" - 56x72". April 2004- Nov 2005. This was another swap (well, not a swap precisely) on Scrap Quilting Forum - each month, a player would nominate a block for everyone else to make in her own choice of colours and fabrics. I did mine all in batiks. I can't remember why now, but in the end, I only chose 12 blocks to work with from the 20 I made with the swap. Perhaps I didn't make them all. I know that I picked at least 2 or 3 not to use because I didn't think they went as well with the others. Maybe I just chose my favorites! I have vague memories of using a few of them for gifts - cushions, maybe? Anyway, this is another top which is just knocking around because I haven't bothered to do anything with it yet. No excuse really. Looking at it again, I am reminded how much I like it, so I really must do something with it soon. I even have backing and binding for it, so there's no excuse!

8. "Japanese Fans". 53" square. 2006? This quilt pre-dates my blog, but not by much, I think. It was from a swap with the Yahoo Group EuroQuilt, and the theme was Japanese fans - with oriental fabrics, of course. Once again, it was put to the side because neither Lana nor I could work out what the most sensible way to quilt it was - either by DSM or longarm. Now that another year or so has passed, I think I will probably quilt it on my DSM - the problem is that there's lots of applique and some pieces have lace and so on on them. But it's a manageable size and my quilting skills are much better than they were in 2006, so... I even have backing made for this one, so it should move up on the priority list, perhaps. I think I will try to get this one done this year for sure.

9. Hand-dyed squares. 51x72. Not sure when I did this one. Early on in my fabric dyeing days. The main problem with this quilt is that I don't really like it. I like aspects of it, but not the whole thing. I think I might take it partway apart, turn some of the blocks into a baby quilt and then get rid of the rest. I think the main thing I dislike is the pale orange fabric, so if I separated those blocks out, perhaps I would like it more! Most of the tops I had that I didn't like, I got rid of, but somehow, this one has stuck around... I do have a decent sized piece of hand-dyed fabric to use for backing if I decide to quilt the whole thing up. We'll see. Now that I've thought about it again, it can stew around in the back of my mind and perhaps it will inspire me in some way.

10. 57x69. This one I made a long time ago - probably right after I started quilting again (I did some in university, then nothing until I moved where I live now and found a neighbour who quilted). So although I don't know the date, I'd place it around the year 2000. I guess that's not "a long time ago" by some people's definitions, but it's a long time to have a quilt top sitting around. Maybe 2001, who knows. Just looked it up in another place, and apparently, it's only the centre which is that old - the borders went on in 2006. Which is still pathetic, but at least not quite as pathetic. Again, there's no real excuse for not having quilting it other than the fact that I just never got around to it. I have backing and binding for this one, too. So if I ever need yet another last minute gift...

OK, long enough - I'm going to publish this and start another post to finish the tops!