Monday, February 9, 2009

Leaders & Enders...

Tigger the Wonder Dog asking me to play instead of sew

...not George Bush and Obama kind.

I have been digging through all my boxes of stashed fabrics and cutting strips from all of the fabrics that I know I am never likely to actually go, "ooh I must go and dig out that particular fabric as the basis for a quilt.." to start making triangles and squares from, for leaders and enders projects. It is actually rather inspiring to have five smallish baskets full of squares: lightish squares and one of darkish to v. dark for the possible 9-patches, and 3 baskets for bigger squares of lights, mediums and darks, for scrappy triangles. There are increasing piles of triangles and 9-patches, but with the increased strip cutting...more increasing piles of squares in the baskets too. And now that I have a biggish pile of finished triangles and 9-patches I find that I am becoming more discriminatory in my strip cutting, beginning to envision single colour or themed quilts rather than just straight-out scrap quilts, and also a vision of a log cabin quilt because of all those strips...and the more I sew, the more ideas begin to come. And the year of actually finishing things rather than starting things is not getting off to a good start!

Fiddling with some of the scrappy triangles

One of my scrappy triangles & 9-patch quilts

On the finishing things angle though, I Have finished a few things already...board shorts from Amy Butler fabric for my grandson, some dresses, again in gorgeous Amy Butler fabric for my granddaughter, a new tablecloth for the back verandah table, and I am nearly finished hand-quilting a quilt I began years ago, and keep putting aside. Today the binding goes on. But there is a big list of the to-be-finisheds that has to be got through this year!

Nic's Boardies, courtesy Amy Butler & me

[postscript re Nic's boardies, they arrived in NZ,
and he didn't take them off for 4 days! - I think he liked them!]

This is bit is totally NQR...I think... at least I know I didn't find any quilts on the site yet....

But check out this url.... www.redbubble.com There is some amazing artwork and writing on the site. ..maybe it could inspire a quilt or two...some of the colours of some of the photography really made me think, wow, look at those colour combinations!

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Year Quilts...

I have kind of fallen by the wayside with my year quilt and my daily blog, but dreamt a marvellous bowl of flowers the other night that I will use as the basis for my monthly blocks, and will now get busy again.  I have kind of kept up my blog occasionally as a means of keeping a diary, but again that hasn't been constant.  I have decided that I will have to make an appointment time with myself to get each day down for the quilt and the blog.  I seem to write a lot of emails for both business and personal reasons, and I have decided that when I don't have time for my blog that I should just lift some of the stuff I write in my emails for my blog...so this will probably get transferred there later today.  Today's fabric choice will have to have a dog in it, as I am about to take our Tigger to the vet for her vaccinations.

And a quick question for you all....what fabric do I use to represent the day before yesterday, when I found out why the contractors haven't been back to finish a sandstone wall prior to our pool being put in.....

....they have been on the run, after committing a double murder!!!!  I thought that would at least deserve a flower on the yearquilt block, lying dead and prone beneath the bowl!  I have been alternatively amused and horrified since finding out.  My brother has asked if I'm sure that after all the excavations that have gone on that our yard shouldn't be checked for unwanted deposits!! I thumped him.


 

Monday, February 2, 2009

Material musing...


 



 

Someone posted the url for the Spoonflower fabric design site yesterday (www.spoonflower.com), and I have been blown away by the fabrics that people design just for themselves! My mind has been bubbling away, and I began toying with the idea of trying to make an Australian design themed fabric. One would have to make it fit a fat quarter, and work out the pattern repeat based on that I imagine. As I am not an artist I would probably have to do a bit of colouring-in-book-copying of things that I want, and maybe do a quick art class on drawing.... And then I would need to get up to speed on converting it all into a photo-shop image, and then....I realised that I am rapidly heading for 60 and instead of finding that my days have begun to stretch, and the hours to need filling...I am frequently falling into bed at the end of the day and wishing we had 48 hour days!... so my brief flight of fantasy about becoming a fabric designer met reality head on, and I backed off!! And then this morning I got an email from Spoonflower with their weekly 'vote for the best fabric this week' competition, and the fabrics were fantastic...and my mind began bubbling again....sigh.