The dark and the light

Some progress to show on two quilts - a light and a dark. So nice to alternate working between them at the moment.
Here is "the dark" - my Star Bouquet:

It is about 3/4 of the way done and the stars are still such a joy to make. Here are a few newer additions up close:

And " the light" is my Carolina Lily quilt. Two borders are on and am working on the last two. The borders have been a pleasure to applique down. 

Leaf placement is fairly flexible/random - suits me fine. On the original quilt it is quite irregular ie, not the same placement in any one area - which is fun. So I am adopting a "near enough is good enough" attitude to matching this - as long as the overall look is the same.

Here is a stunning flower to complement this quilt. A couple of weekends ago we went for a family picnic in the Wollongong area and had a rainforest bushwalk. This plant was growing, self-seeded,  as a weed by the roadside  - so stunning don't you think!  Brugmansia I'm thinking. 

Flowers about 10 inches across

Last but not least I must comment on the Sydney Quilt Show - went to see it last weekend. I haven't been for years as it is a bit of an expedition from here but will make more of an effort from now on.

It was so impressive - 580 quilts in every size and style! I cannot show photos as haven't permission (sorry) but the well deserved ribbon winners can be viewed here - just tab through the pages. 

Apart from these be-ribboned wonders there were many without ribbons that, for me, were equally stunning. The sort that are "stop-me-in-my-tracks-because-this-is-just-my-sort-of-quilt" quilts! I felt very humble after seeing that lot I can tell you ...and so thrilled to be able to view them all - thanks to these quilters for sharing and inspiring.

Carolina Lily - border

First border pinned and part appliqued. It is sooo good to be sewing it down now !

Sounds simple enough but there was a fair bit of fiddling around preparation to get to this point ( isn't there always?! or maybe that is just me).

Just a run through of the border prep:

•  photocopied the Quiltmania pattern sheet. This was just a corner snippet of the border at 50% shrunk - that is all that was provided. So I had to double the size and make a patchwork of 6 photocopies. 

The magazine pattern (on right) and my 'patchwork' enlargement photocopies

• made a full size placement pattern for the side and top border on a roll of sandwich paper - involved a lot of freehand sketching (and erasing) curves to fit it evenly.

The photocopy corner pattern and my placement  paper pattern to match 

My paper placement pattern sheets laid around the centre blocks

• Cut fabric border strips and pencil on the placement lines for bias strips 
• prepared leaves (cut from a template),  lily flowers (EPP as for centre blocks), and bias strips

• Then for the fun part -  pin and hand applique :)

Must tell you about a wonderful book that arrived this week - just my sort of book. 

This is the special book and catalogue published for the Quilts 1700-1945 Exhibition (British quiltmaking history plus the Australian Rajah quilt) to be held at the Queensland Art Gallery (Australia). Unfortunately I live interstate and am not likely to be attending but it sounded so wonderful that I pre-ordered their book. 

I am SO impressed with it -  beautiful, quality illustrations, excellent articles from different contributors and very good value for money in mho. It is a heavy book even though it is paperback - almost 200 pages. 

Contents page from the book

A sample of different illustrations from the book

Hope you get lots of sewing (or quilty reading?) done over this long weekend! 

Carolina Lily blocks completed

The centre blocks are all sewn together. There were various options for orientation of  blocks but I have gone for the same as the original - why mess with it when I love the pattern as it is?!

Now for the border. Here is a close up photo of some of the border in the original quilt:

Photo from Quiltmania magazine

I need to make 21 yards of bias for the stems, 48 English Paper pieced flowers and 104 leaves - and then applique it all down. Walk in the park ?!

The border is the best part of the quilt in my view, so am sure it will be worth the effort. 

The EPP flowers in the border are smaller than in the blocks - consisting of 1 1/2 inch diamonds instead of 2 inch, but the leaves are the same and stem width is the same.  

Okidoke ...back to work.

Carolina Lily and trapunto quilts

Three rows sewn together ( the ugly seams between blocks won't show through once batting layer is in place behind )

Top three rows

Just a reminder - here is the Quiltmania pattern photo of the original quilt :

The original was quilted with wreaths in each of the plain blocks, and cross hatching elsewhere. I'm thinking this might be enhanced with some trapunto in the wreaths. 

I have done a little trapunto in the past. Here is my small sample quilt made in a machine trapunto class a few years ago with Deborah Louie:

I wanted to practise more at the time, so I thought I'd try in a wall quilt. I was very keen on "blended" quilts then (where piecing blends together) but unfortunately all the work of the trapunto doesn't exactly stand out on a blended quilt! It just ... blends.

The blended quilt hanging in my bedroom

 Here are some photos of the quilt in better light that shows the trapunto quilted floral chains:

All that trapunto makes for a rather stiff board of a quilt - nothing cuddly about this one! But it is fine as a wall hanging.

The back of the quilt

That was machine trapunto. A good demonstration of this method is shown in Kathy Wylie's blog. It is a very different process to hand trapunto.

If I was to do machine trapunto on my Carolina Lily quilt I'd need do the first quilting/batting stage now, before the quilt is sandwiched together. Then I'd have to machine quilt all the wreaths again in the second quilting stage, once it was all sandwiched. Sounds like a lot of machine quilting..... ?

So I considered hand trapunto  - have never done this but think it looks lovely. I had a look at Tim Latimer's hand trapunto video - a great demo.  I might do this -  hand threading the yarn into the back of the quilt (on the wreaths) once the machine quilting is finished. The advantage is less time at the machine (which I don't enjoy much) and more time sitting with handwork (which I do enjoy much)! You can also control how much stuffing is used - I don't want it too stiff this time.

Ideally I would hand quilt the whole thing but my arthritis does not allow that. Hopefully it will cooperate with the trapunto yarn threading :)

Back to make more Carolina Lily blocks now.....

Baltimore Album block 23

One of my favourite blocks - and made with one of my favourite greens - so all good fun to make! I am not a "hearts" girl so I made the hearts green in this block to make them less of  a feature.

I did the whole block using my usual back-basting and normal needleturn applique. But I have just read on Repro Quilt Lover blog that parts of this particular block might be easier done in reverse needleturn applique and I can see that. The narrow parts on the petals could more easily be made very narrow that way I think. Interesting....

I have experimented (rather randomly!) with reverse applique in parts of my Baltimore Album. Thought it might aid with layering and add some depth - centres of buds etc - and found it very useful. It combines well with back-basting but adds an extra step. You first back-baste the under layer in place, and then the top layer, prior to reverse applique.

I feel a bit nervous showing such close-ups of my applique - could have taken a wee bit more care with stitches and thread colour but never mind! These are all closeups of different earlier finished blocks.

the pink centres in bud are reverse appliqued

pink in petal area is reverse applique

reverse applique yellow in centre of  knot and in curved bows, but not on wider ribbon ends

 

Do have a look at the blog I mentioned because Taryn shows her beautiful block there - looks wonderful quilted!

I've now finished 5 blocks of my Carolina Lily quilt and still going strong...

Little hexagon purse

Little Hexagon Purse ( Brigitte Giblin pattern) in Smithsonian green fabrics is finished and I have to say I think it is pretty cute! I don't think I'll bother with a chain or ribbon. It will be a handy clutch to transport small bits of sewing and a chain might be a nuisance.  

Lined in cream linen

That's it - short and sweet today.

                                             Happy sewing!

Lots of yellow and green

My Carolina Lily quilt has become a production line  - lily flowers at various construction stages

Pile of bias stem, and lots of English paper piecing

a few finished blocks

Meanwhile, I may have contracted yellow-and-greenitis (I am sure there is such a thing) ... because I couldn't resist starting another little yellow and green project. Some time ago I got the pattern/hardware for Brigitte Giblin's Little Hexagon Purse.

The bag pattern and some of the hexagons I cut out

I have long had a much-treasured little (really little) collection of Smithsonian yellow and greens. Then I recently topped these up with a lovely purchase from Sherri. At about the same time ( lovely coincidence ) Kathie very kindly helped me out with some green that I had run out of for my Baltimore Album quilt. I can spare a very tiny bit of that. So now my collection looked like this:

Smithsonian greens and yellows

It seemed just the right project to use these fabrics - and as they are all only small pieces it needed a small project. The purse will be made entirely of half inch English paper pieced hexagons. Here is one side completed:

Now it seems I am working on three EPP projects at once - can't have too much of a good thing?! There are stars ( Mary Leggett's star bouquet quilt), the Carolina Lily and the Hexagon purse. 

Just to show the comparative sizes of the project pieces...

There has been quite a lot of yellow and green in the garden too!

Golden Ash

Happy Mother's Day for tomorrow :)