"simple" Simon border and a new project

After not posting for many weeks this is my second post in one week.
Well it's that time of year - no work, Christmas rush is over and a few days to relax and catch up on quilting... The house that was cleared of quilting clutter to make room for entertaining is now littered with piles of auditioning fabric.

My Simon quilt top is almost finished. I just have to decide on the fabric to use for the outer first and third borders -"should be simple" she thought?
Here is 'Simon' in the Dutch book - the antique original and the authors' reproduction - showing these borders:

The antique quilt in "Promenade in a Dutch Garden"

Outer three borders on the original antique quilt - a lovely diamond print. Photo from the book.

Outer borders on Petra and An's reproduction - a beautifully coordinated stripe. Photo from the book.

Here is a collage of some fabrics I trialed with my quilt top and strips of pieced border - just auditioning, not stitched yet. I think I would like to keep the colours close to those in the original quilt - cooler/lighter colours - so these are rejects for this project.

The bottom right is my favourite of this lot but still not right...

Then I tried a Dutch chintz floral and a paisley print - I love them both and can't decide. I'm edging towards the paisley print because I love it's simplicity.  But it seems to make sense to use the Dutch chintz on a Dutch chintz repro quilt! Ho hum... not such a simple Simon border after all.

Dutch chintz print

Paisley print

Meanwhile - new project...

In a couple of weeks I am going to Summer School in the NSW Blue Mountains with Rhonda Pearce to make her version of the Ann Randoll quilt/coverlet - so terribly exciting as it is just my cup of tea. What's not to love in an antique British quilt with applique, clamshells and loads of fabric choices! And I have had such fun learning to make clamshells in my Chintz medallion quilt (still in progress). 

Unfortunately I didn't get to see the original quilt when it was on show at the Queensland Art Gallery but at least I have the wonderful book/catalogue they produced ("Quilts 1700-1945").  There are also great pictures in this book below:

Photo from book above

Centre of the quilt - photo from book

Photo from book - wonderful fabrics!

Some possible fabric selections I've made for the centre using the requirements list:

  Lots Some more set aside for scrappy piecing and clamshells - loads of small prints needed.

I've not seen anything but a small colour photo of Rhonda's work on this so am keeping my options open a little regarding fabrics and colours. You can read that to mean I'll be taking half my stash along to class! 

Thought I might review my quilting year - 2013.

A collage of projects that were started and finished this year:

All started and completed in 2013

Then there are the projects part-done this year: 

Baltimore - blocks 14 to 23 made this year, the rest were previous years

Burnt quilt - top finished 2013, still needs to be quilted - some time!

Lucy Boston - Started 2012, finished 2013

Medallion quilt - started 2013, working on it now

Simon - started 2013, working on it now

Double X - just started

Pretty happy with that lot.

But I'm a bit shocked to find there are 5 quilts still in progress ...and I am starting a new one! Such is the quilting life. All the best to you all for much inspiration and fun quilting in 2014!

Star Bouquet is finished

Just to recap from earlier posts... I started this quilt in January this year after seeing these two photos ...

in this quilt history book....

I "needed" another English paper piecing project and loved the way Mary Leggett (the quiltmaker in 1862) had used colours and fussy cutting in these stars. The original was made in silks and must have really glowed.

It has been great fun to make this - especially the challenge of copying the colours and patterns of the fabrics. Mary's quilt was beautifully hand quilted but I have domestic machine quilted mine. I do love how Mary quilted but I wanted my stars to have a 3D quality so avoided quilting on top of them. I deliberated about adding more quilting in the hexagons but decided that soft and puffy was good.

Quilting in the ditch

Now for a rave about the quilting process. Skip this if you are not a mad domestic machine quilter! 

I free motion quilted, in the ditch, around each star. No marking needed - yay. After all the stop/start quilting (necessary but very time consuming) on my Carolina Lily quilt, it was bliss to find I could quilt this one as a series of continuous lines from top to bottom of the quilt - no stop/starts at all. The continuous line followed in and out down one side of a row of stars. Then the next line was in and out down the other side of the row of stars, and so on across the whole quilt. Brilliant - it was finished in a matter of a few hours. I kept the speed reduced so as to avoid wandering out of the ditch - easily done believe me.

Enough yabber ...more pictures. 

Love this backing fabric - have had it "in storage" for a few years waiting for the right project.

On the table outside

Close-up 

Hanging on the washing line

And this is where it is sitting folded for the moment: 

Now for a sad little tale about a Tulip Lasagne. Here it was at the end of winter - springing up nicely. 

It flowered really well, first orange blooms then through reds, pinks and white. But I waited too long to take a 'full-bloom' photo and, after a few days away ( when we had experienced very strong winds), found it  rather bedraggled with lots of blooms gone. So here it is...

Four different projects

Simon quilt: 

I've made many paper pieced hourglass blocks and here is my Simon quilt so far:

Chintz Medallion quilt:
Last post I showed this messy ten-month collection of bits and pieces. All to make a medallion around a lovely chintz panel. You can hardly see the chintz panel under the load !

That really was enough procrastination  research. If I used all the ideas I had "collected" the quilt would be he large enough to cover the house ...so time to commit to one or two borders. 

I have never made paper pieced clamshells but love the look of them ...so that would be a start. I researched several ways to do them on the net and found Sue Daley's tutorial looked the most fool proof for me. Here are some pictures of my process: 

Appliqueing the clamshells into rows

I am using fabrics with a blended/ ombre stripe because I love the soft colour flow in these fabrics :

That chintz panel will be on point so the clamshells will need to form four corner triangles:

Checking it is staying close to 90 degrees: 

The clamshells corner isn't attached yet - it might look best (and fit best) with a narrow fabric dividing border along the panel edge - will see. Now to make three more clamshell corners. 

Star Bouquet quilt :

Remember this one - my reproduction of a quilt made by Mary Leggett ?

The top is now finished. I won't/can't make it any larger because I have come to the end of the chocolate brown hexagon fabric. It measures about 1.7 m by 1.6 m so is a large lap quilt size (67 inches by 63 inches). 

This will just be trimmed and bound. I auditioned a couple of borders on it but prefer the look of it just as it is. My sewing machine is back from service so this one is heading to the top of the queue for quilting. 

Angela's Log Cabin:

My friend Angela is coming along very well with her log cabin - she is a star pupil. She's made two lovely log cabin blocks - despite my supervision! The unpicker had a bit of a work out last session and I felt very sheepish because I wasn't checking her progress thoroughly enough (too much chat) and a couple of errors happened - oops. All fixed up now though: 

Each block is 18 1/2 inches

Some cheery flowers to finish - all picked from the garden.

To post or not to post...

I thought twice about posting as you'll all say..."more of the same" - and that is how it stands with my quilting projects I'm afraid.

So how about knitting for something new?

Here is a beanie just finished for my son. It is 75% wool and 25% possum. Bit novel I thought - knitting with possum fur. In case you don't know possums are a protected species in Australia so this yarn is from New Zealand (where they are a major environmental pest and very much not protected).

Possums, cute as they are, have been a jolly nuisance in the vegie patch here, and have been roundly cursed by yours truly on many occasions. Like when they ate my entire crop of corn cobs overnight (just ready to harvest)...grr! So the beanie is a bit like getting my own back ?!

And just to prove I have been progressing with quilting projects :

More stars for the Star Bouquet quilt

Carolina Lily - third border appliqued and attached

In the garden I made a Tulip Lasagne. There are 25 bulbs layered under the lucerne in that pot and I have high hopes for a wonderful show in spring (being optimistic here) - will keep you posted.

It is very wintery in the garden at the moment but so nice to have these flowering inside.

Cyclamen

Hope you're getting lots of sewing time :)

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.