Sunshine

Log cabin - lots of cabin, not so many logs

Inspiration: Alice from Red Pepper Quilts
Fabric: Fabricworm custom fat quarter bundle
Black and white daisies wide backing fabric from Quiltsmith (backing)
Count with Maisy Yellow Pebble Dots on Red from The Fat Quarter Shop (binding)

Mod green pod fabric bundle from Fabricworm

Fabrics:
Robert Kaufman Pure Organic Solid Orange
Poppies Orchid
Daisies Sunflower
Posie Stripe Sunflower
Posies Sunflower
Robert Kaufman Pure Organic Solid Marigold
Flutter Bunch Sunflower
Daisy Doodle Sunflower
Links Sunflower

Sunshine was for Niece-the-Elder for Christmas.

This rather sad effort is the only full length photo I got.

Sunshine

I love the backing fabric - a rather dramatic black and white print of daisies. Luckily there was just enough left on the bolt for what I needed.

Daisy, daisy

And the binding

The quilting largely follows the seam lines.

Close up of the quilting

I was inspired by RPQ's Alice, although with a very different colour pallete. However, once I'd made up both the log cabin blocks and the four patch blocks and started to think about putting them together, it started to feel like there might be just a bit too much going on. I think it's the brightness of the red and yellow, perhaps. (Alice is in  much calmer blues and greens.)

Anyway, instead of alternating the two styles of blocks, I split them into two quilts, alternating each with plain white squares.

The Other Half of Sunshine

This got me two quilts for the price of one (well, plus a whole lot of extra white solid and twice as much backing and binding fabric and all the extra work ...).

On the other hand, I did have some help.

Rosa assisting

The Other Half of Sunshine is on the bed in the spare room, meaning it's very occasionally for visitors and very frequently for the cats.

4 patch

Additional fabrics for the second quilt are:

Tiny flowers in Buttercup from Hawthorne Threads for the binding

and Ditzy Dots Orange wide backing fabric from Craft Depot

Breezy

Inspiration: Windy Days from SarahB Designs via Moda Bakeshop
Fabric: Fabricworm custom fat quarter bundle "Crisp Morning" (quilt top)
Blue and white spot wide backing fabric from Quiltsmith (backing)
Animal Party Too by Amy Schimler for Robert Kaufman from The Quilted Castle (binding)

Crisp morning fat quarter custom bundle

Fabrics:
Robert Kaufman Pimatex Basic Pin Dots Lime
Robert Kaufman Pure Organic Solid Chartreuse
Kokka Japan Sweet Fruits Granny Smith
Carolyn Gavin Spring Street, Spring Stripe Green
Suzanne Ultman Metro Cafe Mugs Bermuda
Alexander Henry In The Kitch, Rolling Hills Yellow
Kokka Japan, Sweet Fruits Blue
Robert Kaufman Quilter's Linen Sunflower
Monaluna Circa 50 Starburst Pool (organic)
Suzanne Ultman Metro Cafe French Press Bermuda
Hello Kitty Dots Blue
Robert Kaufman Quilter's Linen Teal

Half square triangles - lots and lots of half square triangles

Although I only used 8 fabrics, so I have a few FQs over.

Left overs from the pinwheels made into strips for one of the borders

Breezy is a bigger quilt than the original, achieved with a few more pinwheels and a lot of border.

Again, the laundry doubles for a design wall

Breezy is for Niece-the-Younger for Christmas.

I did take a full length photo, but can't believe I didn't check whether it was any good before I wrapped up the quilt. It isn't. Wonder if my sister can be prevailed upon to take a decent photo for me once it's unwrapped at the other end?

I'm especially happy with the fabric for the binding.

Binding and quilting

I love the spotted backing, but I'm not sure I made the best colour choice for this quilt - it's not really quite the right blue to match the colours on the front..

Spotted backing

Some actions shots of Thomas who provided assistance when I laid the sandwiched quilt out on the bed to try to decide how to quilt it.

Tangerine squeeze

Tangerine squeeze

Inspiration: Rectangle Squared from Film in the Fridge
Fabric:  Fabricworm custom fat quarter bundle

Summer Squeeze fabric bundle from Fabricworm

Fabrics:
Alice Kennedy Apple Flowers Aqua (100% Organic)
Mod Green Pod Daisy Doodle Aqua (100% Organic)
Angela Hoey Sherbert Pips Skipping Square Dots Light Blue
Michael Miller Ta Dot Sea
Momo Wing It! Solid Stripes Turquoise
Joel Dewberry Sparrow Aqua
Joel Dewberry Damask Saffron
Robert Kaufman Metro Living Rings Orange
Robert Kaufman Kona Solid Tangerine
Monulana for Birch Fabrics Circa 60 Beach Mod Dot Rust (100% Organic)
Deena Rutter Happier Floral Orange
Denyse Schmidt Pie Basket Fiesta

There was juuuust enough fabric in the bundle (12 fat quarters) to make 80 blocks.

Mind, this is after I made a couple of errors while cutting: the Ta Dot Sea doesn't appear in the quilt at all, because I managed to cut the whole fat quarter in 2.25" strips instead of 3.25" without noticing 'til I was done. There's less of the Pie Basket Fiesta than there should be for a similar reason.

The clothesline doubles as a design wall

To up-size the quilt (finished size is approx 80" x 98"), as well as making more blocks, I increased the size of the sashing between the blocks. Other than that, she's pretty much faithful to the original, down to the detail in the border.

Nothing new here - this cute detail is from the original too

Double fold bias binding

Fabric for the bias (and also the plain white backing) from Craft Depot.

Shelley Rodgers fabulously detailed continuous bias tape instructions (via a comment on Jezebel) made a huge difference.

Weighty matters

Rather than pinning pattern pieces to fabric - with all the time that takes and damage to the tissue paper it causes, I now plan to use pattern weights.

Like Ruby from Zaaberry, I've been sewing for years without having heard of, much less used them.

The fabric is leftovers, mainly from niece-the-younger's Christmas quilt. They're filled - about two-thirds full - with some sort of lentils.

Idea and tutorial from Zaaberry via Sew Mama Sew.

Monarch of the Glen

 

To Sculpture by the Sea this morning. 

The plan was to go early and beat the heat and the crowds, but that didn't happen.

Not so much lions and tigers and bears (oh my), as lions and elephants and zebras.

 

Tamarama had some Easter Island-like heads - or as those of my generation may think of them, Malcolm Frasers.

Spring calls for pink shoes

Inspired by this tutorial at Sweet Verbena.

Original sandshoes from KMart for about $7. Dye from Dylon in Flamingo Pink.

The dye cost about twice as much as the shoes did. As was pointed out to me later, I could have just dissolved a small amount of it in water and painted it on, leaving plenty leftover. Although I'm not sure what I'd use it on.

Saturday morning, 10am

This is why they, and consequently I, am awake at 4am.

Years in the making

Proof that, no matter how long something's been languishing unfinished in the bottom of a drawer, there's still hope that it might one day become a finished project.

Something like ten years ago (no, really!) I cut up a whole bunch of blue-ish fabrics into squares and pieced them together (not always with great accuracy).

All of them were leftover scraps from things I'd made - tops, mainly, perhaps a dress or two. I think I recognise something that was once a cushion. There are a couple of fabrics I can't identify, but most of them at least ring a bell.


I got as far as backing and hand quilting it, but it all went adrift at the binding stage. And it's been languishing in the bottom of a drawer ever since.


I came across it the other day while looking for something else, and to be honest the main reason I dug it out and finished it was to practice making and applying binding.

It's an extremely imperfect piece, but that doesn't seem to matter to its new owner:

A little help from your friends

Much progress over the last week on the blue quilt, which was a bit unplanned, as I'd intended to try to make more or less equal progress on the two quilts. Mostly, this is because I'm lazy and, when I used different colour thread for each of them, I and decided it was easier to stick with one quilt for a bit rather than change the cotton over all the time.

Which has turned out well, as I've discovered that my quarter inch seams are a bit more than a quarter of an inch. I'm stuck with it for the blue quilt, but I can re-do the small amount I've done of the pink one and rectify the situation.

For the blue quilt, I think I'll add a couple of borders to compensate.

From all these strips:

sewn together, cut up and sewn back together in a different order:
Then cut up again, and sewn back together:

Until you start to get something like this:

and this:
I had a little help with the sewing, in the person of the very inquisitive Rosa:


and also while I was laying the squares out on the bed (in lieu of a design wall):

Although to be honest, I don't think Roger was very interested: