Floppy feathers

Its always surprising to me how different patterns can look in different colour ways. Easy simple bricks is a very basic pattern that I did earlier here.  But I chose just one fabric, the turquoise giraffes to put into a different collection of fabrics. The collection had purples and oranges in it, like this:


Its a brighter look and I really enjoyed picking out those colours. I began with the white with circles that have orange, purple, turquoise in it and initially included a soft palette of those colours in one fabric too - but had to discard that as it didn't really fit once I had everything else. Again, strange how that can happen when you expect a fabric that has all the right colours in it, to complement others and yet it just doesn't fit. No matter, I'm sure its time to shine will come.

I really enjoyed doing the floppy feathers so tried that again with this baby quilt.


The purple fabric (given to me by a friend quite some time ago) seemed to be a good one to create the border with, but wouldn't you know it, wasn't quite enough. So I find that's where the creativity/ingenuity has to come in. I stretched it a little by putting some plain purple in as well. And the eye doesn't really notice it, seems we do focus on the whole. But here it is:

And the backing - also in my stash, just seems to work really well:

The orange binding seems to work too, I really like it when I have everything on hand and have fun putting it all together. And baby quilts seem to come together in no time, I think it's my favourite size to quilt. 

One final shot of the whole and then it goes along with the others made earlier, to new babies and their parents. That's the other wonderful thing about making quilts, getting to give them as gifts. Such fun. 

Until next time,

Lynn

Colourful Birds

I don't know how you feel about panels, but at times they can be an inspiring way to form a quilt. A friend of mine bought a panel of birds - beautiful watercolour birds. And since her other half is a twitcher, and the illustrations were indistinct in terms of being a particular bird and perhaps not being rendered completely accurate - (which can frustrate bird watchers I guess) she thought this was a good option.

My friend, however, was not confident to quilt the panels, having put all the borders on. So I volunteered, since I really do enjoy free-motion quilting. So I set about stippling around the birds, not outlining them as we wanted them to stay kind of free-form. Aren't they cute?

The artist is Connie Hayley and I love her colours and style. Having done the stippling, I did a stitch in the ditch around the first small white border, but on the second white one I thought I'd give some leaves a bit of a try. I'd done them on a placemat previously, and thought they might fit in this border. 

They seemed to work well, so consulting my friend, asked whether she might also like some in the green border - she thought that might work too, so there they are. I think the binding will be a dark shade like the central framing of the birds, either that or a green, we'll see what works best. 

For the backing, a lovely beige/light brown grunge type fabric works well. 

You can also see I did a very large loose stipple around the border with birds in it - they wanted to fly freely! I really enjoyed doing this and my friend is delighted with it, which always helps!

One final photo of one of the birds, they really are lovely. 

So that's what I've been working on this week. 

Until next time,

Lynn

Harlequin finish

I wonder if anyone else can relate to the experience of gathering fabric, admiring it, seeing all the pretty colours and then also seeing a great pattern where you could use those pretty colours all together? Well, that was my joy when I first saw 'Postcards from Sweden'.

To me it had a harlequin flavour, you know the jester type people who dressed up in multi-coloured solids, wore a pointy hat with a bell on the end? Well, maybe my mind just works in weird ways!

But when I saw that Sandra from MMM quilts had a quilt along with the pattern back in April, I thought I could join in. I managed to cut things out, but the deadline for completing kind of came and went and I thought perhaps I was one of the last, OK the very last, to finish mine. But maybe not?

Here it is, just a small size:


I didn't adhere strictly to the pattern, but added some of the fabrics I had. This seems to be a very versatile pattern that doesn't seem to care what colours are put together, they seem to work. And yes, the very observant will notice, that the binding isn't quite completed, but that's tonight's task. And it makes me happy.

I saw that Louise from Quilt Odyssey had quilted hers in straight lines (I should have read more carefully I think hers were and inch apart, not the width of the quilting foot!) I thought that looked great.
So I set to with bright orange thread and it worked very merrily.

The backing fabric is lovely and bright too, but I really don't want to quilt another straight line for a while:


So to have a complete change, I thought I'd do a very simple pattern of bricks, but this is more so that I can practice some more free-motion spineless feathers, or perhaps floppy feathers sounds more complementary?:

Whichever way they go, I had great fun doing them over this small quilt and it seemed to unify the whole and bring an added dimension to it. 

I did them diagonally on the quilt, to direct the eye towards the diagonal rows created by the colour of the bricks. 

Again the backing fabric shows them off really well:

This will definitely be one of my 'go to' patterns now, a lovely variety to the stipple I often do, or a paisley type leaf pattern. 

So that's what I've been up to lately, what about you?

Until next time,

Lynn