Saturday, October 3, 2015

Coral, grey, sheep

After a flurry of quilting and a frenzy of binding I finished my pinky orange and grey cross and circle thing ... now called "Sheep Stations". There is an Australian expression (possibly New Zealand as well, I get it all confused) where if people are getting a bit excited or serious about something ultimately trivial you say "we're not playing for sheep stations" ... also very useful for children's sport. Just a way of saying the stakes are low. Anyway, I had cause to use the expression on a few occasions over the past weeks and it seemed like a good name for a quilt.


I like it - it's a soft and friendly quilt. I ran out of fabric for the last border but decided not to fret and just put a different spotted neutral in for the last bit (see top right in the photo above). That grey chevron is printed wildly off the grain of the fabric so it looks a bit lopsided but I think it gives "character". Or possibly "movement".


The quilting is another craftsy class inspiration - a spiral with leaves coming off it. It's nice and open, with about the right density for this quilt, but there is a lot of backtracking - where you go over your quilting before you start again at a different spot. I liked doing it and it wasn't too time-consuming, but I am not particularly accurate with the backtracking and the worst bits are of course at the pink spots where the grey thread shows up terribly. Never mind ... sheep stations.

4 comments:

  1. Woolly thinking? I like it anyway. Did you finish it down the beach?

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  2. "we're not playing for sheep stations" is definitely Australian, I don't think ours in NZ get that big that we'd worry about playing for them. But I'll try it on the kids and see what reaction I get :-)

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  3. Wow Lynley! This is fantastic! Love the greys and oranges together. Looks like a really beautiful board game.

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  4. PS love the name. I've not heard that term before but we didn't have sheep stations in NQ where I grew up. There may have been a similar saying for sugar cane farms perhaps ...

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