Suitable for Many Domestic Uses

Introducing the orange quilt - now called "Suitable for Many Domestic Uses". Because it is a utility item I think, rather than a show quilt (goodness no!) or a forward-thinking piece of art. It is more cheerful than it should be, considering how glum I was when I put it together.



My apologies for the poor photo - it is bucketing down today! And it was raining yesterday too, which is wonderful after a long dry patch. I think we had half of Canberra's average June rainfall yesterday, and it looks like we're getting the other half today. Mind you, Canberra's average rainfall any month is three-fifths of bugger all (I just looked it up, the mean is 37.9 mm, which is not very much). So I had to take the quilt photo with number one son holding it up and he can do a 70 inch quilt now! So big and tall and strong ... although he was whinging that his arms hurt by the end of it. Toughen up son, this is why I had you.



All the on-point blocks made this quilt a bit of a disaster in terms of flatness. The light cream setting triangles of the main blocks all have bias edges because I couldn't be bothered cutting proper triangles and just used strips, then trimmed them off. Much easier to sew but much riskier for proper sizing. I was originally going to quilt straight lines about six inches apart, which is my default when I can't really be bothered, but I got about half way down the first line and it was pulling and distorting really badly. And unfortunately it was very obvious that the squares were no longer on a horizontal line, so I had to unpick that quilting and try something else.



I am pleased with this design - I chose something that had no connection whatever with itself if that makes sense. The cream circles are all done in a continuous line, but there's no quilting on the four-patches so they can bubble up and take up the slack to their heart's content. And then the circles on the orange sashing are connected to each other but not the cream quilting, so again there is heaps of space for bubbles and bouffants and waves and all those other things you must Never Do Ever. And it looks quite cool.



Speaking of things you must never do, the backing is a very cheap and dodgy duvet cover from Spotlight - I think it was $15 for a king size which is ludicrous, and the quality of the fabric is appalling. But it's appalling in the lightweight / open weave cotton way (rather than the dense horrible polyester way), I can get two backings out of it, and I've done this before and they wash perfectly well (at least so far...)

Another one quilted

I don't think I showed this one in progress at any stage - probably because I don't really like it and it wasn't fun to make! This is part of my series see-something-pretty-on-the-internet-and-have-to-make-it-straight-away.



I have quilted it and attached the binding, but it just needs to be sewn down. I'll post proper photos when it's finished and I've taken the pins out (and the dog hair). The inspiration was this antique quilt on Meredith England's blog, which she felt the urge to reproduce, and so did I. I got a bit fed up halfway through though, and didn't do the proper half blocks. The four patches were fun to make, but setting them all on point is a bit tedious, and then having to set those blocks on point ... I found it all a bit dreary. And I meant to get a vintage-looking dusky orangey-pink for the sashing and actually got a  bright orange. Fanta orange. Which changed the whole look, and not for the better. 



I still have a couple of quilts I need to quilt but in the nanosecond that I had the piecing foot / plate on the machine to make and attach the binding, I may have become a little distracted by the huge pile of scrap blocks I have, and started doing some more piecing. I was thinking about quilts I really enjoyed making (as opposed to this orange thing) and I loved Twirly Shirley and Kinky Renee - solids with scraps. So I got out the Tula Pink 100 Modern Quilt Blocks book (again) and only made it to page 9 before finding the perfect chunky cross to mix my scraps with some green. Yes, green this time. Kermit green. I'm loving it so far...

Frosty freezingness

Last week was bloody freezing - minus 7 or 8 most nights and not getting back over zero until ten in the morning! I have about a fifteen minute walk from my car to the office, which is normally fine, but not when it's still minus four degrees. I took this photo on my walk in but I don't think it is showing the icy reality, it looks quite pleasant. It wasn't!



So we thought we would go down the coast for the long weekend and warm up a bit. We stopped at Braidwood for a long morning tea - I fed the boys finger buns and soft drinks so I could go to the church book fair (they know a captive Canberra crowd when they see them driving down the main street, like lemmings to the sea) ... which was a good idea in terms of browsing undisturbed but not a good idea in terms of number two son barfing it all up half an hour later. Fortunately he made the dog's seat cover (old sheet) into a neat little barf bag, and I'm afraid I bundled that sucker up and put it in the bin as soon as we arrived. I still feel guilty about sending a perfectly good (old) sheet to landfill and not washing it. But not guilty enough to deal with lots of vomited up finger bun, especially with cinnamon icing. I don't think I will ever be an eco-warrior (the boys had disposable nappies too. I gave $100 to Greenpeace per child and called it square).

Once we got there though we had a lovely time. Movies, pyjamas until lunchtime, books, walks and number one son even re-tuned the TV so we had actual channels! I spent my entire two days last time trying to do it, and failing, and he reckoned he just did it. I'm going to blame the antenna, because what he did sounded EXACTLY like what I did, just with a better result. 



We wandered down the boat ramp late one afternoon to watch the people paddle boarding, gutting fish, having a beer and watching other people gut fish, and to say hello to the big friendly pelican and the enormous stingrays. Seriously, google Mossy Point stingrays, they are a tradition, and enough to put you off paddling .... if the fish guts hadn't already.

Barristers block in brown is done

All done! It took longer to quilt than I thought - my overall pattern (that I learned from the free motion Craftsy classes I've been doing) was denser than I had anticipated. I scaled it up massively, but even so there's no more than an inch or two between most of the quilting lines. I like the pattern and will use it again; curves and movement without being too difficult. At least, not too difficult once I got the cursed machine to co-operate.



I called it "Crazy Aunt Sue's Classic Fudge Recipe" because of the brown-ness. I don't have an Aunt Sue, so no actual relatives were insulted in the naming of this quilt.



It is so different from all the modern quilts I saw on the weekend. I loved them, but I really like this one as well. When I was putting the blocks together my favourite bits where where the dark brown met the lightest white on cream - so I did that for the border. With the pretty mid-cream calico as well. How terribly traditional!



And of course the dog likes it too. She's not as quick as the cat for plonking herself down in the middle of a quilt, but once she finds it she's much harder to move. And sheds like crazy ... although she had her first professional grooming on the weekend so is now super fluffy and very clean. When I came back from Kiama number two son greeted me with "Mum! Mum! All of Mishka's arse hairs are pointing the same way!". Which I'm kind of pleased about - better than all pointing different ways - but I am not sure this child is being properly raised.

Modern Quilt Show

A friend and I had a road trip yesterday down to Kiama to see the Modern Quilt Show. It was a bit of a haul - three hours drive each way - but I really wanted to see the show and my friend very kindly agreed to a day out. We nattered pretty much the whole drive, had a lovely lunch and went for a walk around the shore line as well - so along with a whole heap of beautiful quilts it was close to a perfect day.

The quilts were interesting, some absolutely beautiful, and some not so much. It was good to see the "No Value does not Equal Free" quilt in person. It's quite lovely, although the magic is really in the quilting. Molli Sparkles the quilt maker had included the cost sheet as part of the quilt description, which was fascinating, but might have been a bit lost in translation. I took a seat nearby at one point when my feet got tired and listened to a couple of dozen people miss the point entirely ... oh well, it's hard to get complex messages about value and costing through in that kind of forum.

I really liked the one that won best in show. I have a photo but I won't put it up because I have no idea who the quilt maker is, and they asked that we credit photographs. But I'm sure it will be on the website if you're interested - it was bright and colourful and interesting and had lots of heart. Sometimes with modern quilts I feel they lack a bit of soul - all that minimalism and low volume and grey linen - but this one was packed with it. And ric-rac! What's not to love.

We also shared the small town of Kiama with some kind of car and bike show. Lots of petrol heads mingling with the decorous quilting ladies ... although I'm sure there was some cross over. Surely?

I'd like to make the trip again next year, despite the drive, because I enjoy seeing lots of modern quilts up close and personal.  I didn't come away full of ideas to try - there were lots of things I don't need any encouragement to do (improv, solids) as well as lots of things I've done and will never do again (matchstick quilting uuuuurghhh) and lots of things I just don't like (massively dense quilting, white white and more white). But I might try some ric-rac.

Frustrations overcome

After a couple of hours of swearing I finally remembered what worked last time - adjusting the little screw on the darning foot that determines how lightly (or heavily) the foot is sitting on the fabric. I had completely forgotten that my machine prefers a bit of pressure on the quilt or else it skips all over the place. Not very interesting I know - but I'm writing it down here so that next time it happens I can remind myself! See how useful blogs can be?

I've also been working through my first ever set of Craftsy classes. Other people had raved about them, so I thought I would give it a go, and bought "The Secrets of Free Motion Quilting" with Christina Cameli, which is six thirty minute classes on free motion quilting. I'm really enjoying it - she is an engaging presenter and I'm getting some good ideas from the different quilting designs.  And you can put her on 30 second repeat for as long as it takes to understand something .... or make her go at 4x normal speed if it's a bit boring. Much better than real life lessons; and I will go on and do some more I think, in the future. It was about $30, so excellent value.



The other frustration I managed to overcome was the beach weekend failure - the boys really could not be bothered going down just for a day so I went down Sunday afternoon on my own and had two days of solitude and mini break! Work could spare me for a couple of days so I enjoyed some beautiful weather, long walks, chick flicks and wine. Fabulous ... and nobody at the beach. Despite the sunshine I couldn't quite bring myself to swim. Probably lovely once you were in; it's just the getting in I was worried about.

Frustrations

I got all excited about finally having some batting, and pinned up the brown barrister's blocks for a nice solid day of quilting - and my damn machine is playing silly buggers again. The thread keeps breaking! I haven't had this problem for ages. I've tried all the usual fixes; changed the needle, changed the top thread, changed the bobbin, fiddled with the tension, sprayed silicon on the needle, swore, kicked it and cleaned out all the fluff. And things work for a while, and then don't work, and I cannot for the life of me figure it out!!! So incredibly frustrating.



I still like the brown-ness of it all though. That fabric in the middle - the brown background floral - is a favourite, it's very pretty. I think it might be time for traditional brown to make a come back. Most of the blogs I read are by modern quilters and it's all brights and whites and clear clean colours. I like that, but it's certainly not the be-all and end-all of beautiful quilts.

The other frustration was our weekend at the beach - I picked the boys up from school and did a quick whip turnaround to leave again by four o'clock ... we drove for an hour and then sat in a queue of cars for half an hour before being turned around. There had been a bad smash and the highway was closed (for over five hours, as it turned out). There are no realistic alternative roads (especially not in the dark!) so we came back home, via the pizza shop, and at seven o'clock were back where we started. I am very happy not to have been anywhere near the smash, but we were so tired and cranky we decided not to try again Saturday morning, and we've had a very quiet weekend. It was minus 6 last night, but bright and sunny today, which is perfect weather for lying in the sun reading a book...