Catching Up With the Splendid Sampler

After a short gap to make the journal quilts Bank Holiday Monday was spent caching up with some of the Splendid Sampler Blocks.  The series is now up to Block 57, which I started off with. This is Starting Point by Lissa Alexander.  A simple block, I was able to use left over pieces from previous blocks, but in spite of my intentions I did use one fabric twice.

Next was a pieced block, Block 53, Whirling in Cirlces by Deb Roberts, which had a pinwheel centre

I started with the outside blue flying geese before doing the pinwheel and I think the colours contrast well together.

Later in the afternoon I tackled a fusible applique block, Block 55 Dedication Rose by Lisa Bongean.  I've got to sew the pieces but here's the block fused onto the background.

Quite relaxing putting this together.

I'm working on an English Paper Pieced (EPP) block and this evening finished tacking the pieces ready to be seen together, called Bee Happy, so will show photos of that soon.

Two More Journal Quilts

One was made some time ago but not posted and another was made at the weekend, fulfilling the deadline of the end of August. These quilts had to have at least a small amount (.5") of green and the finished size 8" wide by 10" long.

This was the first of the four, made back in May but not photographed, let alone blogged, Instagram-med.  I had some strips left over from the Jan Hassard workshop in April and utilised those for the background of this little quilt and applied circles with applique and reverse applique. A couple of the circles were the cut away ones from the quilt top.

I quilted this with the wavy quilt stitch on my machine and turned the backing fabric over to the front for the border, that's the yellow spotted fabric. I stitched down by machine instead of hemming by hand, which wasn't that successful. I think I'd rather take the time to hand sew as it wouldn't have taken long.

The latest one was inspired by the Sticks and Stones quilts that I saw at Happy Patcher's exhibition in Wimborne last week. I didn't take any photos as the hall was dark. So using strips of batik fabrics I set to on Sunday afternoon. Some strips were joined and re-cut as strips of squares and joined to strips and so on going this way and that until I had the size I needed.

So this is what I ended up with, I'm sure it's nothing like the quilts I saw but a lot looser. Using that wavy stitch again and with a red/green variegated thread for the quilting and the edging. This was the August quilt done.

I've uploaded to the Contemporary Quilt Group Yahoo group yesterday evening together with prepared descriptions, so I'm pleased that I've caught up.

There they are in clockwise order from top left - May, June, July and August.

Sorted!

I've cut both quilts down and this is how they look

Cut a bit off top and bottom and zig zagged across both ends.

I managed to cut the top end off and undo the yarn from the cut off bit and rejoin on that end.

Just one more quilt to do which I will make next week.  I may have to resort to sew and flip. See how it goes.

Meanwhile I have been doing some crochet in the evenings. I made another sheep

Here she is with my first sheep

I could have a flock, but the turquoise one will be on its way to Yorkshire next week for Yarndale.

And progress so far on the Crochet Now Crochet Along (CAL)

Keeping busy.

Doh!

I'm taking a short break from the Splendid Sampler Blocks to concentrate on Journal Quilts as I signed up to this at the beginning of this year.  I'm a member of the Contemporary Quilters sub group of the Quilter's Guild of the British Isles.  I've done a series of small quilts before when I made the Calendar Quilts back in 2009 with the BQL Yahoo Group and I've made lots of little quilts since then, so no probs.  It didn't matter too much if you didn't submit a quilt photo each month so long as it was done every 4 months, so I kept up to begin with but now playing catch up.

The quilts had to be 8" x 10" in a portrait orientation with a certain colour used in each quilt and the colour changed every 4 months.  However playing catch up meant that I didn't keep to the size - I made these quilts A4 - which is 8" x 11" - doh!!!

Now do I make 2 more quilts or do I alter what I've done?  I think for this one it'll be easy...

Cut a bit off both ends and re-zigzag and it'll be job done.  Annoying to cut bits off that were stitched but I don't think I'll lose much of the design.   This quilt was influenced by Wimbledon with the green, cream and purple.  Ran out of purple so added some pink.  The strips were added quilt-as-you-go in liberated log cabin style.

Want to see the back?  I used some indigo dyed fabric from ages ago.  Backs alway look more interesting than the fronts.

More of a problem is this one, which I made this morning and I used some green fabric which David had found and thought it was mine. I don't think it was - it could have been what my Mum used for one of her quilts and had left.  So I took advantage of found fabric and teamed it with some other to make a wavy quilt.

I added some wavy quilting some couching and some decorative stitching too but because I added some yarn around the edge and I don't have any more of this (just a smidgen) to re-do the edge.  I don't want to cut off the orange so I may have to sacrifice the dark aqua and a bit of yellow. The waviness of the panel would make it difficult to cut in the middle to rejoin.  So suggestions please!!

A pic of the back too.

So this one for May is the perfect size, but I looked at when making the other two quilts thinking I would have to make that bigger, but now I don't have to.  At least it is better to take off the surplus from the other two quilts than to add anything on.

This year I'm not going to the Festival of Quilts. deciding to give it a miss this year and will think about going next year instead. Whether I shall regret my decision when I see Facebook, Instagram or blog pictures about the Festival I will have to wait and see.  If you are going have a great time and enjoy.

The Splendid Sampler 10

Now at the halfway point with the Splendid Sampler instalments, Block 50 was released on Thursday and finished on Saturday morning.

To date I have completed 44 blocks, 4 are in progress, 2 not made. I've also made 4 bonus blocks. Here I'm going to go in reverse order, starting with the latest block 50 - Flghts of Fancy, designed by Joanna Figuerra.  I had a feeling I'd seen this before but I hadn't; having made quite a few half square triangles and flying geese it seemed as though I had!

I found part of a flying geese block in dark blue and light blue with the flower fabric see this set my choices for this block.

A few days before as a prelude to block 50 was a bonus block from Pat Sloan, Top of the Hill.  Consisting of a triangle and a circle, but from Pat's story I could see the potential with this

The triangle (for me) represents the heathland, as the area where I live is surrounded by heath. The heather is currently flowering and is a lovely purple mixed with the greens of other vegetation, the circle the setting sun.  The sky fabric was intentionally used on the wrong side which make it a little more subtle.

Block 49 Summer's Gift by Karla Eisenach, a pieced and appliqued block. Another chance to use one of the owls

I liked the way that the pieced triangle showed under the applique.

Block 48 - Whim by Faith Jones is a foundation pieced crazy quilt block.  Quick and easy and a one piece foundation piecing meant there were no awkward joins, so took no time at all to make.

I decided a few days ago to make a couple of collages of the blocks, bonus blocks and the made so far.

Here are the fabrics I've used, some are almost used up so will have to look around for replacements. Considering I started with just reds and whites it's amazing how many other colours and fabrics have blended in with them.

These were the reds and whites that started the colour palette that I've ended up with below

There's been a few other additions depending on the designs, but I've more or less kept to this. Basic colours with some additions to give the blocks a bit of spark.

In spite of the blocks to catch up on and those yet to be made, I'm still enjoying making these blocks, it's been a lot of fun along the way. Made a few friends through Instagram (my name on there is suewilduk, just request to follow me) and I'll continue to keep sewing.

Not Just Sewing

I don't think that I'm unusual in that I like other crafts besides patchwork and quilting. Although it is my main hobby, I do enjoy a change now and then and having enjoyed crocheting the sheep recently I bought a crochet magazine, Crochet Now and found a mystery crochet along, designed by Jane Crowfoot. The magazine I bought was the second part of this series, so I bought the previous magazine online to give this a go.

Looks like a crochet snake so far

I'm not using the correct colours as the designer but it is just to gain a bit of confidence in my crochet skills. To make counting easier I used some red yarn to mark every 20 stitches.  I've learned that ergonomic hooks are much easier to handle than my old metal hooks so have bought this one above and another in the next size up.  Joining a Facebook group someone mentioned about a You TubeVideo  about a foundation double crochet (single crochet in US terms) instead of a long chain and foundation row.  I will blog about my progress in future posts.

I have managed a finish in July. I don't know how long this UFO has been around but I know I bought the charm pack from Villavin Farm when I stayed there in 2008.

I made a Disappearing 9 patch which with the border ended up at 30" square.  I've quilted in the ditch a few weeks back and a couple of weeks ago bought some moss green fabric to bind it.

Just a glimpse of the back

Here's a close up.  This quilt may go to Linus, I hope it's not too grown up for them.

So still keeping busy.