Third time lucky

Some quilts just go together without any trouble at all, and others.....  Well, let's just say I'm making things far more complicated than they need to be.

It's interesting that this quilt is taking so long to tell me what it wants, or maybe I'm just not listening.  It started off with the idea of a zigzag border.

But not this one.

Or this one.

Apparently this was what the quilt wanted all along, and I just went off on a couple of side-tracks. 

I don't really mind the false starts, especially as I think I can use the second border on another existing quilt top.  But the time it's taken to get to this point is annoying, I could have had this finished a week ago.  Oh well, a week isn't much in the grand scheme of things.

I'm enjoying the process of calculating the border repeats, and how big that inner border should be.It's slow quilting, and it's a lovely change from the make-it-quick mentality I usually have.

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Log Cabins old and new

Recently I went through the cabinet containing most of my tops awaiting quilting, and found my first ever quilt.

This was made in 1974 or 75, entirely from dress making scraps, with the exception of a little remnant I bought when I ran out scraps.  I made it for my mum, as a surprise, and she loved it and used it for 20 or more years.  It wasn't properly quilted, so I took it back and pulled the layers apart, intending to get it quilted and returned to her, but that didn't happen.  It's still on my list of  Things That Must Be Done, but it's not anywhere near the top.

I sewed the scraps to a foundation of old sheets that had belonged to my great-grandmother; Mum pulled them out of the rag pile for me, but had no idea what I was doing with them.  I worked out a grid of guidelines for the block and made a master pattern, then traced it onto all the foundations.  It was a lot of work, but even at 16 I could work obsessively at something. I tore the sheets to make the squares, which wasn't really accurate, so there was a lot of fudging when it was time to sew the blocks together.

And I really should have adjusted the stitch length to something a little smaller....

and ended the threads off properly.....
However, this little top has seen a lot of service and never fell apart, so even if it wasn't well-made, at least it was made.  It makes me feel very nostalgic for my patchwork beginnings, while I sew my latest Log Cabin blocks together.  I seem to have improved somewhat.

My internet is being flaky again, hence my lack of posting.  I've also been babysitting a friend's farm while she and her hubby had a much needed holiday. 

My job was to look after the 30odd chooks, and her precious cats, which I managed to do. 

This mama hen hatched out 10 babies while I was there, but she wouldn't get up so I could take a picture of them.  

I loved collecting the still warm eggs in the morning, but I really don't feel any affection for chickens. Eggs yes, I love eggs, but my friend can deal with the chickens, which suits the both of us just fine.

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It's a rainy Saturday here, and I'm enjoying the fact that I have to stay inside and sew.  It's cosy and comfortable and I'm getting lots achieved.  Dolly is devestated of course, there will be no walk this afternoon, but she has a horror of getting rained on so she won't set foot outside.  Bed is the best place for her on days like this.

Last week I took my pile of blocks down to the workshop and photographed them, they look lovely in the sunlight. 

I like what I"ve done so far, the next lot of blocks will have a bit more brown in them instead of black, and I'll stay with the blue and green combination.  I've made 44 blocks so far, just over half way; I think I"ll be stitching away on these for quite some time.

I was using my Double Anvil blocks as leader-enders, but I got sick of the piles of madder and black and brown fabric everywhere, so I changed tack and went full steam ahead on them.  I can't seem to just sew one thing at a time, but at least I'm never bored.

 I've been watching a lot of Harry Potter, Transatlantic Sessions and Antiques Roadshow in the last few days, which helped me to get all the blocks made.  Now I'm puzzling over the right border to surround them.  I ruled out a single fabric early on, and decided I would like a pieced zigzag border.

 I tried two versions, and much as I love the dark one, it's just too heavy for this quilt. 

I'm pretty sure I'll be using the light zigzag with the black and red triangles, I just haven't decided which fabrics to use.  I could do scrap, but I very much want to have this cut out and stacked up ready to sew.  If I fiddle about with 54 different fabrics it will take ages and the mess will drive me nuts. 

This was a quilt designed to use up a lot of oddments from other projects, which it has done; I'm surprised at how much I like it, those strange large prints make it very interesting.  It's been so much fun to sew, I've really enjoyed it.  But any scraps are getting donated to Mereth; I won't let them be the start on another quilt in these colours, it's time to move on to the blues now.

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I'm making good progress on the Log Cabin blocks, and enjoying every bit of it.  I've used up all the strips that were already cut, so I went through the stash and chose some of my favourite blues and greens.  I do love using blue  and green together, it's my favourite combination I think.

I'm up to 24 blocks, which build into 6 big blocks;

 I promise I will take a decent picture in sunlight, so the colours show up properly.  I'm getting hotspots from the lamps I'm using, next time we're in town I'm going to a lighting shop for some specialist bulbs.

I love this block, it's a Goldilocks block;  not too light, not too dark, not too dull, it's juuust right!

I can't keep my strips in neat little piles though.  I rummage through and find what I want, and then cut some more, and it's chaos.  I tidy up and it's neat until the next block gets made, and then they're flung all over the shop again.  It takes too much energy from me to keep them sorted.

Our trip to the beach was good fun. This is the newest member of John and Liz's family; his name is Khan, and he's a rescue dog. 

 He was found on the streets in Adelaide, very close to starvation, and rehomed.  That didn't work out though, as there were grandchildren that he wasn't comfortable with.  Liz literally saved him from death row; it was totally unplanned, but those things work out for the best sometimes.  He's a lovely dog, very friendly and responsive now, but he was a bit aggressive over food to begin with.  That's understandable, he was just skin and bones when Liz brought him home.  John worked hard to assimilate him into the family, and it's wonderful to see how they have bonded.  Khan takes all his cues from John, and is always watching him and looking for approval. 

It was very exciting at the beach, with six people and four dogs, and Khan got hysterical and shouted at John while they were playing. He was clearly getting a bit full of himself, so John grabbed his collar and made him calm down.

"Sorry Dad, won't happen again."

He can look quite wolfish; our guess is maybe a Belgian Shepherd, Collie cross? 

His growl is terrifying, which makes him a good watch dog, but his manners are pretty well perfect with us.  He must have been someone's pet before he ended up on the streets, he has such a beautiful nature and is very social.  Makes you wonder what his story is, but we'll never know.  It's been a pleasure to watch him put on weight and grow a new coat and realise that life isn't such a scary struggle any more.

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 There are quite a few different ways to sew LC blocks; foundation piecing over paper or cloth, chain piecing the units together onto a new strip, trimming after every round, making the last round oversize and trimming at the end.  I've made lots of Log Cabin quilts, and I've used all those methods.  My blocks always ended up too small and definitely not a square.  The only thing I hadn't tried was cutting each individual log to the correct size.  I thought, if I can get so wonky and out of shape with extra material, I'll really be in trouble if I only have 'enough' for each bit.  Look at this post on Fabric Therapy to see Log Cabin pieces arranged neatly, ready to be sewn.  I wondered if I could make myself be that organised...

Before I started making my Log Cabin blocks in earnest I did a little experiment. I cut all the exact pieces I would need for one block, and I pieced another one in the same fabrics by sewing the strip on and trimming it level with the edge of the rest of the block.

 I worked out all the measurements on a big sheet of graph paper, and kept it handy so I wouldn't get lost.

At the end I measured both blocks and was very surprised to find that the precut pieces had built into a Perfect 8.75" block, while the sew and trim one was wonky and too small. I thought I'd been extra careful, but it wasn't enough.  It just got away from me at the end.

 In the past I've always thought that it's too much trouble to precut everything, but constantly trimming and fudging and compensating is also hard work.  The precut pieces were much more enjoyable to sew, who would have guessed it!  For the first time ever, I'm going to precut all the pieces for my quilt, and be careful sewing them together, and I just might end up with blocks all the same size.

There was retail therapy during the week, a quick trip to the Jamestown patchwork shop.

 My DS has requested a quilt of grey, black and a touch of green, and knowing how much he dislikes printed fabric these Shadowplay fabrics will be just the thing to start with.  I think he would like batiks, so I'll be looking for anything suitable on our next trip to the city.  It's great to be able to shop with a mission in mind.

 Mereth and I always admire the batiks, and then reject them because we don't have a batik stash.  This time I made a desicion; on every trip to a patchwork shop I'm going to buy one piece of batik.  Over time they will mount up and become a stash, and it will have happened without any effort on my part.  These are the ones that came home with me on that trip; that wasn't hard at all!

I also bought these Westalee rulers to make Kaleidoscope blocks.  I had a couple of acrylic ruler for this shape at some stage, but I gave one to a friend, and the other is Lost.  I'll probably find it tomorrow, now that I"ve bought this set.

 However, the block that I whipped up in five minutes was darn near perfect, and so easy,  so I don't think I'm going to regret this at all.  I just may make the quilt for DS out of this pattern, it would be stunning in batiks and near- solids.

The Westalee rulers are an Australian success story, they won the Viewers Choice Grand Finale on  the ABC's New Inventors Show on July 2008.

It's a public holiday today, and there's been no time for sewing with the family here this weekend,  We're about to leave for the beach, with four dogs.  I hope Dolly doesn't find anything to roll in today....

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Remember I mentioned Bonnie's antique Log Cabin quilts, and said I would like to sew one next?  
Well I've started already, and it's so much fun.  I'm going to base my quilt on this one, (photo by Bonnie), and I hope it's going to use up a lot of black and cadet blue and indigo scraps left over from other quilts.

I couldn't start this as soon as I finished Mitchell St, because of work committments, but I did a bit of research on different Log Cabin constructions while I waited.  This book is an oldie, but a good one, and it has a lovely Streak Of Lightning Log Cabin, made with two different blocks

 Beautiful stone wall in that there picture.

 The blocks are made the same way, but with different colouring; in one the dark logs are added first, and the light ones are added last. In the other block the light logs are added first, and the dark ones are added last.  If you study the layout you can see that this means there is a single dark log at the point of the zigzag; if all the blocks were coloured the same way there would be two logs of the same colour there.

Like this;

There's nothing wrong with that, it's just not as crisp a point as the one in the book.  I want to make the same Sunshine and Shadows arrangement as the antique quilt, but I'm not keen on the double logs where the blocks meet;

 Don't like the dark logs joining up like that, and the one below looks like there's too much light and not enough dark.

If I do two different colourings like the Streak of Lightning I'll end up with this arrangement;

but that looks skew-wiff to me.  I know most of you are wondering what I'm going on about, I'm sort of amazed that I can make such hard work of a simple Log Cabin. The quilt on Bonnie's site is so haphazard, she made blocks every way possible, and though I love it, I can't do it myself.   It would take too much effort to be that random.

 But there is a simple solution that suits me; sashing.

I can make all the blocks with the same colour placement, and when they are finished I'll sash them with random dark and light strips.  I think I'll put a tiny spot of colour as the cornerstone in the light area, either red or a cheddar.  Well that's my plan anyway, it may change later on, but it's where I'm starting from.

I found this picture in the archives, of a really intruiging Log Cabin. 

It must have been pieced with partial seams, and it would have been slower than an ordinary Log Cabin.  It looks amazing though, I'm just not sure it would be worth the extra effort.  But I almost want to have a go, just to work out the method;  I think anything is possible with hand piecing and patience.

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It's been raining for several days now,so gardening is out of the question. I've been sewing instead, and the Mitchell St blocks are finally in one piece. 

 I will try for a better photo tomorrow, if we get any sunshine.

I used a shirting for the sashing, and I love how the tiny grey and cheddar sprig looks next to the madders and browns and purples.
 
Tomorrow I will clear away all the madder fabrics and haul out the drawers of blue fabric.  It seems like years since I worked with my blues, and I feel the need to rummage around and cut some blocks from them.  I'll keep working on the UFOs as well, plus I have so many containers of scraps that need to be dealt with.  It's a never-ending job, trying to get the sewing room under control.

Our latest addition to the workroom is this steam generator.  We iron so many huge backings every week, and our old iron just gave up.  Hopefully this will help tame the crumpled backings our customers bring in.  It's pretty fearsome, and the steam fogs my glasses up instantly; it will take a bit of getting used to I think.

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By crikey,I almost let a whole  month go by without a post.  There's just too much going on, I never seem to find time to sit down and write about it. Will try to do better.

A couple of weeks ago we went to our mate Deb's place, the old bank building where I use to live. We were celebrating the 80th birthday of a dear friend, and we had a splendid afternoon tea for the occassion.  I just hope I look as good as Flora when I get to be 80.

Deb has renovated the building, doing most of the work herself, I'm amazed at soome of the things she's done.  She actually replaced the ceiling in two rooms, there's no way I could do such heavy work, and at such a height.  The whole place looks fabulous.  The hall was green when I lived there, but I much prefer this cool gray.  I left this sunburst quilt hanging here for safekeeping, and because Deb loved it.  Now she just tells everyone it's hers, and I would give it to her, if it wasn't for it's history.  I made these blocks during long phone calls to Mereth, when we lived thousands of kilometres apart, and only got to see each other every 2 or 3 years,  It's a bit special, but I think I might just make another one for Deb, to replace it.  For now, this quilt can stay in these gorgeous surroundings.

I've been sewing on the Mitchell St blocks, and I've finished all 20. 

They are up on the design wall, in my sewing area, and I'll sort out the sashing soon.  I'm muddling about with lighting solutions, and I think I've found a set up that works.  I'll be glad when I can throw myself back into sewing with a passion, it's been months of somewhat desultory piecing.  My heart hasn't really been in it, with all the other work claiming my time.

I do love odd colours like this purple/brown/grey colour next to the ninepatches.  It's so subtle, and it goes with everything.  Alas, I don't have much of this left, I have to be careful with it.  On my next trip to a patchwork shop I'll have a look for somethimg to replace it.  You can't buy colours like this online, the monitor colours aren't true to life.

The chrysanthemums this year were wonderful, but most are finished flowering now, and I have to pot the ten (10!) new ones, and cut back the old ones.  I would like them to flower more often, but I don't begrudge them the garden space.  They make such a glorious display for two months, it's worth it.

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There has been progress on the sewing front, but I'm still struggling with the layout of the sewing room.I have to have separate lighting for each area, and I haven't quite perfected it so there are no dark spots.  I know a lot of American women sew in their basements, and produce beautiful quilts, so I should be able to do without natural light, but I'm having a hard time adapting.    I keep taking my fabric choices out to the front room, to make sure that they actually look good together.

Last night I pushed and pulled furniture around in the front room and set up a design wall where the light from the door will reach it, so at least I can put my blocks up somewhere and check that they look OK.  Then it's back to the Quilt Cave to sew them together.  Mereth's suggested solution is to build an annexe to the shed for my sewing room, but I need a bit of a break before I tackle another major building project.

My Mitchell St blocks are piling up now, they do go together quickly once all the units are made.

I'm a bit disappointed in my fabric choices, I seem to always go for the safe option, which looks OK but predictable.  To counteract that I've been dragging out all the wildly coloured, large print madders, and trying to use them to build a block around.

 This one is my favourite so far, that large paisley is gorgeous.

I think I love madder so much because it can be a combination of brown or red or orange or pink or rust, and it all goes together beautifully.  I tend to gravitate towards the brown and pink colours, but it's the orange that grabs my attention in the shops.  Why don't I choose them for the blocks though?  I'm just too conservative, so I will try to be braver in my fabric choices in future.

There is an article by Barbara Brackman on madder style prints here, and she also write an article for Quilter's Newsletter Magazine

Brackman, Barbara. "Madder-Style Prints" Quilter's Newsletter Magazine, March 2003, Number 350, pp. 45-47 


I've torn the place apart trying to find the magazine in question, but I have no idea where it is.  And I probably won't rest now until I find it.  That sort of obsessiveness is tiring, when you find yourself going through yet another cupboard or drawer, convinced that you've remembered where you put it.  False Memories are real, folks.

I'm going to make another 4 blocks for this quilt, and that should be enough, unless I decide that there are a few more fabric combinations that I just have to try.  I will probably end up with extras, but they can just join the crowd in the orphan box.


 

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