Years ago I saved this photo of an antique quilt from an online seller. I was intrigued by the cross shape that appeared because of  the different colouring of the double nine patch blocks. One block has yellow setting squares and four of the nine patch blocks

 and the other has five nine patches and red setting blocks.

I seem to remember that some famous designer released this as a pattern at some stage but the name escapes me now.

So I started my own version but quickly realised that it all looked too harsh and I didn't like the yellow blocks and it was not turning out the way I wanted. It was banished to a drawer until earlier this year when I dragged it out, ripped out the blocks I wssn't happy with and substituted some softer reds and blues and golds.

 I put the three borders on and called it done. It was never going to have that clunky oversized piano key border which seems to totally diminish the centre. 

It's not the original effect but I like it much better now.

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Busy Spring

 Hello again! It's spring in Australia and I've been super busy outside. I have to try and control half an acre of garden and block next door and I've been mowing, spraying and cutting down trees to keep up with everything before it gets totally out of control. Or it gets too hot to do anything outside. Keryn kept asking if I'd sewed anything interesting, and was disappointed when it was just some old long term projects I was working on.

But now I've mostly done what I needed to, and I'm back in the sewing room and wanting to try out some new ideas, like this Windmill block from a recent Quilted Forest video. 

I made it with 2 1/2" strips, which worked out to be 8" finished, and also with 2" strips, finishing at 6". That one's awful cute, but I like both.

I succumbed to this potato chip variation,( 3 1/2" centre and 2" by 3 1/2" chips around it) which I saw on Becky's Quilted Twins blog. I have worked out I will probably need 140 blocks to make a bed size top. Lots of cutting for that one.

Here's a photo of an adorable little echidna that Matt picked  up while on the job.He didn't know how old it was, but he said it was very prickly!

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A Blue Finish

A few years ago I made this top with a sort of Rolling Star variation. I used all vintage fabrics, and I really like the way it turned out, and I do plan to quilt it....one day.

The block was so easy to make I decided to see if I could use a heap of blue scraps to make a two colour quilt. I have trouble limiting myself to two fabrics, but I thought I could manage sticking to a variety of blues.

I duly made thirty blocks (obviously had more scraps than I thought) and put them on the design wall. I originally thought I'd use light and medium blocks as well, but they seemed to make holes in the design, and so I moved on to other things. Making the blocks seemed so easy, and then the agonizing begins, on settings and placement and the overall effect. I can get stuck for years deciding on this stuff.

This year I decided to move some old projects along and pulled this out, vowing to just replace the light and medium blocks with new ones, and get it done. Somehow, I rejected enough blocks that I can now make another complete top, but I'm not in a hurry to finish that. At least I was happy enough to set the blocks together with a 3/4" sashing (1 1/4" cut) and get a border on

Upon seeing this for the first time Keryn mused " It's very...Blue, isn't it?" Yep, it's pretty intense in person but it's in one piece, and I can put it in the "For Sale" pile at the shop, finally.

I may have started a pink version that sort of crashed along the way, but 

I think I've come up with a setting plan for that too.

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I recently completed the snowball blocks for this long-term project and set them together. I've always loved the effect of snowballs but didn't particularly like the waste triangles that resulted. I finally bit the bullet and started cutting up my lovely reproductions, in particular the large, hard to use patterns that I'd avoided, or hoarded because they were so precious.

This will eventually have a couple of borders, but it's not going to be a big quilt. probably about 65 inches wide. I'm just happy that I can cross this pattern of my 'One Day' list.

It was great actually using them at last, and I'm vowing to reproduce more of the amazing antique quilts that I truly love and always meant to start. 

Keryn and I have been on a kick of making more modern quilts with brighter colours,  buying lots of fabric that is cheap, or is the only thing available to us within 100 kilometres. I still like to actually touch the fabric I buy, so I don't shop online these days. But the bulk of my stash is the beautiful browns and double pinks, the cheddar and indigos of the nineteenth century. I should be making good use of them now, instead of just buying fabric because it's cheap. (Who am I kidding, I'm going to do that as well..)

The antique quilts are what makes my heart sing, so I'm going to go through the thousands of quilt photos I've saved over the years and pick a few projects to actually start. And maybe finish one or two of my old ones that have stalled for one reason or another

Delicious!

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Scrappy Trips

Keryn and I managed to acquire a lot of fabric last year  that was very affordable and thus our respective stashes grew , um, quite a lot. Most of this was not the reproductions that I truly love but modern brighter colours that were still really appealing. Now we have to try and use it all!

I decided to make a Scrappy Trips, from Bonnie at Quiltville , found in the free patterns tab. I limited myself to orange, blue and green and a bit of yellow.

Hmm,so far so good, I liked the jumble of different patterns together, even if it was a bit chaotic.

However I wasn't such a fan of the blocks all set edge to edge like this. I tried different layouts but because I'd only made twelve blocks they all looked unbalanced. I was already sick of them and didn't want to cut any more out, so the diagonal orange lines seemed the only solution. And yet it was so busy I just wasn't satisfied. Plus it was too small.

So I scouted through the stash and found a soft yellow that sort of calmed things down a bit and put space into the chaos.

A suitable blue was finally found for the border and this top was done. I don't know why everything was so hard to decide on this project,  but at least I saw it through to completion. I made this pattern years ago and thought it was a real no-brainer to use up random fabric. I think I might need to go back to my browns and reproduction pinks for a while, at least I know how to use them without a struggle!

I looked at the cut offs from the end of the strip sets I'd sewn, and put them together into this little mat.  I like the random placing of the pieces and the different widths, it was good to use them up instead of putting them in the bin.

 

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Border Fabric Found

The stash yielded a half metre of this pretty blue green that suited the blocks perfectly. And it was also half price when I got it, which made me happy. I wish I'd bought more, it seemed to go with lots of other projects too, perhaps a trip back to see if there's any more available?.

I will be making these blocks again, a fullsize quilt would be pretty, or a child's quilt with novelty fabrics fussy cut for the centres....Every project sparks new ideas for future ones, we can never run out of ideas, fortunately!
 

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 I've been sewing away at various projects and making progress on all of them but had no finishes to show for my effort. I just seem to switch horses when I run out of cut pieces or get stumped on a decision. Lots of blocks being made, even new projects started but nothing being finally dealt with.

I count the top as a finish because Keryn and I sell a lot of projects as tops or sets  of blocks, some that I never intended to quilt. I just want the fun of trying the pattern or playing with fabrics outside my comfort zone.

I tried out this puss in the corner block as a way to use some "modern" scraps I had (as opposed to repro) and I made enough for a small top. They finish at six inches, using two inch strips.Twenty was enough to give me an idea of whether I thought they were a good idea, and I did like them. Super easy to piece and fun to combine the different prints.

So I sewed them all together with a scrappy white sashing and now I'm scrabbling through the stash to find a suitable border.

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