Playing With Hedgehogs

Firstly, please accept my apologies if I haven’t commented on your blogs for the past week or so but we drove down into Spain/Catalonia for a break while my daughters house/dog/cat sat and, as one daughter doesn’t live here permanently, we’ve also been having some family time and I’ve been keeping off the screen and sewing machine as much as possible.  Mlle. Tialys the Elder is here for another week but I just dropped in quickly with an update on the F2F third block swap organised by Kate.

During the 2016/2017 swap, I discovered the pattern for Elizabeth Hartman’s Fancy Forest quilt and made a couple of blocks featuring her foxes and also two hedgehogs because they were easily made into the correct size for the finished blocks (12 inches) that this block swap calls for simply by adding a border.   It was interesting matching the colours they had chosen for their quilts to the pieces of hedgehog and each one is unique – I can guarantee you won’t see any of these in the wild.

So, in 2016, Susan over in Texas got this one –

and Claire in France got this one

I couldn’t resist revisiting this pattern for this year’s swap and – bearing in mind the participants who have already received one and the fact that not everybody might like a hedgehog in their quilt (although I can’t imagine why not 😉 ) – I made this blue and white one for Sue over in Washington as one of her three blocks for July.

I’d never made one for myself so, not to be left out, I made one in the neutral colour palette I’d selected as my colour choice this time round.

Plus, a paper pieced favourite of mine called ‘Banded Star’ – a pattern you can find free on Craftsy here.

With the receipt of these brilliantly executed (though not brilliantly photographed) blocks from Moira …….

and these lovelies from Nanette………

I now have all my blocks here and ready to be assembled into one big beautiful quilt or, quite possibly, two smaller fabulous throws.  I chose a neutral palette so that I could display them in the living areas of the house more easily so two smaller ones would make sense.

As usual, with sampler quilts, I will probably QAYG (quilt as you go) and might even have a go at hand quilting this time so you probably won’t see the finished article any time soon but it’s time I tried to improve my quilting skills and this will be an ideal project to do so.  Expect minimalism!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Scrappy July

Two more scrappy blocks to show you this month.

I’ve decided to make them – or at least nine of them – using scraps left over from making the F2F blocks so, each month I’ll make three 12 inch blocks for that month’s participant and, with the scraps, make a block for my eventual scrappy quilt.  That’s the plan anyway.

Confused? Join the club.

I was ‘Miss June’ and chose neutrals for my F2F colour palette so this is the scrappy block I made after making my own three blocks (well, I’m still part way through the third one but you get my drift).

Sue, from Washington, is ‘Miss July’ and her colour choices were different shades of blue with white.  Some of these scraps don’t appear in the blocks I made for her – the butterflies wouldn’t have been right for instance – but it’s predominantly blue and white so will serve as a reminder of the blocks I made for her.

I have loads of yarn scraps left over from my Little River Blanket  – remnants ranging from 3g to 5g – and I’m wondering what to make with those.  Anybody got any experience using up such things?  I’d be grateful for any ideas.  As I’m making another of these blankets, I’ll have another 48 so the possibilities are endless – aren’t they?

If you want to make use of your own scraps – can be anything, fabric, yarn, paper, whatever – just contact Kate or Gun who organise ScrapHappy Day on the 15th of every month and, if you have something, Kate will link to your blog, if not, nobody will mind.

Here’s a link to Kate’s post this month where you will see a link to the other participants.

 

 

More Calming Neutrals – Keeping It Real

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This was the draft for my next blog post.  I was looking at it and thought it would be fun to show you what passes for my thought process.  Lots of blah, blahs  is how my posts always start and, some might say, how they generally carry on.  So now you know.

I must just put in a bit of real blah though to say that all these gorgeous blocks – going towards my neutral palette F2F quilt – were received in the last few days from (in order of photos) Robin in Australia , Esther in the Netherlands and Kate, our esteemed leader, also in Australia.  Those last two were ‘spares’ sent by Esther and Kate in case I wasn’t happy with one of the other three they sent me.  As if! I don’t call them ‘spares’ I call them ‘bonuses’.

Normal blahing will be resumed as soon as possible.

A Neutral Notion

You may remember – if not, I’m about to remind you – that I’m taking part in Kate’s Foot Square Freestyle block swap again this year.

This was one of my photos for colour inspiration and I apologise right now for causing the other participants problems with what, I suppose, is a fairly difficult colour palette to reproduce.  I’ve even had trouble finding the right pinks myself so I sympathise.

My reasoning was that a neutral quilt would go with all different colour schemes and would fit in wherever I want to put it.  Also, I have a few quilts for beds which I try to rotate and, this time, thought I might make a couple of smaller ones, or throws, to drape across a sofa back in an arty farty fashion.

Anyway, I was the first out of the hat to receive blocks from the other participants this year and three have been quick off the mark – probably to get my weird colours out of the way – and have sent me the three blocks each that we commit to every month for this swap.

Firstly I received these lovelies from Sue in Washington

Then these three beauties from Kathy in South Dakota

Then, from a little nearer home, this gorgeous group from Claire who is also in France

I try not to be too overawed by the excellence of everyone else’s piecing – it only makes me try harder with mine when I know the standard is this high and, although nobody is going to be the Quilt Police (at least I hope not) I don’t want to disappoint.  Thank goodness it won’t be me that will be quilting their blocks – not my strong point!

I think they’ve all done a great job in interpreting my neutral vision and I’ve already started to think about the sort of thing I want to use for sashing and backing.  I’m wondering about a darkish grey marbled with pink – if I can find such a beast.

I’ve only made one block for myself so far – I thought I’d wait until I see what everybody else makes first so I can go with the predominant flow at the end.  I’ve been making Miss July’s blocks instead but I can’t show you those as it would spoil the surprise.

If anybody knows where I can get marbly grey and dirty pink fabric, please advise 🙂

Time To Get The Ironing Board Out

No! Don’t be ridiculous, I’m not going to make inroads into the basket of long-forgotten shirts and rashly chosen clothes made from inconvenient fabric that has the nerve to crease.  No – the Foot Square Freestyle Block Swap is back and I will be needing to press small pieces of delicious fabric on a regular basis.

Kate, over at Tall Tales from Chiconia has, once again, taken on the organisation of the third F2F worldwide block swap, bless her.  I can only think she must enjoy herding cats as, whenever I have been rash enough to take on the role of an organiser, that’s what it seems to be like.  Which is why I’m a team player rather than a team leader.

There are nine of us this year from all over the World and we will each make three blocks a month and send them to the person who has been drawn out of a hat to be the recipient that month.  We can all choose what colours we want but the design is up to the person making the blocks so all skill levels are catered for.  At the end of ‘our’ month, or shortly afterwards, we will have 27 blocks measuring 12 inches (finished size) – hence the ‘foot square’ of the title if you speak ‘imperial measurements’  – with which to make into a quilt.

If you have followed me for a while you will know that I have participated in both the previous swaps and, the first time, I ended up with all of these beauties-

and the second time with this one in more ‘manly’ colours as I wanted it for Mr. Tialys

I have missed the swap as I couldn’t find anything else like it when Kate took a year off from doing it last year and it was a very good exercise for improving patchwork skills, trying out some new ones (foundation paper piecing anyone?)  plus working with colours you might not normally use yourself.

As last time, my name was drawn out of the hat first so I will be ‘Miss June’ (which is appropriate as it’s my birthday month) and will be receiving three blocks from all the other participants some time later in the month or early in July.  Just wondering – why is it that my name never comes first out of the hat when there are big prizes to be won?

Anyway, these are some inspirations for my colour choices this time

Neutrals with shades of grey (although not as many as fifty) from pale to charcoal

some beige and cream

with vintage, faded rose pinks .

Why did my parents not provide me with such a bedroom when I was a child?   Would I have appreciated it if they did?  Probably not but I still feel slightly miffed.

So, I have made my first block just to get my hand in as I am severely out of practice and need to improve before I start sending out work to those who may or may not be more capable than me (but probably are).

A simple one to start but, even then, one of my points isn’t perfect.  The further down the line the participant is the better off they’ll be as I probably won’t be fully up to speed again for a couple of months.  Although, of course, I will be trying very hard.  There’s nothing like sending off your work to others who do the same sort of work to inspire improvement.