Wednesday, January 29, 2014

SOME QUILTING PROGRESS

I'm finally making some progress on my disappearing 9 patch quilt.
 
I've sewn a large number of 9 patches and cut them in half both ways
 


 
 
and now I putting them together in a random fashion.



Each finished " square" will be about 5 inches - and I do mean about !!!
 
I have placed them all out on the bed to mix them around until I get the arrangement right.
 

 
Then I photograph them so I can check to see if all is OK.
 
In this way the glaring mistakes show up
 
- like the bit at the bottom where there is too much yellow together -
 
and I can make sure that the dark and light, bright and pale are evenly distributed.





I'll leave it there for a few days now walking past it often while I check it out, moving blocks around a bit till I think it is right..
 
Don't know whether or not I like it yet.
I wanted random but is this too random ?
I don't know.
 
Don't know about that geometric fabric among all the florals either.
 
But I do know that my back is aching from all that bending so I'll leave it now for a while.
 
~~
On another matter I've been trying to snap these dear little birds for a while now.
 
 
 
They are Fairy Wrens - in fact Blue Wrens as far as I can tell from my bird book though the females look a bit different from the illustrations in the book.
We have quite a colony of them frequenting our front and back yards.
Quite common in the south but not seen any further north than Brisbane apparently.
 
They are very quick and very difficult to photograph.
 
There seems to be one male - the pretty blue one - and quite a harem of plain brown ladies for each family group.
 
I think they are insect eaters and they seem to like the cover offered by our hedge type plants and their high pitched trilling is a nice change from the loud squawking of the Lorikeets.
 
Cheers.
 
 


11 comments:

  1. When you first posted about this quilt I wasn't crazy about the geometric pattern. But since you've got the quilt all laid out I like it a lot. It helps from making the quilt look too homogeneous (sorry, couldn't think of another word). The only thing I noticed and this is ever so minor is that I don't particularly like it when the little squares are joined and both are floral and similar in color.

    The little bird sure is cute with his(?), her(?) chest puffed out.

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  2. Love it - as you know I love random and no I don't think it too random at all. I find that however long I leave it and photograph it I always manage to get a couple of pieces together that are the same or similar colours. Now all you have to do is stitch it all together!!

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  3. Suoer! I think the geometric bits kind of anchor the florals. You are doing what I do when I piece a quilt, looking and looking. Photographing helps you see it differently too.

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  4. I think your combination of fabrics works very well. I know what you mean about photographing your work. I usually do that after I've finished it and put it on my blog. Then I stand back and go "OOPS"

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  5. Leave it alone, it looks great to me! If you mess with it, you will never be satisfied and become irritated with what you should rightly be very pleased with.

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  6. I like your blue and yellow quilt Helsie. I don't even mind the yellows in the corner either. It's like a burst of sunshine. It's amazing how you can quilt something as big as a bed quilt. I'm not to that stage yet. Just the small projects for me. I've found quite a few lovely sewing and quilting blogs to drool over since I started sewing again. Some serious quilters, who have the wall space, put a huge fabric board up to stick their pieces for viewing and arranging. That beats bending over the bed to arrange. But one needs to have the wall to do it. Cute birds by the way.

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  7. I think your quilt looks lovely. Beautiful colours and the layout is wonderful. Imagine it quilted . Its going to be fabulous.

    I do the take a picture and walk past for a few days method of deciding whether I like a layout too!

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  8. I think your quilt looks lovely. It's often at about this point you have doubts about fabric choice and placement. Just go with your gut instinct, and don't think it out too much. I agree, taking a photo is a great way to see if there are any glaring problems in the layout.
    I didn't realise Blue Wrens were found this far north. I thought they were only found down south. They were one of my favourite birds when we lived in Vic. I'm very envious.

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  9. Your quilt looks absolutely beautiful. I love the colours! Ros

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  10. Thanks for all the support. As jane says I've just got to sew it all together now ... and there are a lot of seams to match up. Good practise or frustration ahead ???

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  11. I really like the colors of your quilt and the way you have the blocks assembled. That reminds me that when we moved to our house in the 70s the lady next door gave me two quilt tops. I am not a quilter, so they are still wrapped, as I would not know how to finish them.

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