062 Oklahoma Backroads Update

I'm still plodding along with the Oklahoma Backroads quilt I've been working on.  

As with all Bonnie Hunter quilts, there's many seams to wrangle and they always seem to take longer than I hoped.  Which is fine, just makes my to do list grow and grow.

I've done all the blocks, and I placed them on the design wall to see if they work.

I think they do.  But some of my points are just abysmal.  I'm hoping they'll get lost in the quilting.

I do my very best at quilting, and yet I still can't sometimes get the points working.  Why is that?  I think it must just be trying to do too much, too fast.  Story of my life.

I have managed this weekend to get them into rows, and pressed them all (not showing in this photo!) so hopefully I will be able to do the final seams tomorrow.  This weekend has been a bust in the sewing room, but it's okay.  I spent it outside in the sun with nice company and nice food, and that's what life is all about.

I needed a whole metre of fabric for my borders, and I am determined to use the older stuff in my stash.  But I don't have whole metres of fabric, sadly.  I had to really dig to find something to use, and it's hard to know what to use with a scrappy quilt.  I've chosen a purple, so I am hoping that it will all look okay.

We shall wait and see.

I hope your weekend has been terrific, filled with all good things.  See you soon!

Smokey Mountain Stars–my version

I am knee deep in the middle of the school holidays, and my computer time is being curtailed by small children (who are better at the computer than I am!).  Add to that a head cold which we always, always seem to get in the first week of the holidays – well, that’s why the posts have been thin on the ground.

But I’ve been sewing up a storm, what with an all day sewing day our guild held last week (sheer, pure bliss!), plus forgiving children who seem to want to play with each other all day long (is there nothing better than the sound of happy kids playing?).  I’ve got more photos of what I’ve been up to that I want to show you, but until then I thought I’d share another of the Bonnie Hunter quilts I’ve made.

Dark, clotted cream and musky pink have always been some of my favourite quilting colours.  My favourite by far, which explains why I have such a lot of them on hand.  Although I never seem to have enough creams in the background box.

I’ve always loved this Bonnie Hunter quilt – it’s called Smokey Mountain Stars and you can click on the name to take you directly there.  It’s surprisingly easy to make, and I whizzed this one up quite quickly.

It’s only small though, and this day I don’t know why I made the darn thing so little.  It’s not like I lack for fabric.  I think I aimed for a bed topper, and it does look lovely on the bed, but it would look so much nicer BIGGER.  Of course, it’s one of the few I’ve actually had quilted (thanks Mum!) so I can’t make it bigger now.   C’est la vie. 

I love it to pieces.  Adore it.  It remains up there with my favourite colour/design choice.  You know when you make a quilt and sometimes it’s in your head how it will look, and you end up making something that just doesn’t cut it?  But sometimes when it works, it really, really works?  This is one of those quilts.  Love it, love it, love it.

Easy peasy pattern to make.  Did I tell you I want to make all the quilts on Bonnie’s page?  I’m not sure that I will, but I think I may give it a good shot. 

It’s been quilted with a big overall love heart pantograph that works really well.

 

 

So there it is, one of my favourite quilts.  See that border fabric?  I’ve got so much more of it stashed away.  I could make another one just like it.  Only bigger.

Hope your quilting has been productive!

Suzie

Finishing Finishing Finishing

Oh I’ve been finishing stuff.

My husband has been working long hours and is getting home late, and so I get to sit in the sewing room after the children have gone to bed and not feel guilty that he’s in the lounge by himself (watching football, quite happily – why do we guilt ourselves into feeling we have to sit with him every minute of the day?  He doesn’t care, he’s happy)…

I digress.

I’ve been finishing off some of the messy blocks that needed to be made up into lovely quilts, and so I present my first ta-dah for the day.

One hundred percent made with scraps that come out of my ‘Bonnie Hunter Scrap System’ that I implemented on a very small scale a few months ago to see if it would work for me.  I’m pretty sure I can say it does!

The only rules I gave myself was that I had to have red chimneys, cream background and less busy outer borders of my cottages.  Everything else was as I pulled it out of the bag.

And I’m pretty happy with it, to be honest.  It was hands down one of the quickest quilts I’ve made.  It really went together very fast.

It was difficult to find a sashing and border that worked with everything, but I think I’ve compromised rather well.  It defeated the purpose of using my stash if I had to buy metreage for the outside borders, so I’m happy with my choice.

If you don’t recognise the pattern, it’s Bonnie’s Happy Scrappy Houses.  I’ve had my eye on it for ages but it looked a little complicated, but gee whiz, it was EASY.

And so, lovely readers – the first in one of my many finishes this week.  I’ll post more later.

Hope your weekend has been a quilty one.

Suzie

Mysteries Of Life

I've been reading a few blogs lately and there's been much talk about mystery quilts, and why do we do them? 

It seems to be split down the middle.  There are those of us who love them, and those of us who would never do one.

I've changed a lot in my twenty or so years of quilting.  I started doing mystery quilts when I first began quilting.  Back then, I had very little confidence.  I didn't know enough about colour choices and I knew that it would teach me a little bit.  I did a few then, I loved some, I loathed others.  One came out looking like a quilt covered in swastikis.  Not my cup of tea at all.

Over the years my whole design 'thing' has changed.  I gave up making large quilts.  How many large quilts does one person need?  We opened a quilt shop and my days of making quilts purely for fun, or for no financial gain were long gone.  The only thing I quilted was samples, or or own designs.  I loved every minute of it but there was no time for anything 'fun' or purely for me.

And now that I am officially retired from the quilt shop, I find myself surfing a lot online.  One of my favourite sites is Bonnie from Quiltville.com.  I love her whole quilting 'thing'.  I love the scrap quilts.  I've always been a lover of the scrap quilts. 

So yes, now I do her mysteries.  I've only done two, but I've learned so much from them.  They force me to push my limits and piece quilts in ways that I have been too cowardly to do in the past.  They force me to use colours that don't settle well with me.  I'm not disappointed with the two that I have done.  I love them.  I have loads of scraps, it didn't cost me anything - it was totally worth the risk.

I think it's made me a better quilter.  (At least marginally). 

My advice is, if you're going to do a mystery, do your research on designers.  Some of the mystery quilts out there are pretty dodgy.  Don't even get me started on the one I began about ten years ago - I'm still waiting for her to post her next set of instructions.  Or the one where you had to make a million blocks, and then was told to 'stitch together in a manner that pleases you'.  I ended up throwing that one in the bin, and I *never* throw anything out.

I'd thoroughly recommend Bonnie's though.  Neat, precise instructions, always a winning quilt. It's just fun, that's all.  Just a little bit of fun.

All the best,

Suzie