Another finish

This English paper pieced top of 1.5"hexagons was finally completed back in January last year & sat there waiting for quilting ideas.

so last month I decided to have a go at some simple zig zag quilting on my Singer 1929 treadle machine....

which wasn't always easy as extra weight had been added to the quilt layers!

Finally it was complete

Pattern is "Hex on the Beach" by Tula Pink oringinally sold as a kit of 1" hexagons from her Saltwater range of fabrics from 2013. So I had to take it down to the beach for a photo shoot!

The back

Shirt Stripe Boxes - we have a finish!

Back in 2012 I started making blocks for Kaffe Fassett's Shirt Stripe Boxes quilt from his book Passionate Patchwork, using recycled shirt fabric. You can see the original blog post here

Gradually over the next few years a few more blocks were made here & there as the mood struck until eventually at last in 2014 all the blocks were finally done

Then they just sat there,with the backing fabric squares also cut out all ready waiting to be quilted.  I planned to construct this using the Quilt As You Go method with some plain royal blue sashing

Then last month they were pulled out again, simply quilted with straight lines on my trusty Singer treadle & all assembled into a completed & quilted top

This last weekend the binding was attached & I made the most of a beautiful day in the garden to finish hand stitching the binding down & ta dah......we have a completed quilt, finally!

So pleased to cross another WIP/UFO off the ever increasing list! 

Bonnie Hunter Mystery, Foundation piecing Wild Geese & A Very Old UFO

This year I participated in Bonnie Hunter's Mystery Quilt along - Grand Illusion & decided to only work with fabric I already had in my stash, thus a different colour palette was used to Bonnie's

My fabric selection

Clue 1 underway using the trusty old treadle

I liked the main block created by all the units but the green sashing units just weren't doing it for me (too dark) so decided to go for plain cheddar sashing with friendship star cornerstones.

The nearly finished top - looking at this picture it needs another narrow border of the black to contain the stars on the edge. My "Inspired by Grand Illusion" is quite different from the Bonnie original which using the suggested colours looks fabulous, just google Grand Illusion mystery quilt & check out all the lovely photos.

Not wanting to waste 120 orphaned sashing units, I decided to convert them into 9 patches

Surround them with cheddar, geese & square in a square cornerstones. I hand drafted a foundation pattern for the geese to fit & used Bonnie's free pattern here for the cornerstones

Playing with a layout

1st 10 blocks together. 

Having finally got the hang of foundation paper piecing I was hooked & just couldn't resist having a go at some Wild & Goosey blocks everyone was playing with over on Quiltville's Open Studio

This pattern was originally published in Quiltmaker May/June ’13 issue under Bonnie Hunter's addicted to scraps column. The original pattern is for 3.5" units unfinished, I enlarged mine to 4.5" The PDF pattern can be downloaded from Quiltmaker here

This is a great pattern for using up tiny scraps but I decided to go controlled scrappy with this one & am still using fabric from the stash, mainly left overs from other projects

 

Now on a foundation paper piecing roll, I came across this fabulous site by Susan Gatewood who generously shares her foundation patterns for the Dear Jane quilt, so I dug out my very old UFO & decided to re-tackle this one. 

Row 1 so far

Current favourite block 

So, unintentionally, I have already started 2 new projects this year & revisited a UFO. I'm hoping to concentrate on existing WIP (works in progress) & in order to take stock I've created another page which also helps remind me I need to finish some of the older projects before starting more new ones.

Having said that, I find I am more productive by having so much variety to work with as I never get bored & they will all get finished in the end!

How many WIP's do you currently have and are there ones that will remain UFO's? What do you do with them if you really don't like them anymore? Would love to hear your views on this:)

Fabulous Oakshott cottons

 

 Remember these gorgeous Oakshott cottons? I blogged about them back here and here,

Well I finally got my act together to complete this project this year. I had made a dozen or so 18.5" blocks of the 30 required when my trusty little electric Brother machine broke down.

  

The only way I was going to get this finished by my friends birthday in early October was to use my 1929 Singer 66K treadle machine which I acquired this July & hadn't quite mastered the art of treadling yet......... that soon changed!

The blocks are constructed individually quilt as you go method (I used Hobbs 80/20 fusible batting for this project) here's a quick photo record of how I did this. 

I would start with a simple pieced background using a couple of colours or some circle units made up of drunkards path blocks and add some straight line quilting to the background.  

The green section below

Next I would play around with placement of odd scraps/offcuts & folded 2"strips 

A bit more background quilting added here

more folded strips are added, careful placement of these secures the rectangle scraps added on top when the strips are stitched down

these are then pressed over & stitched in place

this vintage Singer machine really does stitch beautifully!

Sewing curves for the Drunkards Path blocks on the electric machine was easy following this great video tutorial I found on you tube, however this technique didn't work on the treadle, believe me I tried.......you would need 3 hands!

After some practice  with scrap fabric, I mastered curves on the treadle: the secret? use lots of pins!

.......and before long, I was motoring away and was gradually running out of floor space to lay out these large blocks

Finally enough were made to complete the quilt. The blocks were joined together using my usual quilt as you go method (see labels on side for a link) with plain black sashing to try and add a little control to all this colour

 I have to mention here that all the credit for the inspiration of this quilt goes to Marianne of The Quilting Edge blog who very kindly gave permission to use her quilt as inspiration Thank you Marianne :)

and the leftovers?

Well I just couldn't let these go to waste now could I ? They were cut into squares & framed with a very pale grey (Kona shadow)

and over a couple of weekends, a lap size top was created

all with the treadle!

I have loved working with these gorgeous fabrics, Oakshott cottons have such vibrant colour & shimmer, can't wait to work with them again.