Continuing to go Round the Bend

This is voting week for the Blogger's Quilt Festival over at Amy's Creative Side. Lots of gorgeous quilts to see. Do go and join the fun and vote for your favorites. Follow the links to see my two entry posts for the Scrappy Quilt category and of course, the Home Machine Quilted category.

In the meantime I continue to go Round the Bend - but I'm getting there!

The penultimate motif is Balustrade.This one does need tram lines to travel along to get from one balustrade to the next. It's a great motif for quilting at different densities and gives a lovely amount of dark and light. This square always makes me think of an old fashioned whale bone corset!

Here is the thimble again to give you an idea of scale.

The last motif is a variation on 'Cobbler's nightmare'. I've given the 'feet' a variable slant which loosens the whole design up. It looks quite different I think and almost deserves a new name - perhaps Duel Thorn?

This motif is quite long-winded to do, but I love the effect - it works well around corners and looks good both large and small.

Because of all the binding and then sewing the squares together, there is a surprising amount of hand sewing in this project.

Here are the first two rows all joined together.

Thanks for dropping by...

Hilary Florence

Please find below a list of linky parties. I may not link with all of the every week, but with some of them most weeks. Please go and have a look at some of the other wonderful quilts and quilters there.

Anything goes Mondays @ http://marelize-ries.blogspot.co.uk/

Linky Tuesday at Free motion by  the river­­­­ @ http://www.conniekresin.com/

Fabric Tuesday @http://quiltstory.blogspot.co.uk/    

Sew cute Tuesday @ http://www.blossomheartquilts.com/ 

Let’s Bee Social @ http://sewfreshquilts.blogspot.co.uk

WIP Wednesday at freshly pieced   @   http://www.freshlypieced.com/

WOW = WIPs on Wednesdays  @ http://www.estheraliu.blogspot.co.uk/  

WIP Wednesday at TN + TN  @ http://needleandthreadnetwork.blogspot.ca

I Quilt Thursdays @ http://prettybobbins.com/

Really Random Thursdays @ http://www.liveacolorfullife.net/

Needle and Thread Thursday @ http://myquiltinfatuation.blogspot.co.uk/

Off the wall Fridays @ http://ninamariesayre.blogspot.co.uk/

Fabric Frenzy Friday @ http://fortworthfabricstudio.blogspot.co.uk

Friday linky party @ http://www.confessionsofafabricaddict.blogspot.co.uk/

Lizzie Lenard @ http://lizzielenard-vintagesewing.blogspot.co.uk/

Cosmic Split - Blogger's Quilt Festival entry for Home Machine Quilted category

Hi and welcome to all visitors from the Blogger's Quilt Festival at Amy's Creative Side.

Free motion quilting is an absolute passion of mine, so of course was going to be the category of choice with my quilt Cosmic Split.

I wanted to play with 3 ideas with this quilt. The first was to quilt on metallic fabric. That led me on quite a voyage of discovery trying about 6 different fabrics, not always with great results. You can read about my adventure in my post Gold Fever, which I certainly had at the end of the process! I eventually settled on gold spandex.

My second idea was to see if I could sew some of my motifs in continuous circles. I spend hours doodling to come up with new patterns and when I'm stitching, I like to explore the potential of each motif by changing density, direction, curve/straight etc.

Here are some more close-ups.

Once I had the 'cosmos' finished it was time for the 'split'. Slicing that piece into two was quite a nerve wracking process as I described on my post:

'The name contains a 'Split', a split is required. Changing my mind is not an option. A few deep breaths, a bit of contemplation, a cup of tea, a meander down the garden, a few sketches, a trial on one of the 'failed' gold samples, another cup of tea, a walk along the country lanes,  quite a lot of worry, yet more tea, more deep breaths - a flash of the rotary cutter and for better or worse it is done.'

My third idea was to add texture to the background by ruching the fabric before FMQing - which you can't see too clearly in the photo, but it makes quite a difference in real life.

I like to mix my motifs to give a varied texture. Have to say that quilting black on black is quite a challenge for the eyes!

Here is the finished piece again. Do go along to see all the other entries in the Home Machine Quilted category and vote for your favourite.

To see my other entry into the festival in the Scrappy Quilt category, click on  Going to Pieces .

I hope you go and join in the fun.

Thanks for dropping by...

Hilary Florence

Please find below a list of linky parties. I may not link with all of the every week, but with some of them most weeks. Please go and have a look at some of the other wonderful quilts and quilters there.

Anything goes Mondays @ http://marelize-ries.blogspot.co.uk/

Linky Tuesday at Free motion by  the river­­­­ @ http://www.conniekresin.com/

Fabric Tuesday @http://quiltstory.blogspot.co.uk/    

Sew cute Tuesday @ http://www.blossomheartquilts.com/ 

Let’s Bee Social @ http://sewfreshquilts.blogspot.co.uk

WIP Wednesday at freshly pieced   @   http://www.freshlypieced.com/

WOW = WIPs on Wednesdays  @ http://www.estheraliu.blogspot.co.uk/  

WIP Wednesday at TN + TN  @ http://needleandthreadnetwork.blogspot.ca

I Quilt Thursdays @ http://prettybobbins.com/

Really Random Thursdays @ http://www.liveacolorfullife.net/

Needle and Thread Thursday @ http://myquiltinfatuation.blogspot.co.uk/

Off the wall Fridays @ http://ninamariesayre.blogspot.co.uk/

Fabric Frenzy Friday @ http://fortworthfabricstudio.blogspot.co.uk

Friday linky party @ http://www.confessionsofafabricaddict.blogspot.co.uk/

Lizzie Lenard @ http://lizzielenard-vintagesewing.blogspot.co.uk/

Going to Pieces - entry for Scrappy Quilt Category in the Blogger's Quilt Festival

Hi and welcome to all visiting from Amy's Blogger's Quilt Festival.

'Going to Pieces' - my entry into the Scrappy Quilt Category - started out as an attempt to reduce my pile of hand-dyed fabrics.

They are the left overs from other projects long since finished, the rejects whose colour wasn't quite right, the forgotten when time ran out, the abandoned when interest waned, the scraps waiting for a rainy day when I would get around to remembering them. 

Well, a rainy day arrived in August and prompted me to sort out the teals, purples and blues, to cut them into random strips...

...to sew together, to add slivers of gold for a bit of sparkle, to cut, sew, cut, sew improvising along the way...

ending in a quilt top! Random as the piecing was, it was no accident that I ended with lots of wonderful strips perfect for free motion quilting...my favourite part of the whole process.

There is a total of about 20 different motifs, so a lot of variety but also a lot of repetition to give unity.

I quilted each strip with one of the motifs...

...and in a strip composed of lots of little pieces, distorted the motif to fit the size of each little piece.

I love the little structures made by the random slivers of gold.

I had a large piece of sage green dyed fabric which fitted the colour scheme quite well, so used that for the back. I did all the quilting in a sky blue thread in both top and bobbin and I quite like the effect of the seemingly randomly placed patterns.

As the sage fabric wasn't quite large enough I added a couple of strips of darker green. I thought I would spice it up with bits left over from the quilt top. This turned out not to be such a good idea. The FMQ patterns do not marry up and quilting over two sets of seams was VERY bumpy!

And have I achieved my goal of reducing my scrap pile? I'm ashamed to admit you wouldn't know there was any difference. Obviously a lot more scrappy quilts are required!

To visit all the other scrappy quilts at the Blogger's Quilt Festival and vote for your favourite, click here.

October 24 – 31 – Linky’s Open & Nominate for Viewer’s Choice

November 1 – 7 – Vote for favorites in each of the categories

November 8 – Winners announced

Go and join in the fun! Thanks for visiting

Hilary Florence

Please find below a list of linky parties. I may not link with all of the every week, but with some of them most weeks. Please go and have a look at some of the other wonderful quilts and quilters there.

Anything goes Mondays @ http://marelize-ries.blogspot.co.uk/

Linky Tuesday at Free motion by  the river­­­­ @ http://www.conniekresin.com/

Fabric Tuesday @http://quiltstory.blogspot.co.uk/    

Sew cute Tuesday @ http://www.blossomheartquilts.com/ 

Let’s Bee Social @ http://sewfreshquilts.blogspot.co.uk

WIP Wednesday at freshly pieced   @   http://www.freshlypieced.com/

WOW = WIPs on Wednesdays  @ http://www.estheraliu.blogspot.co.uk/  

WIP Wednesday at TN + TN  @ http://needleandthreadnetwork.blogspot.ca

I Quilt Thursdays @ http://prettybobbins.com/

Really Random Thursdays @ http://www.liveacolorfullife.net/

Needle and Thread Thursday @ http://myquiltinfatuation.blogspot.co.uk/

Off the wall Fridays @ http://ninamariesayre.blogspot.co.uk/

Fabric Frenzy Friday @ http://fortworthfabricstudio.blogspot.co.uk

Friday linky party @ http://www.confessionsofafabricaddict.blogspot.co.uk/

Lizzie Lenard @  http://lizzielenard-vintagesewing.blogspot.co.uk   

'Round the Bend' is coming together - part 3

I keep changing my mind about the name of this piece. Am I 'Going round the Bend' or is one driven 'Round the Bend'? Which ever, the next of the 12 squares are done.

This is 'Crossing Over to the other Side'. The cross over part is lovely to quilt. It has a nice swing and gives some gorgeous shapes.

The 'scale tool' of choice this week is a thimble.

I call this motif Queen Katherine's Headdress (as in Katherine of Aragon, first wife of Henry VIII). Although that was not on my mind when I created the motif, every time I see it I am reminded of Tudor headdress fashion in the early 1500s. The 'hood' to give it it's proper title, was a wonderful excuse to flaunt wealth and status with an incrustation of pearls and jewels - see below. Early pictures of Anne Boleyn, second wife, show the same headdress, but then the angles softened to horseshoe shaped curves set further back on the head. Still plenty of room for those jewels though!

                                         

I digress. Back to the motif, alas not studied with pearls and precious stones, just a plain old thimble not even made out of silver!

And now to the really fun bit - joining the squares together and watching the overall pattern emerge. Here are the 2 that you saw in week 1 of this project, Sticks and Stones with Fly Away Home.

The 12 Squares will be arranged 3 wide by 4 deep, so Crossing Over to the Other Side completes the top row.

The joining can be a bit tricky, because no matter how accurate you are with measuring and marking the squares, they are distorted by the quilting. You can't trim them without loosing the pattern so it is down to stretch and steam. If that doesn't quite do it, the fall back is my grandmother's favourite phrase on such occasions 'Nothing that a blind man on a galloping horse would notice'!!!

This week is the start of the Blogger's Quilt Festival. I'll be entering 2 quilts this year, in the scrappy quilt category and it goes without saying, in the FMQ on a domestic machine. If you are new to this and want to see what it's all about click here. 

I'll be adding 2 more posts today or tomorrow with my entries. Please do visit, join in the fun and go and vote for your favourite.

Thanks for visiting...

Hilary Florence

Please find below a list of linky parties. I may not link with all of the every week, but with some of them most weeks. Please go and have a look at some of the other wonderful quilts and quilters there.

Linky Tuesday at Free motion by  the river­­­­ @ http://www.conniekresin.com/

WIP Wednesday at freshly pieced   @   http://www.freshlypieced.com/

WIP Wednesday at TN + TN  @  http://needleandthreadnetwork.blogspot.ca/

I Quilt Thursdays @ http://prettybobbins.com/

Off the wall Fridays @ http://ninamariesayre.blogspot.co.uk/

Lizzie Lenard @  http://lizzielenard-vintagesewing.blogspot.co.uk   

Going Round the Bend in 12 Squares part 2

Good morning, afternoon or evening where every you are. Here in Devon, south west UK, it is cold, wet and windy - it is enough to drive me round the Bend!!

So here are the next 3 squares in that project.

Having shown you this motif recently - Getting to the Point - in one of my FMQ Cameos, I realised that I had never  used it in a quilt. Time to remedy that! I love the colour of this square. Colours are very deceptive on line and seen differently on every computer according to the colour card. This is somewhere between aqua marine and the softest of charcoal. It is very delicate and restful.

I thought I would ring the changes a bit and this week I have used a bobbin to give an idea of scale.

Quite gentle curves or 'bends' in this square are married to the brightest colour in the piece - Magenta. In truth, it is slightly dulled. This is a trick I use when I want to mix many colours from 3 or 4 dyes and I want all the colours to blend. I make a mix of my pure or starting dyes and then add a small spoon to each colour - so that every colour has just a little bit of every other colour in it. This 'Magenta' therefore has a smidgen of turquoise, slate blue and charcoal in it.

(By the way, I wouldn't recommend this with turquoise or yellow lemon, both of which change colour quite drastically with just a drop of something else in them) 

This is motif I use a lot - but I still haven't got a name for it. I'm thinking something along the lines of All boxed in.

And here is the turquoise square - minus all the other colours! This design is fun to do. It takes 3 goes, the central line of circles first, then back on putting in one side and down again putting in the other. This is also one of those fantastic flexible designs that looks good big or small and goes around bends like a dream. It reminds me a bit of planets and their orbits, so I've called it 'The Centre of my World'

When I was quilting Going to Pieces, it took me a while to get use to quilting strips two and a half inches wide - much wider than I normally do. Well, here I am going to the other extreme!

Thanks for dropping by...

Hilary Florence

Please find below a list of linky parties. I may not link with all of the every week, but with some of them most weeks. Please go and have a look at some of the other wonderful quilts and quilters there.

Linky Tuesday at Free motion by  the river­­­­ @ http://www.conniekresin.com/

WIP Wednesday at freshly pieced   @   http://www.freshlypieced.com/

WIP Wednesday at TN + TN  @  http://needleandthreadnetwork.blogspot.ca/

I Quilt Thursdays @ http://prettybobbins.com/

Off the wall Fridays @ http://ninamariesayre.blogspot.co.uk/

Lizzie Lenard @  http://lizzielenard-vintagesewing.blogspot.co.uk   

Round the Bend in Twelve Squares - part 1

As the title suggests, this project has 12 squares and a lot of bends to go around - in more ways than one!
This is another version of 'Learning Curves in 9 Squares'. All the quilting is done on white fabric but each square is framed by a border in the same colour as the thread.
So first task was to dye the border fabric and buy matching thread.

Intentions and outcomes don't always match up. The beautiful gradation from fuchsia, through purples to turquoise and slate blue ended up a clean break between pink/purple and blues. Of course, I could have started again, made a better job of the dyeing, re-ordered more matching thread ... but that would have required patience and perseverance - qualities that I believe I possess but obviously not in sufficient quantity in this instance!

My solution was to mix the colours up and let it be assumed that this was always the intention. You do assume that, don't you?!!

Each 12" square uses one motif - here Sticks and Stones. I deliberately made some of the 'bends' very narrow which results in a beautiful play of density and gives the impression of light and dark shades of colour...

although I have to say when I am trying to quilt that small there is a voice in my head saying 'you can not be serious!' I've put a pin in to give you an idea of size. I can see in this enlarged version that I have made a good mistake in the middle - but at original size in the whole piece I defy anyone to notice!!

The next square has the motif  'Fly Away Home',  named by Norma Schlager after the nursery rhyme Ladybird/Ladybug (depending which side of the Atlantic you are on).

Again, things got pretty tense - I mean dense here. Some of those circles are about the size of a pin head.

At some points the motif tapers down to a point. Obviously here I can't see what I'm doing - but then neither can you!! I just try to move the fabric in the idea of the pattern and even though I am almost stitching on the spot, there is a point where the sense of the pattern seems to emerge from the tangle.

Next 2 or 3 squares should be ready to post next week. Hope to see you then and thanks for stopping by..

Hilary Florence

Please find below a list of linky parties. I may not link with all of the every week, but with some of them most weeks. Please go and have a look at some of the other wonderful quilts and quilters there.

Linky Tuesday at Free motion by  the river­­­­ @ http://www.conniekresin.com/

WIP Wednesday at freshly pieced   @   http://www.freshlypieced.com/

WIP Wednesday at TN + TN  @  http://needleandthreadnetwork.blogspot.ca/

I Quilt Thursdays @ http://prettybobbins.com/

Off the wall Fridays @ http://ninamariesayre.blogspot.co.uk/

Lizzie Lenard @  http://lizzielenard-vintagesewing.blogspot.co.uk   

Nine Lives

This is not a new quilt. I made it before starting my blog, but I got such a positive response to it's appearance on the blog hop, I decided to give it a post of its own.

Nine Lives started out as Nine Green Bottles (OK, a bit of artistic licence on the bottle colour, but the overall effect is green). It was a nice study on curved piecing. The more I looked at these bottles, the more I saw cats. In the end, I gave in and appliqued heads and tails on each bottle and Nine Lives was born.

Life 1

Life 2

Life 3

Life 4

Life 5

Life 6

Life 7

Life 8

Life 9

I hadn't quite developed the range of FMQ patterns that I have now, but the  background mix was intended to look like a wall...

with the odd mouse...

hiding...

Add caption

from the cats.

And this is Cara, who decided not to be left out. She is a cat I am fostering for the Cats' Protection League until she can find a permanent home. She has already used 2 of her lives, one costing her a tail and the second an eye ... but neither seem to bother her much. That look says, 'Never mind about quilts, photos and blogs, where is my food?'

I'm off to feed a cat. Thanks for visiting.

Hilary Florence

Please find below a list of linky parties. I may not link with all of the every week, but with some of them most weeks. Please go and have a look at some of the other wonderful quilts and quilters there.

Linky Tuesday at Free motion by  the river­­­­ @ http://www.conniekresin.com/

WIP Wednesday at freshly pieced   @   http://www.freshlypieced.com/

WIP Wednesday at TN + TN  @  http://needleandthreadnetwork.blogspot.ca/

I Quilt Thursdays @ http://prettybobbins.com/

Off the wall Fridays @ http://ninamariesayre.blogspot.co.uk/

Lizzie Lenard @  http://lizzielenard-vintagesewing.blogspot.co.uk