Finish it up Friday - Walk, Don't Walk

Well I dithered and dithered about the binding for this little quilt which was made for fun using leftovers from Big Red Triangles.   Thank you to all the nice people who commented on my earlier post with suggestions.   I was really drawn to the idea of a no-binding binding, but with the thought  "if in doubt, try the more challenging option and learn something" I eventually settled on the red on acqua, acqua on red option.

Are you like me and feel compelled to point out the flaws in things you make?  Not sure what that's about.  This has got lots of flaws but actually the only one I'm going to mention is that some of the wingtips of the flying geese are missing, but this was my first go at flying geese, so that's okay.  

Another first was matchstick quilting, with a fiddly colour change at the seam between red and acqua sections which involved lots of pulling the ends to the back (296 in fact).  I used the same red Aurifil as Big Red Triangles, and a Gutterman acqua sew-all.  They seem to get on quite well together! 

Backing is the old standfast Ikea Nummer - a word of warning, when I hold up this quilt to the light you can actually make out the numbers, but I won't be holding it up to the light too often.

The name of this quilt was in my head all the time I was making it - because it reminds me of people on a crossing but also because the effect of the triangles and the vibrant colour contrast is a bit edgy, so I felt it was a bit like someone shouting Walk, Don't Walk simultaneously.  All right, call me pretentious:-)

Walk, Don't Walk
17x20 inches
Klona in crimson
Moda Bell solids in Carribbean
Aurifil 28
Gutterman Sew-all
Warm and Natural batting
Ikea Nummer backing









Linking up to New to Me at Celtic Thistle Stitches - Fiona always inspires me to be more adventurous - and to Finish it up Friday - thank you to Amandajean for making me get my finger out.

A picture...

Inspiration for a grandmother's flower garden quilt, I thought.

I'm linking up with Martha!

Calling Slow Bloggers

The Slow Blog linky party can be found at Kettleboiler today!  Please link, visit and encourage:-)

Slow Blog Linky

If you are a slow blogger, temporary or permanent, feel free to share your successes or tales of thwarted crafting with other slow bloggers at this month's linky party which is being hosted tomorrow by the lovely Moira over on Kettleboiler.   

It's half-term here, so there will be some very slow blogging for a bit - see you on the other side:-)

WIP Wednesday

Linking up to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced today with two WIPs.

Oakshott Leaves is coming along bit by bit.  I had a Cunning Plan for assembly of this quilt but it turns out that it was more difficult than I thought (often the way of cunning plans), so I'm on to Plan v2.  Meanwhile I have all nine leaves though.

Ignoring the stray threads, aren't those Oakshotts just lovely?

And since I made Big Red Triangles and rather fell in love with the red/acqua combination I am nearly finished this little mini.  Maybe I should have cropped out my toes but I like quilt pics with just a glimpse (so often just fingertips) of the maker.

I have wanted to try flying geese for ages and this colour combination just shouted flying geese at me very loudly.  They are small (1.5 inches) and some of the points are missing, but not so that it matters terribly.  The other thing that I found was that when using the no-waste method for making flying geese (ie the fancy one that does four at a time) they weren't square on one side and I need to work out why.  Maybe someone can tell me what I'm doing wrong?

I have to decide how to bind this quilt and currently the thoughts are no binding, binding in a contrasting colour - eg charcoal, or red binding on the acqua section and acqua binding on the red section.  Still mulling this one over.

Ups and Downs

Up

Down

A small WIP/distraction, and some pics from the weekend.

WIP Wednesday

Now that I've finished Big Red Triangles, which thankfully came out of its first wash without any mishap, I've picked up two other works again. This is what's on the design floor this morning:

At the bottom are some large (and crumpled - the problem with design floors) Oakshott pebbles.  Stripey stones quilt started here - I am aiming for a grid of 9 pebbles, so have 3 more to go.  It temporarily stalled because I am dithering about the fabric/colour to use for the remaining pebbles.    I also got a bit despondent about this quilt because I was congratulating myself on my brilliant idea until I realised it is going to look rather like this.  Bum.  No progress.

I can't help thinking of my WIPs in terms of the Newland Shame Quotient (NSQ).   At the top of the pic are Oakshott leaves for a quilt which has been on the go for over a year -  so the NSQ is quite high.   But some progress has been made as this is what they looked like at last round up.

And now:

I love these fabrics and want to do them justice.  The plan had been for a fairly homespun looking quilt of autumnal leaves on a Yarn Dyed essex linen background in Flax, but when I laid the leaves out on it to have a look it sucked all the life out of the colour.  So I'm going to go for something much more dramatic!  I also have to decide on layout, but would like to cross this one off the list by the beginning of March.

Linking up with Leigh Anne who is guest hosting WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.

Ta da! Adventures in quilt photography

Big red triangle quilt is done! It began at the Stitch Gathering where Fiona of Poppy Makes gave a class on this quilt and is the largest quilt I have made which is why it is sideways here...

The triangles section is made from a jelly roll of Joel Dewberry's Knotting Hill combined with triangles of natural seeded Klona cotton.  I decided to add sashing in more Klona in red - I absolutely love this colour, completely outside my normal comfort zone and can't wait to use it again.

It is hand quilted using Gutermann quilting thread in the neutral triangles and red Aurifil 28 weight in the red sashing.  I can big up Aurifil with a clear conscience because it was very kindly sent to me by Alex Veronelli in response to a joke I posted, and is indeed a lovely thread to use, never knotting or tangling. As well as hand quilting the sashing, I used it in my machine to sew some ties in between the rows.  You can see them as little dots on the back of the quilt in this pic.

I wondered how the red quilting would look against the trusty Ikea backing and I like the effect although you can see how the quality of my stitching varied, most wildly when I was watching The Bridge at the same time. You can see the acqua binding too - I loved the red/acqua combination so much I decided to go for an unashamedly hand sewn look on the back in the same red Aurifil. 

The family helped try to get a good photo - see my noble husband leaning into the arctic blast while Thing 2 takes the shot.

Thing 1 also acted as photographer while I balanced precariously on a rock trying to unfurl the quilt in the wind.

We spotted this lovely matching red boat down by the harbour.

The shots I took down there were only made possible by my little helper who hid in the folds and held on tight so that it didn't blow in.

It is her quilt and was such a labour of love that if it had blown in I probably would have had to go in after it!

Linking up with: