Light and dark

scrappy teal, that is 

Kate, from Tall Tales from Chiconia is making another fundraising quilt for ovarian cancer. This time it's a tribute to a friend of hers who passed away recently, and Kate has designed a stunning quilt which is called In The Arms of the Angels.  You can see her sketched out plan here and the story behind the quilt.

Kate put out the call for help to make background and border blocks, and so I put my hand up for a couple of these.  The background needed to be in soft shades of teal, aqua, blues and creams and I used scraps to make this kind-of log cabin. I included some pieces that didn't make it when I was playing around with ideas for blocks for the Go Teal it on the Mountain quilt.

And a couple of antique tiles in reverse colourway. Kate wanted low contrast blocks, without a strong pattern that would 'jump out'. 

These two rectangles are 12x18, and are for the borders, with once again ' patterns that don't jump out as these are to be a mosaic to frame the inner window'.  I was running low on teal fabrics by now, and while I have plenty of small scraps, I didn't want to have tiny pieces in such large blocks, so had to be a bit creative in joining the larger scraps......some being 2.5 x4 or 4x4 and saving the few long pieces I had for the outer edges.

  

Check out Kate's post here to see the start of the quilt going together, and the magnificent set of 3D wings Kate has made. It's really worth having a look to get a clear idea of Kate's vision and how my scrappy blocks will work together with others being sent from around the world.

Joining in with Kate and Gun's monthly Scrap-Happy Day, which is open to anyone using scraps of anything.....fabric, paper, wood, anything that turns your scraps into something useful. Details are on Kate's blog.

See you next time.

Giving myself a push

to get on and finish 

I'm good at starting things, good at keeping up the momentum of doing a bit, here and there, but not always the best at finishing.  I keep busy and rarely sit down during the day, and amble from task to task....the necessary chores of cleaning, changing litter boxes, tidying and so on, then into the garden, see to the chooks, or out for a walk or a chat over the fence with a passer-by. Then there's a bit of sewing, laundry or tidying, soap or jam making, wash the dog or go pick vegetables and do 'something' with them. A friend says she likes the way I hum along in my day with tasks and chores, and I do get a lot done, but not always focused on one task.....the joys of being retired I guess, and being able to please myself how I spend my days.

But sometimes I have to step up, and now is one of those times .....it's a good friend's 75th birthday at the end of February, and I started a lap quilt for her last winter. It has a number of red work stitcheries, and I wanted to give myself not only time to work on them, but to enjoy the process as well.  February  seemed a long way away back in July, but here we are, in a new year, and suddenly the quilt needs to be ready next month !

I have eight stitcheries done, of varying sizes, from 9 Inches square down to 4 inches. They're all Bronwyn Hayes's patterns, from Red Brolly Designs, and this isn't one quilt pattern, but odd stitchery patterns I've saved over the years from various stitching and quilting magazines.

 So I've started to add borders to bring the blocks to the same size, trialling how that might be......log cabin style, coins.....I haven't decided yet....and some pieced blocks to make the quilt a decent size.  I'm wanting to use scraps and my (limited) stash so that will determine how that's all done. I also have some more patterns if I need to add more stitcheries.

And the post title?  I've put it out here now that I want to finish this quilt, but I'm also linking up with Elm Street Quilts One Monthly Goal with my January goal being to at least have the quilt top finished. We'll see.  

I have sewing to do.....see you next time. 

Happy New Year - 2019

Sunset on the first of the year