presenting a finish

It's really time I present this one - it's been finished and waiting for me to either clean up my design floor or take it outside for a few pictures. So I took it with me to hand in a paper and stopped along the way cycling home. I present:

name: redorangepurple (BeeBiased 2014)
size: 66" x 60"
patter: Thrifty (the pieced block) + solid squares
quilting: machine quilted on my machine in a diagonal lines
back: framed signature blocks

Löni

critique please

I have had some interessting conversatiosn the past weeks months ... some shorter some longer. Basically we all agreed that there are "quality comments" missing, that we are ready to post a "I like it" and never go into the reasons. That we rather leave no comment at all than a negative comment.
And something - that I fnd untterly amazing - the fact that the big bloggers don't tend to make mistakes - do they collect pictures of each step in their creation and wait till it's a beautiful finish before they start posting about them? and if it doesn't turn out nicely they hide it, maybe in the broom cupboard of an estranged great aunt?

Anyway I thought I would do a little something on the lines of  -- I don't like it because: -- with one of my own quilts (though admittedly I'm a teeny tiny blogger and ilike the tinyness because I can actually answer all the comments I get and make return visits). My first one - well my first big finished one.

It's the result of the Beginner's Quilt Along in 2012 at the Quiltign Gallery. So yes it's a complete beginner piece - but that doesn't mean I can't take it apart ... so what I see now that I didn't see then -

• the second row has too few of the sort of light blocks, there is too much red and apricot
•  the left uprigth corner block and the tiny hour glass block (rigth side second row) are too intrcate in combination with the other blocks ... they just seem off, out of balance.

 

the original fabric pull - the yellow went elsewhere

• the thre fabrics on the left are too cold - there is the red background and the orange sashing, I should have stuck with th warmer apricotish-colours to the right - just look at the picture below the contras between the warmish red and the cold light purples - lavendars - outch

What I like about the quilt:

• there is a lot of orange and yellow in it, which I have come to know assort of avoided colours, I think the only less used colours is probably brown.
• the points match 
• I made it! I mean I actually did finish a whole quilt. That was one pretty amazing feeling.
• The back - well just beacuse and because there is brown in it, but also the red from the front, and you can't really go bad with a backing ...  
• the orange and red absolutely glow in the sun

And yes Claire I know I won't be too hard on myself ... see at least I'm not unpicking the thing or hiding it in a dark corner.

And the others - feel free to attack, take apart, critique to your hearts content - I can take it - next time i might try the whole thing with an UFO so whatever you say will actually help me finish it, because I like arguing about why I do somethign the way I do it ... even if it's just silently shaking my head at suggestions and deciding that they won't ever see the light of day if I have to say something about it.

Löni

And I decided to try one of the linky things - maybe you have a quilt somwhere that you aren't happy about or one that you don't know how to finish, well if you are confident enough to show it two brains can probably come upt with more ideas than one ...







Sort of a disclaimer -that above there is all my genuine spur of the moment totally and absolutely subjective opinion - I don't do objective where quilts are involved. I either like them or I don't.

Bee update and a swap mini

When I opend my mailbox after my Esater "holidays" it was full of beautiful bee blocks and my March Mini-Quilt. It was a joy ripping open a handful of letters in one go ...

(you will have to excuse the mess in the corner - I'm slowly working my way through the boxes from the last post)

Now while I'm waiting on 3 more letters with blocks I thought it woudl be great to put all the bee blocks together - I'm wide open for suggestions on trying to sort which block goes where, because I'm sure by just placing them somewhere they won't look random at all ... I can't ever seem to get random by randomly placing blocks ...

this thing is gettig to large to take pictures .. I tryed climbing on the bed - which was too low, so I took a chair which worked somehow next time I will have to lay it out in front of the desk - the table should be high enough ...

Well but I did say something about a mini quilt - it'S from the ususal swap, this months theme was "keen on green" - but I won't keep you from the pciture, it's really a beautiful little thing:

Any ideas oh great wise ones of the quilting world what one could do with miniquilts - take off the binding and put them together like a QAYG-Quilt? turn them into a tote? because I can't put nails the walls here (well the walls are so hard you need to use the drill and then you can put a nail in that hole) and I'm running out of storage space ...

Löni

quilt pictures

I had a few "unplanned" free minutes this afternoon (the choir ended early - yay!) so I thought I would try to take some quilt pictures on my own - problem one: where do you find a good fence? problem two: cloth pins are practical for holdign a quilt on the fence (if you remember to bring them with you) problem three: find a place where you can get high enough to photograph from above hmm yeah there were some more problems ... Arrrghhh yeah well next time I will run into fewer problems.

remember to look out for a higher fence

or maybe stick to smaller quilts

just liked to share the picture

Leo

The usual suspects that I link to

another all in one post

I remembered rather lat that I hadn't written my NewFO post yet, I also haven't done anything about the May review and of course I forgot any other occasion to write for because of this:

 (that's us beating the Great Britain National Team, both days)

Ok but to the sewing stuff now: I did start a Quilt in May and I also finished it in May but I didn't get it send off in May - that is planned for tomorrow:

 That's it with my lovely toes as size referece - it's a swap quilt and we were supposed to do "not the usual shape". I will need to get soem nicer "daylight" pictures of that one tomorrow morning.

Now I think I did a lot of things in May ... I was mostly catching up on April though

March doll quilt        -     BeeBiased block     -        NewBee block     -        April doll quilt

        Walk the line [done!]    -                my month as queen: some 6.5" trial blocks                                      

 

     D9P [done!]     -          Newbee blcok (May)   -   using up scraps      -      BeeBiased block (April)

And as conclusion a picture of the garden ... everything is several weeks behind here - it's been quite cold and rainy. I have been waiting for the phone call to start the strawberry harvest for 3 weeks now ... and I'm told they are still mostly green.

 Leo

The usual suspects that I link to

feeling productive

I'm goign to be Bee Queen in June (and July but that's for another bee) and I had to come up with a pattern and of course make the blocks to see if the instructions work fine, and well yeah all the other reasons:

So I'm going to get a lot of blocks like those this month:

and because they are 6.5" I will get 4 blocks from each of the bees - life is wonderful

I also did get one Bee block for May done and the other one is still in the making but I have a few more days - well okay I have like 2 days today and tomorrow, but there is just a little bit left to do:

I also did get around to sewing some scraps together I ad left over fromt he "never again skirt"-project:

And most importantly I did get another quilt finished late laste night - now I just need to wait for nice weather to actually photograph it (and my other finish - yes there hasn't been a good sun since then):

 Leo

The usual suspects that I link to

a finish

Yay - Vicotry ... I always love finishing the last two stitches of the binding. Now you will have to excuse the crappy pictures but the weather here is rather un-sunny in the last few days and it's not looking like it's changing so when I decided yesterday evening not to take pictures with a flash I didn't want to wait another day to take a few pictures.

So let me introduce my newest finish:

 "Walk the Line" it's 47" x 67" (or 120cm x 170cm)

a quilting detail (and much better colours)

And that's it I need to go back to my papers and in between try to memorise plays ... and iron binding for the other quilt ... maybe more of the black I have a lot of black binding left over....

 Leo

Wednesday

Wednesday again - and I just managed to get my January swap mini finished in time. If I hurry with the lable I might have it in the mail by the 31st.

Sorry for the crappy shots - but with the exams coming up there is one rule down: no sewing before 8:00pm. The horror will start Thursday at 7:30 am - who else could be so cruel than a Latin Prof?

my green and purple "garden fence" block for the NewbeeBee

my - not so beautiful - butterfly-ish block for BeeBiased

I didn't attempt any other projects, I didn't look at any other projects though I've been thinking a lot about other projects, so much nicer than grammar or ISO standards ...

Leo

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Late Christmas Presents and Guest

The little ones are on the train home again - so I can realx with a cup of coffee and proof-read a paper and watch some 16+ DVDs

We did some knitting - the littlest asked if I culd teach her, so we went through my yarn and needle box. For an eleven year old she has got a lot of patience

And I did learn a lot of new modern "cool" ways to express frustration and hate from little one after she realised just how much straight stitching she had to do once she started on the Ticker Tape Mini that she picked from a book (I told her to try a big Wonky star).

In between we had some lovely

And of course we exchanged Christmas gifts - I did talk little one into posing with the quilt. But littleset one refused (I was lucky to score a picture of her knitting).

Leo

The usual suspects that I link to