Friday Finish: The Low Volume Rainbow

I actually finished this baby up a few weeks ago, but life has been crazy and Friday has slipped past numerous times without me posting.

This finish was my February goal for ALYOF and while I didn't get it done in February, it was finished in early March.

This was my first real go at improv piecing, and I love it... it was a fantastic way to use up loads of scraps and hard to use fabrics.

The quilting took forever. It was straight line quilting, but I used seven colours of thread, one for each colour of the rainbow. I took each colour over the corresponding band in the piecing, then into the low volume either side, and horizontally along each band. I love the effect, and how each low volume section is quilted in the colours either side of it. But the thread burying.... OMG. That took forever and ever and ever!!!!

I ended up totally overestimating how much of the low volume improv piecing I'd need for the strips on the front and had plenty left over, so I paired it with some grey solid for a pretty pieced back. Which meant no fabric purchases for the back too.

The only issue I have with this quilt is that it's not totally square, I have no idea why since I squared it up with a ruler when I finished quilting, but I guess the improv nature means it's hard to gauge that it's perfectly square. I'm trying to decide if I unpick some binding, trim and rebind, or if I just accept the fact that it's imperfect, like those people whose shoe sizes are a whole size different.

I'm linking this up with TGIFF over at Blossom Heart Quilts and Finish it Up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts.

Have a fantastic Easter, and I hope the bunny is kind to you.

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WIP Wednesday - Low in the Rainbow

Once upon a time, about a year ago, before I'd even heard the term 'low volume', I hit upon the idea of using up lots of bright scraps and lots of that pesky-multicoloured-fabric-with-white-backgrounds-that-is-pretty-hard-to-use (yes, that is the technical term) to make another rainbow quilt.

I worked at it for a while, then in typical fashion, shoved it aside, all but done, rendering a whole stack of fabric out of action for any other project and adding to my WIP list. My goal for A Lovely Year of Finishes in February is to get this top, which I absolutely love love love, finished and quilted. I have plans for the quilting, once I get over the hurdle of how to back it.

I love that this is low volume, but kinda not... a bit low vol at the carnival, perhaps. But overall, it reads as low volume. And since I reorganised my stash (more on that another day), I am itching to play with my low volumes a bit more.

I love the whole hot mess that is the improv piecing process too... perfect for this time of year when I am super tired from having lots of newbies at work (oh, the crying!) and just want some mindless sewing at the end of the day.

Linking up to WIP Wednesday, Sew Cute Tuesday and A Lovely Year of Finishes too!

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Happy Little Vintage Find

This morning I dropped my sewing machine for a service (sob!) and stopped in at my favourite op shop (thrift store), conveniently around the corner.

As I was walking out, this little gem called out to me from the magazine rack, nestled among the craft magazines. Now I totally identify as a thoroughly modern quilter, but I figured for 60c it was worth the look.

Behold, a 1977 Better Homes and Gardens Patchwork & Quilting book. Officially vintage, almost as old as me, back when patchwork was brand new again, long before the invention of rotary cutters and die cutters.

Okay, so the fashions and hairstyles leave a lot to be desired, but some of the quilts are fabulous. If you thought using lots of solids was oh-so-modern, you were wrong. And if you thought bright was a 21st century invention, wrong again. Change up the styling and you'd have trouble telling some of these apart from current 'modern' quilts (though the puffy batting leaves something to be desired).

I was going to take photos of a few of the pages for you, but then I discovered this and I'm not one to reinvent the wheel. I'll wait while you pop over to check out this page.

Are you not loving that orange, pink and yellow curtain? Or that string quilt from solids? Or the applique flowers and butterflies?

But here is my favourite project. Serious love. I so want to make a modern version of this.

Don't you think it would be kind of fabulous? There are a few blocks I'm not so fond of, so I might make a 12 block version. Kristy suggested I make it a reward for finishing projects this year and I think she's on to something, I could make one block for each finish.

You can find your own copy of this little gem at Amazon if you so desire.

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Sunday Stash

There's nothing new for me to report on the Sunday Stash front this week, so I'm going to elaborate on some fabric I got recently.

A while ago I shared that I was given some old fabric at quilt group. And by old fabric, I mean 90s calicos and the like. One of the ladies had been given a big box of fabric and offered it to us all, and who can say no to free fabric? We all went fabric diving and came up with some goodies.

Seriously, I know that fabric has come a long way since the 90s, but there are some nice pieces in the mix.  I found quite a few lovely prints, as did the other girls. I scored quite a few solids, and some nice prints that will work well in my stash. I like to look at every piece of fabric on its own merit, disregarding how 'old' or 'dated' it might be.

I got these solids - you can never have too many solids. Small pieces, but I do a lot of scrappy stuff so they're perfect.

And these prints, there are some nice blenders in there.

I have a thing for butterflies, so I liked these.

Some low-volumy stuff for backgrounds etc.

I thought this print was cool, a bit watermarky.

Some of my favourite prints. There is some pretty here!

And this is the Harry collection. I also have plans to make a paper pieced Harry Potter quilt and I was a bit worried about where I'd find suitable fabrics to make all those Hogwarty bits. But once we started looking for suitable pieces in the box with that project in mind, we came up with some real gems. The girls were literally throwing fabric at me for capes, bricks, beards, wands... I ended up with quite a good collection for that project - woody bits, grassy bits, the perfect grey for Dumbledore's beard, some capey pieces. I've stashed those bits away in their own bag for when I start that particular quilt. 

As usual, linking up with Sunday Stash

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Sunday Stash

Oh boy, it would seem I've been on a bit of a fabric bender again....

Okay, not totally, maybe a bit more like everything's arriving at once (except the two parcels that haven't arrived yet, but shhh about those). And I can seriously justify it all. I am full of excuses.

This week saw the arrival of another Travelling Stash swap, this one was a little FQ swap in a 500g postbag. I took 8 FQs out and put 8 new ones in.... hardly counts as new fabric when you do it that way does it?

I also joined a rainbow charm swap a while ago and got my charms back from that. Luscious colours and a serendipitous little collection, since I have nearly used them all up on the perfect project already. Again, since it was a swap it's not exactly new fabric.

Then I was at Quilt Group today and Kristy gave me my bit of an order we did together... when you're sneaking in on the end of someone else's order to help them fill their flat rate envelope to maximise postage then that doesn't really count, right? Okay, maybe I'm stretching it now...

Then Marieka lovingly shared some of her new Denyse Schmidt prints from Spotlight. Our Spotlight has a 1 metre minimum cut on clearance fabrics which drives me nuts because I don't want yardage these days. So it was very nice for Marieka to share.

Marieka also had an order from overseas and helped me feed my Lizzy House Pearl Bracelets obsession. The front three fabrics I already had, the back ones are new. Kristy also got me a FQ of the pink, though that one was meant to be lavender, oh well. Since these are one of my must have fabrics, I don't mind how much I have of it.

There was a bit of new bargain fabric coming in via my destashing group on Facebook, which I really must stop looking at since I'm not actively destashing my stuff at the moment.

And the biggest bonus - a total surprise - was the "Free to Good Home" fabric that showed up at quilt group today. One of the ladies had been given a huge packing box of fabric from a friend, and she bought it in for us to pick through. Okay, it's old school and it smelt musty (anyone know how to get that smell out, it still smells after washing), but there were some gems in there. Lots of solid and some great prints. Now I'm doing more paper piecing and more scrap quilting, I am learning to look at all fabric for its potential. There were plenty of bits I took with my Harry Potter quilt in mind, because a lot of my stash won't work for that kind of project. And they were lots of small, scrappy bits, which is totally what I'm into at the moment. There were some great old-style selvedges for my collection obsession too. Happy, happy days! Astoundingly, hubby wasn't happy to hear about more new fabric, even when it was free!

This photo totally doesn't do it justice, it just needs a little TLC before I  can share it with you further.

So all in all, a great week for stash building, and not too much money spent either.

Linking up to Fiona at Finding Fifth as usual.

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WIP Wednesday #2

Here's a little story for you.

Once upon a time there was this girl, let's call her Jane, who had been quilting for many years. She'd reached a lull, been lured away by other crafts, and was a little bit over the juvenile fabrics of her children's requisite baby quilts and the drab country prints and calicos that were all over the market. 

So quilting took a backseat to babies and scrapbooks and life in general, but the need to cut up fabric and then sew it back together again never really goes away. So a couple of years ago, she began to search for quilting blogs to look at. One of the very first blogs she discovered belonged to Amanda Jean, a quilter with endless talent, particularly for putting together fabrics. And that was all it took to get Jane back in the game. She looked at quilting in a whole new, modern, light and the love affair was rekindled.

So it's no surprise that when Amanda Jean and Cheryl's book, Sunday Morning Quilts, was released, it was an autobuy. Modern scrap quilts? Totally my thing.

While I haven't made a quilt directly from this book yet, their concept of sewing my scraps into slabs to make new fabric totally resonated with me. I promptly sorted my scraps by colour and then, whilst in the shower one morning (because the best ideas always happen where there's no pen and paper), I came up with the perfect design based on their slab concept to use a heap of coloured scraps and also a whole bunch of predominantly white scraps and yardage - featuring a lot of prints that looked great at the time but were really hard to use.

And thus, Rainbow in the Clouds was born.

Slabby strips in whites and the colours of the rainbow. I am working on this quilt only at quilt group, and I'm about half way there, just got the top end of the 'bow to go. And I'm loving it.It is so liberating to just sew without worrying about perfect cuts and 1/4 inch seams, and the result is so effective. 

Linking up to WIP Wednesday and Sunday Morning Quilts Linky Party

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