Quilts in nature

It's been a while since I've posted - life has been conspiring to keep me off of the computer and even worse out of the sewing room!  I have however been collecting inspiration however - here are some of my recent photos...

Munro quilt

My last post showed my friend's Andrei and Gill finishing their round of the Munros, and also the start of a quilt I'd been working on.  What I didn't say (just in case they happened to stumble on the blog) was that this was for them, to mark their birthdays this year and to celebrate their Munro achievement.  It has now been finished and presented to them...

 

By machine I embroidered the names of all 283 munros on to the four borders - I did them in height order, 50 at a time, a different colour for each 50 (the top 50 were white for snow).  This took a long time as I had to enter each letter one by one.  At first I thought I'd just do 50, then I thought 100 would be nice and so on.... until all 283 were done! :)  I was pleased with the end look, quite textural.

 

You might just about spot two little pink pigs appliqued on to the quilt - this is because they love pigs and have a huge collection of every sort of pig thing in their house (toys, ornamental etc)

 

The central panel of the quilt had actually been on the walk with us, and all of the group who had been on the hill had signed it in secret with messages for Andrei and Gill.

  

It was the ideal opportunity to present them with the quilt when they visited Sheila's open day last month, especially as it was the same week as Andrei's birthday.

They both seemed very pleased with the present and we hope it will remind them of all those fantastic days in the hills!

Disappearing - people and nine patch!

Two things have happened in the past week or so.  I have been up at the Cairngorms climbing my friends 'last munro' with them.  For those not in to Scottish hill walking a munro is a Scottish hill higher than 3000ft, there are 283 of them, and so my friends have now climbed every one!  The weather at the top of their number 283 was quite cold (we had snow on the way up) and visibility was such that people were disappearing in and out of sight as we went.  There were a dozen of us did the walk in total and champagne was carried up and drunk at the top to mark the occasion.  Here are my friends reaching the summit...

And cracking out the champagne, which given the weather was well chilled!

The other thing which I can share is my latest quilt efforts - a disappearing nine patch kindly held up by my husband below, which kind of shows the size of it as well.  The blocks are big and each one was originally 5 blue squares and 4 plaid squares before being quartered and rearranged.

I'm working on some borders for it this weekend - also blue - and have set myself the rather overambitious target of getting it all done and turned in to a quillo by this time next week!  I'll let you know how I get on....

Sunset

 We had some beautiful sunsets here during the good weather last week - here is one I caught on camera...

Finished quilt!

 After many months in the making I finally managed to finish the quilt at the last class on Wednesday night!  Here it is....

Liebster award!

Thank you to Di @ Willowbeck Designs for awarding me the Liebster Award! 

So, what is the Liebster Blog Award? The Liebster award (German for favourite) is for bloggers with 200 followers or less. As a recipient of the award, you have the chance to thank and link back to the blogger who gave it to you as well as pass it along to five other deserving blogs.

I would like to pass the Liebster Award onto...

Sheila at Bluepatch Quilter
Catherine at Sew Wonderful Life
David at Lost Threads
Sarah at Narcoleptic in a cupboard 
a quilt, maybe 

Now, I know at least some of you on that list have had this before, and some of you may have more than 200 followers but I just can't work it our from your blog, and at least one of you I have no idea how to email you to tell you, but I'm hoping it's the thought that counts!  I think all your blogs are great!

Sunny days

The sun has been out this weekend so hubby and I made sure we got out in it- we are very lucky to have all this pretty much on our doorstep...

I have also been getting down to some quilting too.  This weekend's achievement is that the big quilt is now all quilted, and the binding is machined on, just need to hand stitch round it all on the back and the job is done!
  

Quilting has begun!

I've finally taken the plunge and started quilting!  To keep it straightforward I've gone for a basic 2" grid going between the seems of the piecing rather than trying to hit them and follow them.

I've started in the middle and reckon I'm about a quarter or a third of the way through the quilting.

The thread I'm using is YLI variegated kyoto garden, a lovely mix of yellow, green and fresh blue tones.  On the back I'm using a dusky blue shade of gutermann thread which matchs the backing fabric.

Only two more Wednesday classes to go and I'm aiming to have it finished! 

Ground colour

The colours of spring are brilliant.  This is the beautiful crocus display on show in one of our local parks this time of year...

...looking forward to the daffodils next!  And of course the bluebells in the woods in May.

Borders on hearts

As well as a lot of tacking I have also managed to get the borders on my little hearts quilt which I started making at Sheila's workshop last month...

...now I just need to fill the two empty squares before I layer up and quilt it!

Layering up

It's been longer that I'd hoped since my last post again, but progress has been made on a number of fronts.  First of all I got a new camera to replace the one I broke the other week, so pictures are easily taken once more!  Second of all I have finished putting together both sides of the quilt and have layered them up!  Pins are everywhere and about two thirds of the tacking stitches that I think I need are in...

 

Overall the quilt top is beginning to look rather wrinkled now the pins and tacking is going in...

And on the back I decided to go symetrical and add the matching strip of plaid fabrics to the panel for the back.

Tacking is taking me a bit longer than I thought, so I won't get on to quilting this weekend.  Wednesday is class day again, so I'll be making up my binding then I think so I'll be all organised for when the quilting is done.  I've not decided exactly what to use for the binding though.  I have more of the backing material, or I could use the plaids and other colourful bits and pieces I have left over from making the quilt top.  I think I'm leaning to the later option just now.  What do you think?

Class quilt progress

It's been a while since I last blogged for two reasons - the first being that I fell on the stairs at home and broke my camera in the process, so a bit more difficult than usual to take photos.  My husband has come to the rescue with the camera on his phone to let me post today!  The second reason is that I haven't got much quilting done recently, but this morning finally I did move on my class project a bit...

My class quilt top is all pieced now, except for the final 2.5" white border.  I'm a little unsure about putting it on as I'm not totally happy that the top is flat enough - perhaps I need to unpick and redo a couple of seams?  My other thought was that I could always quilt this much on to the full sized wadding and backing, and then add the white border last just before binding.  Not sure what to do....

And while I've been working out what to do next with the top I have also pieced together some scraps left over from making the front...

I'm not going to cover the full back of my quilt with scraps, but I plan to add this strip off centre to the backing material.  I was going to add them as blocks randomly throughout the backing material, but Sheila suggested putting them together in a strip.  The strip option has been more manageable, probably more economical on the backing fabric and I think will make a rather nice feature.  I was a bit worried that it might create extra bumps where seams meet that could interfere with my quilting, but after being encouraged I'm going to go for it anyway.

Seeing the pieced strip now in these photos I wonder if I should add another strip of the yellow, blue and green plaids down the other long side to mirror the one there already and to make a bit of a frame for the blocks?  I never thought I'd come up with so many questions when I started the quilt as I had a pretty detailed pattern to follow, but the project seems to be developing a character of its own now!  Hopefully I'll get the backing finished at class on Wednesday night and work out what my next steps should be after that.

A whole lot of heart

I had a lovely time at Sheila's workshop yesterday where I made this...

I'm pleased with how it's gone so far, but I still have some decisions to make.  First of all about the border - I'm thinking of continuing the green sashing round the outside, with the pale green material shown for the wider border, and then perhaps a dark pink binding to match the hearts.  I also still have two empty squares where I was thinking of doing something different to all the hearts - perhaps some bird silhouettes?  or letters?

Class quilt in progress

In anticipation of my first class of the new year on Wednesday night I'm blogging about my work in progress. 
 

Each of the 13 blocks is still in 9 pieces.  Laying it out like this helped me choose which 9 patches to put with which flying geese combinations.  I also have a variety of white triangles cut ready to complete the quilt with which I didn't lay out.  

Once each of the 13 blocks is sewn together I expect I will have a session which will take a very long time where I arrange them and rearrange them until I've got the balance I want.  My wadding and backing material is ready and waiting...although I still have to decide if I will incorporate some extra little blocks from my left over material into the backing material.  Then big decision time about how to quilt it!  Only 6 more classes to go, so hopefully I'll get to that stage quite soon.  Writing all this down makes me realise what a lot I still have to do!

A New Year!

The first post of the New Year!  I was lucky enough to bring in the New Year in Kintyre, staying at the wonderful Dunvalanree Hotel with my family.  Plenty of great food, walks on the beach and fireworks over the bay to welcome in the New Year.

Since then, however, not much has happened in 2012 for me as I've been under the weather this week.  That said I'm hoping for lots of nice quilting and sewing to come.  I'll be watching these tutorials for some help and inspiration....

Since Christmas all I've managed to do is a bit of cross stitching of a map of Scotland, which I've been working on for many many years now, tiny bit at a time.  After some more regular attention recently perhaps 2012 will see it finished! 

I'm also very much looking forward to finishing my class quilt that I've been doing every second Wednesday over the winter with Sheila.  The flying geese, four and nine patches are all finished now and waiting to get into formation and meet with some wadding and backing!