Turning down the volume

First of all, apologies for these rather ropey photos. Whilst it is April, the sun seems to have left the country and my every effort to get a decent picture of this quilt has failed due to sleet, fog and/or a near on blizzard. Anyhow, as you can see I have finally finished my low volume quilt, which I have named "Spot on". It is more than a nod to cushion I saw in Issue 12 of  Fat Quarterly and which I fell in love with. It was called "Bulls Eye " and designed by Brioni Greenberg who  blogs at FlossyBlossy, so thank you Brioni for your amazing inspiration, and of course all the gang at Fat Quarterly for bringing it to us.

 

As I explained back in my post in February, the low volume background was some fabric which I have had a while and which, to be honest, I had gone off and couldn't understand why I had bought. But I have to say, now I have funked it up a bit with these chocolate brown Kona targets, I am quite pleased. It has a bit of a 60's feel about it ( all Mods and Rockers and the Who and all that).

I will try and get some better pictures of this and probably post them on flickr if your interested, as these really are too dark and not doing it much justice. Thing is, given the present clime, that might take till about August.

 

I am off to watch Victoria Wood and her show about the elixir of life- the good ol' cup of tea.

Enjoy.

 

It's all in the planning

Scraps at the ready

The weather is going to be pants so that rules out my other Beloved free weekend occupation which should be starting about now. That is my gardening. Such a shame as the place looks wrecked at the mo, but hey ho, no use stressing because I am no cold weather gardener me.  So that means I have no option but to sit and sew today. Oh dear , what a shame.........

Even the postie called with a parcel to give me a hint that I should be stitching, so what can a girl do.

 

I have an absolute shed load of things I need to get done so the food shop is done, the laundry is laundered (stuff the ironing- that can wait ) and the hoovering is hoovered. Well, sort of. And so I am off and running.

 

 My hit list for this weekend is so vast I know I will not get through the lot but with no distractions I am hopeful for an extremely productive weekend.  Lets see, we have

• make a small crib quilt for train buddy, (promised back in February before body failure)
• finish the Dresden Plate cushion from week 1 of the Bear Paw Classes
• finish the Low volume quilt started in February
• make my Mo' Stash March blocks
• practise a few more double wedding ring blocks from this week's Bear Paw Class
• Pull some fabric for Modern She Made 2 swap
• oh yes, breath

The groups work from week 2 of the Bear Paw classes. Mine is top centre, the wonky one - hence the need to practise more

Lets report back here sharpish Monday to find out how many of those have moved from the list. Of course if I fail abysmally, I will just leave the country and shut down the blog in shame.

 

see you soon

 

Let's go low volume ( ...ish)

After all the bright and sunny colours encountered through the Modern Quilting Stash Bee, I felt the need to try a  bit of low volume backgrounds for a change and whilst I am not a pale and subtle type, I am hopeful this will turn out OK once I have finished with it. If you're not a quilting aficionado "Low Volume" means subtle type fabrics and colours that do not leap out at you and smack you in the eye, either in colour or pattern. They can be very effective to set something else off or be used to give a lovely gentle look to a  quilt for a particular place. You may need to bear with me for a bit though on this one before it looks at all interesting on the blog.

I found the fabrics lurking in my stash and after  a bit of googling found they came from back in 2008 and are called "Cats in Paris" . To be perfectly honest, this makes me cringe a bit for I cannot imagine what made me buy them, as whilst I have been a  very happy cat parent in the past, I am not a great cartoon motif type. Nor am I that much of a pastel cutesy type girl either ( unless there may be a moose involved?) so that is why they have probably sat in the stash for over 4 years. A couple of the matching fabrics though are really lovely, especially the spot and the small star and I must have had some kind of plan back then, but heaven knows. Anyway, as a low volume I think they are working pretty well. The piecing is 2 1/2 inch squares and ended up with a finished size of around 48" x 38" ( I know weird size- sorry).

The plan to "funk it up a bit" is drawn from a pattern in the most recent edition of "Fat Quarterly", but I want to keep that under my hat for the moment. My big task though is to find a strong contrasting colour to add on top off the pale pinks, greens and beiges ( yuch, cant believe I even used that word). I have had the Kona colour chart out and what I really want is a dark dark chocolate colour and the best I think is going to be no. 1136, Espresso, but I am still a bit torn. As you will see there is actually a dark contrasting fabric which I do like but I only have a fat quarter which is not enough and despite more googling I cannot find anymore. Given it is a 2008 fabric I am not at  all surprised though. The contrast is nearly a black but the Kona blacks look a  bit too dense so I think the dark chocolate will be best , especially with the pale and delicate pink. So that's me now off to order me a yard or so. A tiny bit of me says to hunt for a tiny print but I have a feeling that could take me for ever and I really want to crack on with this as it will, for a first, involve circles. That's all I am saying for now - 'cos as you may recall I don't do circles!

See you soon...