Finishes (from awhile ago!)

Oh, holy cow, I didn't post TWO finishes from July and August.  Oh, wait, including socks there were FOUR finishes: (Updated to add: oh yeah, I finished THREE quilts.)

I took this picture in a car!

And then here is the Ugly Quilt, also known as Bright Birches, which I actually ended up really liking:

The birches backing fabric finally did come, and I ordered a whole heck of a lot of it.  I'm always surprised by how much fabric backs take.  

I machine-quilted "straight" horizontal lines with two different variegated threads that were actually embroidery thread.  Used black embroidery thread for the back.  Everything I found online said it should work, and although it was a bit thinner than thread I normally quilt with, it had a nice sheen and was just the right amount of crazy to put this quilt into the right craziness territory.  

And I don't have a picture of the baby quilt that I was going to show you handy, but then going through the pictures, I realized I haven't even posted this quickie little quilt:

This was made to cheer up a colleague, and it was done in record time.  I explained to the quilt several times that it was supposed to be quick and simple, but it put up a decent fight anyway.  I pulled all the front fabric from stash, and ordered this blinding rainbow backing fabric because it was wide-back and I wanted something quick.  

 

Oh, and here's that baby quilt:

This backing was just a touch too bright, and also I'd just bought it to replace the last yard that I'd bought and ended up using as a backing, but it was the best I had.  There was one Connecting Threads low-volume one that coordinated nicely with the borders of the top, but it seems blurry to me, even though I think that's just the pattern. 

I'll let you know if I remember any other quilt finishes that slipped my mind!  This should be all for now, though.  

Happy crafting!

Another Move

Hey ho, Orooni the Crafter here.  I'm moving crafting spaces again, and that process always takes longer than I expect.  This has meant that I've had to focus on little handwork pieces, rather than anything that takes lots of cutting or space, so I've been utterly crushing my handwork goals recently.  See this shocking development:

This is 25 flowers all sewn up.  I'd stalled in the middle of the 8th one, and then whammo, they're done.  I wish I had more.  The next step is to deal with the big piece of linen that will make up both the background of the quilt top and the middle of each flower.  I have to cut out a bunch of middles, and then, instead of embroidering flowers on them, I plan to embroider the name of a virtue, with some little picture to go along with it.  I'm excited about this, but the amount of energy and focus it will take to get that started is just not happening right now.  

 

I'm also unsure about the directions for putting the flowers together - it says to applique the center of the flower to the petals before taking the papers out of the petals, which sounds like it would be both difficult to do and difficult to make look good.  So I'm thinking about appliqueing them after the flowers are appliqued to the background.  

Next up is the Monkey See, Monkey Applique quilt, and I have either reached or come very, very close to reaching the point where I do not have any other medium/dark fabrics that I haven't already used.  I'm repeating light backgrounds but trying not to repeat the medium/darks.  I need them all spread out to check on the other possible fabrics to use, and my design wall hasn't been moved yet, sooo...

One virtue of my new space is that there is actual sunlight sometimes:

At this moment of the move, I have basic sewing tools and a clear desk, so I jumped at the chance to make my ironing board cover, which recently has been a nice twill piece of fabric haphazardly draped over three layers of batting and the frame.  It is now this:

Pretty and functional!  My last cover literally crumbled into singed dust, so this is a great improvement. 

I'm planning a gnome quilt, which is also very exciting and will take a lot of cutting and planning, which I haven't been up for.  In the meantime, I pulled out a pack of tiny hexagon papers and the enormous stack of scraps and have started basting:

I don't know exactly what this will be, but there are at least two possible plans.  

Happy crafting!