What I did on Australia Day

This Australia Day long weekend, I drew and paper pieced my third kangaroo.  These are the only three kangaroos that I can ever imagine paper piecing.  These are for a quilt for my sister's husband.  I still have to make a black labrador (Fred) applique for the quilt, as Fred wants to chase kangaroos when he goes for a walk in Canberra's suburbs, but can't catch them.

Kangaroo one

I found a fantastic program on the web, where you can import a picture and split it up for either normal piecing or paper piecing, using straight lines.  You can also number the pieces, just for paper piecing.  It is called Quilt Assistant and is available here:  http://www.cosman.nl/software_en.html

I copied a picture from the web to create Kangaroo one.

Kangaroo two

Kangaroo two resulted from me cutting up kangaroo one, shifting body parts around and then drawing in the gaps.  I used quilt assistant to do up the piecing lines.  This one didn't have enough contrast, so I had to outline the kangaroo with brown zig zag stitches

Today's kangaroo

 Kangaroo three was based on the pattern from this site  http://adventurousquilter.blogspot.com.au/2013/11/my-kangaroo-pattern-free-in-craftsy.html, but again, I put a drawing in Quilt assistant and made a similar patter with fewer pieces.

All together

While they are all different styles, I like them together.

APQS Tone it down QAL - block 2

Second block.  I need to finish a couple of quilts before making any more blocks.

First two blocks

APQS Tone it down QAL Block 1

Oops.  I did it.  Made the first block.  Found I cut a couple of pieces 1/4 inch too small.  Recut.  The green is brighter than this, but my camera seems to distort colour.  Not quite a low volume background.

Only the bottom section and the tiny top grey corners to finish quilting the peacock.

Detail

Lost the plot

I don't know what's happened.

I'm meant to be doing two things only....

This

WIP 1

and finishing the quilting on this, so I can bind it and give it to my sister to take to my niece in Canberra.

WIP 2

Something went wrong along the way.  I cut up a whole heap of nominally low volume fabrics to make a simple patchwork quilt.  Why?  I don't know.  It has no reason or purpose, so here it sits as four patches, pinned in rows.  Its not really low volume though.

WIP 3?

Then I saw the APQS Tone It Down QAL.  http://modalissa.blogspot.com
It's a lovely quilt.  I had no reason to start selecting fabrics to use, or to start cutting into them.  I have been cutting now for a couple of weeks - hours and hours worth and I still have about 260 1.5" squares and 70 1.5 x 2.5" rectangles to cut in low volume prints.  I really want to start making this one, although I think it will take forever, as I'm doing the really scrappy version and there are so many little bits.  Do I need another quilt?  No.

WIP 4 - APQS tone it down

Then I had an idea for a lap quilt for my sister's husband, who has early onset Alzheimers.  He's not too bad yet.  I thought about their old labrador and how he looks for kangaroos on his walks.  So, of course, I'll try my hand at the black lab applique on the Quilters' Cache pages.  I had to put at least one kangaroo in as well, but I'll probably put in three.  I haven't made the lab yet, but here is one kangaroo.

WIP 5

On top of this, of course there is always crocheting to keep me busy on my 8 min train trip to work.  This is mean to be a wrap - lots of ends to sew in yet.

WIP 6

I think I've bitten off more than I can chew.  DH will be very unhappy.  The most I normally have is two quilts going at a time.  One being made and one in the design stage.  Oh dear...

Happy new year - the peacock is proud

Four days before Christmas, I finally basted the quilt.  I had to use the blower on the concrete floor under the house before I could baste :-)  too many leaves have been falling, due to the hot, dry summer.

For some reason, I also decided to try my hand at a low volume quilt.  Well, not quite low volume.  This was not the final layout.

400 x 4 1/2 inch squares.  These are now all sewn into four patches and grouped in rows.  I don't know when I'll get back to it, as I don't really have a purpose for it.  Have to wait and see what happens

Anyway, I started quilting the peacock a couple of days before Christmas, as my niece would be here on Christmas day and I wanted it to be partly quilted, so she didn't think I had been slacking off.  Everything was going swimmingly, until ............  Don't you hate it when that happens?  Unpicker becomes best friend.

I'm slowly finishing the quilting around each eye.  This is a modified plume feather shown in Angela Walter's book.

This is where I'm up to.  Only six more eyes to quilt around, then fill in the blanks, top and bottom.  I'm not yet sure if I'll quilt  the eyes themselves - maybe just a simple spiral.

Quilting of the body - I haven't done anything yet with the beak, eye or legs.

 Detail of the tail quilting.  Where there are large gaps between the eyes, I have quilted a spiral and pretended that it is another eye.