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.

The ayes have it!

I am nearing the end..... Only four more peacock eyes are left to machine appliqué on the quilt top. This has been a fairly long process, with 54? eyes, with two needleturn fabrics and two machine appliqued fabrics on each eye. I've done the needleturn appliqué on the short train ride to and from work.

Once I've finished those, I need to put some garnish on the top of the peacock head and do something about an eye. Lots of options there, although I haven't yet decided what to do.

 

I've also finished the backing for the quilt. I did want to create stars in the cornerstones, but ended up making plain cornerstones as I think this quilt has taken enough of my time.

 

The colours don't look as nice in the photo as they do in real life. The back is made from coordinated Japanese fabrics, which all have gold bling. I had to use different combinations of fabric in the borders, as I really didn't want to buy any more fabric for the back.

 

You can see the colours of the back, with teal sashing in the middle of the back, but possibly not the gold bling. I'm looking forward to quilting this one, possibly using Angela Walters' peacock feather design around each eye.

 

Here is an eye in close up - displaying my not very smooth needleturn. I'm linking up to WIP Wednesday here.

http://www.freshlypieced.com/2013/12/wip-wednesday-lotsa-tops.html

 

 

47 hours

I'm heading off to Adelaide on Friday, to see my siblings. My nephew asked for a quilt for his sister's and his new dog, so I thought I'd whip something up. I had three orphan blocks from my niece's peacock quilt, so started off with those at 6.30 on Friday night. That night I made four "made fabric" blocks. They were really ugly and didn't work with the aqua 16 patch blocks. That wore me out, so I gave up for the night.

 

Inspiration hit the next day. Cut them up and use them for star points. I was off and running. After auditioning fabric from my stash, I decided to use a bright yellow/gold fabric for the background, as the stars were really ugly. At least the yellow was a distraction. The fabric on two sides of the quilt is flannelette - a fat quarters worth. All I had.

 

The back used the last remaining orphan block and I dragged out every bit of kiddie fabric in my stash, that I knew I wouldn't use for anything else. Turquoise and baby blue do not sit well together. Oh well, it's a dog quilt and it's only the back. The ugly back took me longer than the ugly front to piece. Go figure?

On Saturday afternoon, I basted the quilt using an old woollen blanket for the batting (the blue and cream thing above, which had to be sewn together again as it had torn). I SID one of the stars on the front, then finished quilting it today.

 

I quilted meandering flowers for Daisy, my niece's and nephew's dog, and included her name.

 

 

I quilted continuous curves in the 16 patch blocks.

Trimmed and ready for the binding.

 

 

The binding fabric was used as part of a block in my nephew's tumbling block quilt.

 

This quilt might be a bit fugly, but it contains fabric from both my niece's and nephew's quilts, so links Daisy's quilt with theirs. It finished at 53 x 36 inches, a good sized dog quilt. Now to take it to Adelaide in the hand luggage!

 

 

 

 

The front

 

 

the back - trust me, the colours look worse in real life.

 

the binding.

 

All in all, I finished the quilt at 5.30 pm on Sunday. The fastest ever for me. Now back to my niece' quilt.