Modern Mini Quilt Contest - Plan C!

Hi! Remember me?? Well I'm back to share what I've been up to.  Complete with poor photos and excessive punctuation! You lucky things :)

I  will do a catch up post soon but for now, before I run out of time, I'm entering the Modern Mini Quilt Contest over at Ellison Lane Quilts. By the skin of my teeth I might add, as the linky closes in less than an hour! Eeek! I had grand plans of a super-gorgeous-awe-inspiring quilt I would make using a block that I've redesigned but after much dithering, frustration and indecision I decided to take a step back and let it go.  It just wasn't working, so that meant it was time for a new plan! I had a new idea that I was really happy with! Unfortunately by the time I had the good idea, I did not have enough time to make it :(

On to Plan C! I decided to enter my Mini DSQ.  Plan C Finishes at 15½ " x 20".




Modern Mini Quilt Contest Entry - Plan C,  15½" x  20".

Last year I joined in with the Dead Simple Quilt Along over at Lily's Quilts.  You can read more about it here and here.  While a bit late to the party as I was trying to finish this, I did put the top together in January(not pics yet sorry!). Then because I've decided to make a "Mini Quall of Fame" (more on that later!) and because I didn't have a big enough area to lay out the big quilt, I decided to make a little one to see how the colours played together and to try out a quilting idea.




Modern Mini Quilt - Quilting texture

Once I put the top together and after quilting I thought it was a bit plain and just needed a little something extra. So I decided to add some little pops of colour in the binding.

Modern Mini quilt - Binding Detail

I love this effect and will be doing it on the big DSQ too. It gives a plain back a nice pop.




Modern Mini Quilt - Plan C - back.



Modern Mini Quilt contest Plan C - Back binding

The big DSQ is still waiting patiently for its turn....


DSQ - Dead Simple Quilt

There are lots of fantastic Mini quilts already linked up, go and have a look.

Good Luck everyone!

How to Quilt in the Hardware store...

Now I love a hardware store as much as the next girl but when you're there with your husband and your eyes start to glaze over, what do you do?
Well you head off to the paint swatch section of course. Pick out colours that you think match your fabric. Then you take them home, cut them up and play with them!

 

DSQ Fabric Palette

Oh yeah, oops, even though I haven't shown you yet, these are the colours for my DSQ. I did buy a little bit more fabric but I'm really happy with all the solid colours together. I'm saving this quilt to do after Christmas but in the meantime it's so easy to play with the paint swatches.

DSQ Layout

Time to stop playing though, I've been feeling completely unmotivated this week and I need to get back to work.... 

 Apparently Dresden's do not make themselves.  Bugger.

Sew-Inspiration Sunday

I found this quilt at Esch House Quilts last year, loved it then and still love it now. It's so simple and elegant and modern and just plain wonderful. Have a look at her inspiration photo she was inspired by to come up with this.

Ephemeral Elegance by Esch House Quilts

Debbie from Esch House Quilts also has a new quilt she's making for Project Modern, find your own voice challenge.  It's called curried plums and I love this one too!

Curried Plums by Esch House Quilts

Have a google of project modern and you will find heaps of wonderful quilters showing their "voice". I'm still working on finding my quilting voice but think of all those quilts I get to make while I'm deciding. Woo Hoo!

Dead Simple Quilt Along - Choosing a palette

I'm joining in the Dead Simple Quilt Along over at Lily's Quilts and I need to choose my palette. I'm a bit behind as I think I'm meant to have the fabric already but I haven't even decided yet!  I've narrowed it down to these.

A combination of the two above or a combination of the two below? Its coming up to summer here, maybe the two below?

Real Living Magazine October 2011

The first three are from Design Seeds a great site for all sorts of inspiration  The magazine I picked up the other day and love the colours on the front cover.

Solids, prints? Oh what to do, what to do?  I really shouldn't be doing anything else but I figure I'll get it all planned and then do it after Christmas.  It feels like I'm cheating on the SS quilt and the rocketship quilt but I wont tell them if you don't!


Thanks for visiting!



Sew-Inspiration Sunday

Well another week has flown by with seemingly not much achieved. I've made a couple of potholders, I've done a little work on the secret Squirrel Quilt and I've taken another look at the Rocketship quilt which I'll hopefully get to post about this week.  Oh and my iron did a kamikaze leap off the ironing board so I'm training up a new one. I have also managed to acquire a scratchy throat and a stuffy head.  The throat I can live with but the the head. Aye! (this is the part where you offer sympathy :) )

Now my inspiration this week comes from Amy at amyalamode.com/blog.  She has used a pixelated photo to create this stunning quilt for her Mother. I am loving this idea and I'm also loving the way she quilted it, which you can see better in her closeups.  If you go and have a look, check out the photo she started with - so different to the final outcome!

amyalamode - mosaic quilt

amyalamode - mosaic quilt

Now I've just realised this is a bit similar to last Sundays post as its very colourful.  So sorry but the stuffy head has reigned supreme and said that its okay to do that.  Now since I am a newbie blogger I have a question that I'm hoping someone with more experience can help me with.  Should I get a flickr account? Is it hard? Will it hurt??

Sew-Inspiration Sunday

Its been a long week, Yawn, but I have found a few things colourful and inspiring. Like this pixelated colour wheel quilt by Kati From The Blue Chair.

From the Blue Chair - Pixelated Colour Wheel

I love the colour in this one and that circular quilting!

There is a rainbow one on flickr that is fantastic. It's by lightceramics but I couldn't find a website or blog to go with it. I  like the way the strips work from light to dark in each colour. Have a look and see what you think.

Finally this one also caught my eye, the way those little trails looks like they're moving down the quilt.

A Few Scraps - Cascade Quilt

Not sure what these quilts say about me, but they do tell me I need some more colour in my life. Hmmmm, I might have to work on that as a quilty idea.  Well I'm off to bed now but I will be back soon with more of that Darn Dresden Secret Squirrel Quilt to show you all.

English Paper Piecing Quilt-Along!

Now before you get all excited, quilt-along, in this case, means that its going to take A-LONG time to make the quilt.  Get it? Or is that just really bad quilter humour? : )

Ahem, moving on.  I've been wanting to try English Paper Piecing(EPP) for a while now and I've managed to convince Katie, my Sister and Faye(my Mother- in-Law) to play too. Faye is going to do her favourite shape, the hexagon, in a 1 1/4" Size(the length of one side), my Sister is also doing hexagons but the 1/2" size, while Katie will be using 1/2" shapes but I'm not sure yet which ones. 

I'm going to use the 60 degree diamonds in the 1" size.  That's small enough for me! I've chosen some solid fabric to give it a more modern feel.

Fabric for English Paper Piecing

The colours in this photo above(at least on my laptop) are very close to the real colours, in the other ones below, not so much. So feel free to scroll back up to compare. 

You'll notice I've now added a light green to the selection, and now I'm not sure I need the purple but I'm just going to see how it goes. (See how relaxed I am Katie!)

Diamond Peeper, 60 degree Diamond Paper Pieces

For my paper pieces, I chose a 190gsm card, so that its fairly stiff and I can tack the fabric around it, rather than tacking through the paper and then having to unpick all those stitches later. Later I'll have a look at some places I've bookmarked that use this method and I'll share them with you.

 

I also purchased a 1" diamond peeper(that's the pink thing) which you can use for fussy cutting your fabric.  I am using solids for this project  so I didn't really need it but it was really handy to use when cutting my strips to size.

I'm also using my hole punch to punch holes in all the little pieces.  That's so once a shape is surrounded by pieces sewn to it, I can just pop it out and then re-use it.

60 degree Diamonds

I've now cut all my fabric.  Look at all those little stacks, aren't they cute! they just say play with me...

60 Degree Diamond Layout

So I did.  One day I might actually sew some.