Dragon Rambles

I haven’t been quilting for a couple of weeks, and it’ll be sparse the next couple of months too. This is mostly because I have some winter knitting to do. I have a couple of cardigans, a throw, some mitts and some socks that I really want to make before we hit the cold months of jan and feb. No idea if I’ll get all that done (probably not), but I’m going to give it a shot anyway. So for those of you who are more interested in my quilting than my knitting, I thought I’d show you my first 5 (and only, so far) quilts.

1. Moonglow

I started this quilt back in 2002. I found a photo of it in a McCalls Quilting mag, along with the website to go and buy the kit. This quilt is by Jinny Beyer and she originally designed it as a block of the month project to teach new quilters. The plan for this was to completely hand sew it while doing my PhD. Well, I got the first three blocks done in 2002 then no more. Life and my PhD got in the way. I picked it up again last year, and decided to redo those first blocks if I had enough fabric. I did, so I did. Since then, this seems to be something I’ve only really worked on when I’ve been on holiday, so I still haven’t finished all the blocks. But I did do all of “month 12″

And during my last holidays, “month 1″ to “month 8″.

I have to do two each of “month 9″ and “month 10″, then one of “month 11″ – the mother of all star blocks: mariners compass. So far I’ve mostly done those first two.

Maybe I’ll finally get these finished and the next ones done while on my xmas break.

2. Bear Paw

Somewhere between 2003 and 2005, I started a classic Bear Paw quilt. I decided this one was going to be done on the machine, so spent a large time cutting out the hundreds of pieces. I even started sewing some of them. I probably could have gotten this progressing nicely, if I didn’t keep losing the bags with all those pieces. I’ve since decided that I’d rather hand sew my quilts, so will continue by hand. Maybe even redo some of what I did by machine, depends if I like how it looks. I’d show you a pic of what I have gotten done, but I’ve lost it again. I know that some time in the last year I’ve seen the bags with their pieces all cut ready to sew, and the printed pattern, but I currently have no idea where that is. I looked in a few most likely places this morning, but nope, it’s vanished back into the twilight zone. So instead, here’s a pic of the fabric I’m using. A nice deep blue batik and solid white.

3. Blue-Green Dino Quilt

Early 2009, I decided to make a quilt that I could raffle off for charity. I had some great dino fabric that had originally been purchased at the Brisbane quilting show to make a cot quilt for my niece’s first baby. It never happened, but I loved the fabric so went hunting for more to make a full quilt. This one was whipped up by machine. I don’t have a photo of the back, but it’s the same fabric I used for my dinoPad.

And as I write this I’ve just remembered that I used left over fabric to make a cot quilt for my boss’s new baby. But as I have no photographic proof of this, and this post is called first 5 quilts, not first 6, lets just keep forgetting about that one

4. Orange Dino Quilt

At the time I was hunting up more dino fabric for quilt number 3, I discovered it came in another colourway. So I bought enough of it to make a quilt too. Also whipped together by machine.

This one I didn’t end up raffling off, so it’s still sitting in my closet waiting for a good home. But it does mean I could take a photo of the back.

5. Farmer’s Wife Quilt

And that brings us to the most recent quilt I’ve started, my Get a life Farmer’s Wife. This is being done by hand as I’ve decided that’s my preferred method. I’m doing this with a friend and we’ve both been distracted with winter knitting lately, so this may not get another look in this year. I decided to limit my fabric selection to less than 10 colours of a batik from the same fabric line (I wanted the same shading effect in the fabric and only the colour to change). Here are my first 22 blocks.

Despite thoughts of “ooh, I should have done them all like this” as I complete the blocks, I think I’ll like how this will turn up. And as I still have 89 blocks to go, I’ve got plenty of time to balance out the colours.

So there you have it. My first 5(ish) quilts. And now you see why I still very much class myself a beginner.

I’ve been in bed feeling pretty ordinary these last few days, so I’ve not made much progress this week on my craft projects. But I did get two more star blocks finished on Moonglow beforehand.

Here’s block 7…

And block 8.

This leaves just 3 months of this block of the month pattern to go. But 5 blocks since two of those months need two blocks each. The photos are still not showing the vibrancy of this fabric but maybe I’ll get a decent shot or two by the time I’m done.

Today is Farmer’s Wife day. I’m still feeling shady but sick of my bed, and with it looking like it’ll be a nice rainy day, a day settling in to piece blocks and “watch” dvds sounds just the thing.

About 10 days ago I shared my happy dance of finishing all 12 blocks of month 12 of Moonglow. Well, since then I’ve been steadily stitching away to complete some of the stars.

When I first bought this kit back in 2002, I started from month 1 and completed almost 3 blocks before this project was put on hold.

Last year when I picked this project back up again, I took a good look at these blocks and decided to redo them if I had enough fabric. I cut out all the fabric for the blocks (except the black background) and discovered I had heaps, so this project was completely started from scratch.

Here’s the new block 1…

Block 2…

And block 3.

Then I got to start on new ones. Here’s block 4…

Block 5…

And block 6.

The light was wierd today so would only give me washed out colours, to remind you of their vibrancy, here’s those first 12 blocks again.

Two things I have learnt while working on these…
1. I suck at joining 8 points. I really need to practice that.
2. I’m glad I ordered this kit years ago while all of the original colours were available. I’ve seen the options for the 10th anniversary pattern and I’m not such a fan.

I’ve now finished all of the easiest blocks of Moonglow, now I get to move onto the stars and an increasing number of points joining. All the fabric is cut out for all if the remaining blocks (I did that last year when I restarted), so there’s no hold up on piecing the next blocks.

For now, here’s my block 12 happy dance – all 12 done. I found my usual photo spot occupied when I went to take the photo.

So I had to improvise.

Years ago, during my first year of PhD, I bought Jinny Beyer’s kit for Moonglow.

I started it and did the first three or four blocks then stopped as my PhD took over and ruled my life, with time off for good behaviour (otherwise known as stitching). Last year when I was on holidays I decided to pick it up again. I wasn’t too happy with the blocks I’d done so I decided to start again. I cut the fabric for all the blocks.

I bought Jinny’s book on hand piecing, which is in the top of the box there. It’s great, it goes through all the sorts of joins working up to curved piecing and a mariners compass. I liked the idea of that because this quilt was designed to teach the same thing, also working up to a mariners compass. I decided to start with the last block (block 12). It’s designed to teach strip piecing but I decided to cut each piece out individually to practise the easy square/rectangle joins before moving onto the the triangles and odd shapes – kinda following the order of the book.

I think I did ok lining up the edges what do you think?

That’s as far as I got last year, but I’m picking it up again. I don’t expect it to go quickly, but that’s ok. It’s the process, right?