Red Floral for the Floral Challenge and Alice #1 Final Borders

Alice #1 with final borders, for now.

Red Floral with bits of teatime paraphernalia, 'Wonderland' by Cotton & Steel/Rifle Paper.

Hello AHIQ friends!

This week has been busy for me but I managed to get Alice #1's final border on.

It's final for now but I may change my mind when I get all four Alice blocks done and see how they play together. Two blocks are mostly red, two are mostly blue, my inspiration comes from the Alice in Wonderland book. I recently bought an illustrated copy for my grand daughter, so fun!

That's the news, stop by for more at Crazyvictoriana.blogspot.com. How are your improv projects coming along?

I'll be by to visit.

Thinking about flowers

I have a plan for this, even if I have nowhere to start working on it.  

First steps,  I pulled out all my flower-y fabrics and washed them.  I never used to bother but now they are always going to end up in a quilt with old shirts, so it makes sense.

I realised as I was sorting how much smaller my stash has become since I switched to my current way of working. I knew I was buying less yardage but this brought it home.  I wondered briefly if eventually I would stop buying quilting fabrics altogether but I think it's unlikely (though if the pound continues to plummet...; I like the mix of shirts and stash and how it works for me.

Where, you might ask, is the shirty part of this plan?  The happy answer (and one I've never been able to use before) was that it was sitting in a box waiting  for inspiration to strike. I started these little butterflies a year or two ago in a half-hearted leader and ender-y sort of way.  I liked them, but ran out of steam before they amounted to anything interesting.

Now they are out of their box and I am hoping that they will come together nicely with some of my flower-y bits.  It's a start at least. 

Update on my "Red as a Neutral"

I'm not sure that's going to be the title, but right now it's all I have. I'd love suggestions. This is where I was this morning...

  and this is where I am now....

The only thing left to add are the borders. I've decided on a five inch border all around to add more red. 
Yes. More. Red. It's a neutral, you know? Plus the quilt needs to be a little bigger, and I am tired of making these fiddly blocks. So borders it shall be. It's about 48" square. I've cut out some five inch strips, so that will add another eight or nine inches overall--just about right. 

Flower Garden - a Floral Finish

I finished the quilting and binding,

laundered the newly finished quilt,

snapped a few photos in the back yard, 

and shipped Flower Garden

to my cancer-stricken former boss.

It was delivered Monday afternoon.

Sadly he passed away Tuesday evening.

I am SO glad I didn't waste time getting it to him.

* * *

48" x 72"

Lattice design from Sujata Shah's Cultural Fusion Quilts book.

Quilted with liberated free motion fans (unmarked)

using Glide thread in Mocha

This is the first of several finishes

I hope to complete for the AHIQ Flowers challenge.

Quiltdivajulie

Floral Improv Quilt Challenge AHIQ

'Alice in Blue' small improv medallion quilt.

Blue floral fabric by Cotton & Steel.

My medallion small quilt, Alice in Blue, before last border.

This is for the 'Floral Challenge' my small medallion quilt, Alice in Blue.

I'm making a study of medallion quilts, more on that in my crazyvictoriana.blogspot tomorrow.

Hint, Kaffe Fassette and his new book, 'Cotswold Medallion Quilts' is involved as is Gwen Marston's book, 'Liberated Medallion Quilts'.

More fun to come! Get your floral on!

Overlapping Octagons with red centres

As I haven't posted here for some time I thought an update on my Overlapping Octagons was due.  This is a lap quilt inspired by a photo in the book "Unconventional and Unexpected, quilts below the radar" by Roderick Kirakofe The original quilt was made around 1950 in New York by someone associated with the garment trade who used off-cuts of shirt fabric. It was pieced by hand. In line with the invitation to use "red as the new neutral" I used red for the block centres, and neutral, as any other colour in the frames to the red squares.

This is the last photo of my Overlapping Octagons before the final Y-seams to bring it all together.

This has certainly been a challenge reproducing a historic quilt but using a sewing machine. The challenge is not yet over! Because a photo is flat it's difficult to show how the triangle sections between four red squares are refusing to lie flat.

bubbly triangles!

I have re-sewn some of the seams in the bubbly triangles; the rest I'll try to tame by hand when I finish joining all the columns. I think I probably have more control over the fabric when hand sewing, like the original sewer.

Much as I like the effect of the vertical white fissures in the first photo, they are not a design feature; my next task is to join columns 1 and 2, and then to join that section to columns 3 and 4. Lastly I'll be joining the seams between columns 4 and 5. Somewhere along the line I see I need to add a couple of small triangles in the edges, and to add triangles to three of the four corners. I haven't yet decided whether or not this quilt is calling for a border. What do you think?

Happy sewing

Marly.

#AHIQflowers - my plan

Instead of starting something new for 

the #AHIQFlowers challenge

I'm going to FINISH several waiting projects

that involve lots of floral fabrics.

Number one on my list is to quilt this floral lattice project

(inspired by Sujata Shah's Cultural Fusion Quilts design)

as a comfort quilt for a former attorney/boss

who is entering hospice care.

My second project will be to quilt this 

Mercyful comfort quilt and get it sent on to Bernie 

for the Palliative Care unit at Mercy Hospital.

My third project will be to quilt my version

of Frankie and Ray's London Fields design.

Number four on the list

(thank goodness we have SIX months)

is to assemble and quilt this reversible table topper

that includes many floral fabrics in the four patches.

This is the top laid out on the design wall.

And this is the scrappy and very floral back

laid out on the design wall.

(top and back are both clipped

and ready to be webbed)

And IF there is enough time 

after the first four projects are completed . . . 

I  want work on a new project using a layer cake

of Sweet Pea and Lilly by Robin Pickens

and a design I found online.

CLICK HERE for the design info

I've named this project Otsego

in honor of the fragrant sweet peas that filled 

my grandfather's back yard in Otsego, Michigan.

(I rarely buy pre-cuts - but this group

had too many elements calling my name)

* * *

I'll share updates as these are finished.

Looking forward to seeing what others create

using the floral challenge.

(And I still need to finish both of the tops

from this year's earlier #AHIQRed challenge)

Quiltdivajulie