June challenge

These are strange times, I know, and perhaps no one will much care about an AHIQ challenge.  On the other hand, it might be something that can simmer away at the back of our brains until we find a calm, creative moment.

I have to confess that I have almost given up trying to sew.  I have cleared one nice little spot a week, but it's hard to maintain momentum.  Sometimes I get my stuff out, look at it and have, frankly, not the foggiest idea what I think I'm doing.  No point beating myself up about it though.

Anyway, if I'm going to ramble on I will confine that to my own blog.  Time to get to the point.  I want to suggest that we do a piece of work related to the current situation and I'm calling this challenge: Positive Thinking.

I am imagining that a lockdown challenge might take one of two directions:

1.  Chop up your clothes!  Think about what you would do if you started a quilt and couldn't order more fabric.  What is in your wardrobes or at the back of a drawer that might be pressed into service?  What about sheets? Or tea-towels?  Or hankies? Have you looked in your partner's drawers?    Ann and I already had a board running for quilts made with recycled textiles, which you can find here, if you want some bright ideas.

2.  If raiding the wardrobe is a thought that horrifies you, then what about working with a block that makes you feel happy, for whatever reason, or in a way that is comfortable and familiar?  For me this might look like  trying this https://willywonkyquilts.blogspot.com/2010/10/wildly-whimsical-wonder.html, or https://gohookit.blogspot.com/2012/04/rolling-onward.html, or https://theobjectsofdesign.blogspot.com/2018/11/scrap-star-top.html.  Or maybe just doing something rather undemanding - I have a kind of notion to make repeat versions of a simple block in one colour, mindless, repetitive but easy to keep rolling along.

Of course it is often the case that you all come up with much more interesting interpretations of a brief, in which case clearly you can completely disregard my suggestions.  In the interests of inclusivity, I should also say that if you are feeling scared, lonely, frustrated, bored and if that's what you want to put into a quilt go right ahead.  No point at all in starting something that doesn't reflect how you are feeling right now.  Hopefully, though, whatever you are feeling, you will find a way to put a little bit of that into your quilting.

some hourglasses and some circles

Hello, it´s my first post here so I want to intruduce me: I´m Doris living in Germany. As a retired teacher I have now the time to do the thing I always loved most: making quilts. Some years ago I found Kaja, Audrey and Ann and that was like a big firework of new ideas that opened my eyes. I stopped sewing with patterns long ago but the idea of improve quilts pushed me in a new direction. But I must say I´m struggling a lot with this freedom. At the moment improve for me means that I start with an idea not knowing where it will end. But I´m not yet succesful with wonkyness. That´s not in my dna I think. So at the end I´m struggling with seam allowance and sizes and that isn´t my strength either :-). But I have fun - a lot of fun. If you want you can look at my blog www.doppelstich.de

Here the last quilt I made. Can you see the hourglasses? I started with trying out how to make circles. It wasn´t as complicated as I thought. Then I made a mistake by calculating the seam allowance for the squares so I had to add stripes. But no problem that was a new design element. At the end I was very happy with my result.

It´s a quilt for my granddaughter. I collected old blouses of grandmas, aunts and her mom, added some new fabric to round up the colors.
I´m not a machine quilter. That makes me nervous and cursing all the time. So I stopped that and now I´m quilting by hand and that makes me happy.

Last night I finished an improv...

Here it is on my blog...thought I would share here too!!

My Improv on Granddaddy's Chair