Not a New Project?

 I know I said I wasn't starting anything, but...

My quilt group will be having a display of miniature quilts at a hotel in Ballarat in April. Quilts have to be 40cm square. I don't have anything that size, so need to get sewing!

I hope I am not being too ambitious, but this is my starting point:

Design 3734.6 in Barbara Brackman's Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns. I printed it from Blockbase, and have had it pinned up on my noticeboard since 27th November, if you can read the small print on the next photo:

Yesterday I went to a sit and sew day and made the first two stars, just as a test. I think it will work, although I'm not looking at the diamond circle border just yet...

A few more diamond stars prepped. I need to decide on a background soon.

Hooped

Sewn together, and in a hoop:

I still need to do something to neaten up the back of it, as you can see at the bottom right.

Stitching Stars

Back in September I started sewing these stars together:

I've worked on them at Sit & Sew days since them, including today. But if these stars are going to fill this hoop in time for our quilt show (4th and 5th November - only 2 and half weeks away), I better get stitching at home as well as at sewing days:

Linked to Sarah's Hexie Linky-Party, even though there are no hexagons in this project.

Not a New Project

Some more beautiful tulips opening this morning:

 Anticipating the colour hexagon I needed to make today for my temperature quilt.

A couple of days ago I discovered that I need to make a small quilt to be displayed in a hoop at our quilt show in November. I began working on a design idea for it, but then remembered a project languishing in my sewing box. (Details of pattern and designer at that linked post.) After some quick calculations of the area of pieces already made, and the area of a circle, my decision was made. Today at our Sit & Sew day, I started putting it all together:

A few pieces towards the top of this picture are stitched together, but getting the rest of them done will keep me busy for a few more sewing days. Then I will need to make more pieces to fill the hoop, but it won't be as much work as starting a completely new project. Plus I will get this one crossed off my list of unfinished projects.

Wild Weather

This week included our warmest and coldest days since I started my temperature-based year quilt at the end of May. On the warmest day I wore short sleeves, and on the coldest (today) there was even a little snow.

18/08/2017     6.4    blue - Coldest day so far!
17/08/2017    11.2    aqua/teal
16/08/2017    12.6    aqua/teal
15/08/2017    12.9    aqua/teal
14/08/2017    18.9    green - Warmest day so far!
13/08/2017    15.0    aqua/teal (Missed green by 0.1)
12/08/2017    13.7    aqua/teal

This is the twelfth week, and completes the second row of the quilt:

What will go in the empty squares at either end of the first row is still in development.


Linked to Sarah's Hexie Link Party, where you can see 12 weeks of her summer weather, and links to other hexie projects around the world.

Year Quilt Week One

The first rosette of my temperature-based year quilt:

Not stitched to the background yet.

I am using the top temperature recorded by our weather station each day to decide the colour of each hexie. This week, three days of teal, four days of cold blue. Winter is definitely here. This is my data for the week:

2/06/2017 10.1 aqua/teal
1/06/2017 10.0 blue
31/05/2017 9.3 blue
30/05/2017 8.9 blue
29/05/2017 11.7 aqua/teal
28/05/2017 9.7 blue
27/05/2017 14.20 aqua/teal

And this is the chart I've made up mapping temperatures to colours:

It will be quite some time before I get to use the warm colours.

Sunflower Progress

After a couple of sit-and-sew days, my sunflowers are nearly appliqued to their background fabrics.

Soon they will be in the queue of tops to be quilted!

Linking to Sarah's Hexie Linky Party, where you can read all about her new Hexie Temperature Quilt, which I will be participating in. The idea is that you make a hexagon a day, in a colour based on the top temperature for the day (or the temperature at a given time if you prefer). Each week the hexagons become a rosette, and then 52 rosettes later you have a year quilt. It should be interesting to see the colours gradually change across the quilt as the seasons come and go.

As our climate is so different to Sarah's (she has four levels of colours below freezing!), I've come up with my own colour/temperature chart, which is as follows:
>45      black
40-45   purple
35-40    magenta
30-35    red
25-30    orange
20-25    yellow
15-20    green
10-15    aqua/teal
5-10      blue
0-5        pale blue

I'll be hoping for no black days during the year!

A Little Progress

Actual stitching happening:

Those dark brown pieces were created, then added to my Pentagon Sunflowers, at a quilting day today.

Lack of Progress

The month is half over and I haven't made much progress on anything yet. I've spent some of the time searching for a notebook which contains my original diagram for my Pentagon Sunflowers, this month's UFO. I have looked everywhere without success. It must be in one of the boxes out in the shed which haven't been unpacked yet.

Today I gave up looking for it. I attempted to re-create it by photographing the template grid, printing it out and colouring it in. But guess what else I couldn't find anywhere?

Coloured pencils! I don't remember seeing them in the last couple of years, so they probably are safely packed away with the notebook.

I managed with a grey-lead and a pink chalk marking pen to come up with something that will do. So now I know what extra pieces I need to make for the quilt, and I've found fabrics for them as well. Maybe there will be some real progress by the end of the month.


Linked to Sarah's HELP for Hexie-holics. Mine aren't hexies, but the link-up is all EPP no matter the shape. Check it out!

Star Dust

Preparing for a quilt-in tomorrow, I dug out a project that I started in July 2015, but which I can't find any previous pictures of on this blog:

It's an EPP (English Paper Piecing) project, using a pattern I found on the website of Lies Bos-Varkevisser, Kosmosstoff (Cosmos Dust). I've printed her pattern 2-to-a-page, so my stars are a lot smaller than hers. But this collection of stars I've made don't yet cover an area of 30 x 30cm, so I've got a bit of star-making ahead of me.

In case you are wondering, there are other pieces which will fill in the gaps between the stars:

Outdoors and Indoors

Outside, basking in the sun:

Inside, sheltering from the heat:

Adding a few pieces to my EPP sunflowers while watching TV.



Later: Linked to Sarah's HeLP for Hexaholics.

Sitting Quietly

I stayed inside and did some quiet sewing, and let summer do its thing outside.

I'm still experimenting with the pentagon shape. Does this look spiral-like?

Now I'm wondering what background would work with this. Should I go with something light, dark, or what? I might make a few more before I decide; it will be summer again tomorrow.

Delivered

The book I've been waiting for from Germany:

Liesel's Pentagons: Inspiration and Instructions for Pentagon Projects, by Hilde Klatt and Liesel Niesner. I bought it direct from the author here.

This book is fantastic! It is full of so much inspiration using the pentagon shape I've been playing with. I've been looking for a new take-along project and didn't really want to do more hexagons. The possibilities of this shape are amazing.

No, I don't speak German, but fortunately the book is full of photos and diagrams. Experience making Burda magazine patterns back in the days when the whole magazine was in German may be helping too. Google Translate is useful for the occasional word I really need to understand.

I can see lots of these pentagons in my future.

New Shape

A bit of an experiment for now:

While I wait for a book I've ordered from Germany. More details when it arrives!

Waiting

Keeping occupied in the waiting area.

Why I Love the Internet

1. Get inspired by something you see online at 10pm on a Sunday
2. Google and find a supplier nearly 2,000km away.
3. Order and have the goods in your hand by lunchtime Tuesday.