I’m linking twice this week with Esther as last week I forgot to link after blogging????? I only blog to join in with you all on Wednesdays on Esther WOW page this is were I enjoy visiting your blogs sharing and learning. It’s like my weekly magazine but free!!! and it has become very personal as I have visited you over the years.
One of my boys left an old surfboard here so I have turned it in to a seat in a quiet place in the garden!!!!!!!
It’s surprising what you find when you empty out a room, boxes that get buried and forgotten, this weeks surprise on Friday was this quilt I started making in PNG when I was very very new to quilting and did not no any of the rules, thats a great way to learn as you make mistakes and learn from them.
trying to work out how to add these sections
all pieces laid on the floor to see what to do if any thing??? These corner pieces do not have the fans sewn on I needed to appliqué them on. I never added these sections as I was new to quilting and was been self taught and those bias seams scared me?
Zooming in, main fabric is a beautiful woollen fabric from a kimono I unpicked. Purple fabric is also from a Kimono and wool but very very old and fragile.
Close up of the centre, silk flowers I have blanket stitched to the quilt
These are the corner blocks to the PNG quilt one block was finished now I need to appliqué the fans on to the next 3 blocks. here you see the different stages of adding the fans. These fans were made from scraps of fabric, there were no sewing shops or even a book shop in PNG to buy a book on quilting, if you went back to Australia for a visit then you would buy fabrics and sewing items till you dropped or the budget ran out LOL
Here you can see that the purple woollen fabric is so fine and has been patched over and over again. The lady who wore this was a mum after WW1 this was her only garment good enough to wear out side her home; she lived in the country, times were tough and she made an existence for her children from cleaning other peoples Kimonos which had to be completely unpicked washed set and then remade again all by hand stitching. it would take several days or weeks depending on the fabric !!!!! All though the fabric is so old and worn I had to use it as I wanted the story told, so this quilt is to all mums who go with out to feed their children.
5 days later!!!!!
Some how I’m not sure how I managed to sit still long enough to appliqué those fans on and join the sections to the main part of the quilt with NO hassles! now to think of a border, if I have enough of the blue kimono fabric I might try that I think it would pull it all together?
Another finish this week was to finish sewing my first 90 Quilty365 circles together that Audrey started in Nov and invited us to join in with. These are 4 1/2 inch squares with a circle added each day for 365 days!
90 little squares all sewn together at last I need 4 of these to complete the challenge?
90 little squares all sewn together at last I need 4 of these to complete the challenge?
When working with silks be careful, this small piece of silk was 11inches wide, it was badly stained so I washed it, shrinkage is huge.
Ironed and is back to 9 1/2 inches only; this fabric was hand woven a very very special piece and I wanted to use it so it had to be washed, but you could not wash the quilt if you add silks that shrink like this?
This is the view from my unit this morning sun is about to come over the top of the range.
My dog and I wait for the sun to pop over the range in the distance this morning
Sun has climbed over the tree tops on the far range and a new day started for me today.
Off to link with Esther at
http://www.estheraliu.blogspot.com/
Thank you for dropping in. Cheers Glenda
I love seeing your outdoors photos. Reminds me of my trip to Australia last year.
We are all covered in snow here in Canada right now but not too much. It has been quite a mild winter.
You have inspired me to pull out some of my long forgotten quilt starts and have another look at them. I always had this idea that quilts were to be full sized and usable on a bed. But so many of mine ended up in boxes and bags because I did no know how to finish them, or did not have enough of the “right” fabrics or lost the pattern.
I was self taught in the earlier years but since I found a quilt shop and took some classes I have accumulated hundreds of yards of gorgeous fabric , well never mind.
I just might do that and I could blog about it then finish some and give them away.
Hi Chris, I had heard that you were going through a very mild winter. So happy you are thinking about pulling some old UFO. They honestly look so different to when you made them back in the beginning of our quilting lives. Some are best cut up and resewen, some look great with a huge appliqué added, but it is all fun and then the fun of who to give it too? So come and join me digging out OLD UFOs. lOL. Hugs Glenda
Hi Karen I know if I wait to sew these together it will never happen, life all ways gets on the way when I want to complete a quilt LOL. Pieces get lost, patterns disappear, fabric gets used by accident on another project not mine?.. So if I don’t get any more Done on this piece it will still make a lovely small wall hanging, I all ready get a lot of pleasure out of looking at it on my wall now. It is so dry here the birds are flying in for a bath as soon as I put the sprinklers on in the gladden and they are drinking the water as it bubbles out of the water feature in the garden. Hugs Glenda
I had totally forgotten to link to Esther’s blog so just did so. It is always nice to see what you are up to and seeing your circles reminded me that I must get more circles prepped and sitting aside for hand work when my daughter comes to visit later in the week – I am waiting to stitch all of mine together until all are done as I will have to work on color placement. Every thing in your garden and sewing looks great – and love that surf board idea!