Plans and Schemes

I’ve been working on an idea I had last year and couldn’t quite figure out… you know the kind?

But now I think I’ve finally got it.  Can you guess what it is?

 

Happy Easter, Greek Orthodox Stylie

Did you know that many Greek people celebrate Good Friday today?  Their Easter eggs are yet to come.

The very best Easter for me was a special one I spent with a Greek friend and her family.  Many moons ago now.  We went to Midnight Mass (a big deal when you’re seven), we baked Tsoureki, and best of all, we made red eggs and then held an Egg-Off, trying to crack each others’ eggs with a spoon.

This Easter, Mum and I decided to make them again. From the top: finished eggs, eggs wrapped in onion skins and (clean!) pantihose, and eggs boiling in food dye.

Chroniá Pollá! – Have a wonderful Easter.

 

Beach Dog!

I hope your Easter was as happy as ours.

 

Block 24: Tulips

It may be autumn here in Oz but this tulip pattern seemed like a lovely one for Easter.  Plus, I got to practise my applique.

Happy Easter to you all, unless you’re Greek Orthodox (Hi, Aspasia!), in which case I will save my felicitations for next week.

Also, apologies for the magical disappearing photograph in the bushfire quilts post.  I changed the Flickr settings so as not to look like I was showing off (hey! look at my donation!) but didn’t realise making it private in Flickr would make it private everywhere else.

Patches in this block: 18 (yes, I AM counting the background)

Patches so far: 873

 

Owls

This fussy cutting business is a lot of fun.

 

Bushfire Quilts

Thank you so, so much to all of you who bid and commented on my quilt auction for the Victorian bushfires.  The response was really humbling: so many of you, from such disparate places, made such generous bids.  Nettie was successful with a bid of $380 plus postage for a vintage sheet cot quilt.  It’s made to order in blues, purples, and pinks.

Extra surprises came from Josie, who threw in $50 just because she’s a sweetheart, and Dan’s aunt Ange, who offered to donate $200 for a tiny scrap quilt she could use as a wall hanging or on the table.  How could I say no?

And that’s how I managed to donate more than I earn in the average week — certainly not something I’d be in a position to do without your help.

Nettie and Ange’s quilts will be in the mail today, along with copies of the thank you letter sent by the Red Cross. Thanks again to all of you for your kindness.

 

They Grow Up So Fast…

A lucky shot I caught of my not-so-little brother, caught in the almighty rush at his graduation ceremony.  He’s the one looking at the camera.

Evan is two weeks in to his first full time job as a radiation engineer, a job he found through a great deal of hard work and awesomeness in a less than awesome market for new graduates.  Go Evan!

 

More Hexagon Goodness

I’m pretty sure this is my favourite.

 

Applique Is Hard

Unexpected ‘incidents’ with inset seams aside, it’s been far too long since I tried doing a historical reproduction block or learned a new skill.  But I should have been smart enough not to try both in one go!

This picture, sticky and yellowed at the edges from a combination of time and cheap glue, has been sitting in my old visual diaries and nagging at me (‘Show me! Make me!).  It’s part of an old photocopy I made while visiting America in 2002.  I had two days to myself and spent them, nerd that I am, taking ridiculous numbers of photocopies at the New York Public Library: quilt books and out-of-print Richard Brautigan poetry.   Ahh.  Here is the full original: the block is at A6 (6th across, top row).

Way back then in the library, I fell in love with this sampler quilt.  It’s long ago been separated from the notes I took of the maker(s) and even the title of the book it was in. I feel sure the block I chose to copy was done in Turkey red.  It represents a hand (possibly, probably, traced from a real hand), wearing an abstract thimble and decorated with a heart. 

These complex applique samplers were almost always done as gifts from a group of friends to a new bride or a departing friend, hence the heart.  I think it’s a touching and imaginative design, one that I’ve not seen before nor since.  I decided I’d like to copy it.

To make a block design, I took the photo above (a photo of a photocopy: classy) and blew it up by about 1000% on the PC.  Then I traced the design on to fabric and proceeded to reverse applique the design.  Nooooo… tried to reverse applique the design. 

This method worked surprisingly well; it would be much more problematic for detailed picture blocks like Baltimores.  

Somewhere along the line, I forgot that in the original block, the hand is skewed to face the corner.  No problem, because the white fabric points where the fingers meet the hand is so knobbly and frayed that the block is unusable.  You can see in the photo that the lines get wobbly there.  The fabric is also bubbled and knobbly.  One look at a quilting frame or a wash tub and this baby’s just lint.

I vastly underestimated this block’s degree of difficulty, and/or my decidedly average skill in applique.  Plus, black thread was not a good choice.  After I made the heart I switched to white, but the damage was done.

I’ve decided to go on a little self-guided applique course, starting with reading this book.

Despite trials and tribulations, I still think that this is a neat way of copying basic designs and I hope to use it in the future.  I’m especially pleased with the results since the only image I have of the quilt is a terrible and tiny photocopy.  But I want this block in my quilt — badly, I now realise — and I’m only waiting on applique skills before I can also make this composite block with figures from the Victoria and Albert Sundial Coverlet.

I’ll let you know how it goes…  if you have mad applique skillz, please tell me how you learned them!  A book I can read?  A site I can look at?  Don’t say ‘grandma taught me’ unless she lives in Brunswick and can be bribed to teach me.  I have chocolate, jelly babies, and a decent stash of novelty egg cups.

 

Hexagon Goodness

Some days, the sewing goes slow, and you enjoy the little bits and pieces.