Before I became enamoured with small quilts I made large bed size quilts. I used to hand-baste them on the tile floor which always took at least a couple of days, then machine quilted them on my trusty Janome 4800.
It was a slow a laborious task, so a pile started to form and somehow they just became a memory - well, since then long-arm quilters have become the norm and their services now more accessible.
What would we do without their magical transformation of our flimsys!!!!!
In my last post I featured a couple of flimsys that were screaming out for release, their cry was heard and now they are proud quilts......
This is a reminder of the first one.
It is a 'Scrap Mania' design by Kaye England. She had made two, one using African and the other Batik fabrics.
I decided to use Australian Aboriginal fabrics.
The layout is not a straight set, but varied according to the different sized blocks, 6", 8", 10" and 12".
This sketch will give you some idea.
These are the blocks.
Most photos really don't do justice to some quite busy quilts, and Indigenous Aboriginal artwork is busy and colourful. The fabrics are rich in colour, vibrant and have a lot of movement. Here are some of the individual blocks!
These little insects are sugar ants, and a popular and delicious find out in the bush!
As you can see they are traditional blocks but take on a life of their own with such wonderful traditional designs.
Here is the quilt out on my front lawn.
This is the pieced back.
Not the best photos, the morning sun is filtering through the tree in the background. But you get the idea.
I really went out of my comfort zone working with these fabrics, but I did learn a lot about colour and how to get a scrappy look without driving myself nuts trying to match things up and be too contrived.
My next completion is a little more within my comfort range, it does however contain lots of different fabrics, they range from scraps of Japanese, Aboriginal, Civil War, Contemporary Floral, and a few other odds and bits, there's even a small yellow William Morris print in there too!!
I made the flimsy early 2007, and just recently had it long-arm quilted and sewed on the binding!!!!
Here are a couple of close-ups!
Despite the wide range of scraps, I am really happy with the overall look, love the close quilting design, and this time used a 60% wool/40% poly blend batting. It's the first time I've opted to use this as a batt, as I usually stick with 100% cotton. This is now on my bed for the next few cold months of winter!!!! The finished size of this quilt is 84" x 84".
The last of the gentle warm days of Autumn are still with us but not for long. I got home late one afternoon a couple of days ago, took the dogs for a walk and really took in the beauty around me, it was very still and my Liquid Amber tree is proudly sharing its gorgeous change of colour!!
Looks a little odd, this tree shedding it's leaves not far from the Alexander Palm trees and the rather huge gum on the other side. But winter does visit the sub-tropics too!!
There was a koala visiting in my trees last week, but it was getting too dark at the time to get a photo, I'll keep a look out for him and try to get a pic.
On the other side of the road a lovely view from my driveway of the surrounding hills, so still in the late afternoon light.
Today it is quite miserable, overcaste and rainy, it's also a day off, so have spent it leisurely inside. Still working on getting some of those large UFO's completed.
Thankyou to all of you who have left comments on my blog, I find I don't post as often as I would like, but appreciate my followers nonetheless.
Soon it will be time to chose an alternative to Google Reader to follow my favourite blogs, and I have been doing a bit of research today, looks as though it's going to be a toss between Bloglovin and Feedly!!! What a pain LOL!, I loathe change especially when it comes to technology, it really does do my head in..........
Take care all, and thoughts go out to all those poor people who lost loved ones and homes in Oklahoma this week.....we've had quite a bit of coverage on the news here, so sad.......
Take it easy,
Merilyn
