More Blocks and Choosing Fabrics

Every time I sit to write a blog post, I wonder about the ideal layout.  Do I put the picture or the text first?  What alignment to use for the words.  Should they be above, below, next to the images?  So, I change things, but never fully happy.  If you are a regular reader, hope that this was not confusing!   

Just as I was almost done, a hit by our regular "load-shedding", ie the local euphemism for the government failure to keep the power on everywhere all the time.  We had almost three weeks over Christmas/New Year when the power stayed on, but now we are back to two-hour outages about every eight or ten hours.  Cape Town is slightly better than the rest of the country as we have a pump-storage system on one of the mountain rivers nearby which supplements the national power supply.  Glad we have invested in some solar panels and batteries to have lights and the fridge running.

Bramble Blooms:  Border number one attached, with a narrow spacer in red and beige/tan. 

Still trying to get the perspective of the top being further away than the bottom, so red strips are narrower at top, and the crosses are smaller at the top.

Not adding any applique, yet.  Happy so far.

Bonnie Hunter's Indigo Way:   All three borders prepped, just waiting for the desire to press the centre!

It has been unusually hot here, no enticement to get out the big ironing board.  It may be cooler later in the week.

Fabrics chosen to piece a back.  Might be some time before stitching together.

    

Good Hope Quilters' Guild Mystery 2024:  Third set of blocks sewn.  Tantalisingly slow, but a really enjoyable process.  I think that all the blocks might be set in a Suduko type arrangement.  Maybe as interesting stars?  There have been fabulous colour combinations being shown on various whatsapp groups and also facebook.

 

 

RSC2024 Sampler:  Red is this month's colour, and these are the 3-inch and 6-inch blocks made.    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Piecing a Back

Last year I started piecing the backs for quilt tops, based on the RSC colour of the month at SoScrappy.  I think that this might be the first one for this year, and yes I know, it's October!  Light neutral is the declared colour for October, and as I just started on it, I remembered in time to take photos to share some of my processes.

I first fold the quilt top in quarters (in half, and half again).  This top is a square one, and although I normally fold in both directions, this time I folded twice length-ways, because there was another top also pinned up!

The fabric choices generally start from left-over fabrics from the front, or I look critically at my stash and choose less favoured fabrics (you know, those ones you wonder why you ever bought them, or have been in the drawer forever and never been/never will be used.)  Then I fold each of them twice (into quarters) and pin over the folded top, overlapping slightly, until the whole top is covered, plus a bit extra to allow for seams, trimming and to be a bit bigger than the top.  

This is the covered top, minus a few pieces I've removed to start the next step.

Then I select one of the smaller pieces, press it well and then trim off any selvedge and trim it with square corners.  Put up open on the design walls  (these are 4 loose 1m x 1.8m x 38mm polystyrene boards covered with brushed cotton).  This continues with each piece, placed like a jigsaw/tetris game, sometimes moving some to make all roughly fit.   The brown strata surrounded by green will be sort of centred on this back - trying to use up as many scraps as possible!

 

 

This is the idea for the back, sketched out about four months ago, and the piece of paper kept with the top and fabric waiting for this moment. 

 

 

Now all the fabrics pressed and trimmed, ready to start joining together.  The piece at the bottom left is folded once so may not all be needed.  The quilt top is folded in quarter and temporarily pinned up so you may see some of it.

 

 

I try to join similar length pieces together.  Each seam gets pressed and any extra trimmed, and the now larger section put back up to see what will be suitable to add next.

 

Here is the back all stitched up.  Except for the edge that will be loaded first onto the frame, the sides are about three inches wider and the bottom about six inches wider than the top which is enough for the quilt frame.  The late afternoon light makes it look pinkish!

 Happy to have this ready for when I have the desire and time to quilt.  The binding will be scrappy brown.