The Belfast Bulletin

The Belfast Bulletin is coming along. Not necessarily the way I necessarily thought, but coming along. There is no point in calling this an ombre quilt anymore, I think the ombre has gone in a melee of blue and green. The last of my ordered fabrics arrived yesterday, definitely a green thing going on there. I am pleased with all of them, but the Holly is a little too green. Not to matter, I am sure Christmas will come around again, and Holly will be required.

As if today, I have three piles of half square triangles in varying shades of blue through to green.

As I said before, Sarah of Sarahgoerquilts has fantastic directions for an ombre quilt. Sarah's instructions are very clear and precise. This is what makes the difference between a quilter and a quilt designer. I can quilt, I can even design a quilt, or make it up as I go along. But ... the end result isn't always what I envisioned, often it is better, and I am not great at writing it all down. My organisational skills aren't great. That's where Sarah comes in.

Sarah has worked out exactly how squares versus shades are needed, and rounded this up to the optimum. She has then broken this down into pairings, and more importantly how many pairs of each pairing are needed.

She tells us to make 1 square of  "these shade pairings" , cut into half square triangles, these make 24 blocks.
She tells us to make 2 squares of  "those shade pairings", cut into half square triangles, these make 32 blocks.
And lastly she tells us to make 3 squares of each of  "them shade pairings", cut into half square triangle, these make 24 blocks.

This I have done, and I have 80 blocks, all 8" square untrimmed, waiting for the next stage. There will be some trimming going on here next week. I have kept the blocks in the three separate piles to make it easier to lay them out. As I am looking for the individual blocks, I can check to see which pile they are in, rather than hunting in a big pile of 80 blocks. Believe me, each of these blocks has been labelled to within an inch of its life.

Then it is just a matter of laying out the trimmed blocks in the pattern detailed by Sarah. The size of the blocks dictates the size of the final quilt.  Sarah even includes a colouring sheet to help design your own quilt.

This is where it all goes a little Slippery Slope. I love this photo from Portsmouth esplanade in England.

You see, an ombre quilt, goes from the lightest of a shade to the darkest of a shade, possibly passing through other colours in between. Pale blue can go from pale blue, through bluish green, greenish blue, blue green, green blue to dark blue. In our discussions, the bride and groom thought they would like pale blue through to mid blue, passing through blue green, green blue, bluey green and greeny blue, ending up with a combination of dark blue and dark blue in the last row.  If I was in church I would say, "And you know, folks, that is what marriage is all about". No, not a slippery slope, but a passing through routes, converging and meandering, ending up with a strong statement at the end.

It is so tempting to see what they would look like. I need to do all trimming first though before the muddle up pile OK, I have succumbed. I laid out just one row to see, just to rest my mind.
Terrible photo I am afraid, very hard to just get a long strip in focus with an iPhone.

                    


Not necessarily an ombre quilt, but a pleasant mix, hopefully of green and blue. So it is back to my original way or working: I also love this wall advert from the National Bar in Belfast.

Any thoughts on the name? Belfast Bulletin because, I originally was going the Postcards from Sweden route with this and I like alliteration. Belfast Bulletin trips off the tongue I think. We send bulletins from home across the Atlantic ocean, bulletins in the form of emails, postcards have a tendency to not be delivered.

Helen x
linking up with Myra and Busy Hands Quilts