Metaphorical Housekeeping

 

 

 

 

 

 

Keeping in the zone, with my mood for tidying things up and finishing things off, the non housework things anyway, I had another look at my polaraoid quilt.

 

 This was started eons ago. I can't even remember how long ago. It was the last year I was in the Bee for Modern Irish Quilting Guild. I had seen some "photgraph" quilts and they really drew me in. At that time Capitolaquilter had a quiltalong of fabric polaroids and I had been following them on instagram. I had asked my fellow Bee members to make me a square that I could cut down to a finish of 12". I didnt mind how many photos there were, but to have them framed in white with a deeper section at the bottom, like the old polaroid photos. They could be set down like a fan of playing cards or thrown down randomly. Like in all Bees, they resulting  squares were varied. Some were spot on for what I wanted, and some less so. I then set them to the side. Fast forward a couple of years and these periodically came out, and went away again. The quilt was too big, to disparate. I just couldn't warm to it, something didn't gel.

 A while back, it came out again. This time I divided the blocks into those that worked and those didn't. It was no criticism of those that didn't, they were all beautifully made. It was just some jarred slightly and the quilt was going to be too unwieldy. I sewed some blocks together at a NI Patchwork and Quilting Guild sewing day back in February this year, and then put them away again. Now I feel I would like to start a new project, but I have to metaphorically do some housekeeping. I have too much sewing clutter in my head and in my surroundings. A tidy up has to be done. This week I got these blocks out. Again. And finally decided on a 4x4 format. I actually made up an extra block to balance it out. I boobed here slightly. I made my block 12.5" to finish at 12" as per my original plan. I forgot I had to trim some down more and would have a 12" finishing at 11.5". Ah well. Having decided this quilt if for my little granddaughter, I decided to add a cat square.

 

 There are two cats in the house, and a dog. She will enjoy the orange dogs that Angela of pinfiddle quilts made.

Two of my favourite blocks are these, the Matrushka doll

 and the glow worm.

 

 

So, this is the plan. A 4x4" quilt, finishing up about 44"-46" square. A sort of Ispy or story quilt for my American granddaughter. It's not fancy enough for a bed quilt but I think it will be a fun floor blanket or sofa cuddle for her. She has a flowery name, so I found this floral fabric, a blue rose, for the backing. This came from a friend who was sorting out her late mother's fabric stash. The fabric is Rose &Hubble, the maker of my favourite spot binding fabric. Of course the fabric fell an inch or two short for the width. There was extra length but I decided that would be "too pieced" looking. It is ok to look creatively pieced, but not, I don't have enough fabric pieced. I cut up one of my husband's Thomas Pink 100% cotton shirts to add interest. The two fronts just were the right size for this.

 Don't worry, I didn't literally take the shirt from his back. He retired 4 years ago now and was always very particular about his shirts. No supermarket shirts for him, they were always hand finished 100% cotton. Too good to throw out. I have a bag full of them, just to add to the clutter I already have.

I have the wadding I bought for epp Liberty quilt. I will sacrifice it to finish this off. I would like to get this in the post before the US postal system becomes overwhelmed with US postal election bumph.

You might notice I have a new heading in my blog. My daughter and her partner are to thank for helping me with this. I do have a few problems with Blogger though, I think it "might be me". I can only see a very narrow window of my text and adding photos is a nightmare. All in all it is making blogging like a day's  work.  

yours in frustration

Helen x