Sunday 15 April 2012

Weekend sewing

I have been flitting between projects like a crazy butterfly recently. After finishing my sushi quilt early last week, I've been at a loose end. I had a few hours on Tuesday when my mum looked after my boys (who have had a week of school holidays) to sew and faffed around and got nothing achieved apart from sewing a few pieces to some random blocks. Then got pissed off with myself and grumped around for the rest of the day.

Wednesday I tried to convince my 5 year old to let me make him a quilt (it was his birthday on Friday, so I thought a late birthday quilt would be nice). Complete lack of interest. Which is weird, since he love snuggling under the other quilts in the house. Then Mr. 7 decided he would like a quilt, and the fun began. I've had a giant chevron quilt planned in my head for months, so I drew a sketch for Finn he loved it. He helped me design it, picked out fabrics and is really excited about it. I got it all cut on Thursday and sewed all the HST blocks together on Friday night. And then lost all motivation.

I thought I'd lost my sewing mojo. Seriously devasted. I have so many projects started, and so many in my head wanting to be made, and I just. couldn't. do it. And then I had this crazy idea that maybe I should actually finish something off. Maybe I should actually start seeing projects through from start to finish. Not all the time, obviously (I don't think I can work that way) but sometimes.

So I picked up my Outfoxed on the High Seas quilt top and did some sketches to work out how to quilt it. And just like that my sewing mojo was back! I've been quilting it tonight and I think it's going to work pretty well:

This is the quilt top I'm talking about - I have a love-hate relationship with this quilt so I'll be glad to finish it.


See how there are light wave shapes alternated with dark wave shapes? I've decided to connect with my inner Angela Walters (yeah, right!!) and quilt the light ones with a feathery type motif and the dark ones with a flowery design. I quilted my first light one, and then unpicked most of it (I forgot to take photos) because I didn't think ahead at all, and it looked awful. The next go was slightly better - not perfect, but I'm pretty happy with it considering I've never done feathers before. It's a bit hard to see the stitching cos I'm using Aurifil 50wt cream thread and it's disappearing into the quilt beautifully. I'm hoping it will mostly be the texture rather than visible quilting.


Same thing with the first dark one. Quilting, then frogging. Second go wasn't too bad if you don't look too closely ;o)



So wish me luck. I've had this very late realisation (like five minutes ago) that this quilt is in fact almost entirely made from HSTs. Which means it's a perfect candidate for the Festival of HSTs at Canoe Ridge Creations. Which means I need to get it done in the next 48 hours or so to enter it. Bets on whether I can do it?

x Jess

14 comments:

Amy's Crafty Shenanigans said...

It's beautiful!! I've been admiring this motif/pattern or some time and have onely seen it done with plaids so I am definitely going to make it using yummy fabrics like you have :) Well done!

Heather D. said...

What a fun quilt! Your free motion quilting is lovely as well. Only we look too closely at our own work so I'm sure no one else will see minor flaws. It'll be awesome, and perfect for the HST festival link up. :)

Finding Fifth said...

Losing momentum is never easy...glad yours was short-lived. Hope you make the deadline because it is looking fab-o. Inspired FMQing btw.

Lisa Sipes said...

It sucks to lose your mojo. It's happening with alarming frequency to me. But um, this is your first attempt at feathers?? No fair.

Catherine said...

go for it: you can do it. Its a gorgeous quilt-love the quilting and the colours

Katy Cameron said...

Go Jess, you can do it! Know what you mean about the mojo meandering off, mine seems to have done that today...

Cherie said...

Love the quilt and the quilting!
Of course you can get it finished! Good luck in the festival! =D

Kelly said...

It is gorgeous and I love how you are quilting it.

Jennifer said...

you can do ittttt! seriously love seeing this quilt pop up in my reader, the quilting is gorgeous jess!

Tanya @ wee little birds said...

Congrats on your finish...it is really lovely

Alyce @ Blossom Heart Quilts said...

Go for it Jess, you can do it!! Yay for getting your mojo back. Did you find mine while you were looking?? I really need to get a move on with little zippered pouches. But it's tediously the same over and over again. 42 times. I think I'm down to 30?? Gah.

Deborah said...

It is so cool that you did all this wonderful quilting! It's inspiring!

Jess @ Scrappy n Happy said...

That quilt is gorgeous! Finish it...I dare you LOL
I get the lost mojo feeling too, that is when I make a few small things that don't take too long to finish!

Dianne Neale said...

This is gorgeous and well done on being brave doing the quilting. it's coming our wonderfully. I love this wave-y pattern