Wonky stars

I sincerely hope you haven't been keeping track of my little list of 'to-dos' over in the side bar there because if you have you'll notice that I'm sadly off-track already! One of the things that derailed me from the construction of my Lisette Portfolio tunic (which is actually going ok but I need to do a few alterations and that's booooring!) is the need to whip up a few wonky star blocks for the Auckland Modern Quilt Guild raffle quilt. I've never done them before, and from all people were saying they're a lot of fun, so I finally got stuck into one last night instead of trying to put bust darts into the tunic - bit of a no-brainer really, fun vs. no fun.

This is my first!



It's not perfect, but I still like it. The colours are nice and bright and it's just neat all-round. You can see the top and bottom strips don't line up at the middle and I think that may be because the solid pink has some polyester in it and shrunk a little. Polycotton blends are the bane of my life - why do I even have any in the house?! I would also prefer the little star to sit a bit further away from the big one, but Hazel thinks they're a mummy and a baby star so now of course I'm very fond of them cuddling like that. In fact, she was so taken with this this morning that she would like to make wonky stars when she gets home from school. I was all about starting her on doll's clothes but hey, why not wonky stars! I'll tell you why not after we attempt them and if she I live to tell the tale ;) The block is about 9 1/4". I'm planning on doing a couple more to play around with the technique, probably a more medium star and a smaller star more widely spaced, and maybe three little stars together.

P.S. I did a post on fabric trends over at the AMQG, pop over and have a look if you're intereted!

The new AMQG site

I'm so excited about the new Auckland Modern Quilt Guild site that went live this morning - Megan, Karyn, Robyn and I have worked super hard on it for the last month or so. Megan's brother did most of the really technical stuff and the cherry on the cake is a super new header by Robin Purllant.

At the moment we have a mini-quilt challenge going and the entries are up and ready to be voted on. You get to choose three of your favourites! The quilts are destined for the Neo-natal intensive care unit here in Auckland so not only did we get to challenge ourselves with a new-to-us block but our quilts will be going to brighten up a pretty tough situation for lots of parents.

So please pop over and have a look, leave a comment, and have a vote!

NICU quilt

The AMQG's second challenge was to make a small quilt (at least 20x24") to donate to the neo-natal intensive care unit at Auckland's Starship Hospital. Two very small members of my extended family ended up in the Wellington NICU unit at just over 22 weeks, so I know these places need cheering up! The challenge was to use a block you've never done before. I wanted to do paper-piecing but since I have technically done that before with BOM I decided to do a star, made with paper-piecing! I used the Lone Star template from Six White Horses and it turned out beautifully.



I had plans to put 4 stars on the quilt but then reality smacked me upside the head and I did one central one! I think it looks nice though, simple and cheerful. The quilting around the star went just as I'd hoped, but the border...well it's not exactly the greatest but I didn't plan it out as well as I should have in retrospect.



It's hard to take a good photo of white stitching on white fabric but the back looks really neat.

I have my cushions back

AMQG cushion challenge prize, originally uploaded by Hazelnutgirl.

And guess what - the cathedral window one was first in the viewer's choice voting in the exhibition of all the AMQG pillows! And the circles one came second! I'm super-chuffed about that but also feel rather bad in a strange way, like just one would have been more than enough and I'm some sort of show-off or something. I live in fear of being thought a show-off to be honest, just like I hate being late or forgetting something. Is my Freudian slip showing? ;) Luckily Helen from The Little Craft Store came third with her cute owl so I had a fellow blogger to share the glory with. And there's no denying I do love my pillows and am very proud of them :) The Cathedral Window is going to Mum as her Christmas present - I had to give her a IOU on the day which she was very good about.

The prize was a wonderful box of goodies from Patchwork Passion - a bundle of gorgeous fat 1/8s (I think that's what they are), some lovely lovely ribbons, and the Modern Mix book by Jessica Levitt. I think I might be a convert to challenges :)

Second AMQG pillow

For this pillow I really wanted to use linen and circles. I decided to applique the circles on and then quilt/embroider them both to hold them down and to look pretty! To be honest this pillow took me a lot longer than the Cathedral Window pillow, which was all done by machine. Luckily I had an old needlepoint frame to use with the quilting, but the size determined the height of the pillow - it's essentially a regular bed pillow but narrower top to bottom and slightly longer so it didn't look so...beddy.



I forgot to take closeups of the embroidery after I put the pillow together but I put teaser photos up on Instagram a few days ago






The worst part of putting it together was putting in piping and then an invisible zip along one edge. What a freaking nightmare! I had to resew things So. Many. Times. I thought I was going to go mental. The invisible zip foot wouldn't work on the piped side and my regular zipper foot sucks at the best of times, but with top and bottom being quilt sandwiches, plus the piping fabric and the general bulk of it all, it really didn't want to get close in to any edges! But hey, if you sew around something about 20 times eventually you get pretty close by small increments even if you die a little inside each time you have to resew a section or rip something out. :P

The back is plain with different-sized circles quilted all over it - why on earth did I not take photos of it? It looks great - I've noticed I often like the backs of my cushions as much as the fronts, I guess that's a good thing!

First AMQG challenge pillow

Well phew, I can blog about this at long last! I suppose technically I should wait until the 13th when we can all see each other's pillows, but I honestly think I'll bust if I can't blog about something. I've been spending all my time on these two pillows and other than having Instagram photos to put up I haven't had much to discuss*. So. This is the first one and not surprisingly it's a Cathedral Window pillow - I'm quite sure I wasn't fooling anyone with that thing of acting like the grey version was a random choice unrelated to the challenge.



While I love the grey version a lot, I think the colour placement was better on this one, and I know technically it's superior.



Not all the points are as perfect as these by a long shot - I discovered that the points formed at the joins between blocks are lovely, while the ones formed by the centre of each block look slightly mitered. I tried so so so hard to not have that happen but it did anyways, so I suspect it's an artifact of the method (I used the tutorial and A La Mode). I don't think I'll do another one but if I did I'd try one of the methods where you sew the blocks initially instead of ironing them and see if that made a difference. As I mentioned with the previous cushion, I tried sewing the turn-overs in circles and it was much more successful than sewing around four sides of each colour. The points are reinforced and much smoother with no back-tacking. I also paid more attention to how much I was folding back so my circles are more circular! The other thing I figured out after the fact was that if you want a directional print to run straight up and down on the finished item, you need to cut it on the diagonal initially - my prints were cut on the grain and as you can are all on the diagonal when sewn up. Not sure what that would mean for keeping the fabrics straight while sewing though, you might get too much distortion to make it worthwhile.

I've just realised I forgot to take proper photos of the backs of both pillows, but I did have an Instagram one from when I had just put the invisible zip in and was super-duper proud of myself. Can you spot it? The back is quilted with widely-spaced straight lines, and the row of blocks about a 1/3 of the way across. The rule of thirds is my life!




Second pillow tomorrow!

*Well I could have blogged about how depressed I am at the NZ election results and the fact this lovely country seems to be moving away from an inclusive and caring community to the "f**k you I'm in this for myself" attitude so prevalent these days. I hate the meanness of spirit and mind that seems to be such an integral part of the right, and I hate that the world that Hazel is going to inherit is all about the individual, what they can get out of life and what it owes them, rather than the individual as part of the community and humanity as a whole. I'm more than pleased that the Greens did so well, but in practical terms I guess I question how effective that will be when Labour is at such a low point. Sigh. I need to go and cuddle a cat or a child I think.

AMQG Challenge

AMQG pillow challenge fabric, originally uploaded by Hazelnutgirl.

The first challenge for the Auckland Modern Quilt Guild members has been set - a cushion - and I'm really excited! It's my first challenge so I don't know exactly how open to be about what I'm thinking of doing or not - are people all secret-squirrel about their intentions or generally open? I'd love to share how I'm going (I almost typed journey there but that would have been more than a little pretentious, I can't believe the word even entered my mind! And that I'm sharing it with you!), but I'm competitive enough not to want to get pipped at the post because I shared too much. Not that I really think that would happen to be perfectly honest, maybe I'd just like for it to be a surprise?

Anyways, this is the fabric we have, I don't know who the designer is or anything, it's not on my bit of selvedge. We have a fat eighth and we have to use at least half of it, so can enter two pillows if we like. I have some of my fabrics already and at least one pattern in mind - and it's not due until the 1st December, so I have heaps of time. Perhaps I won't even leave it till the last minute!

It's going to be so interesting to see what people come up with, there is such a diversity of people in our group; we vary widely in age, experience and taste. I know at least one person who was focusing on many of the same FQ as I was when I grabbed some after our meeting, but I bet even that doesn't mean our cushions will be at all alike!