A few more butterflies

At the start of each month I make myself a little list. Nothing too detailed, just a round up of what I think I might like to get done: it might just say 'quilt x, piece y'. Occasionally it says 'finish x' or finish 'y'.  I'm not overly ambitious but I do like a list and mostly at the end of the month there are little ticks by some items.  In July, I am sorry to say, I achieved almost nothing I set out to do. My mistake was to think I might finish quilting All at Sea, rather than just continue working on it. Ah well.  

The one thing I could put a tick by was this butterfly project - the list just said 'do some more' and that is just what I have done.

They are simple little things, but seeing them all laid out like this makes me happy.  

Since it's the beginning of the month I'm linking up today with Ann and Cathy for their Kaleidoscope of Butterflies and since it's the middle of the week I'll link up with sew, stitch, snap share, which you can find on Linda and Julie's blogs.

Hourglassing

It's a good thing I quite like making these hourglass blocks, as that's pretty much all I've been doing.  

I've sewn one column of slightly bigger hourglasses down the left-hand side of my starter piece, but other than that I've just made the three bits you can see in the picture, plus a pile of odds and ends that haven't yet turned into something bigger.

When I get tired of hourglassing I sit and ponder, and shuffle things about.  Looking on bright side of things, I am still working with the floral fabric; there was more in that blouse than I thought.  

I am hoping that I can keep going at this, albeit it slowly, and also get my head around this quarter's AHIQ challenge.  I guess we'll have to see how that goes!

Considering my words

While I plod along with the hourglass project I am beginning to consider Ann's AHIQ challenge to make a piece that includes words, so I thought I'd stick down some of my thoughts.

I love words.  I love to talk (and talk, and talk), I love to read, I love my dictionaries, I am pretty fond of a nice list. No surprise then, that I have already included words in some of my quilts.

I have realised as I made these pieces that my interest is, specifically, in using words to add an extra layer of rhythm to what I am doing, rather than to convey any overt message. I like the challenge of including text but don't want the words themselves to distract or become the main focus.  I don't know if I achieve what I am aiming for every time, but that's the general idea.

This means that the ideas I have stored away fall mostly into two categories: names and descriptions.  The lighthouse quilt is an example of the way names might work, and the quilt that became At the Edge was build around dictionary definitions of colour.

In Yellow Birds, the words I chose were intended as descriptive, but also, in the end, contributed to a quilt with quite an optimistic, upbeat feel.

Using words in this way generates loads of possibilities: I might, for example, add labels to my little butterflies (though I don't think I'm going to).  I have a favourite photo of plant labels with botanical names that I have often thought was the starting point for something; I have several dictionaries/word books which provide fruitful pickings; I have more lighthouse-related ideas I'd like to get to and then there's always the weather...

Of the three quilts I've done so far, however, At the Edge was the only one where I planned to include words right from the beginning; in the other two it was more a case of 'I need something extra, what can I do?' So the interesting (maybe difficult) thing for me will be to start with an idea of the words and then see what else needs to go with them.  I am telling myself that if this proves to be a right royal pain in the neck I can always go back to making something and seeing what words might fit, but I'd like to start with the words if I can.  

AHIQ - share your improv #23

Still moving along slowly here, but slowly is definitely the operative word. 

I've done a lot of thinking, a bit of moving stuff about and made quite a few hourglass blocks, in a fairly random selection of sizes.  I have decided I'll just keep chopping up the one floral fabric and making blocks with it until I run out. While I do that I will also slowly add a few more bits and pieces into the mix, and I'll carry on making bigger bits, when the fancy takes me - you can see one taking shape in the corner of the photo. 

I am actually slightly further on that this, but failed miserably to take any pictures after this point; sometimes I am just way too easily distracted!

On another, more interesting topic than my current inabilility to get to grips with this project, it's AHIQ time again and Ann is launching the next challenge.  I'm quite excited by the prospect, and may contemplate starting something new before this one is done, just so I can join in.

An InLinkz Link-up

Patience is a virtue

It has emerged during my quilting/blogging life that I am not the most patient of people (hand quilting aside). So at the start of a project, when I'm feeling my way, I occasionally  need to take a deep breath and remind myself that it always begins like this: with the germ of an idea but not much more, and definitely not with a clear plan.  

That's a roundabout way of saying that I am still groping around, trying things and discarding them, sewing, unpicking, resewing.  As a result, I'm not sure how edifying these photos will be, but nonetheless here they are.

I messed about for quite a while with these bits...

 

Finally I decided that big piece was just too much brown all in one place, so unpicked it and turned what was left into this.

I'm wondering about using the fabric on the right to fill in a few spaces.  I can't get carried away as I've only got 1/2 metre, but I'm playing around with how it might look.  

I am making the hourglasses in a range of sizes, which I like and will keep doing.  I am also slowly adding in extra fabrics. What I haven't yet worked out is whether I want to keep going like this or throw something else into the mix. If I keep fiddling then at some point it will all become clear, but until I have a lightbulb moment I'm keeping the seam ripper close at hand.

Linking up with sew stitch snap share today.

Still quilting

I'm thinking it's about time for an update on All at Sea.I'm still quilting, though to be honest I'm going through one of those phases where I'm easily distracted.  There is progress though.  I'm maybe 2/3rds of the way through, possibly even a little more.  It feels like time to knuckle down a bit now.

Linking up with Slow Sunday Stitching at Kathy's Quilts today.

Unpicking

It's going to take me a while to figure this quilt out, I think.

Here's what I've been doing.  First I made enough hourglass blocks to make a block of 9 and a few extras, then I started to play around, 'what if-ing'.  I'm happy for some parts to be kind of blurry, which is to say that the soft colours run into each other a bit, but also need some definition.  So I tried the floral (which I had been pretty sure was out of contention) and that darker blue stripe.

It didn't blow me away, but I thought I'd keep going for a bit, so added the extra row at the bottom and the strip down the right hand side.  You may notice I've added in that mucky yellow colour.  It looks a bit out of place now, but once there's more of it I'm pretty sure it will work.

I liked the yellow, but after a cup of tea and a think I didn't like the floral and blue strips at all, so out they came and I tried again, this time using striped shirting instead.

And got to here.  You can see a tiny strip of the floral sneaked back in.  This was largely because I wanted to make the original group of 9 just a smidge longer, so that things would fit together nicely.   It's only about 1/2 wide and I think if I keep to skinny bits like this it might do the job.

This is where I stopped, after my two steps forward, three steps back kind of a morning, but I'm feeling okay about it. I am thinking about possibly making some larger hourglasses (the ones here are probably 5"-ish); adding something to the top of this chunk; maybe making several bits like this and floating them on a more simple background, though I'll probably end up complicating things.  This is  literally just a brain dump though, so anything could happen next.