Habit

I have a habit of leaving my safety pins open when I take them out of a quilt - the idea being that it saves me closing them now and opening them again next time. But of course, when I grab one pin from the tin, this is what happens!
I'm thinking this could be a great drawing/design subject at some stage! I'll have to file these for future inspiration!

A big thankyou for all the feedback on the last post. I'm still not decided which way to go, but there is no hurry to decide, either. I was quite surprised myself with what a difference it made to the design to cut the quilt into three, but this does take away somewhat from the whole idea of the girl twirling across the quilt. Maybe I will try to incorporate a swirling pattern into the background with an uplifting colour or maybe I even have to make a totally new background. I will continue to think about all the suggestions while I finish off some other more pressing projects!

Snip snip

I am going to do something very brave in a moment and show you a picture of a nearly-finished quilt which makes me cringe to look at. Maybe that sounds odd to you, and I'm not sure exactly why I feel that way myself - if it's something with the layout, or just because I'm not real keen on the pink/green colour scheme. Maybe it's just because it doesn't capture the lightness/freedom I set out to achieve. I can see that the bottom edge needs a serious look at, and several faces need tweaking - that's not such a big deal and I would have done that already if I was happy with the rest of the quilt. Phil was pushing me to enter this into QuiltWest, but I just don't feel comfortable with that when I'm not happy with the finished quilt.

I'm curious if you see something obvious, or subtle that would improve it. Anyway, here it is:
For a while now I have had thoughts in relation to this quilt which involve some nice sharp sewing scissors :). This morning a new idea formed in my mind involving paint, textured fabric, text, and embroidery in addition to the scissors... I will let that idea germinate for a while and see what develops! I haven't done anything too drastic with a (nearly) finished quilt before, but have often pondered (and threatened) the idea of deconstructing/reconstructing an average quilt into something more exciting. Maybe this is my opportunity!
Above is one of my early thoughts in regard to this quilt. Does it look better as a triptych?
(By the way, the dimensions are roughly 90cm by over 2m, just to help picture it.)

Who can resist...

...a smile? Yes, it IS a smile, snot, muck and all. Not a smile that says 'sorry for not sleeping, Mum', or 'sorry for spreading my biscuit further than you every thought possible, Mum' or 'sorry for digging up your basil, Mum' or even 'I love you, Mum', but one which says 'look at me, everyone, aren't I cute?'. We try very hard not to agree!

Eucalypts again

I have been focussing on the loose theme of childhood in my quiltmaking. However, this past week I began a series of mini eucalytus quilts again, as a refreshing change. The piecing on the eucalyptus quilts is much more relaxing to do than piecing faces! Above are the bits all puzzled together and ready for piecing. This quilt includes some screen-printing in the background. I had planned to take more photos of the process, but as often happens, I got carried away with the process and forgot about photos till I was done.

Progressing

Brenda's image of her quilting threads on her window sill made me smile, as I had mine sitting on the sill as well (conveniently within my reach, but out of Caleb's reach). So I was inspired to take the above photos...

I have just finished the quilting stage of my latest quilt. Still to do: cutting to size, binding, tying of threads and labelling. I'm sorry for not showing the whole quilt just yet - I hope to do so at the end of May. Meanwhile, here's another teaser:

One to watch

Keep an eye out for this up and coming quilt artist...
In addition to her simple but imaginative and eclectic artworks, she is also highly prolific, producing one quilt within an afternoon. I have already been the lucky recipient of three in the last two weeks!

Couch potato

I am spending the day confined to the couch, after twisting my ankle yesterday. My family is looking after me very well, but of course this is still frustrating. I keep thinking that, besides regular housework and food preparation, there are upstairs in my sewing room:
- 7 small quilt designs ready to be cut out
- 3 small quilts cut out and ready for piecing
- 1 large quilt, layered yesterday morning and waiting to be quilted
- 1 denim skirt for myself, cut out and ready to be sewn together
- 1 tracksuit for Caleb, cut out and ready to be sewn
- overalls for Caleb, cut out and ready to be sewn

While none of it is urgent it would have been nice to make some progress...
Thankfully I still had the above quilt sitting around waiting to have its threads tied away!

Bibs

We had a bib situation requiring urgent attention - the bibs we had were old and stained, and also rather ineffective in keeping Caleb's clothes clean. I got inspired by these, (found via Bloesem Kids). I wanted something a bit smaller, with stronger colours, and also less expensive (we need lots!). So this is the final result and I am very happy with them. I did some in a red stripe as well and as you can see, they cover Caleb very well. They were done in no time as edged them with a roll hem on my overlocker, rather than binding them. I also quite like the knot at the back!

Labels

I like to finish off handmade garments with one of these labels (and a size tag). The kids like it too, maybe because it helps them to distinguish back from front. These were made using rubber stamps and fabric paint on thermal-backed twill. I had the stamps made up when Aaron was learning to talk, and is most used word was 'uh-oh!'...

Juf is jarig!

(Translation: "It's Teacher's birthday!" - just flows better in Dutch!)We made one of these notebooks last night for Aaron's teacher's birthday, but forgot to photograph it this morning before school. These pics show some we made last year. The kids love to give something they have contributed to, and I love childrens drawings, and handmade ideas that incorporate them.

Etiquette

As you can see, we have a problem with basic etiquette in this house... Both older children are involved and when asked by Opa why they do this, the answer given was "because it's yummy!" Can you argue with that?

Anyway, just to show how unconcerned our 'sweet princess' is, the conversation around these photos went like this:
Daddy: "Wait right there while I get the camera, Hannah."
"OK, now pick your nose for the photo..."
"...and now eat it..."
Hannah: "But Daddy, there's not enough, I need to pick some more first!"
(Mummy loudly protesting in the background)

Birthday fare

Not so related to sewing, other than the fact that this 'got in the way' of my sewing for a few days... With thankfulness to the Lord for our happy, healthy family, we celebrated another birthday on Saturday.
...and I love the 'treasure hunting' pictures below.
The treasure? A large dinosaur egg (in chocolate).