One Step Closer to Finished

Since my last post I've done more cutting than piecing. I've also made three trips to my local quilt shop but only one resulted in fabric actually being purchased. There's a better-than-usual sale going on. There have also been groups sewing in the next door annex. The first time I tried to shop my nose stopped me as soon as I opened the shop door. I had to turn around without even stepping foot inside and go back home. I made it into the store on the second trip but there were so many customers I didn't feel safe sticking around. People don't realize how very fragrant they are between the laundry products in their clothing, scented hair products, deodorants and of course, perfume. 

On my final attempt I was at least able to buy fabric to back two quilt tops. It took more brain power than I was prepared for however. There wasn't quite enough yardage of the ideal print for the back of the Macabre Medallion, and nothing that looked quite right to back my Precious Gems top. Eventually I figured out ways around those issues. I also bought some of this batik to potentially use with my F2F2 blocks:

I have another print that's also a black background with yellow and orange splashed on it that I might use as sashing. The batik would be borders. Here's a quick reminder of the blocks I received:

I haven't yet decided - or even given much thought to - how I'll set these. I always strive to do something unexpected or out of the ordinary though.

The cutting I've been doing has been to trim four quilts in preparation for binding. I don't have detail shots yet of the quilting; I'll try to remember to get those for you. James was busy with our local Shakespeare Festival during the summer months and then had one thing after another go wrong with the third-hand long-arm machine he uses. He had a pile of tops and backs and now I have a pile of quilts to bind! The largest quilt I had to trim was my F2F quilt, which I made to fit our double bed. The other three are donation quilts and are all smaller (thank goodness!).

The trimmings from these four quilts made my scrap pile grow so high it was in danger of toppling over.

Here the scrap pile is leaning up against my sewing machine.

I'm going to have to find somewhere else to store them or something to toss them into! I'm beginning to give some thought to what I might do for next year's Rainbow Scrap Challenge. Not sure I can wait that long to do something about this pile however. ;- )

 

Medallion Scraps

I've added the narrow black borders to my liberated medallion but didn't bother to photograph it for you. Instead I've been trying to cope with the scraps leftover from that project.

I only have about 2" x 8" left of one of the prints I used in the medallion. There's  not much more of another of the prints I used, both of which I lived in fear of running out of before I'd completed the medallion!

Some of the strips that were cut in sizes I use frequently I may just put in my strip stash. I'm going to try to use up as much as I can first however. So far I've made two postage stamp stars and five liberated 4.5" stars.

But then there's this odd bit of liberated piecing I did for the medallion that didn't make it into the final quilt.

I don't know what I'm going to do with that! I thought I might try to assemble a small quilt, maybe another medallion, out of these scraps. The liberated piecing above might end up as the back of a potholder instead. ;- )

Gwennie-Inspired Medallion Reveal

The day we've all been waiting for is finally here! I'm excited to see how everyone else's liberated medallion quilt tops turned out. In the meantime here's my story. (Do you have a fresh cuppa? You might want to go make one before you settle in.)

You may recall that I made liberated log cabin blocks in the first round when we were to be inspired by any aspect of childhood. (You can read about that here if you missed it.) That meant I had a real challenge when the next prompt came and it turned out to be log cabins. Rather than making more blocks I treated the whole medallion as a giant log cabin and only added some framing strips, Courthouse Steps style.

The next design prompt was stars. Seemed easy enough but I got stuck at that point. I had a few ideas, but without knowing what the final prompt would be I was afraid to make a move. That turned out to be a difficult month for me physically too. I fussy cut more images from one of the prints in my palette and randomly made a couple of stars but didn't build a single border.

The final prompt was completely unexpected: add something fishy. Given the nature of my medallion thus far I was driven to find some fish skeletons. And I did! In the right colors and scale to boot! But how to incorporate them in a way that made sense? How would fish skeletons come into the picture? Because cats had eaten the fish of course!

Cats are also fond of mice. The lower half of the quilt became a garden in my mind, the source of the roses in the baskets that started this whole adventure.

Along with the ubiquitous spiders of course. ;- )

I kept the creatures of the air in the upper half of the borders, with the exception of a few skeletons dancing in the star light.

And now, the whole quilt top:

I do have one more design decision to make. I'm debating whether to add final border strips, partly to bring the quilt closer to the size I was shooting for (although it's perfectly acceptable the way it is) and partly to frame the composition.

On the other hand, I don't want it to look like it's waiting for another border. These whole-cloth strips will mimic the strips in the Courthouse Steps round and I wonder if that will be redundant. I'm planning to bind the whole thing - eventually - in black. This shot isn't much to go on but I don't have much room to audition any further either. I'll only be adding 4" overall to the width and somewhere between 2" to 4" to the height if I go with the black border strips. I'll take all suggestions into consideration, thank you very much.

Now, if you haven't already, I highly recommend you to pop over to the link party on Lori's blog so you can see the whole gamut of liberated medallion quilts that have been created during this quilt along! This has been a really fun trip and I'm grateful to all the hostesses for making it so. :- )

A Little More Red

I've been working diligently on my liberated medallion this week. Next Monday, the third of October, is the big reveal day. After being stalled on it during August I'm excited to be making so much progress. I really think I'll be ready on time! (Not quilted and bound, you understand, but the flimsy complete.) You may remember that I began with a pair of baskets filled with roses. I've managed to work in a few more roses...

And a couple of leaves in honor of the season. :- )

Between sewing together the bits and pieces of the medallion project I've been assembling more scrap blocks featuring red. There are these four bear paw units:

And this assortment of blocks:

The blocks are a bit shadowed because I had to pin the medallion up out of the way in order to photograph them.

I hope to get the final border on my medallion today and then link up with the other scrappy bloggers over at So Scrappy tomorrow morning. It's going to be a busy weekend!

Stitching Along in the Travelling Sketchbook

For the SAL check-in this time I want to share what I've added to the sketchbook the Sisterhood of the Travelling Sketchbook is sending around the world.

The sketchbook was assembled by Anne in Melbourne, Australia. In addition to samples of her artwork it contains a variety of paper types so each recipient has her choice of foundation to work on.

Not all of us use pen, ink, or watercolors to create art however. My contribution is a pair of fabric sketches that I've embellished with embroidery, sequins, beads, and charms.

In my view these pages could either represent two sides of the world or night and day.

The blue page is the one I've most recently completed. A paillette for the moon and some sequin stars...

I stitched over implied trees with a bit of rayon floss and put an owl in the branches.

At the bottom of the page I created some embroidered seaweed for the muddy river bottom.

The completed page:

And just to refresh your memory, here's the yellow page:

Mostly seed stitching, a few beads, a bit of couched yarn and a snippet of rick-rack. If you want to follow the journey of the sketchbook you can visit the sketchbook's blog, here.

The members of this Stitch Along also live all over the world. By this time they may all have their posts up, showing what they've been working on in the last three weeks but if not you can always check back later. It will be well worth your time. :- )

1. Avis, 
2. Claire,
3.  Gun, 
4. Carole, 
5. Wendy, 
6. LucyAnn, 
7. Kate, 
8. Jess, 
9. Constanze, 
10. Debbierose, 
11. Christina, 
12. Kathy, 
13. Susan.