Monday, July 20, 2015

Eye Candy

Last year in March I went to Melbourne for the Applique show at Castlemaine.   It was a wonderful exhibition and I enjoyed it thoroughly.

Afterwards I went to "Threadbear", the local quilt shop owned by Corliss Searcy.  What an experience that was.  In spite of owning more fabric, books and patterns than anyone has a right to, I was bedazzled and bought even more.  In particular, I saw a quilt called "Beamish Scrapbag".  I visited the Beamish Museum in 2010 with my mother and I liked the name so naturally I bought the pattern. 

After 18 months of diving in and out of this project I have finally finished the applique centre.


It is about 26" square and is to be surrounded by multitudes of pieced elongated hexagons and tiny quarter square triangles.


 The other notable purchase was a book.  Publishers are so clever.  The best picture in the book is always on the cover.  Don't you find that?  If I don't like the cover picture I can never find anything appealing inside the cover.  On the other hand, so often the best picture is on the cover and the rest of the book is just disappointing.  That goes for quilt books and others.  My new book is no exception.



It is really just eye candy,  or so I thought until I met Pam at the Sydney quilt show .  She was wearing a beautiful cardigan she had knitted in a similar pattern.  She kindly sent me her pattern and it is on the ever increasing "to-do" list.


One of the reasons it takes so long for me to finish projects is that I am always distracted by other things; many of them patchwork related!  For instance, the 3" stars, that are slowing growing in number.


But don't they look cute?  I know some of you don't start a project until the current one is finished, but regrettably that just isn't me. 

8 comments:

Janet O. said...

Liz, my Mom is the only quilter I have ever known who does one quilt at a time. Do you know many?
That first quilt is already stunning and the description of where it goes from there boggles my mind. You are very patient. : )
I put myself on a book diet a few years ago and am trying (most of the time) not to buy new ones. And I culled out the books I had to ones I thought I really might use someday. There have been far too many disappointments in past purchases, but the cover of the one you bought is very intriguing.
Your "herd" of stars is certainly growing. They are so cute!

Judy Dietrich said...

When in Rome. If I got to Threadbear, I would probably buy a few items!! An artist needs supplies----that's my story & I am sticking to it!! I love the quilt top you are working on & it is just getting popular in my neck of the woods.

Every Stitch said...

Love both your projects! and I don't think there are too many quilters who only work on one thing at a time ...not if they look at blogs for inspiration anyway!

Carrie P. said...

OH, your applique is so pretty. I haven't done any in such a long time.

Julie Fukuda said...

I like to have a second small project, and the pieced stars would be perfect for take-along work.

audrey said...

Your Beamish Scrapbag is looking wonderful! I really like the antique look of it.:)

Dawn said...

Beamish scrapbag is looking good. Fun to be able to use such a variety of prints in a project.

Book covers can be so mis leading. I don't think may authors, unless self publishing get to select their covers.

I bet you have another batch of stars...so addictive.

Scrapbook Cottage said...

These are awesome! With the proper color combo, they will be stunning