Summer Fun

The  Australian  long summer coincides with extended school holidays and lazy days with family and friends.  The cities are relatively deserted as everyone heads off to their holiday destination.

Quilterie has been entertaining and not much sewing or blogging has occurred here.  But I couldn't miss the last opportunity to link up with all the other detectives who have been trying to solve the "Mystery of Orca Bay".

 The quilt has an 8 X 7 block setting and I have sewn 8 X 4 so far.  It's going to be a big quilt and it already has a name: "Red Herring".

I'd like to thank Bonnie Hunter from Quiltville for leading us all on a merry chase.  I learned a lot and enjoyed doing the mystery as a virtual group and soon I hope to have a new top ready for quilting.  I can highly recommend doing the next mystery, although, Bonnie, if you are reading: please can you begin the fun at a less busy time of the year!!

Regarding my solid challenge I haven't got much further than washing my red fabric.  I'm not much of a washer, really.  I usually get my fabric home from the shop and  eagerly  cut straight into it.  But knowing how much red colour can run, I thought I'd be sensible and soak the yardage.


After a few minutes it appeared that the dye was  stable.  However  I got distracted and left the fabric to soak for a couple of hours.  On my return I found the water a pink colour! Who knew to leave the fabric to soak for extended time?   I suppose you all did and just forgot to tell me.  Well, now after a second long soak and a wash in the machine fingers crossed it won't bleed any more.

2012 Challenge

After many years of making failed New Years resolutions, last year I gave away that idea in favour of something more likely to be achieved.  I decided to use a particular fabric in every quilt that I worked on in 2011.  I had some success with that challenge.

Now that the calendar has flipped over to 2012, I can start my new challenge.  I am calling it " 2012 - the year of the solid".

I have been collecting solids for some time so that this year every quilt that I start will only use solids.  There are so many yummy solids around at the moment, don't you think?  I hope my challenge will be lots of fun and move me out of my comfort zone.

The rules I have made for myself are that quilts that have been started prior to 1/1/2012 will not be restricted to solids.  But new quilts will have to conform to the challenge.  Those quilts can be Amish, two colour (for instance red and white - how clever of me to include that parameter!),  modern, applique, etc  Really, anything goes except for a pattern or tone on tone fabric being in the quilt top.

I have been looking forward to this challenge for a few months now but wanted to wait until the beginning of the year to start.  Such a challenge suits me much better than trying to control my fabric purchases, or desire to start new projects and I think it will be fun.

Speaking of new projects...well here is one that was a new project less than 2 months ago and is already close to completion.  It is Bonnie Hunter's Orca Bay mystery quilt that you must have been reading about everywhere in the blogosphere. 

This is just to give you an idea  of the centre of the quilt top.  I haven't put any more of the quilt together than this, although all the elements are ready to go.

I weighed all the units for my quilt and they came in at close to 1kilogram!   They fit in a box similar in size to a shoebox.  Looking at my fabric stash I realise I have many, many kilos of fabric. 

Thanks to Bonnie for helping me use 1kilo in such a nice manner.  I love how my mystery quilt has turned out.

Don't tell them you saw me...

I don't know about you, but I've found Bonnie's mystery quilt  surprisingly addictive.

So much so that I've been sneaking away from guests; vanishing  between courses; going to bed early (yawn, "aren't you tired?")  to cut and piece as much as possible.

Well, I haven't been too rude so  I've still got a way to go.

I have an idea about how all the pieces go together, but I don't want to be a spoilsport.  If you want to see a possible solution have a look back here. 

Bye for now.  I'd better get back to the entertaining.  People will wonder why it takes so long to stack the dishwasher.

Red Herring

December is such a busy time of year.  I think hardly anyone in the western world is not affected by a sense of urgency to have everything complete and tidied up before the end of the year, before the festivities, before normal life shuts down.

It is with that same desire to finish as much as possible that quilterie has been burning the midnight oil.  Another block  has been completed from the BTCT quilt:

Lori's Cheddar Cheese and Crackers quilt-along previewed here has also been put together.

Notice that the 2011 challenge fabric makes an appearance in the bottom right hand corner.  If you think I have not been following my own challenge I will write about my success (or not) when I present my 2012 challenge.

Finally I would like to explain the post title.  First though, I will warn  those doing the Orca Bay  mystery quilt with Bonnie Hunter

Spoiler Alert

In her Part 6 clue, Bonnie practically dared us to reveal what we thought the pattern was, so I am throwing in my idea of what we are making:

You can see that I am not 100% sure so I haven't actually sewn the block together.  I do like it though and I hope that this block does feature.  Whatever it turns out like, I have already decided to call my quilt "Red Herring",  since it is so obviously not reminiscent of an Orca whale, or even Orca Bay.

Birds and Fishes

When it was pointed out out that the "Beyond the Cherry Tree" quilt has been going two years I found it difficult to believe.  I am at the stage of the quilt where there is no turning back.  Seventeen blocks complete; three almost complete and five more to go.

Not every block appeals.  A few feel distinctly odd so I have made a substitute block.

It's a block from the presentation quilt for William A Sargent.  I like it because there are cherries, a vase that is similar in proportion to other vases in the "Beyond the Cherry Tree" quilt and the birds are recognizable birds.

My week has also seen more revealed of the Orca Bay Mystery quilt over at Bonnie Hunter's blog.  I have had my foot down hard on the sewing machine pedal.  It's great using the Easy Angle ruler by Sharon Hultgren;

Bonnie recommended it and I have found it makes short shrift of all that piecing - 700 little triangles added to the 350 HSTs since Saturday morning.

I have fiddled around with the blocks trying to imagine what Bonnie has created, but I still can't make it out.  I will be happy with the result no matter what.  There is space appearing in my 'brown' drawers and I have also cut up small scraps I was saving with no real purpose in mind.  It really feels like Christmas!

The Mystery Deepens

Part III of Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilt "Orca Bay" was published Friday night Sydney time.  Too late to actually sew it; more of a bedtime gift.  I drifted off wondering how I was ever going to sew 350 HSTs before the next clue on Friday 9th December.

I shouldn't have worried.  It's Monday afternoon  and here are 350 2"squares ready to show:

After a slow start with my usual technique (cutting oversized squares, pressing sewing lines, cutting the diagonals and then trimming) I reluctantly decided there must be a better way.  I have never even contemplated sewing large amounts of HSTs before so I have never needed a stream-lined technique;  that's not the way I make quilts.

However, Bonnie gives clear instructions on how to use the Easy Angle ruler and I found I could make 50 HST at a time without raising a sweat.

I also tried adjusting my sewing machine on an angle with 2 small doorstops.  It  allowed me to see the sewing line much easier. And I used a guide for sewing.  With my fancy machine I am able to shift the needle over to the right to adjust to a perfect 1/4" seam.  There is a first time for everything. Right?

So I hope all my new adaptations  mean I won't struggle as much to achieve accuracy.  I should have tried these tricks years ago.  I am puzzled that I didn't, but I have an unexpected bonus from taking part in the "Orca Bay" mystery quilt.  Head over here to see more posts from others doing the same quilt.

I pulled out another UFO that has me scratching my head somewhat.  I started Lori's from Humble Quilts "Cheddar Cheese and Crackers" quilt before I began writing  my blog.  Not having much use for small quilts I chose to make mine bigger.  Big mistake.  It's not finished more than eighteen months  later and when I look at it,  I can't work out where all the pieces are supposed to fit.  Not as big a mystery as Bonnie's quilt, but still a mystery.

The Antidote

Since I got home from Houston I have spent the past few weeks hand quilting.  I am using the big stitch technique employing both perle 8 and perle 12 thread.  Without realising I seem to have amassed quite a collection of different coloured threads

Daily intense sessions mean I am almost done, but it has been very quiet sewing time.  I miss the whirr of my sewing machine.  A little bit of machine piecing would  provide the perfect antidote to satisfy my need for diversity,  so I started  Bonnie Hunter's Orca Bay Mystery quilt.  Last year I almost joined the Roll, Roll Cotton Boll mystery.  I wish I had.  So when this came along I dived in to the Bay.

The first step was OK.  Just 224 QSTs.   Week 2 required only 72 string pieced 3 1/2" squares.

 Surprising to me was just how long this part took.  I have never constructed a quilt in this manner before.  I tend to make a block (stare at/admire it for a while) and then make another block.  It is a slow old process.  Making a massive number of units in one go is new to me.  Perhaps that is why I am usually so slow to finish.

A quilt started way back when, is almost finished.

I put the binding on and am just about to label it.  The story behind it is here.

Sculpture by the Sea

Every year Sydney's  "Sculpture by the Sea"  gets more and more popular.  It is located on a cliff side walk between Bondi Beach and Tamarama Beach.  Now in its 15th year the people's choice for 2011 was "Cosmic Elk"

 It is by South Korean artist Byeong Doo Moon.  I would love to be so creative...or at least as amusing as Juan Pablo Pinto and Clary Akron

or even as whimsical as Hannah Kidd

or as colourful as Deborah Halpern:

But what's a quilt blog without some pictures of fabric?  Lucy Barker made it look easy with this:

You can't tell from  my pictures but there are the huge crowds and  extreme heat.  At 5.30pm it was 37 degrees celcius (that's 100 degrees for the rest of you)! all making Lucy's exhibit very inviting.

Back at the homestead I've been busy beavering away on Bonnie Hunter's Orca Bay mystery quilt.  Check it out and see if you could resist.

Yes, I know I already have too many UFO's to count, but I couldn't resist cutting and sewing 224 (you read right, 224) brown and cream  2.5" quarter square triangles.   Perhaps the heat got to me.