Summer cherries quilt

As an antidote to the wild colours of the shadow pinwheel I'm calming down with the ordered demands of this cherry applique quilt. I showed you the first square earlier on - and now I am starting to put it together as a quilt.

Progress is slow - although I have enough cherries completed for the next row - but I'm really enjoying the soothing blanket stitching which is all in black. I have to work out a cunning plan to stop the little tail ends of black thread from the start knots on the applique showing through the white fabric - but I am pretty sure I can do that.

Incidentally we are having some hot weather in the UK at the moment which is unusual to say the least. We are all using the quilts which live on various beds to sleep under and they are proving just the right level of cover. They are all made from cotton with cotton wadding and are the perfect breathable layer. Here is someone demonstrating just how comfortable they are!!

Shadow pinwheel - the top is complete

Well I've finished piecing the top and I am really pleased with it. So glad I didn't resort to a kit. I'm pleased with the colour choice and how the brights work together. But the sharp eyed among you will see I got one of the patches the wrong way round.Damn! However the good news is that I unpicked it with very little trouble and it is now correct. Just waiting for further quilting supplies. 6 yards of green Kaffe shirt stripes for the backing and a yard of purple and cerise dots for the binding from America. Then some Quilters Dream thin wadding and a can of 505 basting spray and I'm away. I waited to see if I liked the top before splashing out on expensive backing but the general consensus is that it is worth it!!

Quilt inspiration

While I am ploughing on sewing together all the patches for my pinwheel quilt I thought I would just take a brief interlude to show you where my colour inspiration comes from.

This is a corner of my garden which is a bit of a vision in purple, blue, pink and green. This is the main theme of my pinwheel quilt and I can see why these are always the colours I fall back on. I love the easy way they go together and I recognise the way that the enormous variety of greens tone down what might be a rather lurid pink from the lupin on the left hand side. Another lesson for quilting from this picture might be the way the light brown of the fence seems to show off the foreground colours - and I would not have thought of introducing a beige fabric with the glowing greens and purples - must make mental note of this!

This picture also shows some good toning purples. I love the way the white stripy grass highlights the vivid irises and aquilegias in the foreground - a reminder of how white or very light colours can be used to enhance other colours. And then the final picture below - which proves that even nature gets it wrong sometimes - well I suppose it was my fault really planting a red and a pink so close together - each lovely in their own right but not so close together. More quilty stuff soon - nearly finished the pinwheel quilt top.

A big scrappy quilt in progress

Not a wonderful photo cause it is from my phone - but this is pretty much the final layout for my shadow pinwheel. As you can see it covers all the free space on the bedroom floor, so I need to pick it up now and start sewing it together. Organising the squares has been great fun - like doing a massive jigsaw- but I'm pretty much happy with it now. I've made just a few adjustments since this picture. More to follow as I sew it together!

And now for something completely different

My last posts have been about my crazy coloured attempt at a Kaffe stylee quilt. Well I needed a break from all that improvisation to do something really controlled where I didn't have to make any colour choices. So I have started another project which is from Lynne Edwards book  Blanket Stitch Quilts. It's my version of the Cherry Ripe pattern. It is wonderfully soothing - nice easy bondaweb applique and then blanket stitch in black. The only colour choices have been which red and which green to use for the cherries!
See

I made up six of these squares and took them on holiday with me to do the blanket stitch. It was lovely - so easy - and I do enjoy a bit of hand sewing.

I then contemplated how I was going to make them into a quilt. I looked at the examples in Lynne's book and I preferred the ones where the cherry squares are broken up by something different, rather than just all cherries and sashing. I also wanted to use colours other than red and green to make sure the finished quilt would fit into the furnishings I already have at home ( not much red and green there). So I chose to alternate the cherries with a simple blue and low value 9 patch square. Here it is below

I've used just one blue fabric for each block.

I know this quilt will take me a long time to finish but that's OK. I'm in no rush. And I can keep it going alongside other more speedy quilts. It will be great for hand sewing in the sun ( if it ever stops raining in the UK!). I hope you like it!

Not so bad after all

Just a very quick photo from my phone to show you the next stage in the colour layout. It's far from finished but I am liking it a whole lot better now. I will be away for a bit so may not be able to do any more for a while - but I have got myself to a place where I am happy to leave it and feel that when I come back I may be able to make some satisfactory progress!!

Hey - no colour police either !?

If you have been reading my blog for a while you will know that one of my main preoccupations with quilt making is working with colour. I don't feel very confident about colour choices and combinations. In the last week or so I have been working a little bit more on this quilt.

But I've really struggled as I have tried to combine brights from several palettes and have felt that I have lost my way with this design. Interestingly as I have lost confidence in the colour choices my sewing has become really slapdash and several of the pinwheels are poorly matched. I had decided to give up and put what I have done on one side and continue with something where colour choice is not such an issue - but then I went to Keukenhof - the Dutch tulip and bulb gardens and the colours here - and my reflections on them have persuaded me to give it another go.

Two things struck me at Keukenhof - firstly ( and this is not the first time I have thought this) is that pretty much any combination in nature looks good. Think purple and yellow pansies - a combination which I usually hate but love in these flowers.

If this isn't in your face colour wise I don't know what is - but it's good isn't it? And the second thing was how very defined my favourite colour palettes are. In the first picture the top left pinwheel is all my favourite colours. At Keukenhof these were my perfect combinations below

Here

and here

But in quilt making I want to actively break out of these constraints to be confident in different palettes like this .....

Or even this?

Yikes - now this is some combination - but I kind of like it.

So I guess I am going to persevere with my colour pinwheel. I think cause I was never very arty I feel like I may get it WRONG. But of course just as there are no quilt police, there are no colour police either. And if I hate it I will certainly learn from it. If nothing else it will be a liberating experience - well that's what I am telling myself!