Chevron? Where?

Oops I didn't mean to disappear for quite so long. Nothing much has changed on the home front, still hoping to sell the house soon, and occasionally I've found the time to do a little bit of sewing, sometimes I have the time but it's the last thing I feel like doing. Anyway, I have a finish, and I'm just going to come out with it. This is not my finest quilting hour. In the interest of keeping it very real on this blog and despite the fact that I would like everyone to think I'm perfect, bwah ha ha haaaaaaa, it's not all plain sailing here.

Many months ago I saw a wonderful quilt that was designed and made by Kirsty from You Had Me At Bonjour (don't you just love that blog name, it's perfect). I love Kirsty's quilt too, Modern Chevron, and thought it would be nice to try and make it in masculine colours.

I chose my fabric, remember these?  Hope Valley, Hometown and various grey solids.


I started cutting and cutting, and cutting some more and laid it out on the "design bed" and thought hmmmmmmmm.  I realised that the value contrast between the greys and the green/blues was not quite at all strong enough.  I soldiered on. Mainly because my stash is already taking over my house and I didn't want to buy any more fabric. Ah, who am I kidding, I love buying more fabric, but I wanted to finish it and didn't want to go in search of more greys, and really, my stash is getting out of control.

It looked ok when I first started sewing the rows,
but by the time it was all sewn together arrgh, where's the pattern?

I hoped the quilting would help differentiate between the grey and the green/blues. It might have if I had chosen to quilt it differently.

When starting the quilting I didn't think about the difference in width at the diagonal sections, that would have been helpful if I'd thought about that. I could have unpicked the quilting. I didn't. The quilting is pretty bad,  especially in the diagonal sections, but it could be worse.

In this section below, the right hand diagonal is not too bad but the left hand side has puckered quite a bit.

Here's the back, a Hometown print and a pieced strip of scraps.




The binding is Pure by Sweetwater.

I'm chalking this up to experience........in what not to do.  I haven't done Kirsty's pattern justice, but I do think it does make a very good masculine quilt. It's a pity the chevron pattern doesn't show up so well, but I do love the pattern and I suppose, to put a positive spin on it, it is interesting that the pattern is not obvious at first, but it kind of sneaks up on you, so I'm going to call it The Disappearing Chevron.


I recommend Kirsty's great design, she does a great tute, but remember to use high value contrast if you want it to look as fabulous as Kirsty's.

Yep, it's me, I'm still here

I think I need to keep that title for every post these days as they are few and far between.

The house has been on the market for a couple of weeks. There has been lots and lots of interest and as of tomorrow I will have had almost 20 inspections. That's 20 separate inspections, not 20 people coming through in an open for inspection time slot.  As you can imagine that means that just about every day I've had to have the house spotless and I've had to leave the house for an hour or two and take the dog with me while prospective buyers come and look see.
I really haven't had a lot of time for anything lately. One evening I thought I would take time out to read some blog posts, when I opened google reader I had over 400 posts to read. I hope you will understand I've tried to keep up with as many posts as possible but it's just not possible to read in full that many posts. I've attempted to comment on a few posts too. I am really sorry if I haven't commented on your post, but I haven't hit the delete button yet and have skimmed through all the posts so far.
In between constant cleaning and tidying and having to leave the house, I haven't had much time to sew either. I really really want to work on a couple of projects that I started recently, but the thought of getting all my fabric out, playing with it, cutting it up and then having to put it away each day, has stopped me.  However I've found that it's been nice to pick up some hand sewing in the evening. It's been good to get back to that while watching tv and unwinding.


I've finished another Amitie Circle Game block. Not bad, not great. The centre could be better, but hopefully by the time I'm up to block eleventy hundred I should have perfected all the techniques I need to make a perfect block!

I've been working away at the starflowers too.  I've had a change of plan with them. Basically, because I couldn't face doing a whole quilt of them. The new plan is to square them up and use them as a centre panel for a quilt. I'm aiming to put a plain border and then a wider border in the same background fabric but with hexies or some other shapes appliquéd on to it.  This is Plan B, stay tuned, because there could be a Plan C or D, we'll just have to wait and see what eventuates.

Lots more to come.

I was able to finish a quilt before the mayhem of inspections started.

This pile of fabric, minus the cat paws,

turned into this, it's the backing.

Unfortunately I've misplaced my camera. I've been using my phone but I keep on taking really crap photos so hopefully I can take some decent ones to show you the rest of it.

I started on a VIQ Very Important Quilt as soon as the above quilt was finished. This one was to be a present for someone for a very special birthday which is only a couple of weeks away. I had every intention of having this finished in the next couple of weeks. I'm a slacker, and I'm annoyed with myself because if I ever get to finish it I think it will look awesome. The idea for this quilt started in September last year, and sat in a bag until the end of May when I suddenly realised I had very little time left to make it. I've thrown in the towel on this one. When will I learn that procrastination is stupid! It will be finished, but probably not until people stop wanting to look at my house or I move.

A tiny peek.

Despite everything I still found some time to quickly surf the net and let my finger slip and purchase these beautiful books from Quiltmania.

Worth every cent, lots more wonderful inspiration for hand piecing and quilting.