Kindness

I'm happy to report I have finished my 'Kindness' block for Kristy and it is on its way to Australia. As much as I love the look of this finished word, I think I will be avoiding paper piecing for a while. With 26 pieces in each letter 's', my patience was sorely stretched by the end. Thank goodness I didn't offer to piece Mississippi.

I have had some Oakshott cottons sitting around for ages - I was never all that fussed on them, the colours kind of reminded me of Miami Vice. But I saw this lovely quilt Rita made over at Red Pepper Quilts (also with Oakshotts) and decided to try it with my fabrics. I have to say, I really love these simple squares and the way the colours look together too. Hooray!

February Lucky Stars BOM

I really like this block pattern - the only thing I don't love quite so much is the bulky centre. However, I have mostly pressed the centre into submission with the help of some spray starch. If you look closely at the top left corner (I was tempted to crop it all away) you can see I'm sailing close to the wind with my seam allowance - I didn't notice until I'd finished the quarter so I shall fudge around it when the time comes. A good reminder to pay attention!

Carolyn's bee block

This month at Monday Modern we are doing blocks for Carolyn. Carolyn gave us a bunch of coloured fabrics and carte blanche to do 'something improvisational' as long as it only filled around a quarter of the background fabric. We also had to include a little canary somewhere...

 I decided on little triangles and got cutting. Sometimes my quilty sense of space is scary. Exhibit A:

If you are like me and the problem is not immediately apparent - here it is!

Easily solved! I also ran out of the background fabric, because I really had no idea how much fabric those little triangles would use. Fortunately the background is lovely Kona Ash which I have a modest stash of, so I was able to finish my block.

Carolyn is an amazing quilter - I can't wait to see how all that negative space gets brought to life!

Ness is yet to come!

Recently I volunteered to do some pattern testing for Kristy (paper piecing fiend) - more specifically to paper piece a word in a really cool font she has designed -  Just my type. If you follow the link, you'll see she came up with a great idea for a charity quilt, using paper pieced words. I asked for 'kindness' as my word - thinking much more about the word and what it means rather than how many letters it has!! (I think given my lack of patience at the moment, 'hug' or 'joy' might have been a better choice).

I have only done half the word so far - going back to work has really slowed the sewing down! I can also see now that I am looking at the photo that I have sewn the N in upside down, so I guess I'll be spending a little time with my unpicker in the near future!