Monday, May 11, 2015

Orange Peel Special

My days are filled with cycling to work, work, cycling home, cooking dinner, gardening, household chores. My nights are filled with this:



Endless rows of this:


Backwards and forwards, trying to relax my shoulders, remember to use the knee lift, needle down, turn, one two three stitches, turn.  And do it all over again.


It took me ages to settle on a quilting design. The modern quilt group I go to asked me how I was going to quilt it, and I said "well, on the exhibition entry form, I used the words '... and the quilt is then heavily machine quilted'". I'd built a rod for my own back. But I like how it's turning out.




Of course, once this quilt is finished, I have another quilt to baste and quilt as well. For that one I've said 'The quilting design swirls through the leaves.' Shit. All in three weeks. No pressure or anything.

30 comments:

  1. Looks amazing! Love the variety of fabric you've used.

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    1. Thanks Barbara! Luckily I have a lot of variety in my stash.

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  2. You are probably too close and busy to see how great this is looking. Stunning. Cannot wait to see more. As for pressure - well, all or nothing, go for it while the urge takes you. Good luck and thanks for posting.
    Claire

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    1. Thanks Claire! Stepping back from it every session made me realise how good it looked. Up close it just looks like a royal pain in the butt.

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  3. It looks amazing! My hat goes off to you. That kind of dense quilting takes an epic level of commitment!

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    1. An epic level of INSANITY!!!!!!! Although it is quite calming when you manage to not have your shoulders up around your ears.

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  4. Love the quilting and the donut backing fabric is O so perfect!

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    1. It was in my stash and I had 4 metres of it. What else to do but use it in a fruit salad quilt?

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  5. I really like the way this one looks! I've got to build up my low volume fabrics so that I can try out something similar! Great inspiration, thank you for sharing. I just love taking in some eye candy from an admired blog.

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    1. Low volume! Yes that's the term! I was just thinking of them as "background fabrics" - and the clashier the better!

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  6. Keep on going - it's looking glorious!

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  7. You make me laugh. Out loud. Love it!

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    1. Glad I made you laugh! Laughter - it's often better than gin.

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  8. Hi, I just found your blog and I love the clothes you make. You inspire me and I am going to try to make clothes for myself yet again. I love your quilt it will be really something when finished.

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    1. Hi! Welcome! Nice to meet you. Yes make your own clothes! I absolutely love it! I live and breathe thinking about clothes to make (quilts not so much although this orange peel one did possess me for a while!)

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  9. Hot damn! Lady, there better be a snifter of brandy in your future when you get to the end of this. Stuff that- a bottle of brandy!

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    1. I haven't had alcohol since our last frocktails committee meeting. WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?

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  10. super cool - I love that technique. I'm planning on doing that for something I've made but I've been too scared to start

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  11. OOHH What a super yummy quilt!! I love the fabrics you've used, and the straight line quilting is a great choice, A few hundred rows each night will get you across the finish line in no time. I'm looking forward to seeing it in it's real life glory!!

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    1. You're so funny! A few hundreds rows a night LOL! Won't be long now!

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  12. Gosh, this is looking wonderful... love your quilting, love your scrappy colour combo too! Just stumbled across your blog, looking forward to popping back to see the finished quilt! Linda

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    1. Thanks Linda! And hi! Welcome. This quilt was entirely made from my stash, and I just pulled out fabric as I went along. Hopefully a full photo will be up here at the end of June after the show.

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  13. This looks freaking AMAZING! You have a fantastic eye for colour.

    I have to ask, which technique do you use for the appliqué? I've been wanting to try something like this but can't make sense of all the different techniques out there!

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    1. Thanks Zena! I used a variation on the starch and mylar template needleturn applique technique, as shown in my tutorial on circles. http://buttontreelane.blogspot.com.au/2013/04/tutorial-how-to-applique-perfect-circles.html

      I didn't baste the shape though - just held it in place with my fingers. Worked a treat!

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  14. Do you mind sharing what size your blocks are? I think I may have to start one of these. 😊

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