Everyday Quilt Inspiration: Sentimental Scraps

31 Days of Finding Quilt Inspiration in Real Life

One thing that most quilters do is save their scraps for another project down the line. But if those scraps aren’t sufficient for another quilt, yet have strong sentimental value, it can be hard to decide to do with them. So what do you do? Move them on? Throw them away? Or make something entirely different with them?

Today, for my 31 Days of Everyday Quilt Inspiration challenge, I want to share with you the story of a quilted clock, inspired from all sorts of sentimental scraps and inherited notions.

Finding Quilt Inspiration in the Everyday: Day 23

Sentimental scraps and fake flowers

There once was a fabric off-cut amongst my collection that I didn’t want to part with. It was left over from a project (not actually a quilt) that I did for a friend who now lives overseas and whom I miss very much. I decided that my sewing room needed a clock, and that this special black and white batik should be the background.

There were also a stack of fake flowers left in my mother’s belongings that I couldn’t quite commit to throwing away. I am not a “fake flowers sort of person”, but I know she enjoyed decorating her last residential unit very much. So I pulled the flowers to pieces so I could sew with them.

fake flowers amongst my sentimental scraps — One of the deconstructed tiger lilies from my Mum with a bell centre.

Sentimental trinkets and real flowers from my love

Also among my mother’s things was a brand new wooden frame. It framed a print I know she loved, but it was never destined to hang in my or my siblings’ homes. It never even got to hang in her home – it was still in it’s wrapper. So I pulled that to pieces too.

In my own things I always have ribbon scraps from flowers my hubby buys me. He knows that if he buys me flowers regularly I don’t immediately get suspicious if he suddenly starts. This avoids questions like “What have you done this time?!”. Hahahaha. High IQ has my hubby.

Sentimental scraps quilted clock — I echoed the tiger lily with bobbin work and hand embroidery. I think this is my favourite part asthetically.

Acquired supplies and new techniques

Also among my own things was a very heavy blue thread that I bought secondhand from a class instructor because she was downsizing her thread collection. And I had just learned bobbin work….. So I added a ghost tiger lily to the background.

More sentimental notions and hoarded items

The bright blue button was languishing in one of the button collections I have inherited along the way. It spoke to me as the new centre for the deconstructed white tiger lily.

There was also a bell among my buttons. It came from one of my previous cats’ collars. My indoors-only cats have no need for bells, so I tend to remove them and stash them away for later. Bit of a magpie, me.

Easing my conscience over unused supplies

Finally, I needed to find a way to mark out the clock face without obscuring the batik fabric that I was trying to honour. In my USOs (un-started objects!!) I (still) have a sample of a fabric called “glass”. It is like an ultra-fine tulle. I bought it to try it in shadow trapunto. That was years ago…. and I only just got around to trying shadow trapunto last month. But not with the glass yet. Anyway, two layers of this, fused over the batik, gave just the right degree of opaqueness.

I bought the clock parts especially for this project and made the clock face size to match.

I agonised how to put all this together for a long time. Shuffled my sentimental scraps and notions around many times. In the end though, I was happy with the result. I know some of my friends think it is a bit odd. But I actually don’t care. This piece is for me. 🙂 They were my sentimental scraps, after all.

See you again tomorrow for another round of Colour Inspiration Tuesday. Thanks for reading!

October 22, 2017January 19, 2024

Everyday Quilt Inspiration: Previous Quilts

31 Days of Finding Quilt Inspiration in Real Life

Have you ever made a quilt for someone and wished you had a second one to keep? Have you ever made a duplicate for that reason?

Or have you ever made a quilt that you thought could be better? And then been so driven to actually make the better version?

Sometimes the best ideas for your next project might just lie in your last project!

Finding Quilt Inspiration in the Everyday: Day 22

Since we are talking about my quilting friend Susan (well, at least we were, yesterday), I want to tell you about a quilt I made for her milestone birthday a few years back. I called it: Tomato on a Snoozy Pizza. Yes. Really!

Tomato on a Snoozy Pizza quilt — The Kool Kaleidoscope quilt I made for Susan

This quilt is a slight variation on the Ricky Tims Kool Kaleidoscope. I changed the method to better suit my strengths, but the overall principle is the same. I also added a little appliqué to the kaleidoscope at the last minute to correct areas I wasn’t happy with. The kaleidoscope’s colours came from the batik border fabric. I knew Susan would love it.

Now about the quilt’s name…… When I was laying out the large wedge-shaped pieces for the kaleidoscope medallion, my young son (who was about three and pronounced Susan as “Snoozy”at the time) insisted that I was making a pizza. And proceeded to “help” me by laying extra pieces of red fabric on top.

“What are you doing, matey”.

“Putting tomato on Snoozy’s pizza, Mummy”. hahahaha

And Snoozy’s pizza it stayed!! 🙂

How I was inspired by Snoozy’s Pizza quilt

I was really happy with how Susan’s quilt came out, and she loved it too – I even managed to keep it a surprise for her. 🙂 I didn’t really want another one just the same, but I did want some token to remember it by. So, I set about making a miniature version art piece out of the scraps.

miniature art quilt

At the time I did this project I had been learning thread painting and was also starting to take an interest in embellishing quilts with other materials. So this mini quilt has thread painting, ribbon and felt to represent the original, more conventional quilt. There is no piecing in this piece. Only appliqué and embellishment.

Kaleidoscope mini quilt detail — Thread painting and satin stitch were added to create some of the details.

The only supply I purchased specifically for this project was the green ribbon for the inner border.

To finish off, I stretched the mini quilt over a paint canvas and added a hanging wire. I am very happy with my token reminder of the original quilt Tomato on a Snoozy Pizza.

I would never have thought to do a project like this, if I hadn’t been motivated to have a keepsake of the quilt I made for Susan. But now it is one of my favourite keepers.

What about you? Have you ever made a quilt inspired by previous project Please comment, we’d love to hear.

October 21, 2017January 19, 2024

Everyday Quilt Inspiration: Batik Prints

31 Days of Finding Quilt Inspiration in Real Life

Well, here we are two thirds of the way through October and the Write 31 Days challenge. And I have to admit to being a little blogged out this morning. Writing everyday beyond October will not be for me. I long to get back to spending a larger proportion of my time sewing. This attitude probably isn’t being helped by the fact that I am itching to turn some of the ideas that have popped up in this series into real quilts! Where to start!!!?

Anyway, because I am feeling a little done with generating ideas, I paused today and reflected on what other topics are relevant to my challenge. And I think it might be time to turn to some examples of quilts I own and look at the ideas that inspired them. Something less theoretical and more tangible. I can do this now that we are home again and back into routine. Yay!!

Finding Quilt Inspiration in the Everyday: Day 21

It doesn’t hurt to get jaded sometimes….. jade is a very pretty colour after all! 🙂 And one of the prettiest quilts I have been given is also the only quilt I own made specifically for me, by someone other than me. It is dark jade and rainbow. Here is my birthday gift from a while back from a beautiful friend, Susan.

Lotus batik quilt — My lotus batik quilt from Susan

Susan is one of the friends I have made through quilting, and is an amazing wizard with colour. If I ever need colour advise, Susan will always have an idea tucked away that will help me out.

How one batik inspired a whole quilt

Let me tell you how this quilt came to be…. Susan bought a small piece of the rainbow lotus batik as an impulse purchase simply because she loved it. That seems like a great reason to me!

Lotus batik fabrik

But she didn’t want it to end up in stash, so she took the dominant lotus shape from the batik pattern and turned it into an appliqué shape.

Lotus appliqué shape — Raw-edge lotus appliqué

She secured the appliqués with a small zigzag in clear thread. The stitching is nearly invisible. Some shuffling of the squares, including some sneaky discussions with me about the layout, ensued. And the blocks were stitched together lickety-split.

And she ended up with the quilt that now has pride of place in my dining room. 🙂 This precious quilt of love would be in my sewing room, but there is very little wall space in there with 2 walls that are mostly windows and the third wall actually being mostly double doors.

So that is the story of the inspiration behind the lotus batik quilt. Simple, but enormously effective. Thank you, dear Susan!!

Have you used a fabric as the starting point for a quilt like this? If so, I’d love to know.

You could also extend this idea to generate quilting designs. Big, edge-to-edge lotuses would be lots of fun.

And speaking of fun – if you have missed any of my 31 Days of Everyday Quilt Inspiration series you can find the up-to-date list of links at the bottom of the first post.

Hope to see you again tomorrow!

October 20, 2017January 19, 2024

Everyday Quilt Inspiration: Frangipani Colours

31 Days of Finding Quilt Inspiration in Real Life

In exploring my 31 Day Quilt Inspiration series, I am having a lot of fun making colour boards from my own happy snaps. I am primarily choosing pictures that mean something to me, and while I try not to pick the really blurry ones, I am deliberately not getting hung up about technical perfection either.

And you can do this too. But what do you do when a picture you like doesn’t convey the colours that you remember (accurately or otherwise)?!

Finding Quilt Inspiration in the Everyday: Day 20

As I was going through pictures I took in Vanuatu on our last work trip, I found a photo with colours and a story that I liked….. Or at least colours I thought I liked!

Frangipani in a bowl — Frangipanis – a sweet gift from my young daughter in Vanuatu

On the first Sunday that we were in Vanuatu, Paul took our daughter to the local church while my son and I, who were feeling a little poorly, stayed home. On her return, my lovely daughter gave me two frangipanis that she had picked. They were already looking a little worse for wear, but they still looked pretty in a bowl I found in the cupboard. So I took a quick photo.

When I found this photo among our snaps, I felt happy because I remembered how my daughter had brought me the flowers. And I remembered how sweet the blooms looked in the little bowl of water, despite their slight rough handling. So I thought: “I will make a pretty colours board”.

Only, when I tried, I discovered something. The colours that I remember, and the colours that I thought I could see in the photo, just aren’t there! This is what’s really there:

frangipani1 — The actual frangipani colours present in the hastily taken photo.

It is funny how the brain interprets things. It plays tricks on you! Sees things that are not there. Colours are a prime example of this, and it can be tricky to get your head around actual colours vs perceived colours. This is in part because colours in real life are affected by lighting and shadows. Our brains and eyes compensate for light levels better than my camera does on “automatic”.

Furthermore, the brain uses colour shifts to confer three dimensions, form and texture onto 2D images. So often we don’t consciously acknowledge colour change across an object. We see it as shape. This is a powerful tool to use when drawing an image, but a tough adversary when trying to deconstruct one. At least, I find it tricky sometimes.

How was I inspired to find a set of frangipani colours that I can use?

I don’t want to make a project in the colours that are actually in the frangipani photo. They are dull and uninteresting to me. I want to make colours like I think I see. Like this:

frangipani2 — These are the colours I remember, and the colours I saw until I started analysing the photo!

As you can see from the board above, the colours I perceive are much purer tones than the shades that are actually in the photo. My colour list and the frangipani photo do not belong together.

So, the easiest fix in this situation is to simply choose the brighter, lighter hues and tints of the real colours. But if you do not feel confident extending your inspiration so far from the source, there is another way. Edit your photos with one of the many software packages that allow you to change the exposure, contrast, highlights, shadows and saturation etc of your picture. You don’t need to buy an editor. Tech Radar has kindly provided you a summary of the best free photo editors currently available in 2017 . My husband and I have been fans of GIMP for many years, the program that made the top of Tech Radar’s list. But for a quick edit, a simple program like Preview can do the trick too.

screen shot using Preview — Adjusting colours using Preview’s Adjust Color function

Once you have the effect you want, you can pick out the colours from your happier happy snap. 🙂 Oh joy!

Frangipani Colours color scheme from Clever Chameleon — The colour board from my digitally altered photo is very close to the original vision I had from my memories.

And there you have it…. another tool under your belt for using your everyday experiences as quilt inspiration.

See you for more fun tomorrow!

P.S. Do you remember how I said I thought that pineapples were stalking me? Well, it’s possible that they are not after me specifically…. it’s possible that they are methodically turning all quilters into their minions….. hahahaha just being silly, but now I have your attention back, I want to tell you that I just found a really nice post about a pineapple art quilt at Pretty Piney. The pineapples insist you take a look….. 🙂

Enjoy!

P.P.S. Linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts

October 19, 2017January 19, 2024

Everyday Quilt Inspiration: Picnic Quilt Revisit

31 Days of Finding Quilt Inspiration in Real Life

Last week I wrote about a long held ambition to make one or more picnic quilts modelled on children’s games. And there was one game that I mentioned that then stuck in my mind. Not because I particularly wanted to make it. But because I wasn’t sure how I would make it. The challenge of the how kept wandering through my head. 🙂

Finding Quilt Inspiration in the Everyday: Day 19

The game, and the picnic quilt idea in question, is hopscotch. The design is simple. Hopscotch layouts are made up of easily pieced, large blocks, with one semi circle that could be appliquéd on. Appliqué the numbers on, and its done! Except…..

Except that hopscotch is long and skinny. Like a bed quilt. And you really do not need to be handing out free passes for hopscotch on the bed, right? 🙂

So, how to make it square like a good picnic quilt? Do I just fill in the rest of the quilt with cute pictures or prints? Seems like a lot of extra work for no real gain except size and shape.

How was I inspired to further the hopscotch picnic quilt idea?

Eventually I came up with a design that I think I like. Two hopscotch fields side by side. Twice as much fun, and half as much waiting! Yay!

And now that it’s square, I could put a noughts and crosses (Tic Tac Toe) board on the other side. The brilliant thing about pairing these two games is that neither needs playing official pieces. Stones/pinecones will do for hopscotch markers, and sticks, stones or leaves or any number of things can be substituted for Xs and Os, as long as you have two distinct sets.

One last happy thought I had about the Tic Tac Toe board is that it has territorial boundaries for children to sit within. Great for kids who have a tendency to squabble about others encroaching on their space while they are eating lunch….. not that that would ever happen on a fun family outing…..

All that said, I still think I want to try making a backgammon board picnic quilt first! Then I’ll have to teach my kids how to play. 🙂