Wednesday 7 December 2011

Glacier, Mile a Minute and more........


My son had a day off, so in his words he hopped on a helicopter and went for a ride.  Then down to earth he went for a boat trip - and this is the lake at the edge of the glacier  - and those beautiful, beautiful chunks of ice are at the edge - and are about one hundred feet high!

The boat couldn't get any closer, too dangerous, but what a stunning sight.  To me they look like jade.

From the sublime to the .........here is a mile a minute top I made ages ago, just emptied one of the scrap baskets and started joining small pieces together, then larger, then the logs - a sort of everything but the kitchen sink attitude.


I can pick out various pieces from other quilts and some that friends gave to me -


The purple with gold squiggles on is another very floddery fabric, I remember I starched it so I could sew it more easily.

And now here are another couple of pieces of vintage fabric for your enjoyment!


Isn't this an amazing fabric!  It has rock 'n roll, black and white type minstrels and mexicans.

The next one is pure colour -


When I did my turn as President of Wellington Quilters' Guild I had a  reputation for liking bizarre fabric!  I used to travel around quite a bit and made a point of visiting little shops in more out of the way places - I came up with some fascinating purchases and I used to show them off at the meetings - which gave a laugh to those who didn't share my love of the weird and wonderful.

There was a tradition for a member of the committee to organise an appropriate block for the outgoing President, which was done all hush hush and then presented at the AGM.

The word that went around for my block was that I had this "bazaar taste" in fabrics, so make a block with many different kinds - one poor newbie actually did that, her block had cotton, poly, flannel etc. etc.

This is the stack of blocks I took home and started playing with -


In the end I made three tops, one using all the blue/purples; a second using all the autumn colours and the third using what was left over!


The only one of the three, so far, to be quilted and bound!  The sawtooth border used up all the odds and ends - believe you me there was quite a discrepancy in the sizes of the blocks so quite a few are tip-less!


Here it is draped artistically on one of the couches.  I shall show the other two on another occasion because next I want to share with you a work in progress.  I showed the top made up of rectangles of vintage fabric with calico, well there were many left over so I teamed them up with a pale blue -


These are joined in groups of three patterned and are just hanging on the design wall.  I have a feeling I want to border this one, so am auditioning possibles -


The one on the right echoes the pattern in the blue/purple, but could swamp the whole thing; the next one is delightful, such a pretty pattern and colour, but not strong enough; the blue floral stripe might be used in a very thin strip - I am leaning towards the extreme left -


What do you think?  And do you audition fabrics like this? it's a part of the quilt making that I love - amazing what I find when I start sorting through the cupboards......

I'll close with a photo my son took from the helicopter ride over Mt Cook showing Mt Cook village in the top centre with the water running from the glacier and forming Lake Pukaki where they were filming.  If you click on it you should get a larger picture.


And the little diary tells us something that we all know, "Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm."

Nice talking with you, and thanks for your comments.

June

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