Cloudburst and Sunburst

Here's the cloudburst approaching from the south, a couple of days ago.  It was due to hit Wellington in the morning, then lunchtime - it finally arrived about two o'clock and my son was waiting for it on the south coast.  He said when the southerly wind hit, it was like a blast from a deep freeze and then the rains pelted down.  It reached my house shortly afterwards and the thunder and lightening rolled around for hours,  I think that's the ferry [click the picture to enlarge] on its way to the South Island.......

I've decided to hang up my teaching notes - though I shall continue to teach at the prison - but my five inch squares class has had its last outing, and I would like to share with you the rest of the ideas I had that made up the class.  I can't promise they are original but you might get some fun trying out different things.

So to the Sunburst quilt which was made from a pattern called Frolicking Triangles - not sure where it came from but this is what I did with it.

First the plan -

As you can see it starts off as two squares, right side together, mark the dotted lines which is where you sew, then cut on the solid line - this used to cause some confusion as usually we sew on the main diagonal but we need one large and one smaller half square triangle.

Here's the fabric marked and sewn -

Two more lines are needed to be marked in the lower left of the fabric so you will get one larger half square triangle and four small ones.




The small square needs to be supplied and for my quilt I chose a fabric with many colours to cut up for this square and used lots of different fabrics for the main piece.





Here's the hairy sample block -

Once I had the blocks made I started playing with them - as you do!

You can see the original inspiration fabric where the four small squares meet -

And here are some more -

Then the border had to be chosen, at first I went for the multi colour fabric - but it was yuk! completely swamped the whole thing.  I then found [in my stash] another fabric with the same colours but in a smaller pattern.  I finished it off with another batik which seemed to hold it in!

I am working on holding the camera level [or making a better job of the editing!]

It's been a busy week with office work and then having my granddaughter to stay - she washed my car! and it was her suggestion! wow!  We enjoyed watching "Modern Family", a dvd set I received for Christmas - I love that show, find it real laugh aloud.  Molly also sorted out lots of squares for me to use, together with some plain fabric, to make a couple of checkerboard quilts so they are on the top of the pile of the "to do" stitching - oh yes, she also used my old hand operated Singer to make a mug rug!

Thanks for stopping by, and I leave you with this thought from Lucille Ball - "The secret of staying young is to live honestly, eat slowly, and lie about your age."  I love it!!

Till next time
June