Appreciating the small stuff

Some of this week’s Fat Mum Slim Photo a Day prompts really set me thinking. Here’s what I came up with.

Day 15 – An ordinary moment.

Having my hair cut for the last time by my hairdresser of about 5 years. She’s moving to another country, and having a baby, and I’ll really miss her.

That’s pretty ordinary (for me) - but exciting for her .

Day 16 – Two things

I love Georg Jensen designs, and these salt and pepper grinders are great favourites.

Day 17 – Ready

What can I say? With my nails freshly manicured and painted I‘m ready for anything!

Day 18 – Shadow

This one’s from my archives (I took it last January). I just love the play of sun and shadow on my garden lawn in the late afternoon.

 

Day 19 – Delicious

One of my favourite summer fruits, a ripe mango – so juicy that it’s best eaten over a sink or in a bath!

Day 20 – Something you saw.

This water dragon is one of several that live in the grounds of my mother’s home. He was very cheeky last Sunday and came right up to the glass door to listen in on our conversation!

Day 21 – What you do

Of all the activities in my life I chose to highlight the one that keeps me (reasonably) sane – quilting. It’s not the most important thing I do, or even the most useful, but I enjoy it.

 Di

2013 ~ The Year of the Finished Project

If there’s a single theme running through my favourite bloggers’ posts this week it’s that of finishing up those UFOs. Everywhere I look we’re being challenged to let our UFOs (Unfinished Objects) and PhDs (Projects Half Finished) see the light, take a deep breath and just do it!

Lynne, here in Sydney, is one of these encouragers and you can read the details of her Linky party here.

Basically, on the first Thursday of the month she asks us to blog about an unfinished project we plan to work on that month and to link that blog post to hers, and to her Linky party, so all the others can pop by our blogs and see what we’re up to. Mighty neighbourly!

On the first Thursday of the following month you can either proudly proclaim your latest finish, show off your progress if it’s still a work-in-progress (WIP), or ‘fess up if you’ve fallen back off the wagon!

I’m starting with my Roebuck Quilt, which has been around for almost 5 years. I have several UFOs, if I’m honest, but this is the only one I feel excited enough to tackle right now.

It’s a reproduction of a quilt made by sisters Lizzie and Margaret Roebuck in 1861 on a ship sailing to Sydney from England, and I started it on Valentine’s Day 2007 at a class with Robyn Evans at Quiltsmith. There are hundreds of scraps in this quilt, mostly in Civil War and reproduction prints, and though I’ve moved on to using brighter, more modern fabrics in my quilts, I still love this one.

This was me working on the hand quilting in August 2010, before I was distracted by dazzlers like the Whirligig Quilt and Daisy a Day. Sometimes I can be so fickle.

Still, I’ve made progress recently. I’ve bound the Roebuck and I’m currently quilting that last border, so the end is nigh.

This is a quilt Boak loved, and he had been encouraging me to apply myself to finishing the quilting, so I have a little extra motivation going on here!

Please pop on over to Lynne’s blog, get her button and join in the fun.

  Di

Making an exhibition of myself

Do you remember this quilt?  It’s been quite some time since I’ve given my Roebuck Quilt an airing, but last week I brought it out for a small sewing exhibition at my club. 

While I was there as a hostess I was able to make some progress with the hand-quilting and it caused lots of interest with visitors who were curious to see how it was done. The rest of the time it was displayed as a work-in-progress, with a small photo of the original quilt made by Lizzie and Margaret Roebuck in 1861, from Dr Annette Gero’s book. I call this one a slow-burner – don’t expect to see it finished soon :-))

Peeling back the layers (3)

Being a quilt detective comes naturally to Dr Annette Gero, who is also a scientist working in the University of New South Wales  School of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics. 

Through slides and lots of actual quilt “show and tell” she kept us absolutely engrossed as she told how she’s gradually pieced together the historical background to each one. 

The highlight of her quilt display was a huge quilt entitled “The Intellect and Valour of Britain” where the quiltmaker has reproduced this painting (below) in fabric.  It’s been achieved using the surprising technique of cutting out the figures in “cookie cutter” fashion, butting the pieces up against each other, and embroidering the details on top to create dimension.  You have to see the actual quilt to believe it!  (The venue being a private club I was not allowed to take a photo.)

After such an inspirational talk I simply had to buy a copy of Annette’s definitive work “The Fabric of Society, Australia’s Quilt Heritage from Convict Times to 1960” , especially since I and some friends are in the process of making our own versions of a couple of the historical quilts featured in the book – the Roebuck Quilt and the Frederica Josephson Quilt (including Kerry Dear’s modern version, Candied Hexagons). Maybe I’ll be spurred on to finish them now – and to label them for posterity!

My Roebuck Quilt (1)

The original Roebuck Chintz Quilt has been described by quilt historian Dr Annette Gero in her book "Historic Australian Quilts" -


George Douglas Roebuck from Scotland served in the East India Company's military service from 1817 to his death in 1846. His wife and four children returned to Scotland but in 1860/61 sailed to Australia and settled in Queensland. It is thought that the quilt was worked by Lizzie and Margaret on their voyage to Australia.


My Roebuck Quilt, begun in a class taught by Robyn Evans at Quiltsmith last February, started with this beautiful central medallion, from a piece of Julie Wallace's "Saint Croix" collection. I planned to use a delicate palate of dusty pinks and greens.



However I soon abandoned this safe - but bland - plan as this wonderfully scrappy quilt soon took on a life of its own, even crying out for scraps of blues and golds, browns and burgundies. And while I delved deep into my stash for snippets of fabrics left over from previous projects I have to confess to [gasp] buying the odd fat quarter, just so I had even more 'scraps'!

I've loved working on this quilt which I have entirely hand-pieced, and it has been a perfect take-along project whenever I'm out and about - even if it was a rather 'bossy' quilt in the way it insisted I include more and more quirky fabrics.

My Roebuck Quilt (2)

All those large plain triangles called for appliqueed hexagons, and I (and my quilt buddies who were also making Roebucks) had such fun fussy-cutting them and swapping fragments of fabrics.

My Roebuck Quilt (3)

At this point there remained only two borders to complete the quilt - a straight strip, and an outside border of hourglass blocks. This would have made the finished quilt approximately 85" x 85". However I wanted to make mine a little larger (the original Roebuck Quilt was 94" x 94").





So I added a strip, then a scrappy border of 4" squares on-point, then another strip of dark cacky green before my hourglass border. I'm thinking I'll probably use that green to bind it too. Unlike the original, I haven't added separator strips between my hourglass blocks, and I've also occasionally included a fussy-cut whole piece of fabric instead of an hourglass block. (Just because...)

It's taken me almost exactly a year to piece (and applique) this quilt, and I've loved every step of the way. I have to confess I quickly lose interest if I have to repeat a pattern, so being able to change fabrics so often meant I was never bored!

Now all I need to do is to hand-quilt it before it can be used on our queen-sized bed.

You have to admire Lizzie and Margaret back in the 1860s on that swaying ship, don't you? No rotary cutters or calculators, and only a ship-board stash to work with.

The Roebuck Quilt has come a long way since then. Kim McLean won the Founders Award at Houston in 2002 (or 2003?) with her version, adapted from the photo of the original quilt she saw in Annette Gero's book, and there are several versions being taught in quilt shops I know of.

This year my quilt buddies and I have started another medallion quilt, quite reminiscent of the Roebuck. One day I'll show you how it's going. Just look what you started, Lizzie and Margaret!

My Roebuck Quilt

Today I had my second lesson in a series of four, making a reproduction of the Roebuck Quilt, originally made by sisters Margaret and Lizzie Roebuck on the long sea voyage to Australia from Scotland around 1860.

I'm hand piecing it, and finding the process very enjoyable. And it's wonderfully scrappy too!

Here’s my central medallion. I did feel so pleased to have completed my homework in the month since the last lesson. I shouldn’t have been.

In my enthusiasm to finish, I had sacrificed a little accuracy and my lovely medallion was just a tad smaller than it should be. Sigh……

However, I must unpick it because being out a tad at this stage will mean a HUGE tad later. Got to get these things right. How boring reverse stitching is.

How did those ladies manage to maintain their correct dimensions without rotary cutting, templates, quarter inch rulers and such????