Wednesday, May 8, 2013

progress slowly

I am making progress on the orange quilt, piecing a top big enough to cover a bed is the the goal I have in mind. It will be hand quilted with simple lines like the Gee's Bend Quilters from Alabama use on their modern quilts. The last  DC Modern Quilt Guild monthly gathering we met in a new location with a big room. We needed space to set up sewing and to spread out the many scrap fabric piles for an exchange. We also used some space to lay out our orphan blocks for a charity quilt to be determined in the future. I didn't get a photo but there was a lot of fabric and finished block pieces looking for a project to join. I was gifted bunches of new orange fabrics for this project which I am beginning to incorporate into the new blocks. Thankfully they came just in time because I was running out of options with my original scrap collection shrinking.


Recently I joined a group on flickr.com that is doing block swaps to "Add a border" to a small 6 inch quilt block and return it to the host in Kentucky on a homestead farm. Dustin Cecil is the guy who hosts and he is a young quilter and farmer raising heirloom animals. I sent my first block called Dusty Hour Glass to him and in return for my first block called Bloomelicious which arrived last week. I got to work adding my border quickly. The boarder includes navy blue with white polka dots, yellow from the scraps swap at DCMQG and some orange.  I sent it back to get two more rounds of boarders before it's retired.

Bloomelicious block with the first 3 inch border I added to make it 12.5 inches square

Dusty Hour Glass my 6.5  inch block sent in for borders to be added
After a couple days stuck in the house due to rain I am making progress on the Orange block building and it is beginning to take shape. The garden is going nice and slow too but no orange out there yet mostly chartreuse and spring greens. The clematis are blooming now and the iris are coming in slowly. The cool weather of the last few weeks really has been great to make this a slow and almost normal spring unlike so many we have had since climate change became so noticeable about twelve years ago. 


Japanese Roof Iris 

New white clematis 

purple German bearded iris 

maroon columbine

Spirea 

Hosta leaves new look the best each spring

Red columbine is a native woodland flower

Red and green sempervivum 

clematis 

Northern Maidens Hair fern

ironing board and new blocks for Orange quilt 




2 comments:

Jessica said...

I like how the orange blocks are progressing. I've been reading Nyberg & Arkison's Sunday Morning Quilts and I'm really itching to go play with some free-formed scrap blocks, but another project jumped up at me so that takes priority. Soon, I hope. My scraps are calling..

Frederick Nunley said...

Thanks Jessica for your complement. I am having such fun working the oranges. I took a peek at that book you are reading Nyberg & Arkison's Sunday Morning Quilts and read their definitions, seems I am a bit baroque for the "modern" space use but everyone has their way. Looking forward to seeing your scrappy quilt blocks when you get around to working them up into another wonderful quilt!