Hexagon 2 Snugglepot and Cuddlepie

Here is block 2/100.  I couldn't put this one down until it was finished, it became an obsession!! For those people not familiar with the stories of the Gumnut babies Snugglepot and Cuddlepie, they are the work of May Gibbs who first introduced them in 1913. They live in the Australian bush and most, if not all, Australian children would have heard of them.  May Gibbs used the stories of the Gumnut babies to teach children about the wonders of the bush; about the animals, birds and insects that live  there and how we must be kind to them.  She was no doubt way ahead of her time because her stories are just as popular now as they were back in 1913 when they first appeared.

This hexagon is based around a print of Snugglepot and Cuddlepie peeping out of their gumnut homes surrounded by their bush friends - a spider, a ladybird (ladybug) and two butterflies.

I spent a long time with my sister yesterday - she is a sane quilter - trying backing fabrics on my two finished hexies. We tried black borders, plain dark coloured fabrics to match each block and printed fabrics and in the end, we both decided that the best look for these hexies is the printed material. For hexie number one I chose some pale blue material with a pattern of pale pink roses and for this Australian bush hexie I have chosen some Gumleaf fabric.

Storing Charms for crazy quilting

Lisa and Thearica left comments on my last post about where I got the Humming Bird charm from........ sorry, the answer is, I don't know except that I fished it out of my charms storage box labelled "Gardening".  I get my charms from ebay, from local charity and thrift shops, from swapping with people, some are given to me by friends........ but all of them are then put into storage boxes labelled with the names such as Christmas, Gardening, Nautical, Love and Peace, Animals, Celebrations, International and Miscellaneous, etc.  Whenever I require a suitable charm for a specific project, I can go straight to the right box and (usually) find what I want straight away.  If it isn't there then I don't have it  :>(

Contents of my "Miscellaneous" tray containing bits of broken jewellery, single earrings, brass rings, buckles and buttons 

Contents of my "Nautical" tray containing shell beads, tiny gold mermaids, sea-horses, enamelled lighthouse and anchor, pieces of mother-of-pearl shell, in fact anything that might come in handy for an UTS project. At the back of the tray are sequin roundels cut from garments bought at the thrift shop.

This is the Gardening tray with flower beads, buttons and charms, butterflies and dragonflies and the odd bee and bee-hive, birds and spiders. At the back are plastic bags with flower buttons.

 

First Hexagon cq patch completed - 99 more to go!

As I said last week, the best thing about starting a new crazy quilting project or block is getting all the fabric, trims, laces, beads and threads together and deciding which ones to use and which ones to reject.  The WORST thing is putting it all away again once the block is finished.  I hate putting all the bits back in their rightful places in the studio and often finish up with a huge mess of tangled threads, bits of trim and a mixed box of beads and charms and buttons and all the other little extras which are left over and then when it is all driving me nuts I'll make the effort to pack things away again.
So, rather than put everything away straight away, I have cheated.  I found a hexagon block amongst the 100 that I've created which needed to have exactly the same colours that my previous square block required.  I've also found another square block that could do with some of the same colours too.........whew! saved for another day!  I don't have to put everything back in it's place just at the moment. 

I have cut out one hundred hexagons and printed out a Victorian image onto finely woven "photo fabric" for each hexagon - ($40 for a packet of ten A4 sheets so not cheap but well worth it for the good results). I managed to get between five and seven images onto each sheet so it wasn't too bad. I am not sure yet what I will back each hexagon with, probably a layer of thin wadding 1cm larger all around than each hexagon and then fabric on the back which is folded over to the front to form a hem or frame.  Anyway, this is the first block finished and also the same block with the other 99 piled up around it. The images are of children, painted scenes, flowers, Christmas and Easter and Halloween postcards, birds, animals such as horses, cats and dogs and of course glamorous ladies. I want to keep the colours of the fabrics and threads etc in 'quiet' Victorian colours to match the images. As yet, I don't know whether to back and frame each hexagon in one dark colour or back each one in a colour to match the image in the centre??? Time will tell.

Blue Bird Crazy Quilt block finished

This block is a memory block for all the wrong reasons! Also it didn't "flow" either, probably because it lived in my bag and only came out when I was sitting in medical waiting rooms, consequently I found it very, very difficult to finish.  I did the Feather Stitch loops around the bird picture and the multi-coloured edging with tiny flower sequins first while waiting for  Eddie to have treatment on his jaw bone at the Oral Surgeons.  The 3D Daffodils got done at the GPs while Eddie was getting his three-monthly implant into his stomach. The orange silk ribbon roses and also those blue flowers on the yellow patch at the top were done during two separate visits to the oncologist and that check ribbon and those orange flowers and leaves at the top left and also the butterfly with the meandering line behind it were all done while Eddie was having radiation over five days.  The rest of the bits and pieces were done watching TV to finish the damn thing off because by then it was driving me crazy. I am not at all happy with the finished result but like I said in the beginning, it is full of memories of places that I wish I hadn't been in. However, the more I look at it, the more cheerful it becomes........all this treatment is necessary for a positive outcome.

Coloured Crazy Quilt Squares

I have made 36 x 11 inch (28 cm) squares to make a  crazy quilt for my spare double bed (six rows of six blocks).  So far, only a few of them have been embellished, most are blanks which will be portable projects to work on while waiting for DH to have radiation and oncology visits.  I am also culling my stash so by making cq blanks which can be packed away into tubs for future projects, I can use my favourite pieces of fabric, pin on some colour co-ordinating laces and trims to each block and pack it away.  Then I can sort through the fabric pieces which are left and bundle them up to dispose of either on eBay or Gumtree at a later date. Here are the blocks laid out on the bed.
I would love some comments as to whether I should just sew the blocks together once they are embellished and continue the embroidery and embellishing over all the straight seams or whether I should stitch a border of black or other dark coloured fabric between each square for sashing......?  At the moment the squares are laying on top of a gold/beige coloured quilt cover which looks like a wide border around the crazy quilting - I rather like the look of that wide border so I think that I will add a border like that to the quilt once the top is finished.

The Cream on cream quilt blocks (mostly blanks) are already packed away with a plastic container of cream and pearl laces and trims, gold beads, cream and mother-of-pearl buttons and flowers etc and a container of cream and gold threads.

Colours of Widnes picture completed for my friend Jackie.

This is the finished picture of "Colours of Widnes".......black, all shades of grey, brassy gold........really miserable looking, depicting an abstract image of Widnes, Lancashire, England in the first half of the 20th century.  The main image is an old postcard showing the tall chimneys of the factories belching smoke all over everything and the words "Widnes with the lid off makes the sun hide his face" written across the bottom.  The Runcorn-Widnes transporter bridge is at the top because Jackie's grandfather worked on it. The photos don't show it but the wires supporting the bridge have been embroidered in a very fine Kreinik metallic thread which has a twist of steel blue and black.  Because Jackie is a cat lover, I have included a little gold cat charm, sitting on the railway track at Widnes Station as a steam freight train pulls in on the other line. 

The picture will be framed in a  dull grey frame which at the moment is metallic gold but a few coats of dull, miserable looking, sooty, rainy-day coloured paint will do the trick!!

Abstract Crazy Quilted picture depicting the "Colours of Widnes" in Lancashire, UK

Top half of the picture showing the Runcorn-Widnes Transporter Bridge. A few simple birds fill the void at the top while I tried to keep most of the stitching looking industrial rather than flowery.

Bottom half of the picture which apart from the notice (the original being a brass plaque on Widnes Station) is mostly industrial with cog-wheels and brass metal discs, representing the factories of Widnes in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Sitting on the railway track watching the trains is tiny gold cat because Jackie is a cat lover from way back. Now I just have to keep it a secret until Jackie's birthday..........that will be the hardest part for me!!

A new CQ challenge........Colours of Widnes

A friend of mine saw my "Colours of Sardinia" picture before I gave it to Ennio and Anna. She loved all the bright, clear colours of the Mediteranean island and commented "I wonder what the colours of Widnes would be - just a dirty grey town?"  This friend is originally from Widnes which was an industrial town in Lancashire, England, with lots of chimneys belching out black smoke and soot all over everything and everyone.  While it is not quite like that today, it certainly doesn't boast the lovely bright colours of Sardinia!!  Well, that comment was like red rag to a bull, lol, and I love a challenge!! So I set to work collecting images of industrial Widnes and matching the images with black and grey fabric pieces. As a contrast to all this black and grey, I found a photo in a magazine of a brass plaque which says:

On Widnes Station

In 1965

Paul Simon 

Wrote the Song

Homeward Bound

So the only other colours on this picture will be dull gold albeit brass.  I have ordered some brass cog-wheels from someone on Ebay so it will be a bit "Steampunk" as well.  Here is my blank canvas.....

This will be a surprise combined birthday and Christmas present for a girl who has everything.  I think she will like it as it was her own tongue-in-cheek comment that started me thinking.  The photos shows the Runcorn-Widnes Transporter Bridge which my friend's grandfather worked on, an old postcard of the smokey chimneys of Widnes which says across the bottom "Widnes with the lid off makes the sun hide his face!" and lastly, a steam freight train pulling into Widnes Station.   Even the two floral pieces of fabric are grey so I think I will have a lot of fun with this one.  Stay tuned........