A Thursday Finish, A List & A Spot of Housekeeping

My poor mum who has been here for the last couple of weeks has been horribly sick since last Friday.  She`s been up and down but really quite poorly and there have been trips to the doc, laboratories for blood tests and mild suspicion of Typhoid panics but it looks like it is just a virus.  Thanks for all the well wishes.  It looks like she is on the mend and will return home to blighty on Saturday as planned.

With my mum sick and unable to get out and about, I did a spot of sewing and have a finish. There`s one quilt I`ve been wanting to tick off my mental checklist for quite a while and it is the Marrakech Rose quilt.  It`s one I`m really pleased with, and here it is.

The fabrics for the top are from centre outward - Kaffe Fasset,  Amy Butler, Jennifer Paganelli, Anthology, Alexander Henry and back to Amy Butler and Kaffe Fasset.

For the backing, I used Songbird in Lime from Bonjour by Diane Kappa and for the binding I used two fat quarters of my new Heirloom by Joel Dewberry.

I straight line quilted it.

and I`m very happy. Have I said that before? The design is based on Jane Brocket`s Russian Shawl quilt from her lovely and eye candy ridden book, The Gentle Art of Quilt-Making. I have always found Jane Brocket hugely inspiring as her quilts are big, bold and fun and she always emphasizes that the quilt doesn`t have to be perfect and that we should enjoy our quilts. I like that philosophy.

It`s lovely that exactly 2 years after taking up quilting, I`ve finished my 4th quilt - hmm, an average of one every six months - not a great average but one I hope to improve on. So I can tick it off the mental list and the list I`ve drawn up for Sarah`s Winter Stiching, which I`m linking up to.  The idea is to write down a list of what you hope to accomplish sewing-wise between now and next spring.  The idea being that what`s written down gets done. I`m not one for lists and it frequently gets me into trouble but here goes.

Quilts, QALs and Community Blocks*

finish the Marrakech Rose quilt

quilt and bind Deborah`s Union Jack quilt

make a quilt for my mum`s 70th birthday 

make a quilt for Baby Landen arriving next month all being well

finish blocks, piece, baste, quilt and bind Red City Quilt for the Duo QAL

commit to theDrunkard`s Path QAL

keep up with the Bloggers BOM

make monthly blocks for Bee Blessed and Quilting for Kids

Swaps &BeeS
make the final cut for The Scrappy Swap 2011
make a goodie for The Scrappy Swap 2011
make a tablerunner for The Modern Christmas Tablerunner Swap
make blocks for The 4x5 Modern Quilt Bee

Other Stuff
learn how to free motion quilt
finish Zaki`s rocket PJs using Susan`s `ugly` fabric
learn how to applique
learn how to piece curves

*last edited 6 November 2011

Have I forgotten anything?  Quite possibly.  I`m so excited to be starting on some new projects using some lovely stash. I`m linking up with Sarah at Fairyface Designs. Head over there and see what amazingly talented and creative people are planning for the next few months.

 

I`m sorry if you have tried to get hold of me by email and found I`m a no-reply blogger.  Thank you to everyone who writes and tells me that I`m one.  You see, I`m not meant to be.  I never edit my profile, my email address is listed and I`ve ticked the box but Blogger likes to randomly make me a NRB.  It`s highly frustrating as it`s completely random.  It`s a bit like a ferocious doctor`s receptionist (apologies to any doctor`s receptionists who are reading this post) - sometimes she`ll let you through, sometimes she won`t.  If anyone else has had this problem, do let me know what you did to remedy the problem.

The Marrakech Rose Quilt?

So with the way I was feeling on Wednesday, I was all set to take my best dressmaking scissors to my husband`s collection of checked summer shirts (of which he has many and wears few).  This was not the premeditated actions of a woman scorned but rather my impatience at the length of time it was taking for my fabric to arrive from the US. Actually not an inordinate length of time as these things go - just two weeks but when it`s coming by plane, why does it take even two weeks??

I`ve always been impatient where sewing is concerned  - ask my mother. When I was a teenager, I made a lot of my own clothes  - I thought I was the bee`s knees as I wore my long straight skirts with buttons up the length of the back with a big baggy sweater,  and ankle boots - so eighties.  I would make a skirt in one sitting - no breaks until it was done and late into the night blood curdling screams would fill the air as I realized I`d made some mistake.  It had to be ready to wear the next day to college.

Anyway yesterday, much to my husband`s relief that he would have something to wear this summer, it arrived. Here it is washed and dried and ready to be cut up and sewn back together again.

Alexander Henry

I have to admit that I have been wondering to myself why I chose these fabrics.  It`s not that I don`t like them. Clearly, I love them but why reds, pinks and oranges?  They are just not colours I am naturally drawn to.  I`m more a blues and greens girl, and so I am thinking that maybe I was subconsciously drawn to them because they are colours that suit the light here in Marrakech.  Unlike the coastal towns in Morocco where all the buildings are painted white, here in Marrakech (which is on a plain at the foothills to the Atlas Mountains) the buildings are painted pink. In my design innocence, the last duvet cover I bought for our bedroom was a pale sage green.  I reckoned that it would cool me down in the summer months here.  I was wrong.  It looks terrible (and doesn`t even cool me down) - just as the reds, pinks and oranges of these fabrics might not suit the light in Scandinavian countries.  So now I`m asking myself  - have I subconsciously bought fabrics for what could be the first Marrakech quilt?

Kaffe Fassett

I plan to make a quilt based on the log cabin design of Jane Brocket`s Russian Shawl quilt so this afternoon I`ll be planning it out and will hopefully start cutting tomorrow. I`m going to piece by hand as I just prefer it that way and find it more accurate.  I`ll post some photos next week.

Oh by the way, I changed the name of this blog as it`s not just about quilting and my life has thankfully had a very rich pattern but that`s for a post another day.

The Bahia Quilt? Perhaps?

About a year and a half ago, my cousin Sybella came to visit us here in Marrakech.  It was her first trip to Morocco and Marrakech can easily overwhelm with sensory overload.  She is an artist and she preferred the new to the old but not knowing this at first, I took her round the narrow streets of the medina (the old walled city) and souqs and we visited the Bahia Palace.

The Bahia Palace was built in the 19th Century and is full of small tiled rooms with painted ceilings and courtyard gardens with trickling fountains.  

Despite being closed  for extensive renovation, it still looks a little tired at the edges.  Ignoring conservation issues, this kind of adds to its charm.  There are tiled steps for unscheduled rests....

My son (who looks so young) sitting on tiled steps at the Bahia Palace

..and big mirrors...

 It was during this visit that I started snapping tile designs for quilt inspirations.

A typical Moroccan tile design

This could be a green quilt with blue hexagons and white applique

Applique ideas from intricate Islamic plasterwork

When I looked back over these photos, it is this painted ceiling that really caught my eye - I think it would make a great quilt top!

It reminds me of Jane Brocket`s Russian Shawl (Matryoshka) Quilt, which you can find in her wonderful book, The Gentle Art of Quilt-Making - as she says, it is really only a large log cabin design and the beauty of it for me is that it grows quickly. I think some big Philip Jacob florals in yellows, greens and blues could look great and the centre could be appliqued.  What do you think?