Thursday 30 October 2014

BQF - Pigeon House

Pigeon House was inspired by a photograph I saw of dawn behind a Dublin landmark, the cooling towers at Poolbeg (locally referred to as Pigeon House). I lived in Dublin for 8 years before I moved to America and I always loved seeing the towers as part of the skyline there. If you want you can read my original post here.


Pigeon House

The MQG's Riley Blake Basics Challenge fabrics made me think of dawn/sunset colours and so I made this quilt at the start of this year, though I didn't finish on time for the challenge. I designed the top section in mostly 1" squares and HSTs, and the bottom is a self-drafted paper-pieced pattern. I took my sweet time with the quilting. I knew exactly what I wanted to achieve, but I had never deviated from quilting on either side of seams or some diagonal lines. So even though I kept to straight lines here, I changed it up in different sections to suit.


Yellow quilting around sun, black in buildings, and white on the strand!

Burying threads was definitely the most time consuming part. I'd never done it before, didn't really know how to do it, and trying to bury black threads on a black backing fabric is tedious to say the least! However, the effects are amazing and for the right project I would definitely do it again. The lovely people of instagram also informed me when I started complaining about batting fluff on my black backing that black batting exists - I have so many things left to learn in quilting!


Black Backing - thread burying headache

This quilt definitely pushed my boundaries, and even writing about it now has reminded me why I should do that more often. It was trying at times, I took a long time, but I really loved learning so much and now I get to see a little bit of home that I've made for myself every single day!


My new view!

I'm entering this into the mini quilt category at the Blogger's Quilt Festival over at Amy's Creative Side! And then I'm going to spend most of the next week looking at all the entries in all the categories, I love this festival - so much to discover!!


Quilt Stats:
Fabrics: MQG Riley Blake Basics Challenge Fabrics
Size: 20" square
Pattern by: Me
Pieced & Quilted by: Me on my domestic Brother

10 comments:

  1. Looks really good up on the wall! Love the perspective with the black & white and quilting looks really cool on the back!

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  2. It looks super over your sewing area and seems to sparkle!

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  3. "Black Backing - thread burying headache." Haha good to know. The quilting from the back looks gorgeous though!

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  4. What a beautiful mini! I love how you varied the quilting even though it's all straight lines.

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  5. Burying threads--the worst! Do you use those needles with a hole in the top? Your finished project is amazing! Lots of variation.

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  6. That looks fab. I dont think I saw that landmark on my mini Dublin tour last weekend though

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  7. It's so great to read the story behind this quilt. For a small quilt it's big on oomph and interest! It looks great hanging on your wall.

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