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

50 Farmer's Wife Blocks

It only took me a year and 4 months!

50!!

Still though, I'm actually glad that I can pick it up and put it down as I please. Some months there's too much else going on, or once you sit down in the evening you're struggling to stay awake.

Y-seams, ftw!

I have been averse to picking it up since the start of this year, and having had almost 5 months to ponder it, I think I know why. I've not been feeling the colours and fabrics in the last few blocks. I chose them in the middle of last summer, when I cut out pieces for a behemoth 20 blocks in one go. It turns out I'm a fickle fabric chooser!

Honeycomb

So this time, I'll only be prepping the next five blocks. I'm also going to throw a withering glance over the fabrics that have managed to not get used 8 or 9 charm packs in.

Friendship Star

I also bought three new charm packs this Spring - Botanics, Daydream, and Mixed Bag - to reinvigorate the fabric choosing and colour palette.

I'm also quite sick of basket blocks - I haven't checked but I'm hoping there are no more!

Blergh...

Double blergh.

I noticed while laying out the blocks yesterday that I'm ending up with a lot of different sizes. This has to do with my inexperience in English paper piecing when starting out, and the laws of physics (4 sewn together pieces are going to be larger than a single piece cut to size - all that extra thread and fabric makes a difference!).

I need to add some darker blocks, dominated by pale ones right now.

However, I've come up with a cunning plan. I'll pop them into some generous sashing, alternating square and on-point, to make a humongous or a normal sized quilt depending on how long more I can keep the EPP going!

The obstinate mental part of me kind of wants to go all the way humongous - that's the same part that sees me almost halfway into what could be a 3 year quilt top, because I decided to do it by hand...

Obstinate and mental, that's me - why change now!? (that's totally logical thinking, right there!)

PS The sewing room/nook is an even bigger mess now, I opened the desk bits, realised I couldn't do it by myself, and won't have reinforcements until tomorrow night at the earliest! However, having run out of procrastination material, the organising will begin this evening - pinky swear!

Emerging

I have been beating myself over the head for a few weeks now for not posting more often, for not sewing every day, for not having a finished project or even a started project to share with you. I thought last week would be the week when I would catch up with all my sewing and, of course, last week I was sick, then I got better, then the fire alarm on our 10ft ceiling decided to run out of battery and start to shriek at 130am, every 40 seconds, for the next twelve hours. Somehow Paul got back to sleep. I couldn't. So I decided to do something I've been putting off until I felt more caught up, on track, on top of everything. I started to do the Wardrobe Architect over at Coletterie.

Sleep deprived, grumpy, and with a stonking headache (considering there wasn't any alcohol involved) I realised last Friday that I need to let go, lighten up, and do things as I come to them and not force myself to do them to some crazy internal schedule that a clearly batshit dictator/drill sergeant came up with.

Something I put together on Polyvore, which I don't really understand
but do like quite a lot. I am looking forward to when Spring has sprung.

So I'm taking this week off. This is my week of fun, of whatever, and next week I'll add in little bits of more time-sensitive projects again. But in small doses, and with no invented hard deadlines.

So here's where I am. I finished the top of the Riley Blake Challenge, the night before the deadline. I still haven't finished the quilting. There are a lot of threads to bury (first time burying threads - how fancy!), and after forcing myself to work on only this for too many days in a row, until I started to actively avoid the machine (hello, awful daytime reality television) I have stopped. It is now pinned on a wall, until I mellow towards it again and return happily to bring it to a finish.

I will eventually show my inspiration and explanation behind this!

The one thing I have been doing is doodling, making quilt plans, loving them, hating them, colouring them in, and generally enjoying the possibilities. The other guilty pleasure has been pinterest - no required interaction, and lots of possibility.

On the cutting table this week, are some leftover Amy Butler WOF strips, the remaining x and + blocks waiting to be pieced, skull fabric I won almost a year ago paired with an AMH Pastry voile (bought before I knew what voile was), and a stack of solids to be cut up so I can practice my new-found appreciation for paper piecing with last years forgotten Lucky Stars blocks!

I don't know if it's clear, but my unused, almost 1 year-old,
darning foot is out - this week I shall try my hand at some FMQ!

I have a new needle in my machine, and new blade in my rotary cutter, and a new found enthusiasm for doing what ever the hell I please! If I wasn't six months or so late, I'd be joining Made with Moxie on her Selfish Sewing Week - here's to fresh starts :)