Collection 42 and Carol

Collection 42	Well Carol has definitely been busy. Here we have the entire C42 and you couldn't ask for a prettier selection.  I have no idea why Bouquet for Mary was named as it was. The name just seemed appropriate .. even though I don't know a Mary :)	C42 Bouquet for Mary
The central star in Reaching Out looks like someone reaching out to others, like the children's game Blind Man's Bluff.	C42 Christabella	The blue fabric in the original block was a beautiful (bella) scrap from a friend Chris.
C42 Reaching Out	A star Within a star the name comes purely from the design.	C42 Within
Where would a garden be without glorious flowers. Alone nothing but together so vibrant and joyful... the Two of Us or the two of them ... really doesn't matter.	C42 The Two of Us	There are many gems but one of the prettiest has to be emerald green and Ruby Red.
C42 Twirling Dervish	Twirling Dervish  are traditional male dancers seen in the Istanbul, Turkey. You may see a video here of some of these amazing men in action.	C42 Ruby Red

Collection 13 - Where Did That Name Come From?

Collection 13	Oops Log Cabin Baskets is upside down. If you stand on your head you may be able to see the basket more clearly... or perhaps not:)	C13 Log Cabin Basket
The design for Argyle Sweaters was taken from a jumper I made many years ago. I must get back into knitting sometime it was such a relaxing pastime.	C13 Argyle Sweaters	Winter Secrets is a miniaturised version of one of the blocks from my quilt Winter Secrets. This was a stitchery which I designed, reworking some of the blocks from Raconteur, for when I was travelling and not wanting to take too much stuff.
C13 Norwegian Wind	The design for Norwegian Wind came from a jumper that my youngest son bought. He lives in Norway and so the name. Carol's version is here	C13 Winter Secrets
Maypole  is made in an interesting manner. I made two identical blocks and then cut sections out from one of them and appliquéd them onto the other reversing the colours.. my appliqué skills were definitely improving although it was just a circle that had to be appliquéd so no points or tricky bits. For a TOTALLY  different appearance check out Carol's two versions here.	C13 Nature's Force	Natures's Force was simply six arcs sewn together. If you check out Carol's block you will see though that it is also easily made using appliqué.
C13 Maypole	Spinning Spokes was my first attempt at really tiny hexagons NOT made with English Paper Piecing and it was a success confirming that this was a method I could avoid for now and the future.... try it. You will be amazed. Carol again showed a total change with her colour choices here.	C13 Spinning spokes

Collection 12 - Where Did That Name Come From?

Collection 12	Collection 12 contains mainly blocks that were designed and made early on in the quilt that became Raconteur.  I hope you enjoy making them as much as I did.	C12 Hidden Extras
Watching was a very easy design to draw..but took several goes before I finally thought to resort to using a machine..at least  for parts of it... to centre the white hexagons I had to sew MINUTE triangle to two sides. I finally worked out it was best to strip piece this section and then it was a piece of cake	C12 Watching	Hidden Extras, look closely at this block and you will see a blue star in the centre. It appears to be  'made' by quilting lines but no I did actually sew those little triangles in separately. I had made a mistake when cutting the fabric and as I wasn't home when I sewed it I couldn't cut out more fabric.
C12 Turnaround	Doesn't Turnaround remind you of those artists who juggle sticks of fire. You can see them spinning and turning in the air. In Sparrow's Flight one can remember the little birds as they flit in and out from the bird feeders	C12 Sparrow's Flight
My youngest son has always participated in many charity fund raisers and Relay for Life was one of these. As part of their 'kit' everyone received a pair of lilac shoe laces.	C12 Relay for Life	There are few movies I remember from my youth and No Roses for Michael is one of those. It came out early on when drugs were becoming more common and was part of a government scare campaign. I always remembered the name and the poor fellow in the gutter at the end. It was probably one of the things that terrified me enough to keep me from experimenting in my youth.
C12 Lemon Souffle	Lemon Souffle was for many years my favourite summer desert. It isn't your usual hot runny version but a cold desert. Light as the name suggests but held together with gelatine.... must make another one soon.	C12 No Roses For Michael

Collection 11 - Where Did That Name Come From?

Collection 11	Well Collection 11 must be the most insane collection.  This collection contains about 500 individual pieces! Yet it doesn't contain the block with the most pieces from the entire collections. these are gorgeous blocks but if you haven't paper pieced before then I strongly suggest you do the exercises in the tutorial I uploaded earlier.	C11 Mandola at Midnight
Don't you just love those little children who hold up an assortment of fingers declaring I'm Three and what could me more enjoyable than a Rose Garden... well a rose garden that is maintained by someone else. I live opposite a TAFE college which taught horticulture. The students practiced on my garden and I enjoyed the fruits of their labour. Carol's blocks I'm Three and Rose Garden	C11 The Rose Garden	Mandola at Midnight - yes I did design this at midnight. I had received QNM just that day but being very busy didn't have the opportunity to read it until bedtime. This became another night of little sleep and so I decided I may as well get up and have a go at designing my own mandola as the directions seemed so easy :) To read more about this block and also to see Carol's block click here.
C11 I'm Three	Lynn Hewitt is a NSW quilter who teaches throughout the state. At one retreat I attended she taught sashiko and everyone in the class agreed it was a most relaxing pastime.	C11 Lynn  Loves Sashiko
Tall Ships was a variation on a block that I found in Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks. I can't remember which issue but it was an early one. The original block was an eight point star and didn't resemble ships at all... shows you how poor I am at trying to modify something... new block though	C11 Tall Ships	Hunter's Web was supposed to be a log cabin. If you found you way into this cabin you might not find your way out. Carol's block
C11 Winter Sun	I know there is little Winter Sun apparent in this block but it is what I think the winter sun would be like in the cold northern hemisphere where the sun seldom shines in summer. Carol's  block is a lot brighter.	C11 The Hunter's Web

Scrumbles & Collection 9

Collection 9

Never let it be said that Carol is one dimensional. Not only does she sew but she also knits and crochets as evidenced by the photos here. On the left we have Collection 9. I think that is here fourth or fifth collection finished so far. Aren't the colours dramatic?

To the right is one of the scrumbles which she made. I love the whole idea of scrumbles & attempted to teach Mum how to make these when her dementia was impacting on her crafts. Mum's work in earlier years was exquisite & though her eyesight was failing it had not deteriorated so she couldn't see the change in her work.  She saw the scrumbles as something I would do, but not as something a 'good' craftsperson would do. Oh how wrong. Wouldn't you love one of these?

Scrumble by Carol

Carol's Collections

Collection 5 Variation

Carol has started to combine her blocks to form a couple of collections. In this blue collection Carol used five of the original blocks from Collection 5 plus two of her own original blocks.
I have enlarged one of her original blocks which fascinates me. It appears to be one of those Japanese folding blocks. I have written to Carol asking how to make these and will include instructions once I receive them....


I hope you can see this block clearly, it is the largest that I could make it. carol has used a bright yellow/orange in the centre which just peeps out.
I have one of those clover puff quilting tools.. yes another whim I had to have which has only been taken out of the packet once. Read the instructions and thought hmmm.
A task for this afternoon.

May be worth trying for my next baby's quilt :) I am now up to my third attempt and boy is sizing proving a problem.... first attempt turned out to be single bed size while second one will be queen size. It's a good thing I don't actually have a baby in need of a cot quilt :)

collection 6 Variation

The second collection are blocks taken mainly from collection 6. Don't the colour changes make the collection look totally different. The Roses in the central block are gorgeous. Carol uses a lot of fussy cutting to highlight features in her blocks. I love the appearance of fussy cut blocks but have never done a lot of it.... less patience than others:)

Collection 10 - Where Did That Name Come From?

Collection 10	Collection 10 contains mainly early blocks ... and how can I tell this? Well simply by the colours of the fabrics used.  Raconteur was to be a pastel quilt. After about 100 blocks I discovered that I wasn't a pastel girl and if I didn't extend my palette then I would never finish. Funny to think that it took me so long to work out pastels weren't my thing ... I'd had to scrounge many of the fabrics for my early blocks from my friend Margaret :)	C10 Twenty One
Fiesta was obviously named because of the colour and pattern in the fabric, very similar to what one would expect to see when ribbons are twirling in the air at the parades of a South American party.  I just had a thought I hope fiesta means party as I never bothered to look it up just thought it did.	C10 Fiesta	As I said in my BOM post Twenty-One was named because that was the name that popped into my head at the time.... surprisingly it is also the number of pieces of feature fabric that was used... I only discovered this when writing the previous post.
C10 Rainbow Writing	What do children in kindergarden spend an unbelievable amount of time doing? Rainbow Writing, writing words over the top of themselves using as many different colours as possible. Looks pretty ..takes time.	C10  Sweet September
I don't think there is actually an airport called US International but travelling through the USA it never ceased to amaze me how busy and full their airports always were. Few places of peace, or places to relax between flights.	C10 US International	September is spring and that is when the lavendar blossoms. I love when the lilac blosoms tumble to the ground... Sweet September
C10 Salmon Run	Salmon Run, the young fish are washed into the sea andspread afar. Yet years later return to waters they never knew. Some make it back others are not so fortunate. Who didn't grow up watching The Mouscateers? I still remember the Xmas I received my own mouse ears hat. Never see them these days.  Yes Mickey was My Hero.	C10 My Hero

Collection 9 - Where Did That Name Come From?

	Collection 9 - moving along the second row of the quilt..only a few more rows to go:) The origins of Sports Day was in my previous post	C9 Sports Day
Childish Tube - do you remember that old tractor tyre that you would take to the local swimming hole. Everyone would hang onto it or then you would play King of the Castle and see who could stay on the longest. Wrapping your legs as tight as possible around the tube was your only chance of staying on.	C9 Childish Tube	Accepted Few is a reminder of the nastiness of schools and the groups, who is in and who is not. School isn't always a happy place for one and all.
C9 Rabbits in the Light	Rabbits in the Light  yes I was a country kid and we did go rabbit hunting. When I was a child it was to provide food on the table and the way my mum prepared it was the best. Nothing as sweet as memories of childhood favourites.	C9 Accepted Few
Denali is a mountain in Alaska and although it is quite high the day we visited there was so much cloud cover that all that could be seen were a couple of smallish hills	C9 Portrait Pain	Portrait Pain we have all been there ..school photos.. stand straight look this way smile now..you all know the routine... My eldest always hated them and although he had the money to pay for the photos he would regularly skip out, particularly at high school. I think I only have two photos of him while there.
C9 Denali	When Two are One was made to represent how two people in love can develop as one each making the other complete.	C9 When Two are One