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You are here: Home / Archives for decorating

Grit

February 25, 2015 By Kirsty 14 Comments

 

Grit patchwork wall quilt, a modern mini-quilt by Bonjour Quilts. All squares and HSTs, easy for beginners!Grit: perseverance and resilience. Grit: Courage and resolve; strength of character.

However you define it, I think we’d all agree that a bit of grit is a good thing. A lot of grit, even better.

This topic has come up often in our home of late as we negotiate mathematics, French, musical instruments, etc with our kids. These things are hard and they can’t be learnt overnight. In the case of music, they can’t even expect to be competent after a year.

We talk a lot about unrealistic expectations, persistence, coping with frustration/feeling inadequate and just doing the work.

I thought, hey, why not make a reminder of this to hang on the wall, because that’s what us crazy craft ladies do.

Grit patchwork wall quilt, a modern mini-quilt by Bonjour Quilts. All squares and HSTs, easy for beginners!

After cutting my 1.5″ squares and sewing up my 1.5″ HSTs, I used a heavy weight fusible to give it some body and keep all those little intersections nicely lined up.

Grit patchwork wall quilt, a modern mini-quilt by Bonjour Quilts. All squares and HSTs, easy for beginners!The squares and HSTs were 1 inch when sewn. The piece is 12″ x 21″.

Grit patchwork wall quilt, a modern mini-quilt by Bonjour Quilts. All squares and HSTs, easy for beginners!

Once it was basted I matchstick-quilted the letters vertically, then all the black squares horizontally. For the low volume fabrics I quilted out radially from the centre. Binding is a white Lizzy House bracelets fabric.

Grit patchwork wall quilt, a modern mini-quilt by Bonjour Quilts. All squares and HSTs, easy for beginners!

Grit now resides in the study with its hand made friends, ever ready to be pointed at when my kids (or I) need a reminder to keep at it.

Grit patchwork wall quilt, a modern mini-quilt by Bonjour Quilts. All squares and HSTs, easy for beginners!

In other news, I broke my fabric diet and bought some Carolyn Friedlander Doe because I am only human.

Beautiful Carolyn Friedlander fabric, Doe, perfect for a modern quilt

I am also super close to putting out a second pattern in my shop. I had some fun with purple on this sample, definitely not one of my go-to colours.

Gather Round, a sneak peak of a modern quilt by Bonjour Quilts
And finally, I will have another newsletter out soon – so if you’d like free instructions for this lap-sized quilt then you know what to do!

JumptheFence

Until next time, happy sewing and grittiness!

P.S. For those interested, here’s a good little TED talk on grit and success and kids.

Filed Under: completed projects, decorating, patchwork, quilting, video Tagged With: new

Old Yeller

September 22, 2011 By Kirsty 21 Comments

Yep, I dang done finished that darn cushion. Seemed to take forever.

y1

I’d been thinking about making this for a while, ever since I saw this picture in Maison Créative. The wall art is made from yellow cardboard; I liked the hexagons and also wanted to mimic how the shadows changed the yellow by using different fabrics.

y2

It finally took the deadline for Rachel’s Celebrate Color Colour (see, doesn’t that look better) competition to get me off my backside and do it.

There is piping and the quilting is fairly heavy – hexagon spirals made with my walking foot (still not brave enough to try free motion).

y5

The back has an envelope style closure with an extra row of triangles. Nice and simple.

y3

Would’ve been simpler if I hadn’t done this:

y4
Bottom panel sewn on back to front.

I don’t know how I end up making silly mistakes like this. Thoughts must’ve wandered.

(Source: People magazine)

Umm. What?

Oh, right. So, I really like this cushion because it gives a nice bright pop of yellow to my couch and goes so well with my other handmade covers.

y6

Why you little…

y7

Nothing a nice glass of rosé can’t fix.

y8

I’m just finishing off this little project…

y9

…and then I get to pull my Go! Baby out of its box. Yay! Hope you’re all having a great week!

Filed Under: completed projects, decorating, design process, Hugh Jackman, patchwork, quilting

HST coffee table mat

March 1, 2011 By Kirsty 13 Comments

Thank you, everyone, for your birthday wishes. You perked me up so much I no longer mind being thirty-*mumblemumble* Thanks!

Secondly, if you’ve been watching the news you would have seen the devastating earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand. It’s heartbreaking. If you can, please head over to the New Zealand Red Cross Earthquake Appeal and make a donation of any size. Thank you.

I have a finish to report. It’s not much, but you have to grab them when they happen! I don’t know why, but this thing seemed to take forever to finish.
Half Square Triangle Table Runner - an easy modern quilt project.

For the uninitiated, HST stands for half-square triangles, which gives a hint as to how these blocks are made.
Half Square Triangle Table Runner - an easy modern quilt project.

I quilted with the square blocks, but also some lines on the diagonal, and I really liked how it turned out. The lines made triangles across the piece – in both the taupe triangles:
Half Square Triangle Table Runner - an easy modern quilt project.

And where the coloured triangles met:
Half Square Triangle Table Runner - an easy modern quilt project.

The material is all from IKEA – a multicoloured duvet cover cut up for the colours and the taupe is a Dvala bed sheet. The binding was my favourite red on the duvet.

Before I sewed my HST blocks together I had some fun auditioning layouts on my design wall.
Half Square Triangle Table Runner - an easy modern quilt project.

Hearts and Diamonds
Half Square Triangle Table Runner - an easy modern quilt project.
Offset diamond
Half Square Triangle Table Runner - an easy modern quilt project.
Funky offset diamond
Half Square Triangle Table Runner - an easy modern quilt project.
Cross
Half Square Triangle Table Runner - an easy modern quilt project.
Cross with heart
Half Square Triangle Table Runner - an easy modern quilt project.
Crazy maze.

I’m thinking I might have to make something else in that cross shape, it does something for me.

Which design do you prefer?
Half Square Triangle Table Runner - an easy modern quilt project.

Filed Under: completed projects, decorating, design process, quilting

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