Kaleidoscopes and colour - a bit heavy on photos!

A big thank you for all the encouragement you gave me after

my last post and the borders are on,

I couldn't get a good full photo so we'll have to make do

with a quarter shot

on a bit of angle - sorry.

  This is the third kaleidoscope quilt I've made and like most kids

I had a toy kaleidoscope which fascinated me.

A few years ago I bought a modern version of the kiddies

"turning the end"model and later another which relies on a huge

marble held at one end and manually rotated. I worked

out how to take photographs of the patterns created - not

an easy task - I've taken a photo of a photo to show you.

I have shots of some amazing patterns, the photos above don't do justice

to the colour.

I love colour, as you all know, in my fabric choices, the sky scenes

and garden flowers. Two days ago I noticed a stream of light hitting

one of my cyclamen and the stem seemed translucent

love this peep of red amongst the greenery.

My husband paints in oils, acrylics and watercolour, I love

watercolour and the strangest things attract me.

He was about to clean off his palette one day when I shrieked to him

to stop, I loved the effect of all the colours used

blending in together.

Another of my favourite colour fixes comes from posts by my internet friend 

Alison Crosthwaite  in the UK. Alison is a spinner and weaver and also a painter,

I rub my hands with glee when I see one of her posts, they explode with colour.

She's just published a book and whilst it's not about quilting I wanted

to quickly show you the cover.

If you're interested

you can see how wonderfully Alison uses colour by visiting

her blog
alisonsartweave.blogspot.co.uk

That's all from me, hope you've managed to get through
all the photos!
Enjoy the weekend.

Maureen

Kaleidoscope 2 aka Helicopters

Mmmm, I was hoping to show a finished top to join the 

Kaleidoscope of Butterflies link up, I've only completed the central

piece - and have a bit of a disaster on my hands.

You can probably see why in the photo below.

Two issues with this

a) my iron decided to spit out gunge on the cream fabric second row from bottom

b) the dark fabrics are showing through two layers of the cream by the seam lines,

in some cases.

I was extremely careful to trim away any excess knowing that it's so easy

to get a shadow effect, I should have used a heavier weight cream

fabric - lesson learned!

I am so cross with myself, I don't know whether I can bear to put

the border on! I guess I could quilt 1/4" away from the seam

which would hide any shadowing through.

My little companion cheered me up as we played in the garden

here she is against a backdrop of weeds and now just over one year old! Oops my

watermark has landed across her little white paws.

Off to join the link-up with 

Ann and Cathy

Have a happy weekend.

Maureen

Kaleidoscope - stripping again!

A little more work on the Kaleidoscope quilt - starting

with these strips of varying widths,

these then get cut into blocks

which then are sewn into a long chain and

using my Kaleidoscope ruler I then cut these into

the pieces below

and when I have enough variety these have spotty

corners added and join up with plain cream wedges below.

If I follow the pattern (Kathy Doughty & Sarah Fielke) exactly there will be a piano key style border as shown above,

possibly a little deeper than these left over sets shown here.

I have a few more partial blocks made but I forgot to starch some of the dotty fabrics

and ended up with terrible corners so more work's needed to fix these.

I'm loving grabbing strips out of the box and stitching up with no

matching of colour or width - great stress reliever this pattern.

Speaking of stress relief a wander around the garden

showed another of my Vireya rhodos flowering,

just what is needed in the Autumn garden!

Have a good weekend, back again soon.
Linking up with Cynthia for Oh Scrap!

Maureen

Cutting out and Computers

Why do computers cause grief just when we need to edit photos

and write a post!!

I haven't been able to check my reading list properly for

a few days and the darn computer totally closed down on me

earlier this afternoon, hopefully it will keep working until

I've finished this.

 First up I've now sliced up 8 and 1/2" strips for Chinese Coins

and been playing around with added solids

and  many years ago we bought six of these large Chinese Coins below

in one of those ethnic shops, presently used as mats for hot mugs

of tea/coffee, I intend to  incorporate the shape

into the quilt. Possibly raw edge applique or even photo transfer.

More cutting for Kaleidoscope

more spot fabrics for the four corners and plain cream for the

alternate wedges.

I also pulled more strips from my clean up cut bin and started

on those.

It's great fun just feeding these strips through the machine

without thinking of trying to co-ordinate colour or pattern.

I ended up with rather a good plateful - thanks to Julie for a great idea!

 I was looking at the Japanese Maple in the back garden this morning

and noticed the colour was just beginning to turn,

eventually we'll have lots and lots of the little two winged seed capsules

floating all over the place, I thought back to when we were kids in Autumn

 in England,  there would be thousands of these things falling
from the trees, whirling around and around - we just called them aeroplanes,

I guess because of the similarity to propeller blades, just like the eight "blades"

in the kaleidoscope block.

Not what I would call a stimulating post from me but

before my computer packs up on me again I'm off to try and catch up on two days of blog

posts, hope you're having a good week free from computer glitches!

A Magic Carpet Ride and Friday Favourites

It's worked out that this week I've rolled two

posts into one.

The Kaleidoscope quilt is now a flimsy waiting to be quilted, I'm thrilled

with how it looks. You might remember I wanted

to create the impression of an old Persian carpet and I think

I've achieved that. So, here is

Isfahan

photographed early this morning in the back garden. I had to

maneouvre the display board down there to catch the light.

Measuring 48" x 64", the colours are a little lighter in this photo

due to the sun.
No border going on this quilt.

Isfahan draped over my much loved old bench seat

My Friday Favourite is an old Royal Doulton jug
from a pottery range made under the header
Under The Greenwood Tree

This jug belonged to a dear old Aunt of mine, her collection of pottery
came to me after she died. She was the Aunt who was born in 1903
and went into "service" at the age of 13yrs - shades of the downstairs
maids in Downton Abbey. I wish now we had been able to enjoy
more conversations about her early days. 

I'm way behind on replying to comments left on my
blog last Friday, apologies to those bloggers, it's been a funny old week made complete by two broken
teeth and two visits to the dentist.

One bright spot was a package of fabric received

I love artichokes but only to look at, not to eat!

and

I couldn't resist the colours in the fabrics below.

I think that's all from me this week but I'm off  to link with

Ann  and Cathy
at
Kaleidoscope of Butterflies

Maureen