| 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. |
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| 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 |
| 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. | ||||
| 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. |
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| 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 |
| 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 | ||||
| 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. |
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Friday
Collection 11 - Where Did That Name Come From?
Collection 10 - Where Did That Name Come From?
| 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 :) |
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| 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. |
| 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. | |||||
| 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. |
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| 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. |
| September is spring and that is when the lavendar blossoms. I love when the lilac blosoms tumble to the ground... Sweet September | |||||
| 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. |
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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:) Sports Day was made at the end of a long day at school. When I first started teaching I taught at a wonderful school which had these great sports days where there was an event for any child who wanted to participate. Many schools now still carry on this idea and I love the friendships that are displayed on these days in particular. This block was to represent the parachute activities that are common particularly when little children are involved. The children hold onto the edge and lift it up as high as they can and then run inside while a few strategically placed adults remain on the edge holding it out. Laughter always dominates these events. |
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| 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. |
| 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. | ||||
| 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. |
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| 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 |
| 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. | ||||
| When Two are One was made to represent how two people in love can develop as one each making the other complete. |
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Collection 8 - Where Did That Name Come From?
| Collection 8 - can you believe we have come so far already? This collection contains a few of my favourite blocks, many of which were made early on as can be told by the soft pastel fabrics that were used. |
| Spring Surprise was given its name because of the soft fabrics reminded me of the pansies that were blooming at the time. | ||||
| Too Many Thorns - Just like our roses so many points and so many thorns. Banana Custard - this must have been made in winter. With my sweet tooth banana custard is one of my many favourites. |
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| City Living - the tightness of this design suggested what I see as life in the city - Too much! Too close! The dream of distant open spaces. Rising Mist - Umbrellas within a sea of blue. What better name? |
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| Summer Picnic - Doesn't the floral fabric remind you of those frocks we all wore when we were younger. King of Versailles - yes this was made during one of our visits to our son who was studying in Paris at the time. A beautiful city and so suited to us. We loved the early morning walks where many streets were empty as the city didn't wake up until 10:00. |
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Collection 7 - Where Did That Name Come From?
Merry Margaret
This single block is one of the corner collections. The corner and side collections are made of extended hexagons to fill the spaces so the quilt is easy to finish off rather than being in and out as hexagonal quilts often are.
So who is Margaret?
She is a close friend of mine who I worked with for many years .... well really simply shared an office. Both of us worked with special needs children but in different areas of need. We were both itinerant teachers and so were based at one school for all of our administration but travelled to various schools to help the children on our caseloads. It was hoped with support from teachers such as ourselves that children with special needs could remain in a regular class in their local school. Both of us would visit three, four or sometimes more schools in a day.
Margaret took up patchwork when we worked together ... I seemed to have that effect on many coworkers introducing them to my obsession :-) She enjoyed traditional quilts and at one time took a particular like to the 1930s fabrics.
This fabric came from her stash and the heart at the bottom represents our mutual friendship and the star was added to give the block the appearance of a flower.
Collection 6 - Where did that name come from?
This collection contains one of my favourite blocks Crystal Dreams, the fabrics do nothing to showcase the design but I still love it.
| Short Changed was one of the first blocks that were based on a smaller grid with an extra border. The original aim was to leave space for highlighting quilting, but my skills were too poor, atrocious is a more apt description for my machine quilting. Anyway due to my level of quilting skills I ended up leaving the area still plain.. Would like to see someone do something with their skills. |
| Crystal Dreams was designed to show some flowers in a crystal vase. The diamond cut that is common on many of the crystal vases inspired the design. Isn't it surprising that two fabrics that looked good together in strips don't come up so well when sewn...and then top it off with my being too lazy to resew the block...viola! | ||||
| Disappearing Hope was made at a time when things were going pretty badly within my family after an argument with my father. Many things weren't too good at that time, but the block still looks good. |
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| Fake Hands was made around the same time as Disappearing Hope. People pretend to care but spite and jealousy cause a lot of harm..and then they walk away, leaving much damage. |
| Enter With Care - my eldest son worked for a while at Lucas Heights nuclear reactor and he would joke about consequences of a nuclear mishap. Youth knows no fear. | ||||
| The title With Care came from the fact that care needed to be taken when fussy cutting this block. |
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| Strung Out was made about the same time as Disappearing Hope and Fake Hands. Gorgeous blocks for not such a nice time:) |
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Links
Links to blocks by Carol -
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Monday
Collection 5 - Where Did That Name Come From?
Collection 5 contains some of my favourite blocks and many were early blocks in the design and making of Raconteur. How can I tell this? By looking at the colours used. Raconteur was to be my first 'pastel' quilt. However as I progressed I decided that baby pastels were just not my style and although I attempted to still remain in the pastel range I ventured into the stronger pastels such as those used in Mums Among the Gold, Echoes and Behind Walls.
So now for the origin of the names.
 | Behind the Walls - doesn't each individual section remind you of someone sitting alone in a little room, locked in their own thoughts and own world. Are they all the same or just that little bit different? You will never know for certain. |
 | Pointing the Finger was named after a long day spent mainly in primary schools. One thing which I always found interesting when working with children from toddler stage to the end of high school was the different ways that problems were sorted. I understood little kids would cry, you ask, they tell the cause...easy peasy. High school they sort out a lot of things with their friends or by themselves. Primary school they dob... jealous about something... dob on the kid, angry with someone...dob, doing the wrong thing...dob on someone else.... the day is full of kids dobbing, which is a slang word meaning to tell on someone or point the finger. |
 | Gift Wrapped - don't the arrow heads remind you of that gorgeous ribbon bow that arrives upon parcels which are wrapped by someone who has a lot more skill than I do with curling ribbon. Every year at Xmas I attempt to master the curling ribbon with scissors trick... never does it look as beautiful as my expectations or someone else's effort... but I keep hoping. |
 | Echoes should have been called Ripples as it was named after the effect you see when dropping pebbles in the water but at the time the only word I could think of was echoes. |
 | Baby Blue was named because of the fabric colours. Did you realise that until recently blue wasn't always for boys and pink wasn't always for girls? The evolution of our preference for these colours for the particular sex has come about just since the first world war. Prior to that time both boys and girls wore the same crisp white dresses as girls until they were 6 or 7 years old. These colours were chosen for practicality since it was easiest to bleach everything. The bleaching rendered everything both clean and hygienic. Then pastel colours were introduced and babies were generally dressed in either. However around the time of World War I, there developed the fear that a child would grow up perverted if s/he were dressed in the 'wrong' coloured clothes and so the clothes became gender specific and with time these colours became set in stone. Research shows it could have quite easily gone the other way with pink being for boys and blue for girls. Men are gradually changing and wearing pink, particularly in Australia following the strong support from various male sporting teams for Breast Cancer Awareness, whose official colour is pink. However this has not been extended into baby's clothes. |
 | Mums Among the Gold - this one is a direct reference to the fabrics used. The bright pink reminded me of chrysanthemums and although not clear in the photo, the background fabric is a gold print on a white background. |
 | Taylor's World was named after a student that I taught and the title is from a book which her mum, Jenny, wrote about Taylor's first few years and the trials and tribulations in the family during those years. Taylor is a great kid and I enjoyed teaching her. She is someone who gives her best all of the time. |
Sunday
Collection 4 - Where Did That Name Come From?
The title Your Decision comes from the fact that the curve in this block is a basic one from mathematics. It is known as either a sine cure or a cosine curve, the only difference between the two is where they start.
While making the block I couldn't decide which fabric would be the feature and which the background. The decision decides the border fabric - your decision.
Green With Envy is a simple block made when I was practicing making very small strips and then trying a bargello idea. The name came purely from the fabrics which were two beautiful Japanese florals - bet you wouldn't have guessed that.
The fine strips in Rainbow Semaphore suggested the flags waving about when people used flags on a pole for semaphore... or what I think they looked like.
Do you remember the lovely floral frocks you wore as a child on a Summer's Day.. well if you were born in the 50s or early 60s that is..before the advent of stretch wear.
New Beginnings was made as a reminder to the start of a new life for my sister and her son when they moved into their own place.
I was visiting my brother-in-law one day and as we sat having coffee and cake, non-fattening almost, there were a couple of Birds protesting at the Window. My BIL feeds many of the birds in the area and they felt it was time for their snack too.
Oh the freedom when you ventured out to the paddocks with just your bucket, wearing shorts and T-shirts to pick the sweet blackberries.... such fun.. and even though you returned home scratched all over from the thorns, did you remember to dress more appropriately next time? Not me... Blackberry Freedom
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