Sunday, November 6, 2016

IN WHICH THE AUTHOR REVISITS THE PAST.........
This quilt is adapted from a pattern by Maggie Walker called the Blue Collection.  I finished it about 3 years ago and never displayed it as I started blogging about 4 months ago.  Here is a photo of the original pattern By Maggie Walker:
Here are the quilts side by side you you can see what changes I made to the pattern-not necessarily an improvement but just more me since I was the one making the quilt.



The first change you will notice is that I used just one yellow for the background.  I could see the advantage of user darker shades as there are some light colored vases which show up better against a darker yellow.  The second main change is the border treatment.  I did not like the odd greenery growing out of the vases so I added a (to me) cleaner lined oriental filigree shape.  Flowers are growing out of my vases.




I adapted these flowers from a Dover Publication and stitched down honeybees to sip the nectar from the purpler flowers.  These were some earrings and I removed the earhook.

Maggie's pattern does not limit itself to just oriental blue pottery but also includes A couple English teapots and a country pitcher.  I googled oriental pottery to seek out some oriental shapes and replaced about 6 of the pattern pots with ones of my design.

In my search for fabrics, I could not always find what I wanted.  For instance I wanted a dragon fabric and also a stork fabric.  Being unable to find these in one fabric, I combined two fabrics and appliqued the shapes I wanted to the vase fabric.


 The Chinese greenery and the stork are broderie perse against the plain blue vase.  In the photo below, the dragon was taken from some fabric I had on hand and I designed some little squiggles, and added the trim.
The little pot to the left is a lidded Chinese teacup, one of the googled shapes as is the dragon pot.

I rearranged the upper part of the stems and leaves and moved the fruit around because I did not like the apple just sitting there on a branch.  The blue lotus flower pot is also a shaped I googled.  This was where the country pitcher sat and I wanted an all oriental pottery look.



To carry on the consistency of  oriental pottery motifs, I changed the fan that Maggie placed at the top of her quilt with a rice bowl and cherry blossoms made of little hexagons.

One fun happenstance was the lid on the blue and white floral pot on the bottom left.  I found a fabric with lots of mingled, overlapping Chinese pots but was able to pull out the lid having a Chinese lion as a handle and made the little floral pot to fit it. That little pot is composed of 2 fabric but looks like one.

The last photo is a pot decorated with a sashiko embroidery design of maple leaves.  Quilts give us all a chance to try out techniques about which we are curious.

So that is a blast from the past.  I loved collecting fabric for this quilt and making it.  It was a long search to find fabric which seemed appropriate and I find I am stilling looking at blue and white fabric for that perfect pot.

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Sweet Surrender was not neglected this week but not having my Juki really put me at odds with myself.  I made the 4 half triangle corner flowered appliques so that's progress.  The main event this week was the exploration of foundation piecing.  I watched a couple of you tube videos and got started.  It is trickier than it looks and requires some practice.  I still am not sure if I am doing it right.  
I ended up piecing in rows.  That is the first row of 4 diamonds and a triangle was one foundation piece.  The second foundation piece was the next row of 3 diamonds and a triangle....etc.  The I pieced the 4 sections together.

HERE IS MY QUESTION:  is it possible to make a shape such as this without breaking it down into sections?  Someone tell me...(Gretchen?)

Here is the right side.  Aside from the blurry photo, you can see it all came together well.  Apparently, before rotary cutters and mats and modern rulers, a lot of pieced quilts were made using this method.  

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That's all the news that fit to print for this week.  I have not heard from Sewingmachinesplus about my Juki but their allotted 3-7 days to repair the juki will not be up until Thursday so they still are preserving their A+ rating.

On Tuesday, election day, we are going straight to netflix without one glance at election news.  We will find out Wednesday morning  what the future will be.

HAPPY QUILTING!


I am linking up with my old favorites.  You can click on any of the buttons on the left to go to their link ups and see pretty quilts and interesting ideas.








21 comments:

  1. That is a gorgeous quilt... so much work! I can't even image doing all that stitching!
    Hope you enjoyed some slow stitching time today!

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  2. The quilt you showed with all the oriental pots, bowls and vases is stunning! Love the way you used the fabrics. It is amazing!! I can nog find the right words to say how much I like it. Greetings Aurora

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  3. What a stunning quilt! And I much prefer the cleaner lines of your version to the original. Beautiful. xx

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  4. Asian fabrics are so very interesting. Wish I could help you out on Sweet Surrender. I do like foundation piecing per Carol Doak's method. Back in the day, I think people did strip piece the diamond-shape rows. Inklingo is good for accurate piecing either by machine or hand. Hope your Juki is fixed soon.

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  5. This blue collection quilt is just amazing....what a stunning design and I found it interesting to read about your fabric searches and adaptions to the design. Just beautiful!!

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  6. Your Blue Collection quilt is Gorgeous!
    I love all the fabulous changes you made to personalize this quilt.

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  7. I see that you add your own touches and changes when making a quilt pattern into a quilt.

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  8. You are AMAZING!!!!! What a wonderful quilt you have made.

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  9. Another wow quilt love your version !!

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  10. A great inspiration you are bidding on today with your linking to Show and Tell Monday !! Hug Bambi

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  11. I read this post with great interest and am so enthralled with the way you can take a pattern and make it uniquely yours. But I just love the overall blue and yellow look of both quilts. Another complete beauty, Pam.

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  12. What a gorgeous quilt! I love the changes you made to the original pattern. Wow! It's stunning. Thank you for sharing it with us.

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  13. You do absolutely amazing work! Love!!

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  14. Applauding your lovely yellow background! It does create a setting that makes all your applique sing. And the border treatment you decided on looks less cluttered compared to the original - yours compliments the quilt and still keeps the eye on all the fabulous jars and vases - well done!!! I think many of us retreated to our sewing caves to escape...it will take awhile to move away from the last 18 months...

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  15. I have the same pattern - it is waiting, waiting, waiting! LOL. You really do some wonderful things with your quilts by putting your own spin on each project! Sweet Surrender is really coming along and like the colors you have selected. I am finding out again that I am just not a scarppy quilter! Darn!

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  16. I love how you changed the pattern to make it your own. When you do this, do you design the whole pattern out before you start-on paper?

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  17. I like your adaptations very much -- appreciate the cleaner look of the borders which makes the entire quilt easier to look at for me!

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  18. Sorry...I am trying to catch up on reading blogs...I missed this post! I love your version of this quilt! I am enjoying your cleaner lines and less cluttered overall appearance. Your fabric choices are so inspiring...does your little corner of Missouri have any good shops? It is basically a quilt shop desert where I recently moved. I have a few delft blue pieces that I bought when I spotted them, thinking they would be good for urns or dishes some day, but they aren't as good as yours! The dragon and the lion are so awesome. You are so good at playing with fabric, and it so obviously shows that you are having a ball!

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  19. Beautiful post.
    Beautiful quilts.
    Beautiful link.
    Thank you.

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