Jungle Paradise

Hello lovely lovelies♡ Here I am again thinking upon the week that was. This week flashed by in a blur. A new quilt was made and and a quilt on which I've spent many many, many hours stitching came to a startling halt.

My Flower Meadow quilt. As I was yet again stitching my flowery pretty I realised  there was something horribly amiss.  I began to add hexies to the the right side to even up the side vertically and discovered in every second row there will be one extra hexie than the left side. Oh no!!!! I sat looking at it for ages thinking how in-the-hell did this happen......and how could I  fix it?? No matter what my brain, which I must say was in a state of bewilderment, came up with to fix this problem, the right side was always going to be one hexie out of line in every second row than the left side. No fudging, no tweaking here and there, was going to work as hexies are a tessellation and whatever I thought of was going to be a glaring eyesore, however my addled mind sought to remedy the problem. Quilts mostly are symmetrical and for the design my very muddly mind (obviously a more muddly mind than is usual) devised, the vertical rows on both sides have to be the same. Is devastated a too dramatic word to relay my feelings???? =) Well, to put it lightly I am a bit miffed. 

A rookie mistake in the imagining and planning of this quilt, I'm afraid. It's strange what my brain doesn't think of. I have said this ad nauseum.....the obvious to me sometimes ain't obvious! The quilting world can breathe a very big sigh of relief that Kim Sharman isn't in the designing-of-quilt-patterns, business. Of course, if I depended on one of those computer programs that work out the maths and the putting together of quilt puzzles then it would've been quite evident from the start there was going to be a problem. This go-with-the-flow ethos sometimes gets it horribly wrong.

What will I do now with my pretty but asymmetrical Flower Meadow?? My immediate thought was to vanquish it to the dark abyss and perhaps begin to unpick each hexie flower with many, many impossibly invisible stitches sometime.......in the very distant future, but I had invested too much of my time to throw it into some dark cupboard never to see the light of day for a very long time.

So the unpicking began. I very carefully began to unpick the teeny tiny, almost invisible stitches even though I was most definitely in the mood for a little fabric massacre with my  'Jack The Ripper'. Common sense prevailed over my murderous tendencies and I unhappily unpicked away. That was late Wednesday evening.

Oh, but wait........Thursday morning a thought did cross my mind after an impossibly long time unpicking four flower hexies. Did I really want to unpick a further eighty or so flower hexies??!! Hell no!!!! What if I chose a different fabric for the border to skip around all the flowers?? Now, in the beginning I was going to hand stitch the flower meadow to a fabric for the border and design a trailing vine (perhaps) of hexies around the edge; but what if I made a lot of hexies out of the border fabric and added them all the way around the flower meadow. Of course, I would have to throw my design thoughts for the border out the window but perhaps I could continue.  The design would still be asymmetrical, a little askew but perhaps it wouldn't be so obvious to the eyes. Only you and I would know. You won't tell anyone, will you?? I wonder, is this a light beam from the heavenly realms to save my little meadow overspilling with beautiful flowers from the dark abyss?? Or is it just wishful thinking on my part??

I didn't originally intend to have a border filled with a gazillion little hexies, but I don't want to stash this away having it never seeing the light of day again. Besides, after unpicking a few hexies, which took an age, I wasn't going to give in that easy. I am a stubborn wench! Perhaps my Flower Meadow will be half acceptable. At least I can but try. Am I up to stitching a gazillion little hexies.....as well as some more fussy cut hexie flowers?? Dunno, really. Let's just say I am not as enamoured with my Flower Meadow as I once was.

So, feeling very ho-hum after my calamitous predicament   I dusted off months of gathered dust from my sewing machine and fashioned a new little quilt. A child's quilt. A quilt for a charity called Dandelion, which helps families and children in need. More than ever there are so many families who are one pay cheque away from hard times; impossible situations, so if I can fashion a quilt or two, to help lighten the emotional heartache in a child's day, then it is the least I can do. After all a quilty hug handmade with love would surely put a smile in a little one's day. I have wanted to make some quilts for this charity for a while now so what better time than now??

With my good-ol'-girl of a sewing machine whirring away I quickly whipped up a quilt using 5" charm squares called Jungle Paradise, designed Stacy lest Hsu. It is a bright and playful, whimsical collection  where monkeys swing from vine to vine while squawking toucans and trilling parrots sit in safety of the canopy of the trees from tigers and leopards prowling the jungle floor below. Green Tree frogs are leaping here and there while elephants slowly walk among the labyrinthian undergrowth causing the jungle to vibrate with each step.  A happy little band of animals against a background of teals, pinks, yellows, oranges, emerald greens.......just waiting to hug a child. For the borders I used a geometric pattern with brightly coloured tiny polka dots by Tula Pink and for the backing another Tula Pink fabric with dots dancing all over. A perfect match me thinks. The machine quilting is simple with diagonal quilting lines intersecting each square and straight lines dancing around the border. The binding, which I hand stitched yesterday is the same fabric as the backing. Hand stitching the binding I know for some of you is your favourite part of making a quilt. For me....definitely not so!

A simple quilt but one that is visually pleasing and fun. Hopefully it will find it's way to a sweet child who at day's end will cosily snuggle under it and when sleep time bids, drifts off into the land of counterpane, to the wild land of overgrown vegetation and tangled vines, where wild adventures with all the playful jungle animals await. 

Before I go to enjoy a little Sunday hand stitching, this week a package arrived for me. It was from a beautiful lady, Elizabeth, a fellow aussie who reads my blog and thought I needed this pretty remnant of fabric and bag handles. Oh my, the fabric is beautiful with. flowers, frogs, butterflies, lady bugs and hummingbirds. It will surely have to find a home on a garden theme quilt sometime down my flowery, quilting path. Then there are the bag handles Elizabeth found in an op shop!! Oh my, just exquisite!! Little wooden handles with floating swans on either side. Truly, I don't think I have seen such charming handles before. And......from an op shop, no less. I will have to design something worthy of these handles. My deepest thanks, lovely Elizabeth. Your generosity and kindness has humbled me♡

Have a beautiful Sunday, lovely lovelies♡ Me thinks I might enjoy a little hand quilting of my Crazy Flowers quilt this afternoon, for I'm in a no thinking, happy, hand quilting, frame of mind. Besides, she and me haven't spent much time together, of late. =)

Until the next time................