Red Boat Construction

After spending Saturday giving the bay tree in the garden its' first haircut  in 3 years using 4 different pruning tools, I spent Sunday cutting on a different scale - bits of fabric with scissors and rotary cutter. 5 hours, 2 ironing boards , 2 sewing machines and a scene of devastation for 2 A4 constructions!

For the last weeks I've been at 'Quilt University' on Elizabeth Barton's 'Working in Series' class. It's actually the second time I've done it but there's so much information it takes a while to sink in. Last time I got as far as making some sketches based on houseboats and barges along  the Thames, an ongoing theme for the last couple of  years on 'boat friday' expeditions! I was determined to get a bit further in class to take advantage of Elizabeths excellent feedback  so with CQ Journal Quilts in mind (Shades of Red, A4) did some work on images in Photoshop  using 'channel mixer' and sorted through my red stash attempting to grade by tone.
Found a decent selection of 20 ( with back up of another 40 or so more roughly sorted). Quite sobering to realise how few light tones I have - I'm not really a pastel person but they have their place!

I cut out some rough patterns in paper but mostly cut and pieced as I went along - 3 attempts at inset seams before giving in and cutting into smaller  sections. I might plan the construction next time....