flying geese all follow the kite

This month has got off to a good start. I got my potholders for the Bee a {modern} swapper April swap out the door on time, despite getting a little ambitious in the designs.

We were to make two potholders, and my partner liked blue. I can manage blue. I could probably do  three king-size quilts only and entirely in blue. So the first one, a small version of the Cracker Scraps block, was straightforward enough:

The quilting, through two layers of Insulbrite, produced a reassuringly thick layer of thermal protection, but it did slide out of true a teensy bit despite dense pin-basting. Sigh. I shall get better at quilting Insulbrite.

I decided to be a little more experimental for the second, but with precision. Dan over at Piece and Press made a beautiful curved rainbow flying geese arch as part of the Travelling Quilts bee:

and when I saw it, I thought immediately of how much it looked like the tail of a kite. Thanks to his kindness in making the pattern available, I printed a few at a small size and started merrily piecing:

then added a kite to go with it. Took a little bit of fiddling to get it at the right angle to continue the curve; I might try it larger in proportion to the tail-geese next time. The fabric is Kathy Davis Journeys, Dragonfly Dance:

and free-motioned the quilting. A bit larger than the other, but can double as a pot stand?

I’m quite tempted to see how this would look with a longer tail at a larger scale. Perhaps 1.2 m long or so, and a multi-piece quadrant kite about 25 cm long.

The potholders have nice multicoloured backings to suit their purpose. The number of fabrics produced by indigenous Australian designers is increasing quite fast.

And now they have headed off over the ocean to their new home. All good kites should fly free eventually.

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Posted by Taisia @ Piecing Light on May 3, 2012

http://piecinglight.wordpress.com/2012/05/03/flying-geese-all-follow-the-kite/