Printing

I spent a wonderful day printing fabric down at Betchworth. I am doing a whole Wet and Wild course down there starting in February so I wanted to see what the set up was.  And so I played with the thermafaxes that I had:

This piece started off as a hand dyed pinky-beige colour which certainly did not owe me anything so I was quite pleased with the result of this overall pattern.

This was the base print on some cotton sateen and I then followed it with layers of black and a wonderful named ink "Metallic Chocolate" - says it all really doesn't it.

Then I played using a large wood block which I bought in the summer. I did this on some commercial fabric.

This is on a commercial cream/yellow tone on tone

This was a truly awful olive fabric which I print twice - it looks a lot better than it did. I should have taken a photo of it before I started but you will just have to take my word for it - it was certainly one of those fabric that I seriously wonder why I bought in the first place!!

The setting of the barn is spectacular and we even had snow in the morning. This is the view out of the window

I am now in clean up mode for Christmas. I really need my kitchen back so the cutting board is having to be hidden for the duration of the holidays.

I have three quilts all sandwiched and ready to be quilted over the holidays so hopefully will have at least two finishes by the end of the year.

Hoping you all have a very peaceful and happy Christmas and holidays.

See you in the New Year.

Cool Britannia

I promised ages ago that I would show you a photograph of the challenge which had been set by my group for their Christmas present exchange. As I said before the theme for the present should be Cool Britannia.

Well I did it:

and here is a close up

Now I suspect you are asking what my thought process was to end up with this small offering. Well - Cool Britannia to me means that era at the end of the 1990s here in Britain when Tony Blair was Prime Minister and he was cosying up to lots of pop stars and artists. There was a special group of artists known as the YBA (young Bristish artists) who  were making artistic waves at the time. None more so thatn Damian Hirst with his shark installations and other wonderful weird creations. Well I did not think anyone would want a depiction of those but I love his spot pictures and so I thought I would produce my own homage to his work.  The quilting is done in a kantha style.

I have just spent the most marvellous morning printing fabric - I have never done this before and I really loved it. I used some fabric that really did not owe me anything so I did not mind if I made a complete hash of it all but I really loved it.

I have three thermofaxes which I have picked up at various shows and was just too scared to use. So here are the results so far

The thermofax was the lighter design and then I used a credit card to  put some outline on.  I am thinking it looks rather like a city scape and am wondering what it would look like in shades of brown and grey - watch this space!

Then I used a fax with a flower motif

This definitely needs more work - other colours etc. but I quite like the fax itself.

But my favourite is:

My teacher (hi Maggie!) was very encouraging and made me be much freer than I would normally be - I kind of like things in rows and planned which is was the blue flowers were but then I dabbed on some of the green flowers, followed by the yellow and then the blue/black and finally the sheer white.

Now the challenge is to cut it into three inch squares and see what one could do with it.

I am off to Committed to Cloth tomorrow for the day so I will do some more printing and see what happens.

Is this going to make me give up buying commercial fabric - I am not sure but I think it certainly has possibilities.

Happy quilting.

A quick finish

I spent the weekend machine quilting this quilt

The first thing I have to confess to is that I did not do any of the applique - I bought this piece about five years ago in an interior decorating shop. I also have another one which I will probably do this weekend as well.

But I wanted to use it as a top in order to help practice my machine quilting - I did it in spurts of about 20-30 minutes over three days.

I used a wonky heart and  loop pattern which I just made up. I know that Patsy Thompson has a pattern very similar to this but she goes into the heart at the top and I started from the pointy end. I could not get to grips with her way of doing it. Funny how everyone is different.  Am I pleased with this - well the hearts are certainly wonky and on a few occasions unrecognisable but I think I am being very picky and no-one will notice the flaws.  On the plus side the quilting is fairly even and luckily the varigated Oliver Twist thread I used was very close to the check so you can't see it too much. I used a Wondeful Invisifil thread on the back which was really good - very fine and in an ecru colour did not detract from the fabric on the back.

Gosh I have to finish as I keep on seeing all the mistakes in the close up of the quilting. I need to post this or I shall delete it in horror!!!

Happy Quilting

December challenge

Now that I have completed the Beth Ferrier top I need to think about machine quilting it. This is truly scary so I have decided that I am going to practice every day in December. I have just put together this quilt sandwich

(Apologies for the appalling photograph).  I bought this length of fabric with applique already done on it years ago in an interior decorating shop so I have decided it needs to be quilted.  I can do small samples like everyone on the machine but I need to practice on a larger piece - this is approximately 60" square.

So every day, little by little, I will quilt for about 20-30 minutes and hopefully it will be finished before too long. Then I have another top exactly the same so perhaps both will be finished by the end of the month.  At least it is a good way of using up the stash.

Happy quilting.

Tidying

Wednesday, 23 November 2011

Tidying

My spare room has just been taken over by a lodger and so I have had to move out all my magazines which were cluttering up the place and I now have a knock on effect. Some of the magazines I love and will be keeping but that means they have to go into my sewing room and the fabric previously stored there has retreated to my secret hiding place. Total chaos is ensuing and I am having to go through lots of old magazines which the view to passing them on to my various groups. So I am in house keeping mode and not doing any sewing.

Have just discovered a new website, run by Keepsake Qulting called Uptown quilting which seems to specialise in more modern fabrics. I went to a local quilt shop the other day and bought two fabrics by Valori Wells

Can't you just see this fussy cut into different flower heads - I might even use it on my Roseville quilt.

Also I just loved this next fabric

I even bought 2 metres of it - no idea what to use it for yet but I can just sit and look at it for a while.

Also decided that I needed some more Lecien fabrics. There is a wonderful new Lecien block of the month pattern which has just been released, called Vintage Tiles and I am wondering about doing it. The sutblety of the applique design is fantastic. Have a look. Some of the flowers would also look marvellous in really bold colours I think.

And finally I had to feed my spot habit a bit

So I am off to cut up more magazines

Happy quilting





sorry for not posting

I am sorry that I have not posted for a while but I have been having really bad computer problems which, fingers crossed, are now sorted.  Who would have thought that buying an IPad and trying to get it to talk to a Microsoft computer could be so difficult.

Anyway, in my absence I have been sewing like mad and have finally completed the Beth Ferrier block of the month. It is so big - about 102 inches square, that I can't lay it out anywhere in the house. So yesterday I took it to church with me and laid it on the floor and then photographed it from the balcony.
That is as good as it is going to get.

I promised myself that it would be finished by the end of November and so I am at least a week ahead of myself!!

Boy this was a lot of work and of course it is not finished yet - but I am going to put it aside for a while before I start quilting it.  First I need to practice my machine quilting a LOT before I start on this but also I am going to send it out to be machine basted using water soluble thread - thought that one up in the middle of the night and asked the local long arm quilter if it was possible.  I could not face all the pinning or taking out all the basting thread.

So now I have to get on with my Christmas exchange on the subject of Cool Britannia - I have the idea and now need to knuckle down and do it. As some of the members of the group read this you will all have to wait until the great reveal on 9th December.

So happy quilting wherever you are.

2 borders

I have finally managed to sew two of the inner borders to the central panel - it is almost getting too large to photograph but here is a snapshot

Miracle of miracles, I have also discovered how to use the monopoly thread - lots of practice but I finally worked out that if I reduced the top tension a bit the thread did not break any longer. Thank goodness for that - was beginning to think it might be the machine but hey human error as usual.

I am just bought an IPad as well to read all the blogs and yahoo group messages that I seem to receive on a daily basis (I turned on my computer on Monday morning - having not been on all weekend) and had 72 emails to go through - far too many so hopefully I will be able to keep up to date with everything. Needless to say the reason for buying it was for work and now I can't get emails to appear on the IPad on that account. I feel another visit to the Apple Store coming on later in the week - goodness I hate technology when it does not work!!

Off to help a friend in need with her Bernina 820 - she has been so busy that she has not been sewing much and has forgotten all the helpful hints we were given by our dealer.

Happy quilting.