BLOG 64

The week has flown by again with much activity. I am very aware of the passage of time but I do pack a lot into my days so that I have something to look back on at the end of them. The visual evidence is what I include in my blog but in between there is much socialising, mundane tasking and the like.

I am down to earth now after last weeks win at the FOQ. Unfortunately, all the winning quilts are kept and exhibited at other shows until their return in December so I cannot show any detail of the completed panels. However this is the initial design that I drew. One of our members almost decided to drop out, as she didn’t want to make any furry things so I tempted her back on board with the right hand panel. It shows a disappearing tail and it did the trick!

Design right

Design left

The individual meerkats were traced onto calico. The light parts of the fur were prepared as painted bondaweb and ironed in place. The darker parts were produced using free-motion machining over a coloured base. We sewed with a variegated thread and cotton batting was used as a base for stability.

Free motion stitching

Here some of the prepared meerkats are outlined and trimmed and auditioned onto the prepared background before it was cut into individual strips.

Auditioning the background

After that we took our individual panels home and worked on them, preparing a mini quilt and dressing the meerkats as we liked. We also had to think of something humorous or profound for the speech bubble. Seeeemples! And the rest is history!

We have our idea for next year but as it is top secret, I can’t tell you or I would have to kill you!!

I have completed the fusing of a fourth and final landscape. I have added a plain calico border to all four and they are safety pinned on the batting and the back awaiting the decorative texturing and detail. I have sewn all round the outer edge so that there will be no movement of the fabric layers during quilting.

Country Lane Landscape

I have also pinned the free motion embroidery of the cow parsley flowers (originally sewn on a vanishing medium) onto the background fabric. Batting and a backing have been added using the turn-through method and this too is ready for machine texture. You may have noticed that I have cut the large lump of stitches into smaller clumps to look more like the flower. I think that I will perhaps thread-draw silhouettes of the flower in the distance.

Cow Parsley

So this coming week will see me slumped over my sewing machine in an attempt to texture and quilt all the painterly landscapes. I have never worked in a series like this before, preferring to be more spontaneous with my work but I will let you know my feelings on this way of working next week