BLOG 66

Another week; another blog! I have come to the conclusion that writing a blog actually keeps me moving forwards with my quilting, just like teaching classes used to do. It’s many years since I taught weekly classes in my workroom in Sychdyn. My most annoying habit, according to the ‘good man I’m (allegedly) behind’ is leaving everything to the last minute. I used to teach projects at 3 different levels at each of my 7 classes: beginners, intermediates and advanced, over a 5-week course. The weekend before saw me slumped over books for inspiration, scribbling original work on the back of an envelope and trying to see if I could make it work in fabric or digging deep to find something unfinished that hadn’t seen the light of day for a few years!! The sense of panic never failed to concentrate my creative juices and I relished that seat-of-my-pants approach to my work. I still do, if I have to be honest, and find that working to a deadline focuses my mind beautifully! That’s the advantage of a weekly blog. QED

Attaching the flowers

Now, just what have I been up to? I have worked on the small wall hanging of the cow parsley, attaching the flowers with an undulating stitch round the edges. The background has been textured with free-motion machining and I have added silhouettes of cow parsley also to add interest to the background.

Background detail

Completed hanging

I have also finished quilting and binding 3 of the 4 landscapes, with reservations I might add! There are one or two things I would like to alter.

Landscape with arch

Detail

Landscape with pathway

Detail

Landscape with bridge

Detail

PAINTING WITH FABRIC

Here’s how to ‘paint’ a vase using fabric.

1 Draw a simple shape and select a fabric that has light, medium and dark values. Add fusible to the fabric and trace the shape onto baking parchment.

Fabric and pattern

2 Use a pinked rotary cutter to slice the fabric into random width strips (1” and above) and then into squares. You don’t need a ruler for this.

3 On a cutting board, sort out the shapes into light, medium and dark values.

4 Choose a light source and show where the light and dark values are to be placed.

5 Start to over-lap and fuse the fabric pieces randomly (ie not in orderly rows), placing the lights on the right.

6 Work through medium to dark and fill in all the spaces by overlapping and fusing.

7 Trim the vase from the baking parchment side where the pencil line is visible.

What could be easier eh?