BLOG 126

Another week, another blog! You’d be amazed at the amount of discipline required to keep a blog up and running and I don’t know how the daily bloggers do it! I have always conceived this as a quilter’s blog so you won’t get any recipes or gardening tips from me; and only travel comments if they yield some interesting design ideas, as last week. I have now got into the habit of taking photos of everything I make, especially if it is patchwork related. This means that I have plenty to fall back on during lean sewing times. But that is not the case at this time of the year when I am generally making some of my Christmas presents. And as I don’t know if any of my present recipients are reading this blog, I can’t really show you what I have been doing in any detail until after Christmas.

However, I have made some progress on the Cathedral wall hanging and it’s all about the quilting process now. My first free-motion quilting lines are worked from the centre towards the edges to create stability. I usually treat myself to a new needle for a new project and try to match thread with fabric. I have sewn a stippling stitch around the form of Christ on the tree and around the trunk, and a straight stitch around the bubbles of colour which make up the tree.

 

 

                            Straight and stippled stitches

I have straight stitched around the roots of the tree.

 

                                                 Tree roots

And I have then sewn lines of straight stitching around the inner and outer border.

 

                                                 Borders

I am confident that these stabilising lines, along with the safety pins, will be sufficient to hold the layers together whilst I start to infill with more elaborate stitchery.

On the colour strands I have sewn a flying geese design.

 

                                      Flying geese

On the background I have sewn leaves and an atmospheric pattern

 

             Atmospheric background

And on the trunk I have added elaborate texture.

 

                                          Tree trunk

And to get us into the seasonal spirit, just how does a Christmas cactus know that it’s Christmas? It takes my breath away every year!

 

                                   Christmas cactus

And here’s the Christmas Robin (28” x 32”), already on the wall, reminding me of things to be done for the coming Yuletide. 

 

Seasonal robin