Sunday 28 August 2016

BLOG 314


BLOG 314

This week I have continued to work on the 5 cushions which I have been commissioned to do. The work has been intense but pleasurable because I am surrounded with colour. I constructed the fronts and then put them on wadding and a backing fabric for quilting. I did 5 different designs with a variegated thread.

            Spirals

             Loops

            Leaves

            Clouds



           Flowers


I also inserted a zipper opening at the back. Here’s the method I use.

1 Cut a square of fabric 2” larger than the finished cushion front and cut it in half across the middle. Draw a line 1” from the cut edge on the WS of one of the pieces and then turn under 1/8” seam along the cut edges of both pieces so that they don’t fray.

2 Place and pin the pieces RS together. Use a couple of pins to mark the length of the zip on this line so you know where it is going to start and stop. With a matching thread, start to sew along the marked line with a normal stitch to the first pin, and then increase the length of the stitch to a tacking stitch to the next pin. Finally go back to a normal stitch to finish the line.

                Variable stitch


3 Press the seam open on the WS and pin the zip in place centrally along the sewn seam.

                 Position and pin

4 Sew tacking stitches as close as possible to the zip to hold it in place and then remove the pins.

             Tacking


5 Put a zipper foot on your machine and adjust the needle position. Sew on the RS of the fabric, outside of the line of tacking stitches.

               Zipper foot
6 Carefully cut and remove the tacking stitches holding the edges together to open the seam and reveal the zip.

                 Opening the seam


One down, four to go!

              Front

                   Back

And what made me feel old this week? My granddaughter howled with laughter when she saw my teapot with a woolly hat on and wanted to know why it was wearing one! She had never seen a tea cosy before!!

Sunday 21 August 2016

BLOG 313


BLOG 313

After taking time out to enjoy the Festival of Quilts, it’s now back to what I love doing best; making quilts and immersing myself in colour! Whilst I was at the show, I searched high and low for a suitable fabric for the Garden Trellis quilt as I needed to make progress on it. Here is the fabric I found and I have to say that my chums didn’t think it was right for the job. However, I had that gut feeling that was telling me it might work and it does. I chose this fabric because it was darker than all the fabrics used in the last row of each block and also because it had lots of different colours in it so it would blend in well. It adds depth and definition to the design.

                Lattice fabric

                Definition

The blocks will be set on point which means that the edges have to be filled in with triangles to straighten them. The individual blocks are just pinned on a design wall at the moment so there is still a long way to go to make this into a quilt. But at least the major decisions have been made to establish the ‘flavour’ of the quilt and for that I am grateful.

                   Infill triangles

 Another project that I have embarked on this week is a commission. I have been asked to make 5 colourful cushions (inspired by my Multi-coloured Dream Quilt) and 2 table runners (thread and soldering iron) for Christmas so I need to get on with them. This commission is all about colour so it is right up my street! So the fabrics are out, the iron is switched on, the machine primed and it’s ready, steady GO!

                  Fabrics

          Block

              Bocks cushion 1

               Sequence cushion 2

                Blocks cushion 2


And what made me laugh this week? We have a ginger cat called Chivers and I know, I just know, that he thinks he’s a tiger!

             Chivers?

 

 

 

 

Sunday 14 August 2016

BLOG 312


BLOG 312
What a treat I have had this week; 2 nights in the Hilton hotel and a couple of days at the NEC for the Festival of Quilts. This is my yearly pilgrimage as a member of a quilt group and I met up with my chums and we have a couple of days of mirth and merriment! Our quilt wasn’t successful at all this year in the judging, (it was a big category with over 50 quilts in it) but it did provide humour which is why we enter the show (there aren’t many laughs on the surface of quilts believe me!!! ) We took comfort from the fact that there was always someone in front of it studying it detail and enjoying the panels. And what did we do this year? We revived our furry friends the Meer Kats and the quilt was entitled A Quilter’s Tale by Shakesmeer . Here is the quilt and the panels.




              A Quilters Tale



             Shakesmeer



               Jennifer



             Liz



              Janice



            Marion



           Sue



              Jackie




              Dilys

 

               Barbara

 When I go to a quilt show these days I just take pictures of work that interest me. Here is a flavour of what I wanted to take from the show and I hope it illustrates the depth and breadth of quilting as an art form. Enjoy them!



            Winner group quilt



                Detail of championship quilt (machine whole cloth)



            Group quilt entries



            Parrot



            Suzette’s quilt



              Detail



             Winner pictorial



              Nelson Mandela



            Second group


 

  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Miniature red



              Miniature dresses



               Dimensional (why?)



             Portrait



              Gallery quilt



               Detail



               A funny quilt



                Funny quilt detail



             Girl with a pearl earring



          Detail 1



               Detail 2!



              Fabulous embroidery

PS: Don't forget that you can see each picture full-screen by left clicking it.  Useful to see the finer detail.