BLOG 253

BLOG 253

 The emphasis of the blog this week is on the Gresford show. It all went very well and involved a lot of hard work from so many willing people. We don’t know how much money we have raised yet; that will be announced (with a drum roll) at our meeting next week.

And just what was on display? Here are some notable items. This is a scrap quilt made of Liberty fabrics. The basic building block is a small square made up of a light and a dark half-square triangle. It’s the way they are placed that produces a secondary pattern.

 

                                                 Liberty quilt

 Here is a colourful quilt made for a child, based on the log cabin pattern. The centres of the cabin are animal pictures and the arrangement of the blocks produces a barn raising design.

                                 Childs quilt

This quilt was made for a daughter’s significant birthday by her Mum using pre-printed pictures and photo transfer prints.

                                           Birthday quilt

                          Lady of the Lake

 Our spoon challenge generated a lot of interest and the variety and quality of work was amazing.

                                  Spoon challenge 1

                 Spoon challenge 2

                                       Spoon challenge 3

 And my personal favourite was Mrs Spoonerism, made by the one who was accused of stirring! Phrases associated with quilting are printed onto calico strips and sewn onto her skirt. Brilliant!

                   Mrs Spoonerism

                                                            Detail

                                         Tea cosies for charity

                                              Children’s corner

                                                     Cross stitch

                                                   Baby display

                                             Christmas 1

                                                Christmas 2

                              General view 1

                                               General view 2

 And if you look closely at that view you will get the answer to the question I asked at the end of my blog last week. Yes I did manage to get it finished, just because the idea was in my head. I worked long and hard into the evening last Sunday to finish it and it went on display with the one I made earlier in the year.

                                                    Felted panels

The special guests at the exhibition this year were two groups who specialised in making miniatures. There were houses, rooms, outbuildings, caravans and novelty settings. Most were done to 1/12^th scale but this one was made at 1/48; it was exquisite!

                                           Mini miniature

                                                   Green house

                                                            Xmas

                                                Market stall

                                               Caravan

 

                                     Thatched cottage

 And I would just like to take a moment to applaud the unknown volunteers who made the masses of tapestry kneelers; they looked lovely hanging in the pews

                                                     Kneelers

 

 

BLOG 252

BLOG 252

 I hope you are all bound for Gresford next week! We are putting up the exhibition tomorrow and it opens on Tuesday. BE THERE!

 

GRESFORD FESTIVAL OF CRAFTS JUNE 16 to 19^th

Tues –Thurs 10:30 to 8:00pm Fri 10:30-6:00pm

I have continued to complete some of my projects and label my entries but, as if that is not enough for me to do, I decided to start another long felt picture. I thought that if I finished it I would put it in the show to hang alongside the first felt panorama that I made. They would hang well side by side. Neither hanging has been registered as exhibits but the committee always has the attitude of ‘the more the merrier’ so I think they will be welcomed IF I can get the second one finished!!

I completed the background strip below during a day on my felting machine at Suzette’s. I started by laying down a solid under-layer with red (don’t know why I chose that colour but it seems to have worked!) at the bottom of the picture, dark green in the middle and grey along the top. That established a base of colour for me to work on so then I used finer strips of wool to define and brighten the landscape.

                                                       Felted strip

                                                            Detail 1

                                                            Detail 2

When I was happy with the background, I had to decide what went in the foreground for interest and definition. Towering flowers to one side seemed like a good idea for a start so I built up layers of coloured felt to hint at them.

                                                              Flowers

 I wanted to bring the flowers forward by defining them more and so I added small pieces of bright coloured silks and mashed them into place.

                                                                     Silks

A few French knots add even more detail.

                                                        French knots

                                                        Foreground

                                                                 More silks

 The question now is ‘will she/won’t she’ get it finished to hang tomorrow in Gresford? There is still a long way to go and it is early evening already.

 

BLOG 251

Blog 251

 

The Gresford show gets ever closer. If you are interested in craft, be there because you won’t be disappointed. The catering is excellent too. Here’s the advert!

 

GRESFORD FESTIVAL OF CRAFTS JUNE 16 to 19^th

Tues –Thurs 10:30 to 8:00pm Fri 10:30-6:00pm

 

I have been getting more sales stuff ready and here are the positive and negative wall hangings that I will be putting on the sales table; I think I can let them go now. I made them a while ago for my pos/neg book but I hung onto them because the Jacobean style has always been a firm favourite with me. However, I don’t need them for teaching anymore because I am retired and I don’t use them on my walls so someone else might as well enjoy them. They will be sold separately.

                                            Pos/neg Jacobean

                                                    Positive detail

                                                          Negative detail

I have also been doing more machine embroidery items. Here you can see the outside surface of some needle cases. The stitching was done on painted pelmet Vilene with layers of sheers. I am more than pleased with my machine stitching progress over the last couple of years and I am aware that if I had still been teaching quilting that I would never have got round to concentrating on stitch. There is still much to learn!

                                                        Needle case 1

                                                              Needle case 2

                                                         Inside

 This is how they fold and all I need now is a suitable button and loop to complete them.

                                                               Needle cases

BLOG 250

BLOG 250

I have now collected my quilts from the Ucheldre Centre at the end of my exhibition and I was very pleased with the sales. As well as a couple from the ‘Burning Issues’ series, I sold the following pieces:

 

                                                                    Horse in a wall

                              Gentiana Alpina and Flower Arrangement

                           Tree of Life

                      Poppies

                        Irises

                  Foxglove

 In between precious time spent in the garden, I have continued to get sale items ready for Gresford and the lampshades are mounting up. What I have found amazing is how the patterns are all coming back to me; it is as if they have been waiting at my finger-tips (I couldn’t find the pattern book I wrote!) I must have made so many of them over a 5 year period, thirty+ years ago, that the patterns are second nature to me! There are lots of happy memories surfacing from that phase in my life so many thanks to my sister for storing and then passing on the shades and the dishcloth cotton after all this time!!!  A potter in Dorset used to make ceramic bases, and beads to match, for me when I was selling at full tilt and I have found a bag of these beads which I am now using to add variety to my collection. Here is an over-view of how I do it: I make a square with a bead in the centre and create a flower around it, squaring it off to make it easier to join together.

                                                                 Square

I make 4 squares and join them together using double crochets. The final edges are then joined to make a circle.

                                                               4 squares

                                                           Double crochets

After adding a couple of rows of double crochets to the top and bottom edges, the cover is slipped over the lampshade and double crochets are used to attach it onto the frame. The ends are all sewn in and the result looks neat and tidy. These shades are all made from dishcloth cotton attached onto a plastic coated frame, so they are washable if necessary. I used to dunk mine into warm soapy water, swish it about a bit, rinse and hang on a line to dry in sunshine.

                                          Floral lampshade

BLOG 249

BLOG 249

My exhibition still continues in Holyhead and I miss the String of Diamonds quilt which is usually on my bed. But another favourite has taken its place in the meantime, Hexagon Garden.  Kate Spencer helped me make this wonderful quilt. She prepared the hexagons, it’s what she loves doing above all else, and then she put the top together at my suggestion, with pale flowers and light green pathways in the centre, working out to dark flowers and dark green pathways around the edge. I appliqued the dark flora green border around the edge and then machine quilted the whole quilt. I think it is good sometimes to be reminded of a different way to set hexagons in a quilt, especially as there has been a resurgence of interest in English paper piecing lately. I love this quilt!

                                     Hexagon Garden

                                                                 Detail 1

                                                              Detail 2

The Gresford show takes place next month and so much of my energy these days is spent making things for the sales table. This is my main opportunity each year to sell my wares, to finish projects and put a price on them or to make new items for sale. The prices are usually reasonable because I don’t want to bring things home again! My main focus this week has been to make crocheted lampshades. My sister has been storing some lampshades and dishcloth cotton in her loft from my life before I became a quilter, when I was Shades of Dorset! There are 6 large and 6 medium frames and I use 2 balls of dishcloth cotton together to give a chunky effect. I have started to cover them with the aim of putting them on the sales table. I have been amazed that after 31 years, crocheting has become second nature to me again. These shades look lovely when lit up.

                                             Crocheted lampshades

                                 With light

 And now I have a cautionary tale. A few years ago, I made a patchwork quilt to drape over the back of a settee; the block was called Kansas Troubles and I chose terracotta fabrics of the same medium/dark value. One however was a Bali-type fabric of dubious origin and I remember it being particularly limp to the feel but I used it because the value was right. Now, most of the colour has seeped out of this fabric wherever it appears in the quilt and I am so disappointed, especially as all the rest of the fabrics have retained their strength of colour. There is nothing I can do about it but I can only imagine it is going to get lighter and lighter over the years and stick out like a sore thumb. So the moral of this story is to make sure you use the best fabrics you can afford, it’s worth it in the long run!

                                                    Kansas Troubles

                                                                 Faded fabric

 

 

BLOG 248

BLOG 248

I did get to sew with my friends last Monday but, unusually for me, I slept in so I had no chance of getting anything together for my scribble drawing experiment before I went. So armed with just a sewing machine and a heap colourful scraps I decided to have a patchwork day instead of a thread day.  I joined strips (no longer than 8”) together at right angles to one another to make several long lines.

                                                    Heap of strips

 I trimmed the joins, ironed the seams and then cut them into 10 ½” strips. I joined these strips together just making sure no colours were duplicated in adjacent rows.

                                                      Joining the strips

 After I had made 6, I began to wonder what multiple blocks would look like (a migraine, a stained glass, a car crash!!) and whether the effort was going to be worth it. Here are two layouts for the blocks.

                                                         Side by side

                                                 Alternating blocks

 ….. And that’s as far as I got because I then fell fowl of a chest infection. I have never had one before and it absolutely floored me. (Well it settee’d me actually because I spent the next 3 days on the sofa.) Even now, after 6 days, I am still delicate with none of my usual energy. If I start to cough it is so painful.  I think it is going to take a lot of shifting. So to pad out this blog, let me show you what I have done with my quilts in the hallway.

                                    Y Gorlan hallway

                                           Display 1

                                               Display 2

 

                                             Display 3

 

BLOG 247

BLOG 247

Refreshed after a lovely week on the island of Menorca, I have just ventured into my studio for the first time. As I always do a grand tidy up before I go away, (clearing the surfaces, putting things back to where they belong, throwing out ‘surplus to requirement’ stuff), it was all clean and tidy and a pleasure to be in there. Not much sewing has been done so far as you can imagine as holiday washing had to come first, but that is all ironed and aired and now I am chomping at the bit to get going. I have been toying with the idea of making another quilt for  my in-a-wall series and here is the potential starting point (with a bit more work) for ‘fish-in-a-wall’.

                                                        Fish doodle

 I am always drawing on holiday, for my own interest and not for public viewing, and I have started to become quite intrigued with scribble drawing. I actually draw small circles over and over again, increasing the pressure on the pencil for darker shading. In the back of my mind I am wondering if I can do this in layers of thread, definitely food for thought ….. And then I looked on Google and what a diversity of inspiration there is there. Here is a humble sample of my drawing; I have a long way to go! But as I am fond of saying, you don’t get good at something by not trying it! I join friends tomorrow for a day’s sewing, so I may give it a whirl.

                                                           Scribble drawing 1

 Looking back in my sketch book, I see that I also tried it on a flight last year after visiting the Yellowstone National Park, hence the subject matter.

                                              Scribble drawing 2

 Desperate to sew however, I have put some more thought into the colourful quilt block that I sampled before I went on holiday. I intend to continue with this as a ‘quilt-as-you-go’ project just to get rid of my heaps of colourful scraps. So with enthusiasm, I put the block onto batting and backing and pinned the layers together.

                                                         Pinned layers

 

I chose 2 multi-coloured threads, one for the top and a different one for the bobbin. I sewed a stabilising row of stitches around the outside edge of the block 1/8” in to keep the layers stable.

 

                                             Multi-coloured threads

 

And before I knew it, I had quilted the sample block with a favourite free-motion design.

                                                 Quilted block front

                                                                  Detail

The squares of backing fabrics will be cut from colourful fabric also. So I’m working with colour again and this makes me happy so all is well with my world. I hope to make some progress with this project in the next few weeks so watch this space.

                                                       Quilted block back