BLOG 241

BLOG 241 Sunday March 29^th

This week, I have continued to work on the colourful wall hangings, ‘Horse-in-a-wall’ and ‘Dolphin-in-a-wall’. The dolphins went together much quicker because I had established my working format with the horse quilt. The next one I make (ever optimistic!) will be super-efficient because I now know what I am doing, where I am going with it and what I am trying to achieve; it helps enormously! Here are the dolphins shapes on the master pattern.

                                        Dolphins on master pattern

 

Here are the dolphins within the completed pebble wall. The image on this quilt is a subtler.

                                                               Pebble wall

 I tried to design a decorative topping for the wall, to resemble waves but decided I didn’t like it. In the end I opted for thin, horizontal pebbles like the ones you often see on walls surrounding some seaside properties.

                                                  Decorative topping

 As I was pinning the completed quilt top onto the batting, I certainly didn’t know at that stage how I was going to proceed but I was thinking hard (that’s where the work is done). My first job after pinning was to sew round the outside edge with a long straight stitch to stabilise the 2 layers.  (I prefer to quilt straight onto the batting so I don’t have to worry about what the back of the quilt looks like, and, these days, I mainly choose to do a turn-through method of adding the quilt back after quilting.)

Generally, the quilting process serves two purposes: to hold the quilt layers together and to be decorative. With my method of working with fused fabrics, the quilting stitches also need to secure my pieces to the background as there are no applique stitches around the edges of the shapes. With all this in mind, I decided that I wanted the colours of the dolphin fabric to be blended with stitch but I wanted to stones to stand on their own with clean cut edges. I started to sew wavy quilting lines over the surface of the dolphins, using threads that reflected the colours of the fabrics, changing the colours often.

                                                      Wavy quilting lines

                                                             Detail 1

                                                                       Detail 2

As I was sewing these repetitive lines, I was thinking long and hard about the stones. And then I had the bright (crazy!) idea that I would quilt each stone separately with a different decorative pattern. I didn’t want the quilting to stand out which meant matching thread with fabric, but I wanted it to be interesting for viewers who came to examine the quilt closely. I also wanted it to be interesting for me to sew!!!

                                                       Quilted stones

 

The extent of the quilting is best seen on the batting, from the back on the quilt. Here it is before tidying up (and yes I did repeat some quilting patterns!).

                                                        Extensive quilting

                                                              Close-up

 Here it is completed and I am satisfied that I have achieved what I have set out to do. All that I needed to do was to ‘switch on’ the dolphins by sewing the eyes.

                                                           Switching on

                                                 The eyes