BLOG 492

Blog 492

 It’s no wonder I am enjoying the obsessive work involved in this scrap ‘crumb quilt’ project. All you have to do is look at my sewing table and you will know why! Colour, colour and more colour! But I have to say that I am happier with the warm tones as opposed to the cool tones.

 

 

           Warm tones

 

 

              Cool tones

 

 

And isn’t this waste paper basket a delight! And daft as it sounds, I still have to stop myself from pulling all these shavings out and trying to do something with them. Pathetic isn’t it!

 

          Shavings

 

               Palette

 

 

Now that all the fabric is used up and the preparatory sewing is done, I need to lay out my lozenges of colour and turn to my design wall to play. My design wall is covered with a flannelette sheet which means that I don’t have to pin the shapes, which in turn means that I can move them around freely (there’s nothing more restricting to this sort of creativity than pinning!).  I just stroke them in place in a staggered formation and they stay there. My starting point was the golds and I worked from the lightest in the centre gradually introducing the oranges.

 

           Golds

 

 

             Golds/oranges

 

 

And then I had a garden break for a couple of days and returned to view it. It’s no wonder I enjoy what I do when this is what greets me on the design wall when I go into my room! But I needed to clear the space to give me room to expand and continue. I started again trying to transition from golds, through greens into blues and purples.

 

         Design wall

 

 

 

           Gold/green

 

           Green/blue

 

             Green/blue/purple

 

 

               Progress

 

 

This will change daily as I fiddle and faff but I will continue to play in this way until I come up with something I really like. I have yet to incorporate the warm tones which could be tricky!

 

 

             Remaining palette

 

 

My little felted houses continue to pile up; we are after all still self-isolating and self-distancing! They are at different stages on the conveyor belt but very all individual and a delight to make.

 

 

         Felt houses

 

 

Another project that has been long overlooked is this wall hanging of machine embroidered flowers. I have just pinned the smaller pansies and violas in place ready for catching down. I LOVE IT!

 

 

             Machine embroidery

 

And finally, along with self-distancing and self-isolating, I have been self-birthdaying this week! It was a very quiet and strange day although we did chat en famille, with birthday cakes all round. My younger daughter is great at finding the right cards for the right occasion and I thought I would share the one she got for my birthday. (Not that I drink a lot, you understand. I just drink more than her and that’s easily done because she rarely drinks at all!)

 

            Birthday card

 

 

 

 

 

 

BLOG 491

 

Blog 491

 

Another week of lockdown and more progress has been made and in the right direction too. I don’t know about you but I’m the fittest I have been for a long while! I have just completed my Lenten fast, something I have been doing since I was a little girl at Sunday school. This helps to keep me trim and if you add to that the daily walks we have been doing up our local ‘mountain’, then I am fit as well! Now that we are allowed only one outing a day, it’s got to be a good one and these restrictions help to concentrate the mind and body.

 

I have finished the top of the scrap quilt which has been in progress for some while. It was to hang for the first time in Gresford this year but that has been cancelled along with everything else. It would have been our 40^th exhibition so preparations were in hand to make it the best ever. It will be something to look forward to next year instead and with twice the time to prepare, the church will be packed!!! This top will now be put to one side with the others I have yet to quilt.

 

             Quilt top

 

Last week I started to do ‘crumb quilting’ using the smaller pieces left over from the above quilt. This will be as far as my colourful scraps will go, there are no more thank goodness (… unless I start sewing numerous new projects and start to accumulate them again…. AAAAHHHH!!!!) I am making 4½”squares and then cutting them in half. I haven’t a clue why yet but my mind is mulling things over and I am sure something significant will come from these endeavours! I have shown the sequence below. I started by sewing the smaller bits together haphazardly to make larger bits and all I needed was one straight edge to sew against. Anything sticking out beyond this was trimmed off after sewing. It is being constructed using a ‘sew-and-flip’ method and there are plenty of references to crumb quilting on line if you are interested.

 

             Crumb 1

 

 

           Crumb 2

 

 

             Crumb 3

 

 

             Crumb 4

 

 As it grew, I measured it against a paper template to give me an idea as to whether it was big enough or, if not, where I needed to add some extra pieces.

 

               Template 1

 

 

 

 

             Template 2

 

              Progress

 

Last week I showed a picture of the ‘get-rid-ofs’; these will be handed over to someone I know after this crisis is over. And now I only have really small scraps left and I need to release them…….

 

I can throw them away.

I CAN throw them away.

I can THROW them away.

I can throw THEM away.

I can throw them AWAY!

 

                Throw-outs

 

 

FABRIC MANIPULATION Part 3

The final stage in the preparation of the cushion square is to add the corner squares and border strips. You will need 4 squares at 3½” and four border strips at 2½” x 14”.

 

              Corners and borders

 

1 Press the squares in half along the diagonal and position them, one at each corner. Tack in place.

 

               Add corners

 

 

              Tack in place

 

2 Place the first border strip RS down onto the front of the cushion and sew from where it lines up with the left hand corner to about 3” from the next corner. Use a ¼” seam allowance and a matching thread.

 

              Border 1

 

 

3 The second border will fit along the next edge exactly. Place it RS down onto the appropriate edge and sew it is place.

 

 

 

               Border 2

 

 

4 Sew all the borders in place in the same way and complete the sewing on the first border.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                

     

 Finish border 1
 

 

             Borders added

 

 

The next stage will be the rolling and sewing of the bias edges.

 

Now that everything is being closed and cancelled or postponed, I am beginning to wonder if anyone from the Nercwys group is following this project. Let me know and I will continue to post details of the sewing phase.

BLOG 490

Blog 490

 

As someone who is passionate about creativity and who needs to spend time creating, the present isolation as a result of the Government guidelines on Coronavirus suits me just fine. It is a dream scenario for people like me who can’t remember ever being bored. I am surrounded by everything I need; I know there are going to be no interruptions and I now have the time I have always craved! That said, I am still holding back from starting something significantly new. Instead I am still clearing the decks of scraps. It’s almost like I am on a mission to get these out of the way first before going forward into territories new and unexplored.

 

 

Also, I now have the time to do the things I have been putting off ….. like seeing if I could felt Ella’s hair!! She asked me if I could and then left some with me after having her hair cut. So here’s the sequence and the conclusion for Ella is ‘no, human hair doesn’t felt well’. (And no, I haven’t crafted with cat hair as the book is inviting me to do!)

 

 

             Inspiration

 

 

 

 

 

   Template

 

 

           Covered template

 

 

 

               Ella’s hair

 

 

 

             Felting

 

 

 

                  

              Felted cat

 

Once I had got that out of my system, I started to sew scraps together to make patches for a ‘Crumb Quilt’. This involves sewing together all those small bits of fabric to form a bigger piece of fabric. This can then be cut down to size to suit your project. I googled them on line and I found that the method is ideal for my bags of bits but that most of the images are too frenetic for my taste. So I have adapted the idea to sewing together bits of fabric in the same colour ranges. The picture below shows how I stared with a bag of scraps beside my sewing machine and a basket of scraps on the floor.

 

           Scraps!

 

 

 

              More scraps

 

 

This was a hopeless way of doing it! I had lots of dull and neutral fabrics in amongst the mess and I didn’t want to include these. So I decided to sort through ALL my scraps and just select those fabrics that I wanted. I just mounded them up on the side in piles but I couldn’t work them like that either.  So I ironed for over 2 hours and organised them into colour families and it was well worth the effort.

 

 

            Colour selection

 

 

            Sorted and pressed

 

 

Firstly, as an experiment, I tried to sew tiny bits onto a foundation, trapping them down with a machine scribbling motion. I liked the effect but this method is best used for tiny pieces of fabric. So then I tried just sewing together random shapes and pieces (crumbs) to see how they looked and I came to the conclusion that for a larger scale wall hanging, ‘Crumb’ sewing is going to be the best method. I have decided to just ‘sew and flip’ and then cut 4 ½” squares from the resulting fabric. These will then be cut in half to make lozenges. Who knows where this is going, because I don’t!!

 

 

 

              Experimental block

 

 

             Crumb blocks

 

 

               Design idea

 

 

              Get-rid-ofs