BLOG 414

Blog 414

 It’s been a bit of the ‘same old, same old’ this week for me as I have been trying to get the ‘Shades of Liberty’ quilt top out of the way. Over the past few weeks I have been constructing a two-row strip whenever I felt like it and it is surprising how they have built up. It has to be said that I get bored with repetition so I felt the sooner this was out of the way the better. When sewing two individual strips together, I always sewed the seams from dark to light and butted the seams so that the bottom one went down and the top one went up. They were pressed carefully and the whole thing went together without problems, because all the seams butted up together throughout the quilt.

              Shades of Liberty 
 
 
 


            Pressed seams


 

             Joining rows 

I was left with a limited palette of medium and light squares and would have had to buy more fabrics if I went on to make a large bed quilt. I am always tempted to do this but need to remind myself that all the beds have quilts on them already so a throw would be a better idea.

         Limited palette

 

            Bed quilt layout

I now have one or two gaps to fill in and then I will call it a day on the size and put it to one side to finish for Gresford next year.

 My daughter lives in the village of Pantymwyn just outside Mold in Flintshire and they have entered the village scarecrow competition. And just for fun this week, I thought I would show you some of the imaginative entries.

                    

          Witch
 
 
 

           Old age pensioner 
 

           Harry Potter

             Duvet day 
 
 


           Mary Poppins

             Black and white cat 
 
 


         Spider

               ?

        Digger driver
 

The last one was done by my daughter, husband and their children and it won them a third prize! Well done Team Anderson!

               King Arthur and Merlin 
 

 

 

 

 

BLOG 413

Blog 413

 

I store all our group quilts in a bedroom loft space so they always come back to me at some stage or other throughout the year.  I have just taken charge of our latest group quilt called ‘Mere Men’ so I have been able to photo graph each panel and I am sharing them with you this week.

 

This year we chose a man from all the significant eras of our island history and stood him in front of a quilt of his time to record his comments. The size and shape of the man was consistent throughout the panels, as were the lines of patchwork squares along the bottom. It was actually designed to hang in a long horizontal row but the dimensions of the entries was altered for this year’s FOQ and we had to hang it 3 by 3 by 3 instead. Each group member was given scope to research their era and design a costume and a quilt for that time. Here they are in chronological order.

         Jennifer’s Cave man

 

 

“I’ve been out all day chasing mammoth. What’s for dinner?”

         Jackie’s Egyptian

 

 

“I met this Giza who told me that the pyramids were tumbling blocks”

               

         Liz’s Greek

 

“YEIA … told you beards were in”

        Barbara’s Roman

 

 

“I came, I saw, I admired”

             Janice’s Viking

 

 

“She’s been trading - I should have seen it in the runes”

           Dilys’s Norman

 

 

“I see we won BOTH the battle and the quilt show in Hastings”

           Panel detail

 

 

 

           Jenny’s Elizabethan

 

 

“Is it the design for our garden or our second-best bed cover?”

            Sue’s Industrialist

 

“O dear, this letter means there’s trouble at t’mill”

            Marion’s Modern man

 

 

“Cool man, the first interactive gaming quilt”

There is no doubt we have great fun doing these group quilts although there is always a lot of pressure to do our individual piece well and on time. This year has been exceptional technique-wise with so much detail for all to enjoy. We meet next Friday for the first time to discuss any ideas for next year and who knows where they will take us! Love it love it love it!

BLOG 412

Blog 412

 I have been sewing at Suzette’s this week so I used it as a golden opportunity to catch up on my textile luggage labels. When I first thought of this long term project, the idea was to make a label a week: I felt the small size was do-able!  How wrong was I?! To work in small scale is quite difficult and intense and often requires more time and effort than working full scale. So the idea got shelved and I stopped doing them for a while.

Then it occurred to me that I might be approaching this project from the wrong angle. I was going through a collection of half-finished projects I had in storage: experimental pieces, trial techniques and the like. They were never good enough to use for anything or even worth completing, but they were a vital part of my textile journey. So rather than make a specific label in a specific way, I decided to make labels from these existing pieces. I completed 16 in the time I was at Suzette’s! Result! Here they are with information about the techniques used. (NB they still need the final edging of a larger, closer zig zag in variegated thread to complete them)

 

             1 Free motion stitching on a prepared synthetic background with soldering iron mark making

 

 

            2 Painted background with infill surface stitching done on the WS

 

 

            3 Painted Lutrador with machine and free motion stitches

 

 

         4 Stitch on sheer fabrics with soldering

 

 

 

            5 Fused Angelina fibre surface placed on a floral rubbing with fabric crayons

 

 

          6 Stitched sampler on a dyed background

 

          7 Fabric swatch given to me by an American folk singer/quilter touring the UK

 

 

            8 Stitch and texture on felt surface

 

 

 

          9 Sample section taken from a piece created at an experimental textile workshop

 

 

          

           10 Metallic threads and sheers on wadding

 

 

 

          11Thread detail on cut-out sheers inspired by pebble pavements

 

 

 

           12 Stylised tree in free motion stitch

 

           13 Sample section cut out from a larger ‘thread painted’ picture

 

  

           

           14 Felt wool background over-laid with a layer of cut-out sheer

 

 

 

         15 Selection of yarns under stitch

 

 

             16 Traditional stained glass panel drawn and coloured in thread

 

 

 

 

BLOG 411

Blog 411

 

Another week has passed and much work has been done in the garden! We have lots of borders that need attention and there is nothing I like better than savagely cutting everything back, in the sure and certain knowledge that they will bear me no malice and come back as fresh as ever next spring! Such are the rewards of gardening. So if it is fine I am outside, if not I am in my studio enjoying colour and making steady progress. This sequence of pictures shows the steps towards the completion of the flowers and pot. .

             Palette

 

 

               Detail

 

 

              Flower

 

 

 

            Complete

 

 

At this stage I can peel my creation off the release paper in one piece and place it on my design wall for reviewing from a distance. I like what I see so far! The next stage is to make some decisions about the background so I started by trialling various large pieces of fabric to assess their effect. The first had the vague look of a paving slab; the second gave the effect of a shrub in the background. The next fabric, placed vertically, was overwhelming but looked better on the horizontal. Decisions decisions!

Background 1

           Background 2

 

 

 

           Background 3 vertical

 

 

               Background 3 horizontal

 

That said, on the wall of my studio there is another picture that I finished a couple of years ago; another vase, another bunch of flowers. On close inspection the background is composed of fused horizontal strips of fabric, like the strokes of a brush and I particularly like that painterly effect.

               Sunflowers in a vase 1

 

 

           Constructed background

 

 

And on the wall of my kitchen, there is yet another picture made ages ago of sunflowers in a vase; this time with the background made up of sewn directional squares. Seeing all three pictures together tells me that something creative is trying to get out and I am not quite sure what it is at this stage!

             Sunflowers in a vase 2

 

 

             Directional squares