Back to Business

Lovely Applique

After last week's bag diversion, it was back to business up in the loft, to complete 2 pieces I had been asked to quilt. This one is another fun applique design put together by Jenny. What a charming pattern - I'm sure her granddaughter will love it!

 

I have quilted it quite heavily to fill in the large open spaces and to take up a bit of fullness in the borders. 

Before that, I quilted this top for Jean Hipwell. It was mystery quilt which she had adapted a little to make it fit together the way she wanted. 

I took the opportunity to practise this quilting design called 'feathered swirls' by Judi Madsen. Her quilting is truly phenomenal and I have a couple of her books to study. I would love to get anywhere near her standard! 

I have watched her video over and over and tried it a couple of times before.

 It is still not quite right but I am definitely improving. I am getting better at the shapes. But I need to get the 'travelling' right and to fill the space more evenly.

But Hey! Practice makes Perfect. I am determined to get the hang of it. 

Talking of practice, I found time to try some free motion quilting on the Bernina, using the transparent quilting foot I got at Birmingham, and the Brother hoop, and I got on fairly well. I will try it on the Brother machine too when I get a moment.

In between times, I have started on the '40 scraps challenge' which Ann K gave us from Connecting Threads. The challenge is to use a scrap donated by each member in a single project, as a sort of memento. What a nice idea - I know where I am going with that one and have already made a start. 

Bet you can't guess what it is - but look how little I threw away!

I've also been working on my own version of the 'Sew a row' quilt in blues and creams, mostly Edyta Sitar fabrics. I have done the houses, trees, animals and boats. Now I have cut out a whole fat quarter's worth of stems and leaves for the applique setting, with a little help from Rene on Monday afternoon!

Hardly an inch was wasted!!!!!!!!!!

So I have plenty to be getting on with - Happy Quilting Everyone!

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Mumm's The Word

Extreme Fussy Cutting

Another distraction this week! 

The theme for the last Studio Quilters meeting was to 'make something from the cupboard' i.e. use up a kit or finish off a UFO. I had intended to cut out a folksy style printed waistcoat pattern and make it into a wall hanging. So I dug out all my 'Debbie Mumm' scraps to add to it.

Now these started out as dressmaking scraps that I acquired in the 1990's.

 So they were originally very odd shapes with arm holes cut right through this very busy pattern ('Fruity Kitchen' by Debbie Mumm). I had cut out as many bits of the motifs as I could salvage and had already used up the off cuts of the off cuts! 

Over the years I have moved them from one box (and house) to another, every time I reorganised my stash, and vowed that one day I would find the right project for them. And this was it! 

I abandoned the wall hanging project and set about reconstructing the pieces to form a large enough panel to make a new quilt tote bag.

I framed some of the smaller squares with snippets of the striped sections to make them fit together. And I even spliced sections of the pattern together, carefully matching it up, to make it go further. 

There was even enough for two strips on the inner pockets and for matching inset strips on the handle.

It has taken me all week and I did have to laugh at myself! But now I have turned my obsessive compulsion to use up scraps into another big bag to take quilts and all my other bits around in - I always seem to have so much to carry!

Next up is Jean Hipwell's beautifully pieced top which is loaded and ready to go when it is a bit warmer up in the loft.

Happy Quilting Everyone!

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Mauve Masterpiece

Feathered Friend

Here's a preview of Rose's amazing hexagon quilt. I will show pictures of the whole piece when she has seen it. That is if I can get a a complete picture (it is massive). 

Rose asked me to do a bit more than the pantograph style she usually gets done at the quilt shop. So I gave it the full custom job with ruler work and freehand feathers. Rose thinks she might want to trim the bottom corners into a curve. So I deliberately contained the border design in a curved outline, then quilted a curly filler up to the edge, so that the feathers wouldn't get chopped off.

The hexagons were machine pieced, lots of 'Y' seams, and beautifully done. There was a bit of fullness in the cream background, probably due to the bias effect of the hexagon cut. I managed to 'soak it up' by trailing feathers all around it.

All in all, more than 25 hours on the frame, and I am pleased with the result.

The snow cleared just in time for our little jaunt to the Knitting and Stitching Show at Olympia last weekend. Once again, I showed great restraint for myself, yet managed to encourage another quilting friend to buy a brand new Brother machine like mine! I should be on commission.

I did get this lovely wooden thread stand for my loft studio, a birthday present courtesy of my dear brother who joked...

"Surely wooden threads stand up by themselves!"

Next in the queue is another hexie quilt for Mary S. Hers was hand pieced into ten large diamonds. I played around with different layouts and found that ten doesn't work well. So I joined nine for the top and top stitched it onto this background.



Then I appliqued the tenth one onto the backing, which I also pieced together from various fabrics from her stash. I will do a fairly open edge to edge design on this one. 
Mary kindly gave me a huge amount of fabric which I will be sharing with Studio Quilters tomorrow. 

I think there will be an abundance of green quilts this year!!!!

Happy Quilting Everyone!

www.englishquilter.co.uk   

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