Blue Medallion

Back on Track!

I have been watching this cool blue medallion quilt take shape for several months, as Janet J has been meticulously working on it at our Saturday meetings. She considered each stage carefully, auditioning the various fabrics, repositioning pieces and allowing us all to stick an oar in with our opinions and advice. The end result is this striking, perfectly balanced, original design.

And it looks great - she should be rightly proud!

A medallion layout lends itself much more to custom quilting than an edge to edge design. I was a little anxious about freemotion quilting after my recent difficulties with the Spring Halo Quilt, but 'Auntie' (my long arm machine) was on her best behaviour and it all went smoothly. At least this confirms my suspicion that the double wadding combination was the cause of the problem.

So I happily feathered and curled my way around the outer frames, but thought that the on point centre would look good against a simple cross hatched background.

I used a dense filler on the cream on cream section so that floral patches would stand out more. Then I added some precision curves in the dark blue borders for a crisper effect. And the texture showed up on the back even better than I thought it would once I got it off the frame. 

Good job Janet(s)!!

Happy Quilting Everyone!

www.englishquilter.co.uk   

Thank you for visiting my blog and for leaving your comments. Please share on Facebook, Pinterest and Google+ etc

Spring Halo

50 Hours on the Frame!

It's been an intense fortnight up in the loft! This is my adaptation of Sue Garman's Halo Quilt. I call it 'Spring Halo' because it features a lot of fabrics from the 'Printemps' collection by 3 Sisters for Moda (as well as several others from my Treasure basket). I made a much smaller quilt than the original design (with additions of my own) and finished it at the curved Flying Geese section, because I wanted to try them. So I thought it would be good to scallop the edge to really set them off.


The skipped stitches problem plagued me right up 'til the end. I think it was due to the combination of a polyester and a cotton wadding. I wanted to double it up like the professionals do, to get the added definition, but at least I've learned that these two don't work well together. Next time I will try something else.  

However, I used it as a learning opportunity and changed my intended quilting design from free-flowing feathers and curls to much more ruler work, so that I could control the direction and avoid the problem to some extent.










I love how the little inserts in my appliqued Dresden Blooms 'popped' right up!














My miniature Flying Geese were too small to quilt around, but there was enough fabric behind them to make them sit up. And I got in a lot of practice on tiny cross hatching! 










I did manage to squeeze in a workshop at Connecting Threads and made this pretty Etui Japanese workbox, again in some of my favourite 3 Sisters prints.

I thought it would be quick to finish on the day because some of it was glued. In the end it took me 2 days to finish, but it is so pretty - I love it! 

Happy Quilting Everyone!

www.englishquilter.co.uk   

Thank you for visiting my blog and for leaving your comments. Please share on Facebook, Pinterest and Google+ etc

Heaven is in Hampstead!

Unbelievable!!!

The other week I suggested to Viv, Susan and Karen that we visit the Antique Textiles company in Hampstead. Having seen pictures on Facebook, I had an inkling of what to expect. But to see it for real was something else!

We had arranged with the owner Christopher Wilson-Tate for him to open up specially for us.  He is often out and about on business buying and selling his amazing antique quilts, so the shop isn't open every day.

But don't think about organising a coach trip - the shop is barely the size of my dining room and is literally stacked floor to ceiling with some 1500 or more gorgeous examples of mostly English and Welsh quilts. We could only just squeeze in and were rubbing up against these lovely pieces which we were actually allowed to pet and stroke! So much so that Viv set off an avalanche! I was surprised at how clean and fresh everything seemed - not the musty smell you might imagine.

Christopher was so friendly and enthusiastic and chatted away with us for an hour and a half. Check out his Facebook page at Antique Textiles Company 

Of course I was so inspired by the visit that I went straight up in the loft when I got home and put in 5 hours on the Halo Quilt. Unfortunately, though, that project is not going as smoothly as I'd like. I am trying out double wadding, like the professionals do, but it is causing skipped stitches on an upward motion. So I can't do the free motion work I had planned and am reverting to more ruler work which takes a lot longer. Never mind - I won't be beaten.

Yesterday I handed over this lovely quilt that I finished for Jean Hipwell earlier this year and she was really pleased with it. Good job my free motion skills were working well that day !!!!

Happy Quilting Everyone!

www.englishquilter.co.uk   

Thank you for visiting my blog and for leaving your comments. Please share on Facebook, Pinterest and Google+ etc

Meryl's Magic

Scraptastic!

What a burst of colour! This mainly hand pieced (EPP) marvel, made by Meryl, got off to a dodgy start last weekend. I was going to use a multicoloured thread in the border and centre section, but I couldn't balance the tension so that it didn't show through on the plain cream calico backing and I just wasn't happy with it. I spent about 3 hours unpicking and eventually reloaded it to start again and walked away from it for a couple of days.

On Tuesday I went back to it and chose a soft yellow thread and all went well. I decided to outline the stars after all; I figured that is what Meryl would have done if she had hand quilted it, and just linked from star to star with flowing curls.  

Then I made flowers in the inner border corners and petal feathered my way around the cream section.

The clean finish on the back was worth the extra time I took to restart. 

Now the way is clear for me to start work on quilting the Halo Quilt.

Happy Quilting Everyone!

www.englishquilter.co.uk   

Thank you for visiting my blog and for leaving your comments. Please share on Facebook, Pinterest and Google+ etc