New Skills

What Day Is It?

I have lost track of the days this week, having only just emerged from the loft where I have completed another 2 quilts for friends in a mammoth stint! They were both so different  - so plenty to challenge me. 

The first was this perfectly pieced modern design by Janet S, a big one, as hers usually are. It needed something to add movement to the straight lines and solid colours and I used this all over hook paisley design. 

The first time I tried it (also on a quilt pieced by Janet) I found it very hard to see where I was going on the busy floral prints with matching threads. This one was easier, in so far as the contrasting thread on plain fabrics was easier to see. But at the same it was totally unforgiving and took a good deal of concentration. But I achieved what I wanted and Janet was pleased with it. 

The second was a vintage printed linen  table cloth and damask napkins pieced with some red borders and corners by Val, for a friend, whose mother they had belonged to. This was certainly a challenge, both in terms of design and practicality. I have been wanting to work on a vintage piece and was keen to take it on, but I imagined it would be a traditional embroidered tablecloth, rather than a large scale print. On seeing it, I wanted to work with the design rather than go over it with an edge to edge pattern. 

After painstakingly outlining the red flowers, my eye was drawn to the centre area where there was at least some open space and I decided to fill that with one formal square design on point. Then I added large freehand flowers to mimic the printed design. 

The hardest part was the border. The damask behaves so differently (as I discovered when I tried to make napkins out of a tablecloth myself a while back). There seems to be no straight grain and it shifts and stretches all over the place. The top and bottom borders were not so bad because they were pinned to the leaders, but the side borders had a lot of fullness to be managed. I tamed them eventually with only one creative 'pleat'.

Meanwhile, during the evenings, I have applied myself to one of my ongoing projects (not quite a UFO!) and have made significant progress. I call it my 'Treasure' Quilt because it features some of my most cherished fabrics from my treasure basket. Some of them are pristine fat quarters and others are the most minute scraps. Why is it so hard to cut into this piece?!

The centre of the quilt will be made of log cabin blocks in a 'barn raising' layout. I have been making these for some time and have now pieced them together, after unpicking and rearranging them three times. Now I am preparing to add a significant amount of appliqué, whilst leaving plenty of open space for some self indulgent quilting. I have at last taken the time to really try out my Apliquick tools properly. 

I spent all Friday evening just tracing and cutting out the shapes from the special stabiliser and much of yesterday fusing them to the fabric and cutting them out. 

My struggle with appliqué and fussy cutting is that it is inherently wasteful. It would be a lot quicker and more accurate to use a Sissix machine , but I just can't bring myself to do it!

Instead, I have carefully placed the shapes to minimise the waste and even spaced them apart so that I can make use of the leftovers. 

Let's see how many half square triangles I will be able to salvage from this piece!!!

Today, I have started to turn the fabric on the shapes. It takes a bit of practice, but I am getting the hang of it. I am about half way through and have already had to order more glue pen refills.

But tomorrow I will be back in the loft to start on a top, I received through the post this week, from another one of Stasha's talented friends. It is the most exquisitely executed appliqué sampler, featuring many of the exact same fabrics that I have in my own collection. So it will be a joy to look at as I work on it, as well as an inspiration to improve my own work. 

How perfect is this ?!!

Happy Quilting Everyone - Stay safe and keep cheerful!

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