Quilt No 021: USA Memories

Eighteen months in the making, this is my completed ‘USA Memories’ quilt recalling our trip to New York and Boston for Christmas 2016.

Our first selfie together on Top of the Rock, looking across at the iconic Chrysler Building. The poignancy of One World Trade Center and our walk along Battery Park. Every town’s outlet mall had to be checked out for North Face bargains (none to be had). Trinity Church was right outside our hotel in Boston and had an amazing carol service late on Christmas Eve. Stowe, Vermont, was where the fabric came from and where there was still snow on the ground with more forecast (we were too late for the Fall leaves). Above the Bay at Thornton Adams was one of the B&Bs we stayed at – not the most bizarre, but we did have the house to ourselves for the whole evening, not seeing our host until the following morning. Vermont’s Finest, of course, Ben & Jerry’s ice cream factory tour featuring experimental ice cream flavour of white chocolate and coffee (oops, we were sworn to secrecy). And finally, the Mayflower at Plymouth – we didn’t see the ship, but the museum was fascinating. Fabric snapshots of a fabulous break.

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Quilt No 019: Jungle Friends

When things go quiet on here, it usually means I am working on something I can’t share just then. This is another of those projects, a jungle friends themed quilt that I gifted a couple of weeks ago so I can now share it publicly!

jungle friends quilt

It’s the first time I have quilted using printed polycotton, and I was quite disappointed with it fading on its very first wash. Hopefully, that is it for future washes. I’ll also give you a tip – always check the ironing instructions for unfamiliar fabrics. It turns out that setting the iron to the normal temperature and steam for cotton fabrics ends with the polycotton firmly adhering to the iron and shrinking somewhat.

And the pedant in me chafed all the way through the making that lions were not jungle creatures. And neither are giraffes as far as I am aware. Or indeed zebras. What about tortoises? Sheesh, what are we teaching our kids? Continue reading

Commissions: Castles and sail boats in situ

I thought it would be interesting for you to see the final forever homes for my recent commissions for paintings of Welsh castles. I’ve also made two quilted wall hangings for the same room. Both installations are designed to help soften the acoustics of what was/is quite an echoey space. So, here are the castles and sail boats in situ:

commissions - castles in situ

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Art Journal Page: Sew Faux Patchwork

On Monday evening, it’s the monthly art journal session at The Studio. The theme for the session is ‘faux patchwork’, and here’s my sample. Quilting meets paper craft and art journaling.
faux patchworkJust so you know, there is no fabric, padding or indeed cotton/thread on this page. Everything you see is flat and stuck onto the page.
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Memory Quilt: two more appliqué panels

I’ve completed two more panels for my appliqué memory quilt, recording our journeys in the USA over Christmas. These flank the first panel I made, completing the bottom row. I’ve started on the second row – the first row is the most tricky from a conceptual point of view, so I’m leaving that until last! I think my satin stitch has improved, and I’ve definitely got the hang of transferring my sketches to make fabric images.

Still to do: fabric interpretations of Trinity Church, Boston; The Chrysler Building, Rockefeller Center and World Trade One. All of those are going to take a bit of work to choose from the fabrics to get the best sense of depth with such a limited palette of colours. That said, I’m rather pleased with how the Mayflower turned out – the stripes on the side were part of the fabric, with careful positioning of the cutout of course…

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Memory Quilt: Block No. 8

No, you haven’t missed seven previous instalments – this is the first of nine blocks that I’ve tackled for a new memory quilt.  I wanted to make a quilt as a ‘souvenir’ of our trip to the USA over Christmas – in addition to my travel journal which is yet to be finished…

We chose the fabric whilst away, in a lovely quilting shop, Stowe Fabric & Yarn, in Stowe, Vermont, and once I got home and had five minutes to myself, I started designing. It’s the first quilt I have made that uses appliqué techniques – and I’m going to need a bit more practice on my satin stitches I think. The quilt is going to feature nine appliqué panels, and here’s the first. No guesses as to which tourist venue this panel refers to…

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Quilt No. 018: ‘Great Expectations’

It has been 18 months in the making. Well, may be a couple of weeks in the actual making, but with lots of gaps! This is my first (and possibly last) double wedding ring quilt, made as a wedding gift to good friends. I missed the wedding deadline, and their first anniversary, but managed to get it finished for Christmas.

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Quilt No 017: Aldi Christmas Special

img_7435_wI can’t believe it has been over a year since I have completed a quilt. That’s not to say I haven’t been quilting – I have a couple of tops that I have been procrastinating over (I really hate laying out and pinning), one of which is a year late being delivered (so sorry Beth and Mike!). These two table runners use Christmas-themed fat quarters that were part of Aldi’s recent ‘So Crafty’ promotion. You really can’t go wrong with six fat quarters for less than £4. They’re not necessarily patterns and contrasts that I would have chosen but after cutting them according to Barbara Chainey’s ‘Fast Quilts From Fat Quarters’ cutting plan, I put them together to make the main squares (12″x12″), before sashing and binding with left over fabric.

I used basic stitch-in-the-ditch quilting in the long table runner, and a holly leaf design of my own making for the shorter side table runner below. I actually quilted the smaller runner first, and had such a hard time marking the quilting pattern on the dark fabric that it put pay to more complex quilting on the larger.

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Quilt No 016: Scrappy Strip QAYG

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I’m leading another quilt workshop at Quorn Country Crafts in Loughborough next month, and I decided to set myself the challenge of making a second sample in as short a time as I could (the first being here), to see how far an experienced quilter might get during the session. From start to finish, this small sampler took me just over 6 hours, including the quilting and hand binding. It measures 13″x24″ and used up some scrap fabric kindly donated by Sue who runs the shop. I took the opportunity to try some quilting designs I’d not attempted before, and given a little more time, I’d have done them a little more carefully (and across the whole of the quilt)! It’s somewhat eclectic, but quick to make as a sampler, and a great way to use up bits and pieces of fabric that languish in every quilter’s stash.

Quilt No. 15: Honey Meadow

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Started just three weeks ago, I have just finished a mammoth session of hand-binding and have just the label to do to complete this superking size quilt (100″x84″) featuring Lewis & Irene’s Fabulous Forties Honey Meadow Fabric Roll for the centre panel, and yards of finest calico for the rest. I’ve learnt how to use Electric Quilt 7 for designing, how to make pintucks, make sure that I have the right machine needle for the top thread to avoid constant breakages, and that I really should have bought the 16″ long arm quilter I was drooling over at the NEC Hobbycraft show last week! I’ve also learnt that measuring twice and cutting once holds just as true for quilters as for carpenters! I hope to have a pattern sorted for the panel soon – I’ll add the link to this page when it’s ready 🙂