I’ve been planning this quilt since August 2021 – at least, that is the creation date of my design file. I’ve created this one from scratch, designing the pattern, working out the fabric requirements, editing it for different dimensions and then choosing the fabric. The quilt was finally commissioned as a sofa cover back in March 2023 and I completed it last week having worked on it on and off since the summer.
I think I started making stuff for my annual craft fair appearances pretty much straight after I had packed away from the last one I did in December 2022. My laser cutter is well past its sell-by date so I use it as much as possible before it fails (which can be abruptly and permanently). I’ve spent the last few days prepping the stall, checking, barcoding and pricing stock, working out how to use a new card reader and app and making last-minute extras.
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…
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…
This is another of my specially designed tree decorations for today’s workshop in The Studio (candy cane one here if you missed it). The workshop has just finished, so you’ve missed out! Cut out from card and pushed onto a split-pin clothes peg, I’ve decorated with DecoArt Media fluid acrylics, Ranger Stickles and Liquid Pearls.
I’m a bit behind on my posts this week… This is a pair of topiary trees that I made especially for the Craftwork Cards Candi Week, and they’re a giveaway prize over at their blog (still chance to enter if you’re really quick!). To see more on how I made them, go to this post. The planters are made from sheet greyboard, covered with titan buff acrylic and weathered with dry brushed Vintage Photo Distress Paint and Distress Ink. The balls are 8mm beads skewered onto cocktail sticks. The trunks of the trees are wound paper, and I rumpled tissue paper round it to add a bark effect.
I’ve created these two pieces for Craftwork Cards using their fabulous Botanica kit which includes papers, die cut toppers and bows as well as the Candi – read more over at their blog!
This is my final project as a member of the WOW! Embossing Powder Design Team. This family project published today, here, features my great great grandfather and his eight children. I’m in a black and white phase at the minute, and wondered if the whole frame looked a little funereal, but then others have said it’s quite gothic and in keeping with the end of the Victorian era. I’ll go with that 😉
It’s a 3D theme over at WOW! Embossing Powders’ Challenge Blog this month, so since I’m still in the middle of preparing my final projects for college, this seems a natural progression for my design team blog post! Read more here.
Well after a flurry of activity over the last two weeks watching my new studio get installed, and then decorating it, constructing furniture and moving in – as well as emptying out and putting back to right the dining room, conservatory and some of the craft room – I have my first ‘working’ day in the studio.
Of the various things I have to catch up with, college work is one priority as I have a mid-way assessment tomorrow. Consequently, I have taken pics of my latest light shade in my series. This one features one of the patterns I gleaned from a visit to the Islamic artefacts at the British Museum, drawn into Illustrator, adapted for the round and then screenprinted in opaque white ink onto thick tracing paper, and then constructed onto a card frame. As with the previous post, here are photos of the shade in daylight, and internally lit at night.
