You are currently browsing the category archive for the 'quilts' category.
Remember these little guys? They will be published as a pattern in Issue 32 of Quilter’s Companion on sale in July. So ya’ll can stop asking me for a pattern 
(you KNOW I’m kidding, right?) (not about the mag. That’s for real.)
Alive and kicking. This has been a very busy week with work and, therefore, the blog becomes a sad little Neglectarino. I haven’t done very much crafting at all, but others have on my behalf!
I present to you, my new quilt, MAGNIFICENTLY quilted by the all-talented and positively exceptionally beautiful Tracey...
Can that girl sew or what? Check out the feathers she did in the corners!! I am so totally in love 
Yes, I know. Once again it is only a snippet of a view. I don’t mean to tease, honestly I don’t, but it’s more Secret Squirrel Stuff. You know how it is…
Remember how I managed to be a month early for my Twelve by Twelve challenge? I’m still amazed by that, but…
TA DAH!!
Here it is.
The theme was “Community” and even though it’s a huge cliche to see a community as a tree, the more I thought about this theme the more meaningful that tree image became to me. We have moved quite often and the communities that I have been a part of that have meant the most to me and that I have enjoyed the most have been the ones where every individual is valued and appreciated for who they are. I love to be in communities where every leaf is different and there are a few nuts growing amongst them! In February I visited Melbourne and met up with some bloggers ( Hi Crafty! Hi Stomper!) for dinner in Brunswick Street. It must be one of the best places in the whole world! While we were sitting there talking I watched out of the window as people walked by - Harajuku-styled kids, an old guy on a bicycle who was a dead ringer for Robert Winston, tattooed chicks in leathers and, later, as we walked along the street, a middle-aged transsexual in a really bad blonde wig sat reading the paper.
Thank you so much from both of us for all those anniversary wishes! We really do feel blessed and grateful.
And, Meredith, you crack me up! STILL moaning about that dress twenty five years after the fact. At the age of five my baby sister lived in shorts and she hated her flower girl dress so much that her bottom lip stuck out for the entire day of our wedding! It was pretty hilarious really. I should probably have tried to accommodate her more. M, I appreciate that you suffered for me and hereby publicly acknowledge your pain. 
If it’s any consolation at all, I promise that if I ever have another wedding you will be allowed to wear hotpants. In fact, I will insist that you wear hotpants.
On a crafting note: There are quilts being born in this house…
I am very happy
Well, I must say I am somewhat disappointed. After the last post I expected my blog to have been completely over-run by spotty, squeaky teenaged boys and middle-aged men with comb-overs and plastic raincoats. But, no, all the regular visitors have been by and, GOSH DARN IT!! you are all so SENSIBLE about vaginas. I am secretly proud that my friends are emotionally healthy.
More sewing….more new quilts for more new patterns…enjoying this productivity.
…you make a public arse of yourself?
And no one tells you? In case you’ve been waiting and wondering why I haven’t posted photos of the quilt I finished a few days ago, the Twelve by Twelve reveal isn’t for another few weeks. I was thirty days early.
Holy cow, there’s a first for you!
Thanks for the heads-up, O Fair Weather Friends
Not that I can talk about being a good mate. My emailing has been negligent for a while.There has been sadness on the Interweb lately, people, and it’s affecting me more than it should. And March 2 would have been my sweet boy’s 21st birthday. And I’ve been busy doing this…
I don’t want to give the impression that I’m wallowing, because I’m not. Just lacking a little spark and needing lots of thinking time.
Normal contact will resume shortly.
What a challenge this Twelve by Twelve theme of “Chocolate” was! My goodness, Francoise, you really chose a tricky one and had me thinking hard!
I agonised for weeks and weeks. I came so very close to a literal depiction of a block of chocolate using Attic Windows. I’ve never done that pattern before (mostly because I don’t like it!) and I thought about doing 2″ blocks with velvet soft centres in each square of chocolate. Fruit flavoured soft centres have always been my absolute favourite chocolates.
After a few weeks of intense dissatisfaction with this idea, the many months of Jude’s influence bubbled to the surface and I knew what I wanted to do. Jude’s loving hand-stitches and gently rumpled fabrics floated through my thoughts. I remembered some pieces of cotton velvet that I had in the cupboard. I handpainted this piece with silk paints until it reminded me of all my favourite soft centres - strawberry, raspberry, boysenberry and a smidge of orange.
The background is pieced together from all the fragments of chocolate brown fabric in my scrap basket. There are curves in those seams to make the most of each piece - never a crumb of chocolate should be wasted! The velvet was reverse appliqued behind the background, the edges of the brown turned under and whip-stitched with six strands of hand- dyed floss. Every stitch was as yummy as a bite of chocolate!
It had to be hand-quilted to make the rumples truly rumple, so I used embroidery floss and a large, uneven stitch to make curvy lines of quilting. I was so pleased with way the velvet lifted and formed gentle folds. These folds are stab-stitched in just enough places to hold them. At some point, as I hand-stitched, I decided it needed some more subtle pink in the form of solid lines - machine stitched lines. The batting is cotton and I quilted through the top and just the batting. After the quilting was finished I bagged it with a vliesofix-backed backing fabric, rounding off the corners. The quilt was then turned through and the backing ironed in place.
The little heart in the corner came last! It is satin-stitched in place and then triple-stitched on each side of the satin-stitch. One of my current loves/obsessions is little tags and brandings and labels, snuck into corners of things. This heart is a reference to those and also a reminder that the quilt is a love-note to Soft Centres from Me.
A little smackerel of something
A morsel of chocolate for this month’s quilt for the twelveby12 challenge. The date of the Grand Reveal is 1 February, but I just finished today and had to give you a glimpse, at least.
I was invited a month or so ago by Diane to join a new group that she was starting. There are twelve of us (inspirational women all), who will each make twelve 12″ quilts over the next ear or so. Each will take a turn setting a theme for that month’s quilt.
October was our first quilt challenge, to follow the theme “Dandelion” chosen by Diane.
Here is my effort. I am pleased, but reservedly so. It has been very much influenced by the R.E.M. song “Wendell Gee” and the words printed on it (my handwriting on the blue border and stamped with ink on the gray part) are from the lyric -
“there wasn’t even time to say goodbye…”
“if the wind were colours and if the air could speak”
In keeping with the sentiment of seeds/souls blowing away with the wind, I kept the palette calm and quiet (never can leave those lime/sour greens alone, though!). I think my favourite part is the seeds in the blue border (drawn with pigma pen, enhanced with silver crayon and quilted with mother of pearl coloured metallic thread) but I also like the seeds quilted into the light gray background (same metallic thread).
Between the blue border and the body of the quilt is a tiny insert of black and white gingham that is caught at intervals (alternating left and right) with lime green seed beads.
Visit the twelve x twelve blog to see the other quilts. They are truly wonderful!
(next theme is Chocolate! Woo hoo!! I’m an expert in that!!!!)
…finished. Yes! Can you tell that I get tetchy when I’m sewing class samples?? I’m sorry I snapped yesterday, but talking to you guys and checking out what you are all up to is so appealing when I’m trying to make myself sew. This is what it is - a sample for my students to make in class. I’ve been thinking that it really does need to manifest itself in a full-size quilt (along with a whole cluster of butterfly buddies), but it makes me feel just a little bit sick when I think of the amount of sewing it will need.
Thanks for all the Good Lovin’ comments (except YOU Sussanah, pretty , jealous thing that you are )
Cutting out heaps of leaves with very sharp scissors, I attempted to self-amputate my finger. Blood everywhere, pain, gaping wound, contemplating stitches but that requires a thirty minute drive to the hospital. Hmm, what to do? Go next door to neighbour! Excellent idea - bandaids, sympathy, pain-reducing white wine, loud funny stories about boyfriends. Feeling much better, thank you.
Time for a new project. When I left home, my mother went to university, got straight A’s and a degree - I’ll settle for a new quilt!
After churning through my scrap basket for busy prints for the Log Cabin challenge blocks, I realised that I still had a heap of plainer bright fabrics that had been there for quite some time. I am a typical quilter when it comes to scraps. I don’t throw anything bigger than my thumbnail away! So I end up with gazillions of scrappy, thready, frayed, crappy looking bits of rag stuffed in the basket.
Recently I had this idea for using them up. We need new cushion covers for the throw cushions on the sofa (who decided that silk was a good fabric for cushion covers? They only lasted six months before they got really ratty and nasty). So I combined the scraps with some really lovely Japanese fabric and made these.I just cut strips from the scraps and joined them end on end (I also cut some discarded blocks into strips and included them). It’s surprising jut how much fabric it used - I wasn’t expecting to make all that much of a dent in the pile. The one that looks gray is really a taupe colour.
And this is a large single bed quilt top.
Again, it’s more taupe than gray. It’s also got a small herringbone pattern to the weave. Because it was experimental and I needed five metres of fabric, I found this brushed cotton in a chuck-out bin for $3 a metre. I’ll never use brushed cotton for a quilt top again - every damn loose thread, fabric snipping and dust bunny from here to Africa is stuck to that quilt top!! At least it’s the same colour as a dust bunny anyway.
I must say, I’m pretty impressed with how these turned out. I’m not going to quilt the cushion covers, but the quilt will just have lines of quilting parallel to the pieced sections. Easy.
Thanks for all the supportive comments about my Terminally Ill car I still haven’t decided what to do. At this point we are just hoping it will last until September when Peter will be here and we will relinquish the second car. I think that these days having two cars is a true luxury and no longer necessary for our family. Maybe I can kid myself that it was My Idea all along because I’m doing My Bit for the planet.
Leanne threw down the gauntlet a while ago - a journal quilt that records a year of life. After I’d made a group of blocks I wasn’t sure that I wanted to keep going. But now that there are a couple of rows done, I’m starting to find it more and more appealing aesthetically.
Never have been known for my stickability. I wonder if I’ll get to 365?
Thanks everyone SO MUCH for the supportive comments and Wise Woman advice that you left on my last post. I needed it. And to all you single parents, May The Force be With You, Ye who are mighty!! You are unbelievably amazing, pretty and smart to be able to parent alone day in and day out. I’ve only had to last a week and a half - Pete will be here this weekend and then every weekend for a few weeks at least.
Yesterday I made another batch of log cabin blocks for Melly and Rosie’s Scrappy Cabin Challenge. These are my favourite two…
I must say that this is my current favourite amongst my pile of quilts. It always bodes well for a quilt when I can’t stop myself sewing it and I feel that it is my best one so far - it usually means that I won’t tire of it quickly. I get worried when half way through a quilt the whole process turns into one big chore.
This one is definitely a keeper. Thanks Melly and Rosie! I wouldn’t have done it without you!
In amongst the sorting and unpacking caused by my move, there has been crafting happening! Every time I tidy stuff this happens. I find craft supplies that I forgot I had or there is too much of something to fit in a container and I think, “If I just quickly made a ???? from that, I could use it up and then I wouldn’t need to find a storage place for it.” It makes such good sense that, before I know it, I’ve spent six hours of tidying up time making some of these…
…does anyone have any other ideas of what to make with one ball of cotton yarn, other than washers?? My crochet skills are so limited (but improving!). I actually frogged so much crocheting while making these things that I probably made the equivalent of ten of the suckers.
And then I started sorting fabric and my scrap basket was jammed full and so…
…these are for the log cabin challenge. I’m really liking the way they all look together and so I’m planning for this to be a quilt for our bed.I have visions of red prairie points all around the edge of this quilt. But then I have quite a thing for red prairie points These are my favourite blocks from this batch…
I like tidying.
Today was A Good Day ( a James term, much borrowed by me). Today was the Inaugural Meeting of The Cool Quilters. There are only three of us but, man, we rock. Flo and I went to Tracey’s house and we cut fabric and sewed and ate. Tracey won the competition for the most Lust-worthy Fabric of the Day. She was cutting into a desirable little pile of Prints Charming fat quarters and even left beautiful selvedge strips…
Flo (alas, blog-less, but beautiful and sweet nonetheless) won the prize for Most Excited Binder of Quilts, having learned today that binding isn’t as complicated as she had thought (thanks to expert tuition from Tracey).
And me? I was grateful to be able to borrow a board and cutter, attack my scrap basket and come home with pieces ready to sew. Tonight I finished these…
… for the Scrappy Cabin Challenge on Melly and Me.
Yep, it was A Good Day.
Thank you to all the wonderful people who made these beautiful quilts! If you recognise your work and would like a link, feel free to leave one in the comments.
I do know some -
The middle two quilts in the bottom row are by small hands, whose fresh take on fabric always thrills me!
The sweet birdies are by sykossa - she makes
the loveliest things and has an etsy shop.
The little pram quilt in the bottom right corner is by mollychicken - it has really sweet embroidery across the top that you can’t see in this photo.
The spectacular and rather mind-blowing hand-stitched stars in the second row are by moonstitches.
The bottom left Grandmother’s Flower Garden is by Judy Scott, who has a whole collection of very lovely quilts.
And the pretty green and white one is by Shash who has a blog,a web site, too and more gorgeous things on flickr!
Here’s another one - second on the left, Row 2 was made by the Great Grandmother of Jessica of bunnybum, who has just moved to Perth. Welcome to Australia!
Well, well,well. What have we here? ONE YEAR of blogging, that’s what!! I can hardly believe that it’s a year ago since I decided to leap into this world. It was definitely one of my more inspired moments and I’m really very glad I did it. Meeting you guys has been wonderful
Cake and icecream for everybody!!
Oooh Oooh!!! Stop Press! BIG NEWS!! I have received a Blogiversary (don’t you just HATE that word??!) gift. My darling brother and darling sister have been working feverishly and are delivered of a new web site for me. Have a look. Let me know what you think and tell me if you find any glitches!
Whew. That whole process was smooth as satin. Now for more…
It’s happening - I’m making stuff again. Teaching at Symposium in New Zealand was such a good thing for me to do. I hadn’t realised how out of the groove I was and spending a week with supportive old friends was just what I needed. It wasn’t just that either. My brother and sister are great for me. All that encouragement and enthusiasm was just the boost I needed.
You probably need a little background info. Five years ago I was on a creative rampage. I went to Quilt Market in Houston and sold my patterns. It was a success on a number of levels, including making some great contacts and proving to me that I can do this and do it well. I could really see my place in the world.
Then a few things happened. My tendencies for procrastination and self-doubt started eroding my plans, my son James’ medical problems took a nosedive, blah, blah,blah.
Anyway, nearly three years ago Jamie died. Then we left New Zealand and moved to Australia. The network of artistic people that I had around me were now thousands of miles away and I started to lose my direction.
Talking with those friends again has shown me that I hadn’t really acknowledged quite how much those events had rattled me. I’ve been great emotionally and intellectually, but the creative side of my life took a knock. I’d even been giving lots of thought to changing direction completely and leaving quilting and designing behind.
Enough whining - I’m back! I know now that this IS what I want to do. I’m good at it and I like it.And I’ve identified the things that I need to do to keep the focus.
My mates and I are going to keep in regular contact and keep each other aloft.
I will surround myself with stimulating design and cool stuff… via Selvedge and Wallpaper and other fav magazines and wonderful books,etc.
New fabric - I need new fabric from time to time. Fortunately my mate Donna has a quilt shop and she knows what I like
Every day I will be Thankful for the constant flow of inspiration that God provides.
Yes. Good.
Yes, another update. I said I wouldn’t, but this thing is consuming all of my time. Here are a few detail shots. Now you can see the sequins. Oh the treachery!
This is by no means finished. You can see that the bigger flowers don’t have centres yet. It is starting to BORE ME RIGID.
Keep going. Keep going. Keep going.
I’m so relieved that this quilt is finally starting
to come together. It’s been such slow progress and I just haven’t been able to get enthusiastic about it.
Anyway, I’m happy with how it’s going now! The background is pieced, the flowers, vines, etc are machine appliqued and there are machine embroidered details (free-motion). I’m thinking at this stage that it will also have some hand-embroidery and beading. We’ll see.
Here it is…
Not the best photo - the only place I could hang it was over a window, so it’s backlit and not so true to colour. This is such a great block (shaded four patch) because it can make countless designs and it always looks good.
Thanks for all the nice comments! I do love a cheer squad
This is me…
You haven’t heard much from me for a few days because I haven’t been home. I’ve been sewing with friends - yet another scrap quilt. We did some swapping and had a competition for the ugliest fabrics. Believe me there were plenty of contenders! This is about half of my quilt. I should finish the top this morning and then you can see the whole thing
The plan with this quilt (photo in last post) is to have New York Beauty blocks across the bottom, which will form a base for an appliqued garden. The flowers will stretch up as far as her dress and be quite elaborate. Lots of foliage, lots of flowers, predominantly pink/red/green; bottom centre and right are loudest part of the quilt. The left side will have climbing, flowering vines (green/turquoise leaves, blue/white flowers) on top of blue and white print fabrics (probably pieced blocks of some kind). Top edge will be more pieced blocks in blue/white prints (maybe more NY beauties?). Right side - don’t know yet but fancy intricate piecing with the fabric shown.
The blue stripe, lavender-chartreuse and lavender print are definites. Eveything placed around the outside is to give me an impression of colour/tonal/print density.
The idea is to have the flowers as the first impression, followed by Flora and then a gradual realisation that there’s some Stunt Piecing* in the background.
The problem with working like this (as opposed to elaborate drawings and plans) is that it can take a very long time. People always ask how long a quilt takes to MAKE. They should ask how long it takes to THINK. I reckon 95% of my effort is in the thinking.
Thanks for the comments! It’s like having quilting mates over for coffee, who all throw their two cents in! It can be very helpful. I was thrilled to get the Klimt references (even at this embryonic stage) because that’s exactly where I’m heading!
*difficult/showing-off type piecing done to impress non-quilters who don’t realise how many tricks and shortcuts you know.
In case you think I don’t make quilts any more, here is what is presently spread over my floor. I look at it as I walk past, I sit and stare at it, sometimes I poke it or move something. It isn’t happening in my head yet. I hope it does soon. It’s taking too damn long.
You may have noticed (if you are VERY observant!) a flurry of activity in my list of links. I’ve added a number of new ones in the past few days. These are all new friends or friends that I would like to cultivate because they are soooooooo inspiring! I am so grateful to Ulla - her list of links is probably the most superb collection I’ve come across. My goodness, the brilliance and talent and style. And she seems to know all of these genii personally! I tell you, it is an indulgent way to fritter away an afternoon…
Speaking of frittering, a few weeks ago, I realised that I have been wasting too many hours. We travel LOTS of miles from month to month, mostly driving between here and Townsville. That’s four hours each way in which I could be doing something useful. So, here they are. Useful things:
It’s been many years since I did so much hand sewing. 
These are done over papers (English-style) which is the very first kind of piecing I ever did, aged twelve, at Waikato Diocesan School for Gels.
I’ve really been enjoying making them. It won’t be a big quilt, however, because the itch to get the sewing machine out and “just quickly finish them” is getting worse! I have used lots of favourite fabrics - Kaffe Fasset and Amy Butler prints, gingham, spots and stripes and some 1940’s stuff that I paid a kidney for in Houston. Drool.
I’m sure you’ve been wondering if I still make quilts at all. Or have I just become a ranter and poster of bad amateur photography. Well, as it happens, I have some fibre for you. This is an attempt to convince Maria (she know who she is) that these hideous blocks…
…DO have value and CAN look good. Here you are…
… Seeeeeeeeee? Nah nah nah nah nah! NOW do you want to do the block swap?
Ever since I wrote the home page for my website and said that my quilts are intended for adults, I’ve designed nothing but kids stuff. How embarassing. Well, not really, but I am beginning to feel like a fraud. My head is currently stuffed full of ideas and every single one of them is for a cot quilt or a nappy bag or a toy… I wonder if it also has something to with joining the Artful Quilters Web Ring?? I can’t think of a single grown-up or artistic thing to do! Have I told you that sometimes I work in a bank? (VERY grown-up!) A couple of weeks ago, a customer looked at my Licorice Allsorts bracelet and asked, “Did your kids make you that?” I felt VERY overheated, all of a sudden, and mumbled, “no, I did.” She laughed. I got hotter.
Here is this weeks Work in Progress. It was inspired by my sign-up for a swap of 1 1/2″ squares. When I calculated how many of those little suckers it was going to take to make a decent sized quilt, I decided (Rather cleverly, I thought. I was wrong.) to make applique blocks that would fill HALF the space, thereby reducing the number of teeny, tiny, itty, bitty squares by half. They have probably taken twice as long to make as piecing the little squares!
But, they have been very inspiring and now I’m planning an Alien Quilt. Yay!
I’ve been laughing at something that I suddenly seem to read everywhere - SABLE, “Stash Accumulated Beyond Life Expectancy”. Knitters suffer from it and quilters probably invented it! I know, because I’ve worked in quilt shops. Oh the stories I could tell! The women who store their stashes in their car boots (trunks, y’all) so that their husbands don’t know how much they have. Fabric purchases split over two or three credit cards. The woman who bought squillions of dollars worth of fabric from me one day and then said, “Gosh, how will I get home? My car’s nearly out of fuel and I’ve just spent all my grocery money!”
These days I am very hard to please when it comes to fabric . It takes a pretty spectacular piece of cloth to make me reach for my Visa. I try to kid myself that I have great self-control but it’s really just that I’ve gotten fussier. And I know how much I already have at home. My stash is large but manageable. I know what I’ve got and I only buy colours that I don’t already have or yardage as I need it (see my halo?).
Every now and then, however, the scrap situation reaches crisis point. Most quilters I know can’t bear to throw away scraps of fabric. You either Never Know When You’ll Need A 2″ Square of Orange Elephants Blowing Bubbles on a Gray Background or You Just Can’t Bear to Say Goodbye to the Very Last Shred of the Most Beautiful Floral Hoffman Ever Printed in the Good Old Days When They Made Those Incredible Florals Do You Remember Them Why Don’t They Make Fabric Like That Now?
So now is the time to make scrap quilts. I like ‘em fast, I like ‘em easy and for some reason that I can’t figure out I like ‘em traditional. The only traditional quilts I really make. I found these Jewel Box blocks in a box last night. I made them about three and a half years ago and for some reason never sewed them together. Today is the day.
PS If you haven’t already seen print and pattern, go have a look - fabulous!
You guys are probably as sick of this quilt as I am, but some of you (oh, loyal, loving friends!) have asked to see the whole thing. So kids were conscripted (”brutally” says Boy) to hold it up while I begged the camera batteries to last long enough for one more shot.
I have prepared a brief, but pithy, artists statement to accompany the quilt on its Japanese voyage. Ahem, ahem…
“The landscape of Outback Australia is one of great contrast and surprising subtlety. The sky is clear blue and so huge that it can be almost overwhelming. The land is rocky, crisp and orange and, as I stand upon it, I feel its age. Beneath me are layers of time - centuries, lives, moments. Occasionally, I catch a glimpse of what came before…”
“What Came before” is a memorial, in a way, to our friend DrMary Wade. Mary was a gifted paleontologist. She was interested in many areas of paleontologyy and was an internationally respected expert in more than one field. This quilt will be part of an exhibition of fossils that a colleague of Mary’s is taking to Japan.
We are off for a long weekend at the coast. I am looking forward to walking on the beach. Although I shall be keeping a weather-eye out for company. Last night on the news they reported that two crocodiles have taken up residence in the water hazard on the Townsville Golf Club’s course! This is no more than 1000m from where I walk on the beach. YIKES!!
These aren’t the most wonderful photos but I thought you might like to see the quilting on the fossil quilt. Most of the quilting is a combination of the linear stippling (like little interlocking and overlapping boxes) and wavy lines. The thread is hand dyed in colours ranging from cream to chocolate brown, with terracotta in between.
I have reached the “get it away from me” stage, with this project. When will I learn to stop accepting commissions??? I find the whole process so stressful.
For me, all the joy of making a quilt lies in the development of the idea - watching the thing grow and evolve, wondering what it will become. Once the point of revelation has been reached, it’s just a grind to finish it. And if I don’t LIKE the quilt, it becomes a nightmare and so, so hard to make myself keep going.
Enough complaining for one day. There’s binding to be done!
Oh I do love a successful day! One hour on the treadmill (yes, sixty minutes! well, sixty two actually but who’s counting?), a couple of hours writing (Super Secret Project only discussed under The Cone of Silence) and WHACKO DIDDLY-OH stencilling on the fossil quilt that worked! I have procrastinated badly on this one. So much so that I’m now three, whoops, FOUR weeks behind schedule. Originally I planned to applique the fossil patterns on to this quilt, but then I saw a great technique for stencilling at angry chicken
But I’ve been too scared to do it! You know what a mess can be made with colour leaking under the edge of stencils, and I managed to convince myself that this would happen and paralysed myself with fear. I don’t know if it was the excercise high from the treadmill (while watching Dr Phil - got to have something to distract me from the s l o w l y ticking over stats) or just the bravado induced by self-righteousness (did I mention the sixty minute Workout?) but today was the day that I gave it a go. What a FABULOUS method! It’s so easy and works so very well. Here are some of the results…
Tomorrow is quilting day, so I hope to have it finished by 
the weekend!
So, after my BLAH week, I’ve got my groove back. Hallelujah!! This week I’ve been working on a special project. This quilt is for an exhibition relating to the work of our friend, Dr Mary Wade, a paleontologist. The exhibition is curated by Dr Pat Rich and she asked me if I would make a quilt as an art work for the exhibition and as a commemoration for Mary who passed on at the end of last year. What you see here is the background/body of the quilt. It will be appliqued and quilted with partial and complete images of three different types of fossils.
I don’t especially like to reveal incomplete work to anyone. At this point the quilt looks so basic and flat. Just about every project goes through an “ugly” stage, and besides that, I can look at this and see the finished quilt, but I can’t describe it adequately so that someone else can see the same thing. But, this is a forum for me to record stuff, and so here it is…
The quilt, obviously, represents the Australian soil in which the fossils are found. There are references to artesian water and layers of rock/soil/time. Technically speaking, I seldom build the entire top BEFORE doing the applique - usually I work in sections - but this time I am using a raw-edge applique technique that better suits the subject and makes this production-order possible.
I’m glad I found my mojo. I missed it.
Though you might like a sneak preview of the Block of the Month…
I hear that Donna’s Quilt Studio is the place to be. SOME people even queued before opening time (did you have sleeping bags, Jan/Evelyn/et al?) just to be first past the post! I wonder if there are any batiks left??
New Zealand must have the best quilt shops in the whole world and,certainly, the most per square mile. It was such a treat to live in a town with 80 000 people and THREE quilt shops.
A new quilt shop has just opened in Townsville, too. We may have to borrow a trailer for our next visit…
