Monday 30 May 2011

"Strata" developments

While away and working on the quilting of the "Strata" quilt I came to realise that the format of the piece was wrong, too tight and constrained, a long way from the rock formations I started with. At first I thought it was just end up as another UFO, but folding it up to put away I realised that what I actually had wad 3 different pieces of work. 1 small wall hanging and 2 pieces of mixed media gallery textiles. I am so pleased that all that work is not totally wasted and I now feel a lot more comfortable completing the pieces. The photo shows the wall hanging section which is now nearly complete.


It did however mean that I had entered a quilt for FoQ which did not now exist!! So.... I have been busy looking at an alternative piece. More of that later.

Friday 20 May 2011

Mull and Malvern

A week on Mull as the chef to 12 birdwatchers did not leave me as much time to stitch as I had hoped, but it did convince me that "Strata" as it is currently configured is not what I really want it to be! I think it will end up as 2 smaller pieces! It did give me time to plan out an alternative,


drawing it up full size ready for when I got home.
Now I need to dye much larger lengths of fabric with Bren next Saturday so that I can really get a move on to meet the FoQ deadlines.
I also had time to investigate some wonderfully dilapidated boats, yes I know Pauline Burbidge has done these, among others, but I'd really like to try my hand at it. If its true that once a famous quilter had "done" a theme if any of us do it, its plagiarism, what price creative freedom!!
Yesterday I went to Malverm - my first visit - and I'm afraid I was a little disappointed. There were some extraordinarily well made pieces, but to me no soul, a lot of bed quilts which I would have loved 10 years ago, but almost no contemporary work. The exception was "Echinacea Purpurea" by Hilary Beattie from Lincoln which was a stunning hanging, full of detail and a really eye catching design. The programme was so badly put together it was a nightmare trying to find out anything about the pieces you were interested in! I'm unlikely to go again!

Thursday 5 May 2011

4 Circle JQs complete

Here are the 4 circle JQs together. I was interested to see the development and to compare the techniques used so that I can try to learn from them.
I've had to rebind the first three as I managed to miscalculate the amount of fabrics needed for all 4! So I have now cut enough for all twelve so they can hang as a set if I ever want to.
Now I have time to consider the use of lettering in the next 4.

Wednesday 4 May 2011

May JQ - 2nd attempt.

I've gone straight ahead and stitched a new May JQ as I feared that the longer I left it the harder it would be to do. Same pattern as the disaster, slightly different fabrics and not using the BSR foot (not until I feel more in control of it!)
I've used the pre-folded narrow bias binding that's generally sold for stained glass appliqué to show the fault lines - OK - but black is probably too stark so I need to see what else there is in a more muted shade, something in the purple range would work I think.
I like the beading, but it may be too much. I'll see how I feel in a couple of weeks of looking at it. Anyway it will be a while before the "Strata" quilt is ready for beading.
This the 4 'circle' JQs complete and I now I have 4 to design to include lettering. Paper and pencil at the ready!

Sunday 1 May 2011

Every cloud has a silver lining!

The disastrous May JQ was nearly binned when I thought I could use thin strips of it to embellish my sketchbook pages! So I cut it all into 1" strips with the rotary cutter, see photo.
3 strips went straight into the sketchbook when I had a brainstorm - why not replace the small strata segments applied to the border of the "strata" quilt with these 1" strips, more in keeping with vertical shape of the quilt and providing an echo of the main quilt stitching in the border! Bingo! a much more homogeneous effect along with a little bit of script - sample of which is shown.
Such serendipity!
Message to self - keep mistakes for a little while before disposal, they may come in handy.