2014 October (first half)

 

Tone Trials

Last year my mum brought me this charm pack from Australia

I've ummed and arred for a while but have (I think) finally settled on this design (pic from Pinterest)

Mum and I started arranging the squares, but it was difficult to decide what was light, medium or dark.

I arranged them into what I thought were the three groups then took a pic in grey tones - some were seriously wrong in their placement !

Lots of rearranging later, I'm now close to being happy with the tonal value, 

now I need to subdivide by colour - this is much harder than I thought !

Chertsey, and Christmas

I had a lovely afternoon with the ladies at Chertsey Museum on Friday. We were making book covers - some used the results from last month's transfer painting, some used fabric, and Denise used a piece she painted herself.

Most are being finished at home - I'm really looking forward to seeing the finished items next month

Meanwhile I've finished sewing together the blocks of a Christmas quilt.

Inspired by these fab blocks that Nicky (Mrs Sew and Sow) has been posting, (great colour combos) and this Christmas quilt from Carla at Grace and Favour, (and half price FQs from hobby craft) I have made this flimsy :-)

 It needs basting and quilting, but it *might* be ready by Christmas!

Waiting for the Weekend

Work, life, family and "stuff" seems to be claiming a disproportionate amount of my time at the moment, and sewing time seems to be very occasional.

Some days I don't even make it to the sewing room, but I try and tack a few more Hexies, or sew another flower together most evenings as I spend a bit of time with husband (usually watching TV, but at least I'm there!!!)

So my collection of rainbow hexi flowers are growing- 57 completed flowers, and the makings of probably the same again

 

I've also been doing some work on the Aqua Christmas quilt. It's now been basted and quilted

 

I know what I want to do for the binding - but not how to do it!

I want prairie points,

 

and I need them to be held in place with the binding

 

And I want them sticking out

 

But I have no idea how to turn the corners - it doesn't work doing the normal binding corner method. Suggestions welcome!

Rewind, then Recycle

I don't know if you saw this article in May's copy of the Quilter (let's rewind)

I confess I didn't, but one of the ladies at Richmond and Kew quilters did, and shared it with the rest of us.  The summary is that a lady called Lorraine is able to get shirt offcuts from a factory that makes prestigious shirts (including for Prince Charles)

The charge is minimal (from £3 a metre) and all proceeds go to charity - that has to be a win win arrangement! (edit: you can text Lorraine on 07977 588 583)

So, in order to help the charity, and keep fabric out of landfill (selfless person that I am) I bought a bag and a bundle (plus p&p it came to £10.50), and Lorraine very kindly sorted blues and creams for me.

I'd cut into the smaller pieces before I thought to take any photos, but this box was pretty much filled with fabric, and here are the larger pieces waiting to be cut, together with the smaller pieces cut into 10x2.5" strips.

I've been collecting men's shirts to recycle for bunting classes too, but dont have another session planned, so I've gone through those shirts finding blues and creams, and cutting 10" strips: I think I have quite a few now

Inspired by this,

I'm finally making a quilt for my cousin in Norway
 

Tale of the Tentmakers

Last night's session at Richmond and Kew Quilters was from Barbara Chainey - an entertaining speaker, clearly passionate about the Cairo craftsmen who decorate these tents and the results.

The 'tents' are made like a patchwork quilt (three layers) but are traditionally used more like a curtain - they were originally huge, but were too big and heavy for tourists to buy and take home, so they now make smaller versions suitable for wall hangings.

This technique has been in existence for probably 5000 years, but (quote from Wiki) "Despite their historic legacy, the 'tentmaker' occupation is now endangered. This is largely due to competition from imported mass-printed fabrics bearing similar decorative patterns."

The senior tentmaker in each family group will have drawn a design on a wedge of papers, a young lad will have pricked the design onto canvas, rotating the wedge until he has transferred the design onto the whole canvas, and it is then clarified using a pencil.  The men sit cross legged with a pair of shears nearby, and roughly cut a suitably sized piece of fabric, and fold it while they stitch it so it the the required size.  You may be thinking of needle turn applique - but at the speed of light with no evidence of precision cutting at all

I saw the tent makers at work at the Festival of Quilts a few years ago, and could have stood for hours watching them.  Each piece will have been worked by one person, they start their training as a gofor at the age of about 8, and have stopped by the age of 40 or so


Barbara brought along dozens and dozens of these for us to look at (and touch and photograph) and talked us through her discovery of and learning about these works of art, and the families who make them

In the end the table looked like a souk market place!

The colours and the designs are specific to each family, and by the end of the talk even we could recognise which items had been stitched by the same family: this pink version and the following blue version being a prime example

 

In some cases the stitches were visible (an apprentice's work)

But in others, they were not (a master's work)

 

For the tourist market some are now pictures rather than patterns

And others show the influence of patchwork : Dresden plates meets Cairo Tentmaker

 

If you ever go to Cairo, could you just pop along to the Street of the Tentmakers and get one for me!  One like this would be grand; this one was my absolute favourite

2014 September

Consequences Quilt

The Richmond and Kew Round Robin Consequences Quilt needed a box or bag to travel in, so I decided to have a play with the embroidery machine

The bag is based on Svetlana's drawstring bag: I just made it bigger for this one.

While it was stitching I had another play . . . I have a plan for a number of these bags, a few people could get them for Christmas!

Now I've reached the end of the school holidays (thank you all for your sympathy) and have to return to the day job which means far less fabric fun - I'll try and keep up with reading your blogs even if I don't get as much sewing and blogging done myself

Magna Carta Wall Hanging

I don't know if I've blogged about this before: it isn't my project but I'm involved in a few bits with the ladies who are creating it.

Next year is the 800th anniversary of the signing of the Magna Carta: it was signed on a island in the Thames, and the neighbouring borough of Runnymede has always claimed the fame, but the Thames has moved over the last 800 years, towards Runnymede.  So any land previously in the Thames must now be the other side of the river - ie in Wraysbury, so the Wraysbury ladies are making a wall hanging to celebrate.

Shields (cross stitched) round the outside

And applique (slightly 3D) in the centre

Isn't it fab!

My job is to work out how best to attach the shields together (anyone got any ideas?) and to design a machine embroidery to represent this

this is the embroidery plan so far :

 

The attaching of the shields isn't going so well:

This is the 'bounce' or 'dryer sheet' method, but as they want a fusible bias binding outline I think it's probably too raised

 

 This is the start of the 'plonk' method (!)  the edges will be hidden by the fusible bias

And this is the porthole method from a recent copy of Popular Patchwork, but again I think the height difference is too much.

 I shall be badgering Plum (the applique queen) for ideas when I see her on Monday, otherwise it may have to be the highly technical 'plonk' method

PS Thanks for the pins, Jackie, I love them!

Paint and Paper

Yesterday's session at Chertsey museum took me a little out of my comfort zone - I like to work with fabric and needle and thread, but we were using paper and paint and paintbrushes!

I bought some transfer paints at a quilt show earlier in the year: you paint on paper then iron the image onto polyester and the image transfers, but much brighter colours.

We had some fab results, but the most stunning was this tiger.  

Stephanie used a printed colouring page (from google) and pretty much painted the whole tiger orange, planning to add the stripes later with embroidery thread, but the paint didn't transfer from the black areas so the detail transferred too.

Fab afternoon, thank you ladies :-)

(Individual photos are on the Fun With Fabric blog:  http://funwithfabricuk.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/paint-paper.html)

 

Triathlon Triangles

I cut a pile of charcoal hexies a while ago, but the colour didn't quite match the solid I had started to use, so they were just sitting there on the work bench feeling sorry for themselves.

I finally gave in and decided to use them: I pulled some yellow, and used the sizzix to cut some triangles:

 

Having cut, I started to sew, and then press (the only sort of triathlon that interests me: cut, sew, press). I liked the result, but wasn't convinced by just having two colours

 

So I cut a few other colours

 

And a few more!

 

These are being machine pieced (and nary a Y seam in sight!) so should stitch up quite quickly once I've worked out the maximum size I can make using the existing charcoal and lemon fabrics

 

Daughter distraction

I'm delighted to be back in my sewing room, and able to sit at my computer - we've just had a 48 hour experience that I never want to repeat.

It started with Niki having an 8 day headache, fuzzy vision and tingling fingertips - two trips to the doctors, loads of drugs and unable to get another appointment for nearly a week, then a trip to the walk-in centre who sent her to A&E.

There she was tested for stroke, aneurysm, brain pressure, and goodness knows what else, while being pumped full of pain killers and antibiotics just in case it was meningitis.  By 3am on Wednesday morning everything else prooved negative, so they had to do a lumber puncture to check it wasnt meningitis: that happened mid afternoon, and we got the results yesterday evening - not meningitis, yippee!!!! Whatever the infection was it was sorted by all the drugs, so after she had spent 12 hours pretty much flat on her back after the LP she was allowed home this morning, and we both spent today catching up on some much needed sleep!

I didn't even have time to sort out any hand sewing as I dashed off to take her to A&E, so it was especially therapeutic to get back to the Triathalon Triangles and finish pressing them today

They even look like the plan - how'd that happen?

Thanks to all my Facebook friends for the comments and messages over the last 48 hours - all much appreciated by Niki and me xx

Upstairs Downstairs

As if I don't have enough UFOs at the moment I got an urge to cut some bargain hobby craft Christmassy FQs yesterday.  (£6.50 for five FQs, I couldn't resist!)

I had a plan, so I cut

And I pressed

Then I felt I ought to be sociable, so I joined Niki and Brian downstairs and decided that as my hexi box was full it was time to start making flowers

I was planning on adding a path between these flowers, but seeing them butted up against each other I think I might just join them as they are

Random Recap

Thanks to all the asked about my disaster recovery attempts, I thought I'd show the evidence . . .

The tissue pouches were redone and delivered, and thanked for, and used, so I guess they are OK this time

And the Gothic initials have been received and approved and paid for, so I guess they were ok too

I also thought I'd share my pompom gadget from Festival of Quits - this sooooo beats flaffing around with card circles and a needle

And in other news, my crochet blanket is growing slowly :-)

Serious Speed Dating

A friend popped round a few days ago and was surprised when I invited her in to help mum and I speed dating.

I suppose for non-patch workers it has a different meaning, but she picked it up quickly and we have speed dated these blocks and reckon they are all happy in their place

Annoyingly they haven't all been trimmed to size, so it will be a while before I can sew this one and snuggle under it, but at least it's one stage closer to being done!

Mayhem in Milan

I've been AWOL for the last few days, I do apologise, I went away for a girly weekend with friends: chats and laughs, food and drinks, shopping and culture, and a *lot* of walking!

Rainbows seemed to feature a lot, along with random pieces of wood

 

Climbing the stars to the top of this church hopefully used the calories from the scrummy ice cream!

 

The secret courtyards and balconies were gorgeous

 

We found some great sewing themed, and other fun items for sale:

And a wonderful needle and thread piece of art!

 

And to top it off, I worked with my own needle and thread, and finished another half dozen hexie flowers :-)

Looking good eh?

Back to Broom Farm

It's been quite a while since I taught at Broom Farm - I've missed the girls, so it was great to start again with some workshops there last Monday.

We started with recycling jeans - we looked at loads of ideas of things they could make, and then all made a pot - some made slippers too!!!

Next session . . . Bunting!

How to BEEhave

I blogged a while ago about *my* consequences quilt, but a consequence of being in round robin is that I have to make blocks for the others in the group.

Mt first blocks are for Karen.  She has taken hexies and bees as her theme, and asked for blocks in yellow and grey.

Her fabrics and blocks are really inspiring, and gorgeous!

She has asked for two blocks from each of us.  I am going to paper piece some grey hexies for one of mine, but I had an idea for a machine embroidery for the other one so have done that first.

I really hope she likes it. It isn't paper pieced, but it certainly fits in with her yellow, grey, hexagons and bees theme!

Birthday Bonus

Thanks to someone at home (unidentified but one of two suspects) putting birthday post in the junk post pile, I only found a pressie from Plum yesterday

But it was worth waiting for!  

About 5" square (when folded in half) it's perfect for the makings of half a dozen hexi flowers - and fits perfectly in my handbag

So I can keep adding to this collection of hexi flowers

Thank you Plum xx