The last of the family quilts at Sandown

 Finally I am at my computer and it's working and I can get it to load the photos. Must be time to share the last of the 'family' quilts. For this post I'm adopting Susan Briscoe, or at least our quilt. It isn't quite as cheeky as it sounds, I did at least quilt this one. It is called 'I can only do so much pink in one go'. Susan says "After making a scaled-down replica of a quilt shown at the V & A's 2010 exhibition. I wanted to give it a modern twist. The fabrics are all from the Sultry range by Moda. There are 1536 1 1/2" squares in the mini checkerboard blocks"

It isn't actually too pink. I quilted it with green leaves and vines all over the non brown areas. In the brown Susan asked for a garden gate effect so it has brown curls in a wrought iron sort of style. These curls extend from the central area in the the brown sections at the sides of the quilt. We were both very pleased with how it came out. I was thrilled when people were admiring it folded up on it's way back to Susan at the Malvern show. For me that is something that really speaks volumes about the quilt. When such a small piece can inspire people.


Next quilt up is another one of mine. This is Quite Moment. I started this quilt last August and posted all the steps on here.  It's still being very tricky to photograph. Most of the image is in shades of purple, with the shoes in blue.  It seems that whenever I photograph it inside the colours come out wrong. I know I should choose colours that I can photograph more easily, but I like purple :)

 This is 'Stars Innit', made by Tet to test the new pattern Ferret Fractals, friendship stars. It seems to have been a very popular quilt. A lot of visitors came and talked to me about it. It is also the cover quilt of the pattern. It was made from fabrics in my stash, and we had hoped to be able to offer a kit to make on the same, but it would be only one kit. What do you think? Should I make up one kit for someone to make a quilt just like this one? I really like the border Tet designed for the quilt. I stopped with the stars, as for me that is where the fractal principle took it.  The border though does finish it nicely and I think I might have to get him to come up with a borders for the rest of m designs.

 This is my charity entry. I really don't like pink and there was no way I was going to make a pink quilt, but I couldn't let the charity down. So 'No effing p**k' was born. I knew this would never be a show winning quilt but I was determined to have fun with it. I tried out a lot of different threads, I tried blending two very thin threads as my top thread. It gets some very interesting results. Using a cotton thread with a metallic does support the metallic thread very well, but maintaining a good tension is tricky. It was certainly fun to have a play.

The background black quilting is many many patterns. I figured that this quilt would be recycled as a teaching tool, so if I come to teach you machine quilting expect to see this quilt. If you look back on my blog to May you will find a few close ups of the quilting.

 Remember that you can click on any of the images to see a larger version, where you should be able to see the background quilting quite well.

The other fun thing about this quilt was seeing what the fonts day to people. I could see several bands, and Blade runner (although none of the fonts are exactly right they have a strong flavour of something). My students spotted loads more familiar brands in the quilt. It's funny how distinctive a font is even when the word is completely wrong.

Finally, a rather special picture. I've wanted to be able to do this for a while and things just came together on the Sunday of the show. This is the model for Quiet Moment standing with the quilt. The rosette she is wearing is a Judges Merit that was awarded to the quilt. We have been trying to get the two of them together for quite a while but things just hadn't been working out. It was great to be able to use the free tickets from my entries to get her and her dad into the show. Even better she wore a branded t-shirt and was prepared to stand in for me while I was at the awards. I'm thinking it's a good sign when the model is prepared to stand with the finished quilt :) Oh and yes you are likely to see more quilts staring this model, just as soon as I have time to play. Speaking of time, I should be getting ready for tonights talk, where several of these quilts will be getting their next outing.

Just Sometime You Get Lucky

I am working very hard trying to get my entries for MQS ready, and it hasn't all gone according to plan so far. You may remember that I am waiting for more thread to let me finish My Fat Quarter Of Paradise. Well last night I though I was going to have two unfinished quilts. The almost full cone of thread I had started with was looking pretty skinny and I was only half way through the quilting. There is no way I could have got another spool of this in time. It had to work, and just last. As you can see from the picture, it did, just. How close was that? The picture shows what is left of a 3000m cone of thread. There isn't even any left on the machine to putt through a new thread, that's the lot. I am feeling very lucky. More amusing was the thread on the bobbin was the same length, that I could have rewound, but it is nice to have an empty bobbin instead of an annoy little bit left.

As you can see I decided to quilt this Turning Twenty Again with my Decadence Scrolls. It is a lovely fill to work and is very quick for the density of quilting. I see me using this quite a lot. It is very similar to the quilting I did on Miss Baltimore who won me an award for the quilting, so hopefully I am not the only one who thinks it looks good.

Is this picture good enough as a close up of quilting? It is hard for me to tell as I know what it looks like. Also I think it is effected by the type and resolution of monitor. So let me know if I have cracked it or if I need to put up larger images.

Burning Chrome

This morning has been a lot more productive. Burning Chrome is quilted, for now at least. I had to call Robin and tell him that although it is finished I had tension issues. They didn't look too bad while the quilt was on the frame but having taken it off they are more obvious. I can't decide if it is bad enough to need unpicking so I will have to wait for him to come home and take a look. In the meantime this is a quick peek at it.

It is really quite hard to take pictures of quilting when it matches the background but I have had a go. If you look closely you can see that is it quilted with flames all over. They are quite large and worked up very quickly. I am really pleased with the front of the quilt, and if I do have to take it out I know it will be quick to put back in. Hopefully it wouldn't take that long to unpick either. The picture of the back show the quilting a bit better and gives an idea of the tension problems.

Back at the machine

Wow it feels so good to be back quilting again. The cold had really knocked me sideways and although I felt a lot better yesterday when I tried quilting it just wasn't happening. I was really worried this morning that maybe I was trying to do something too difficult. No, I was just not well enough yesterday, today it is flowing wonderfully. I hope the owner likes this quilt half as much as I do. I think it is really good, and I will be using some of these patterns again. In fact I like it so much I may change my quilting for 'My Fat Quarter of Paradise'. I have been doing peacock feathers and I think I could turn them into bird of paradise feathers and make them into a meander. It would suit my turning twenty again quilt so well if I can work out a way to do it. I can just see the bright feathers reaching out onto the borders, yummy.

Archway Update

So it may not have made it to the show, but I might as well show you guys. It will be getting more quilting and some door handle before next year, as well as some kind of finish to the edge. I haven't quite decided how to do that yet, but I will. Having a year to think about it makes it seem a lot easier. I just hope they do have the show again next year. It will also give me time to think about the title. I have a couple of ideas and I know what I want to convey, I just need to get it right. It feels almost like this quilt wasn't quite ready for the world.

This doorway is life size, OK as an old door it isn't as tall as modern doors but it is still pretty big. I struggled to find space to hang it to take the pictures, so please forgive the odd angle. The door handles are ready to go on, I wish I had put them on before taking the pictures as I can't wait to see them in place. I think they will help a surprising amount. It is that sort of detail that gives the realism. Like the hinges I am planning on attaching them using the longarm. I have done so much without a domestic machine recently it seems wrong not to. Given I have to remount the quilt to add more quilting, why not put the handles on at the same time.

I look forward to it being hung in shows, I am hoping they will be able to hang it so the bottom is very close to the floor and it will feel like you could walk through it. It would be so fun to walk round a corner and see a door, to who knows where. That is very much the point. I seem to have a talent for finding this style of door in odd places, and always somewhere where I can't find out what is behind it. It drives me nuts. They look so interesting, they must go somewhere good. I am already thinking about a door you can open, but then what can I put behind it that is as exciting as your imagination?

Of course I will also be planning other architectural quilts. I have three already I want to make but all would be very costly to ship to the USA. I need to find cheap ways of moving large objects. I wonder how long a boat does take to make the crossing

Secrets revealed.

Finally I can start revealing things I have been working on. Firstly I decided to make my own valentines cards this year. Well postcards at least. I like to try and avoid spending money on a commercial holiday, but I like the idea of expressing your feeling so these are made mostly from scraps. Frugal greetings. Just perfect.

As you can see I didn't finish all of them. I didn't need that many but I wanted to make several to give me a chance to play. I started by cutting a lot of hearts from the red scraps. I even cut one from a pieced scrap, the bottom one in the line of three. It looks really cool in the flesh. I could then play with different layouts. I really want to do some sort of exploding thing, and one where they erupt and make a heart. I kinda got that feel on some of them.

Next year I am planning a bed quilt with a valentines theme, so one of these may get to grow up into a big quilt. I like the black and red much better than the more pastel designs, so I think I will try and get a magazine interested in some valentines projects. I've got a few ideas to reuse this kind of design, from these which are very quick, all the way to very involved bed quilts. What do you think? Are hearts a good motif for a project? I have to admit that it wasn't something I would have expected to like, but I can see a lot of potential now.

Woo Hoo

Ooooooh I had forgotten how good showers can be. A proper power shower with as much hot water as I want. What a treat! I feel much better for that. I've made good progress on one of the projects I brought with me too. It's frustrating trying to work in such cramped conditions, and I can't use the sewing machine (if I know one neighbour snores and the other is having trouble getting to sleep the walls are too thin to sew), but I have at least done something. I think I am going to try drawing up some patterns to work from when I get home then call it a night.

It is amazing how much better doing something really creative makes me feel. I don't know how I would cope if I had to not do it at all for any length of time. It is quite weird not being able to see who is on and looking at the blog. It feels a lot more like shouting into the void. I know intelectually you are all still there but it doesn't feel like it. That is the point of a retreat I suppose :)

Oh My!

I've just been asked to make a Christmas quilt. That sounds OK doesn't it. I love the design ideas I have been given and I am happy with the fabrics that have been suggested. Can you feel the but coming? I have to have it finished by the 16th of February! Oh. There are a lot of shows coming up that I want to enter. I have several commisions I am already working on, and now another. Well you didn't think I would say no did you?

I am still building my business and I will not be turning down work if I can avoid it. Especially when it is this fun looking. I just hope I can get it done quickly. I've just finished sketching the design and I think it will work well. I may even make two so I can have one as well. I don't often do such a detailed sketch but I have so much to do right now I needed to make sure I would remember my ideas and get it out of my head. I need to be thinking clothes today not art quilts.

I have to admit to being quite flattered to have been asked as well, that probably effected my answer too :) Oh and the fact that I love to do the impossible.

Under the Rainbow

I've finally come up with a plan for the future of my blog. I wll be moving it to my own server running wordpress. It is going to take a month or so to get moved but in the mean time there will be photos :) I have decided to accept the terms on a temporary basis and hope I can move before they decide to use any of my images. It seems likely given this is a low traffic, specialist blog. All this means, I can show you some photos! Yay!

So here it is. I was asked to come up with a pattern for a bed size quilt, to use a range of fabrics from the Ombre range and spraytime if I needed something more plain. It had to be a quick and fairly easy project. I had three quarters of a meter of each of the Ombre fabrics. I was told I could ask for more, but I like a challenge so I set out to design something that would only use what I had and some spraytime. The black is spraytime so is mottled, I really like it.

The biggest challenge was how to stretch a 44" width of fabric to the width of a bed. As you can see I did manage it, but boy it took some thought and fiddling. Remember I also had to be sure other people would be able to recreate it, and believe they could.

As ever I used a Ricky Timms style machine binding. I don't know what I would do without it for urgent quilts. The one on the frame now will have this type too. The main body of the quilt uses a Dave Hudson pantograph, and the borders are also a panto. I hadn't used either of them before, but I quite like them both. However I am already planning my own designs to do the same job, but the way I want. I am thinking of doing a series of patterns starting with one inspired by the watery pattern here. Rest assured you guys will be the first to hear about it.

I know the pictures aren't great but hopefully they will give you the idea. I was in a hurry to deliver it and couldn't wait for better light. If you want to see some good pictures, I guess the magazine will have them. It will be in the March edition of Popular Patchwork, which I think comes out about the 15th of February.