Time goes by so fast at the moment. I'm trying to keep on top of the different challenges I have going on as well as watching the garden. Here you can see the fourth of my yellow quilts for the CQ Journal Quilt challenge for this year. I finished it some weeks ago, but have only just got around to posting it on the group's Yahoo site. I have already started on the last four quilts for this year. They are all blue.
The gooseberries and the grapes are looking good. I love gooseberries, so quite a few get eaten before they are brought indoors. The surplus we freeze to enjoy through the winter. The grape vine is a young one so won't produce many grapes this year.
The cats enjoy sleeping under the large leaves of the rhubarb when it is hot outside. They get rather cross when I decide it is time to cut some. Stewed rhubarb is such a refreshing dessert when it has been chilled.
I finished this just in time for the "Friendship through Sewing" (it used to be called the Machine Embroidery Group) meeting on Friday. It is a cushion cover and was our first round robin. I started it all off with the painted fabric with the calligraphy, the pile of books and the kindle. Other members of the group supplied the fascinating collection of items around the books. I had supplied the red background fabric, but added the word "books!" to the whole before adding the sashing and piping. I just fell for those cats- what a pair of characters. That just has to be Felix sitting on top of the books, with Coco smugly settled beside the kindle. The cushion is 18 inches square, and has an envelope fastening on the back with three buttons to keep the back closed.
The other item I had to complete for the same meeting was the first pair of pages for our new challenge - a textile book.
Karen's theme is the hymn "All things bright and beautiful". I was asked to produce a page for the fourth verse. We are each making a facing page too which gives our name. I have added the words of the fourth verse to this one. I hope you can read the words.
Sheer fabric bondawebbed onto satin. The words are printed onto Jacquard Inkjet Fabric sheets - the cotton ones. The handwritten words are made using fabric dye pens and permanent markers onto screen-printed fabric left over from "Dreams" (Sky's the Limit). The facing page has pictures made from sheers bondawebbed in place with machine stitching using rayon threads.
The book pages are 8 inches by 6 inches. Karen has chosen to make her book in the landscape format. Mine will be portrait and my theme is "Music", one of my passions. I have a plan, but have not put the pieces together yet. Hopefully I shall find time to finish it before FOQ................... it won't be shown there, but I would just like to get it done too.
The last two photos are pieces which I completed at the recent NWCQ meeting in Frodsham. We were lead by Christina in a really interesting day looking at Free Machine Embroidery. The first is a piece using a metal bangle. The covering threads were hand sewn using buttonhole stitch in a variegated cotton. The vertical threads were then machine sewn, a really interesting technique. I managed not to break a needle, amazingly. The stitching in the middle is supposed to look like a fuschia flower - it really isn't quite right. It was achieved by using water soluble paper behind the bangle and using FME to make the flower.
The second piece isn't finished yet. It is the first of a series of leaves I am playing around with. FME on water soluble paper.
I must say that I am really looking forward to the Festival of Quilts this year. I missed last year and the year before..................
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