Journal quilts, butterflies and bright covers.

Alsager Creative Stitchers butterfly piece

I finally finished a piece started earlier this month. It is part of a challenge for Alsager Creative Stitchers. This year their theme is "Butterflies" so the idea is to create a piece inspired by whatever has been happening at the meetings. The speaker at the last meeting, Sue Boardman specialised in collage pieces, especially using paper collage. This was my interpretation.

Closeup of the butterfly

I also decided to take part in the Journal Quilt challenge laid down each year by Contemporary Quilt. This year, the JQs are to be 8" by 10", portrait. The first four to have a square of purple somewhere within the design. I have based mine on the "Pattern" theme. This is because, as a member of NWCQ, a local textile group, I am going to follow their theme for this year, which is "Pattern." The fabrics were printed and shown in my last post here.

Four journal quilts - from left to right: January, February, March and April.

As you can see, I am a little ahead of myself since I only need to post one little quilt each month. I now have to decide on the designs to use for the May to August quilts. These need to have a green square. Since these first four were based on leaves, perhaps the next should be flowers? I could then use seeds and fruit for the final four. These last four will need orange squares. I need to start planning.

Pillow cases for a new double sleeping bag.

I spent a delightful couple of hours yesterday sewing pillow cases for four inners which I bought from Ikea. I just happened to have some red cotton fabric, also from Ikea, in my stash. These are to go with the new double sleeping bag which was bought the day before to replace our old sleeping bags which were embarrassingly elderly.

Turkish felt sample

Last Friday, I was really lucky to go to a workshop on making Turkish felt. This was my first attempt and I am really pleased with it. The felt is worked upside down, with the design put together first being placed face down on bubblewrap. After this is done, a piece of fabric is placed over the top. Mine piece is around 30cms square. Then two layers of wool tops are placed on the top. After wetting with cold, rather than warm water and soaped, the piece is gently rubbed until the fibres start migrating through the fabric. My piece has two layers of a deep red for the back, hence the reddish tinge to the fibres coming through. It is a much slower process than the usual method, but quite fascinating. I really think that I shall try this again.

I found myself wanting to add "when I have more time". This is really unlikely since I really enjoy being busy. Although that does sometimes end up with being rather too busy with too many projects either being attempted, or too many being planned. Any advice out there on time management?