Festival of Quilts will soon be here

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..................

Warm and sunny crafting days.

Its been quite a busy weekend so far. My younger daughter arrived on Thursday and we went into Manchester to the Private View of the 62@50 exhibition by the 62 Group in the Holden Gallery.
The exhibition was wonderful and I would recommend anyone in the area to go and see it. I shall be going again before it closes on the 17th of August. I'm pleased to say Rosie enjoyed it as much as I did. Favourite pieces? Sue Stone's delightful pictures of 1930's figures with modern day graffiti in the background. Really interesting. Then there was Alice Kettle's interpretation of "Guernica" - this is one of her huge pieces and is one we were drawn back to time and again. A disturbing theme. There was also the really amusing story of the 100 metre dash by Marilyn Rathbone.
Now why the letters? I treated myself to these when I was in Fred Aldous, one of my favourite shops. The letters are each barely half an inch tall. I intend these for use in my printing experiments.

The jacket is one I've just completed. It has taken me ages to finish this. All my own fault. I lent my little portable bright lamp to a friend to complete a project. Then, of course I needed it for all the hand sewing on this jacket, especially finishing off the lining. I've had to get on with this project in the last couple of days while the light has been good in the daytime. It is a black twill jacket which will see a lot of wear travelling to and from Choir and Recorder group concerts. I have to wear black for the performances with a brightly coloured top, so a smart black lined jacket will do very nicely. This is lined with a cotton-like fabric rather than the more usual rayon. It really feels nice to wear. Hopefully it will be fairly warm for autumn concerts.

The last three items have been ones I have been working on for a while, especially the hand embroidered felt bits. These are all intended for my last four Journal Quilts.

Each of my Journal Quilts this year have had handpainted fabric which I have written all over using the names   of the colours I have used for that quilt. These are all destined for my blue quilts (September to December). So you can see elements for blue-green, blue, light blue and blue-purple. It is rather unusual for me to be so far ahead of myself. I keep wondering what might go wrong with my plans for these.

A busy month

The first five of my Journal Quilts for this year. I intend to turn these into a book once they are completed. Its an exploration into colours and the colour wheel. Left to right they are: January (purple-red); February (deep red); March ( pale red); April ( orange-red); May (orange-yellow). Sorry about the addition of my knees, I just couldn't get far enough away to get a decent photo.

This is a closer view of the May Journal Quilt.

Now June - as you can see it is dark yellow. I have also completed July (light yellow) and August ( yellow-green). These last two will have to wait to be seen until I have been able to post them on the Contemporary Quilt Yahoo group.

This last photo is the small portable print board I have recently made for myself. It isn't white and pristine any more. I made it to take to a printing day at one of the Textile groups I go to - "Textiles without limits".

May was rather a busy month - with printing and painting fabric, stitching and sewing.

More photos next time.

Calligraphy on fabric

After the fabric had dried, I decided to write over the top of the printing. Here you can see that I have used masking tape to stick the fabric down onto my cutting board. The words used are all linked to the theme for this piece, which is "Books".



I am using a fabric marker from "Fabrico" an the colour is #118, ultramarine. As a dual marker, it makes this style of pen very versatile. For this piece of calligraphy, I am using the fine line side. The second side gives an effect almost like using a paintbrush.



As you can see, adding words makes a lot of difference to the finished texture. It is a very easy effect to achieve. All it needs is a steady hand, and a list of words to copy from.

Do give it a go. It is fun.

Travels, pages and a completed quilt.

I just loved the patterns forming on the thread reel as I quilted the last pieces of Rosie's quilt. Hence the first photos. This reel had the threads turning into little wiggly shapes. This is YLI Machine Quilting Thread, in the shade V80 Danube Blues. I do love using this for machine quilting.



Well, here is the completed quilt hanging on my washing line.



A closer look at the front.



And now, the back. The plaid fleece was a remnant from a winter coat I made myself a few years ago - really cosy! The pale blue had been left over from an autumn jacket, but I forget what I had used the off-white fleece to make. I found it deep in my stash. All three fleece are of the same weight.

Hopefully, Rosie will be happy with her new quilt. She has seen the pieces, but not the completed quilt. I have sent her some photos........... I plan to make a bag to hold the quilt.

And now a journey. I went to Shrewsbury on Saturday with a couple of friends from the Recorder Group. Elizabeth plays Treble recorder with me, and Kathryn leads the Vale Royal Recorder Consort. It is such fun playing music together. We went to Shrewsbury to spend time in each others company before setting off to a concert.



What a special building. It is a shop selling chocolate!

Another lovely building.

This is one of the bridges crossing the River Severn.

I had never been to Shrewsbury before, but had loved reading about it in the novels about Brother Cadfael written by Ellis Peters. Funnily enough, we didn't have time to visit the Abbey, but did go to see the Castle. Well, there is so much to see in Shrewsbury, that I can see myself coming back again.

On our wanders around Shrewsbury we happened upon an excellent Calligraphy exhibition by the Shropshire Scribes. The exhibition was called "Words in Action" and I see from their programme that this same exhibition will be movingto the Oswestry Heritage and Exhibition Centre from the 1st to the 15th September. We found the exhibition in the wonderful St Mary's Church.

Well, after a really happy day, getting wet in the rain, but really enjoying being able to explore somewhere new together, we went on to the concert. We went to see the wonderful Red Priest. Such a marvellous concert - great fun! It was the closing concert for the Church Stretton Arts Festival. I had never seen Red Priest in concert before, and I certainly was not disappointed. They are wonderful in concert, not taking themselves too seriously and playing superbly at the same time. A truly wonderful day.

I almost forgot! To continue the theme of traveling, my page for Elizabeth has arrived in the USA. You can see it here. I have also heard that my page for Carmen, which I had feared had been lost in the post has also arrived safely. I must post some photos of that too on the Traveling Pages site.

It has been a busy time.