Finally!

Exhibition at Quiltfest

Last week I was a little later than intended in posting to this Blog since I had been busy taking the "1001 Nights" quilts over to Llangollen in North Wales to be exhibited at Quiltfest. I have been involved with this collection of quilts for some time. They are on show at Quiltfest until the 19th February. After this they will travel to Bramble Patch to be exhibited there over Easter this year.

My title stems from the fact that the following quilt should have been finished some months ago. It is finally ready to be handed over.

"1972" being stitched.

The background is built up using pieces of dyecatcher stitched onto fusible wadding. The other fabrics used are thin felt and a sheer fabric which I cut round using a soldering iron. This was to stop the fabric shredding.

More stitching showing the water soluble fabric I use 

The topic of the quilt is the year 1972. It will become part of a Millenium embroidery along with other pieces denoting events from that year. My theme was the first Miners Strike which took place that year trying to stop the inevitable closure of the coal mines around the UK. When I was training as a teacher I found myself observing the lives of the miners and their families since I was based in Doncaster, Yorkshire.

The piece is A4 in size - 7.75" x 11.75" 

Do you ever get the feeling that you have spoken too soon? Well, I suddenly realised whilst writing the above that there was something that didn't look quite finished......... So I will be going back to my sewing machine a little later to get that done. Photos of the completed, fully finished piece next time.

Textile pages and sewing.

I was delighted to hear that latest page for The Traveling Pages group had finally arrived. Above you can see the Lion and the Mouse under way. I am stitching through water soluble fabric here. Such useful stuff. It tears off easily as well as dissolving well. So handy when I wasn't sure how fragile the layers were going to be.
For the differing layers, I used netting, loose woven white cotton and a densely woven fabric I found in my stash. All embellished with FME. (Free Machine Embroidery.) The figures were copied from photographs found on the internet. Sadly, I didn't find one with a lion next to a mouse........ I wonder why...

This is the finished page. The background is painted using colours from a wonderful photograph I found on the internet showing an african sunset. It also had the silhouette of an acacia tree which I used for the back of the page. For this I used sheer brown voile attached using FME.

I sent it off with a simple retelling of this delightful story. The original fable was written by Aesop and is one of my favourites.

As you can see, Gayle's theme was "All creatures great and small".

Oh, I've been busy with mum's quilt. This was the pieces all placed on top of the fleece I shall be using for the backing. Since this time I have been busily piecing the backing for the smaller pieces. I have been having a lot of fun with curved piecing. I'd never tried doing that before. Sorry about the lack of photos - there just has not been enough decent daylight for a good enough photograph.