Dressmaking again

Back garden - bird feeders.

It is hard to keep focussed with the weather being fine outside and a dog wanting attention. We have got into quite a pleasant routine here. Each morning, Ella goes for a walk before the weather gets too warm. She goes out with either my husband or myself, or quite often both. We then all enjoy breakfast before Ella has a rest blocking a doorway. She loves to be close to us. Coco seems to have settled and developed a taste for dog food. It has proved rather difficult to take a photo of Ella watching her food being eaten by Coco who has pushed in front. Ella is very patient and lets Coco eat before claiming the rest of her meal.

In the evening, when it become much cooler outside, we all go out for another walk, returning to find Coco waiting for us by the front gate. Once back inside the house both animals have their meal and we all settle down for the evening. It is nice that Coco generally comes for a cuddle while Ella flops down and has another snooze.

Ella - having just woken up.

I've started making a new dress for myself. It is intended for a wedding I shall be going to at the beginning of August. There is a second pattern and fabric waiting just in case this dress doesn't quite seem right.

Quilters cotton fabric.

I couldn't resist this fabric when I saw it. It is really a quilters cotton fabric, but is once of those soft cottons which can also be used for dressmaking.  The pattern I am using is one I used some time back. I had intended to make the open neck version with short sleeves, but hadn't noticed that the design really only works in one direction. As a result I am making the version shown on the package once again. 

Using A as shown.

I've loved wearing the first dress I made, so will be happy to have the same design again.

Sewing and some mending.

Well, I haven't done very well this week. I have been trying to get back into sewing after finishing off my Horizons quilt. These two bags are the only new things I have completed.

Little bags

The bags were bought as a kit from the Quilt Museum in York. There is a shop there and I really couldn't resist getting the materials to make these. 

Dragonfly bag, opened to show lining

I'd never worked with these fastenings before, so thought the kit would be fun to get started. I bought a couple of extra mechanisms to make some more bags. They are of the type which you push to open. 

As you can see from the photo at the top, one of them holds my iPod and the earphones too. There is space inside for the charging lead for when I am away from home. So useful. The pretty red bag holds a pocket game - Sudoku. The instruction leaflet lives in there too. I found this on sale on a Charity stall for 50p, so couldn't resist. I'm still trying to learn how to use it.

Apart from sewing these together I really haven't done much. I looked through my mending pile to see what needed doing and managed to replace a zip on a pair of jeans. Two more zips are waiting for me to get around to replacing them. One is for my favourite skirt, so I really should get around to doing that one.

There has been no contemporary style quilting, sadly. I do have a number of projects I have almost ready to start in my head. Unfortunately the fact that there is a list is putting me off doing anything at the moment. Did I ever tell you that prevarication is something at which I excel?

Ah well, I'd better get started on those zips before the mending pile falls over again.

A finished quilt and sundry items

Horizons - Caribbean memories.

This week has been a busy one, with my quilt finished and sent off. It has now arrived safely, much to my relief. It will be interesting to see if it considered for inclusion in the Horizons exhibition at Festival of Quilts. Horizons is a challenge by Contemporary Quilt, a specialist interest group of the Quilters' Guild of the British Isles.

This is the first time I have attempted to take part in a challenge like this. This quilt is 1.5m long and 0.5m wide. (59 inches long and 19 and three quarter inches wide.)

close-up

The background is painted fabric with layers of sheer fabric over satin for the "sea". The "beach" is constructed in a similar way.

handling sample

Those of us taking part in the exhibition were asked to make a 20cm square handling sample using the same techniques as the quilt. These will be put together into a book available for those coming to visit the Festival of Quilts. This will take place from the 8th to the 11th August at the NEC in Birmingham, UK.

Textiles and promoting tolerance.

Well, the past week has been rather a blur - trying to get my quilt finished, getting to know a new member of the household and making sure Coco didn't get too upset. Hence the tolerance issues.

Stitching sheer fabrics to create texture

My quilt is rather further on than this photograph shows, but I thought you might like to see the fun I had making textures using various layers of sheer and satin fabrics.

Coco

Coco is the cat who rules this household. A very dear friend, she is now 18 years young. She has a reputation for going round each of the neighbouring houses and sampling the food of the cats living there. 

Last weekend we had a visit from both my daughters, the elder of whom brought a dog along. The dog had been found wandering the streets of Macclesfield and Liz had been trying to trace the owner. Coco ignored this dog for the duration of the visit.

A couple of days later, Liz had successfully traced the owner. Very sadly, the owner did not want the dog back and so ownership was transferred to us.

Ella

Ella is now the new member of the household. Six years old, a Husky-Akita cross, she is getting to meet all our neighbours and explore the local area with us when we go for walks together. She is a delight, and is lying behind my chair as I type this post.

Coco is getting used to Ella, and is quite happy to be in the same room as long as Ella does not approach. Since she used to live with cats, this is not a problem.

Both animals are getting a lot of love and attention, the only thing we ask in return is tolerance.

Ah well, off to the sewing machine and getting Ella used to the various noises it makes.

Work in progress

Caribbean beach.

Same beach as the above photo.

This is a sample which I am currently working on. The design is based on the Caribbean photos above. I took the photos myself whilst on holiday, and is rather an experiment in using sheers and playing with texture.

Octagon and square quilt - in progress.

This next quilt is a hand sewn project. I'm really not sure what the eventual size will be, or even how I will quilt it. Still, I am enjoying playing around with the colours in my quilting cottons stash.

January 2013 Journal Quilt.

February 2013 Journal Quilt

March 2013 - Journal Quilt

April 2013 - Journal Quilt

These are the first four of my journal quilts for this year. My theme for the year is "Shadows and silhouettes". It has been a good excuse for messing around with different printing styles and applique. I am woefully behind, however and need to start the May and June quilts. However, the work being done on my Horizon quilt is taking precedence. Ah well, I might just be able to catch up by the next deadline - the next four journal quilts need to be completed by the end of August.

Printing and painting fabric.

Printed and painted fabrics.

It has been rather too long since I added a post to this blog. Things have been crazily busy here. I still keep stitching and have been knitting too whenever I have had a spare moment. I shall post about those another time. Visiting my friend Hilary the other day, I was only able to take a couple of things along with me. Items she had not seen. It was a few days later when I got around to getting some ironing done that I rediscovered some printed and painted fabric which I had completely forgotten about. As you can tell, I really don't do any ironing very often - unless it is ironing new fabric after washing it for the stash.

These pieces were made during a rather enjoyable day spent with the NWCQ group. We spent some time printing fabric - I took along my thermofax screens and some stencils, a collection of previously printed and painted fabric and my print board.

Thermofax printed onto painted gauze.

Stencil onto previously painted gauze.

 Well, my print board got a little damp after printing the cog wheels stencil above, so I used one of my pieces of salvaged poly-cotton (an old valance) as an additional dropcloth. I folded it twice to print this:

Stencil onto previously painted gauze.

Dropcloth after printing the gauze above.

Second layer of the dropcloth showing dampened original dropcloth leaking through.

 As you can see the results were really interesting. I shall be keeping this impromptu dropcloth on one side for further printing and painting.

Old dropcloth overprinted using thermofax screen.

This last piece of the day still needs some work, but is developing in a rather interesting way.

Completed book pages for the Machine Embroidery Group. Brenda's theme is "Flora and fauna".

"Breakthrough" completed journal quilt for the Sky's the Limit group.

There have been other pieces completed, but I won't bore you with them here. At present I have started work on a quilt which I hope to complete in time to be entered for the "Horizons" challenge for the Contemporary Quilt group. It is full of pins at the moment so I haven't taken a photo - maybe next time.

Thanks for reading. I shall be back.

Hand stitching

Some stitching has been taking place. Strangely, for me, it has been all by hand. With the move here and everything else that has been going on I have not felt like getting out the sewing machine. My workroom is still being used as a bedroom and there is no table for my sewing machine yet.

Coco has decided she quite likes hand stitching. It means that someone has a lap. She doesn't seem very concerned that she is sharing it with pins and needles.

Just so long as she gets the attention.

This is my latest piece for the Sky's the Limit group. You can see the details about this piece here. I wonder if you can guess which film this is before going to look at the other post.

No, this isn't the only piece of work I have completed recently. Sadly the other piece is part of a Chinese Whispers challenge and I cannot share anything about it until the whole sequence of pieces is complete. This will be in November.

This is the tree outside my workroom. We are not sure what it is - it might be a flowering cherry. The builders put in flowering cherry trees in each of the gardens of the houses around us. It will be interesting to find out when the spring finally arrives.

Sadly, I do have to report that my father-in-law died last weekend.