Stupendous Stitching

I've been doing an online course through www.craftsy.com called Stupendous Stitching, taught by Carol Ann Waugh.  It's a paid course, so I won't talk through each step.  Instead, I'll just upload some photos of my work through the stages.  At the end of the course, you will have created a stitch bible, then made an artwork by couching, using decorative machine stitches, some basic hand embroidery and then sandwiched and quilted it, before mounting it so it can be hung on the wall.  I really enjoyed the course and would recommend it.
First - Here is the quilt I made for our new couch.  I wanted to make my Stupendous Stitching artwork to match the quilt, so I used one of the fabrics as the base.

Part of the course is about exploring your sewing machine, particularly the decorative stitches.  Here are some of the 'Stitch Bible' pages I created from my Brother QC-1000 Innovis sewing machine.  Lots of fun getting to know my machine better, which was one of the reasons I took the course.

 Here is the beginning - cords, threads and ric-rac couched onto the fabric.

Here is the final artwork - after the couching, it was machine stitched using decorative machine stitches and many different threads (particularly variegated threads).  Then hand-stitching with basic embroidery stitches such as french knot, chain and straight stitch.  Finally, sandwiched and quilted.  I have mounted it on a stretched canvas and now it is in my lounge room.

Coorparoo Quilters Quilt Show 2011

Coorparoo Quilters have a quilt show every two years.  This year, we held it over the weekend of 4-5 June.  We had a Mug Bag Challenge (eg make a bag to put a mug into, to take to class).  The bag had to match the mug.  I had an idea to make a bag like a rose, to match a beautiful mug my sister Lee had given me a few years ago. 

Here are all the beautiful mug bags:

 

I dropped off my quilts and mug bag on the Friday afternoon.  We had an opening event on the Friday evening.  I was walking towards the mug bags with my friend Conny.  I said, 'Someone's put something purple in my mug".  Conny said, "They must have accidentally left something behind".  We went up close to it and it was a Winner blue ribbon!!  What a fabulous surprise.  There were so many fantastic mug bags there.  I didn't even realise that it was being judged that afternoon.   I also received a book and 8 fat quarters at our next quilt meeting, so I was very happy. 

When making the rose mug bag, I had thought about individual petals right through to the middle.  The middle petals were going to be long and kind of come together like the inside of the rose.   It didn't work out like that though.  I found this fabulous fabric in my stash that looks like the inside of a rose and so I made a tube with that for the inside.  The mug sits inside this tube, which has a drawstring at the top.  The fabric is drawn together, swirled and then tucked into the mug.  I also spray starched and curled the fabric petals.

 The is the trade table - many of our group made pretty things to sell.

Here I am with my reversible Sudoku quilt, finally finished!!

Conny is on the right, selling tickets in front of the amazing Raffle Quilt some of our group made.

This is the Joy of Christmas quilt I made from the blocks I won at our Christmas in July retreat last year.  I made the letter blocks.

My sewing room

Welcome to my Sewing Room!

We moved house in late 2010 and now I have a new sewing room.  It is a little wider than my sewing room at the old house, but it has windows on two walls and a built in wardrobe on another.  That meant that I had to do something different to get a design wall, as there was only one full wall in the room and my bookcases had to go there! :-)

One wall was painted bright royal blue.  As you can see, that is now painted a gorgeous deep purple called Chive Blossom.  My sewing desk has been with me since 1974 - the first 5 years, it was my high school study desk and it has been my sewing desk ever since.  My Horn cutting table fits very nicely under the high window - inside I keep the larger pieces of fabric and future projects in old shirt boxes.  I had new lighting installed above the table that is 3 spotlights with daylight bulbs.  In the corner is a nice little sewing chair that has my Ott light very handy.  The big wicker basket holds batting. Also under the cutting table is an old wooden tea trolley with many different boxes on it.  They all hold interesting bits and pieces.

There is a pile of pretty cardboard boxes next to the sewing desk which are full of fat quarters.

Here is my design wall - I covered the two doors of the built-in wardrobe with BlockButler.  Rather expensive but a very good use of what would have been otherwise unused space.  The BlockButler is thin enough that both doors slide past each other, even with blocks attached.  Though at the moment the quilt top I am working on is too big for one door, so it is attached to both. So I have to pin one side back to open the doors. 

Inside the wardrobe is rather full.  Lots of boxes with patterns, charm squares, fabric strips, fun stuff for art quilts, packets of pellon hanging, big boxes of fabric, a bag of batting off-cuts and much more....

Here are my lovely bookcases.  These replaced two smaller bookcases from the old house.  I was only going to have one in my sewing room, but we couldn't get the other to fit in the study, so now I have two.  And they are fabulous!  So much room for books and other knick knacks. :-)

In the corner, next to the bookcases, is a wooden 10-drawer CD cabinet - it is full of fat quarters - a different colour for each drawer.

And finally, here is my view from my sewing desk - trees in the distance - my local park.  (just as well you can't see the weeds directly in front of the window!!) :-)

Quilting retreat July 2010

I attended the Coorparoo Quilters annual retreat at Mt Tamborine last weekend.  We all arrived on Friday afternoon and left on Sunday afternoon.  The theme was "Christmas in July" and we each had to make a block with the challenge fabric.  The blocks were divided into groups of 6 blocks and I was lucky enough to win one lot of blocks (the best group, I think!).  We also had to bring Secret Santa gifts - I made a little jewelry roll and also a pencil roll out of pretty pink & green batik.  I received a nice table topper in Christmas fabrics in a log cabin design.

All in all, it was a fun weekend.  We all worked on whatever projects we wanted.  I took along a foundation pieced table runner - a pineapple design with lots of small pieces (what was I thinking?)  I didn't finish it over the weekend - got through 10 blocks and have 4 more to finish off.

Sudoku quilt - reverse side

Here is the reverse of the Sudoku quilt - obviously in black & white. 

Now I just have to put the two sides together! 

I'm thinking of tieing the quilt in case each side is different in size. 

small projects

Last weekend, I finished off two small projects - a bag and a cushion.

The bag is made from 4 fat eights of book theme fabric.  I had bought the fabric a long time ago, intending to make a bag from it.  A librarian I worked with is retiring tomorrow, after 44 years in our library service.  She is a very lovely gentle person and so I have made the bag as my gift to her.  I only used the four fabrics - it is about 30cm square, fully lined and padded with fusible pellon.

The cushion started as a project in my quilting group a fortnight ago.  To participate, we needed to bring in our buttons, plus a piece of fabric lined with pellon, or an item of clothing.  We then drew the hearts and sewed buttons in the heart shape.  I wanted my button heart to look sumptuous.  I had a collection of leaf buttons from a Button shop in The Rocks, Sydney.  The fabric is left-over scraps from Tegan's Year 12 Formal outfit.  The buttons are mostly plain shirt buttons - I've used pearl buttons on the leaves and also several fancy flower buttons.  I finished it off with ruching and it is for our spare bedroom.

Painting fabric

I bought some textile inks in spray bottles at the Textile Fair last year - the brand is Moon Glow. These iridescent inks are in powdered form and are mixed with hot water.                                             I bought several bottles, not knowing quite what I'd do with them. I bought 2 Starburst Sprays: Cathedral Pine Green and Red Hot Poker Orange.  When sprayed, they leave a starburst, as seen left and below.  I really liked these effect, especially as they dried very glittery.                                          Anotherer type I bought was Moon Shadow Mist: Moonlit Mulberry.  I was disappointed in this brown colour.

I also tried using the spray inks on a quilt top I had made from a birthday block swap.  I was bored with the quilt top and wanted to see if I could jazz it up.  Here is the quilt top before any colour went on.

You can see some of the starburst colour on a block below, but overall I wasn't fussed with the result.

Next I'm going to use some of my iridescent PaintStiks on the quilt top as well as the other fabric piece, to see if that will be more interesting.

The fabric and quilt top got caught in a heavy downpour and some of the colour came out.  Then the ultimate disgrace - one of my daughter's puppies decided that pulling the quilt top off the clothes line would be a fantastic game.  So now one border has got chew holes in it.......

Business card holder

I subscribe to the Quilting Daily email from   http://www.quiltingarts.com/ . One recent email had a link to a free downloadable ebook "Five small quilting projects".  
One of the projects is a business card holder which slides out your business cards when you pull on a ribbon or cord. The cord/ribbon loops under the business cards.

I've made one with some fab geometric fabric and put a few interesting beads and square sequins on it.  I also couched over blue glitter cord around the outside with brown thread.  Fun! 

I'm thinking of making a whole bunch of these to give away.  This business card holder is very easy to make.

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Conference Services Annual Conference

L is for...

You know how an idea can swirl around in your head for a long period... and then you can see part of it clearly... then it swirls around again while you need some more inspiration?

Several months ago, I read an article (in Quilting Arts, I think) about making fabric book pages with a Letter as the theme. I thought about using this idea to make something for my sister and brothers for Christmas. The ideas certainly didn't gel enough in time for Christmas, but an idea stuck in my head for my sister, Lee.

Lee is our family historian, who has done an enormous amount of genealogy research. The image that kept popping into my head was of a glittery letter L that had an old tree growing around it. (Possibly fueled by a wonderful photo we have at work of a Moreton Bay Fig tree growing around a park bench in New Farm Park, Brisbane.)

It got to the point where I had to sketch the design to get it out of my head. I used to draw a lot when I was a teenager and have not done a lot since. But it was wonderful to pull out a sketch pad and pencil and get the design to a more concrete state.

In my vision, a person is standing at the top of a cliff and can see into a distant valley. This symbolises looking into our past, particularly to the green rolling hills of Britain, where most of our family line is from. The old tree is in the foreground, with a large L firmly entwined.

And a poem also emerged... a bit basic, but emerge it did.

L is for leaf

L is for Lee

They both fill the branches

Of our family tree

And then the sketch sat on my cutting table. I pulled fabrics - a great sky fabric with clouds, several woodgrain fabrics, lots of greens, some earthy fabrics and a dark purple fabric for branches in deep shade.

Last week, I started putting it together - cutting the background freehand - it didn't really matter if the mountains were a bit different. The tree I traced onto tracing paper and then pinned to the woodgrain fabric, cutting loosely around. I cut chunks for the cabin.

The Letter L is a piece of yellow fabric with gold foiling. My first try of the foiling technique.

The leaves and grass are all free-motion embroidered with wonderful variegated thread.

The branches are also emphasised or darkened with free-motion embroidery. Highlights were added with white Inktense pencil.

The person is drawn on with permanent pen, but the river in the background is sewn.

I've also used Inktense pencils for some shadowing, particularly the mountains.

sudoku quilt

I've finished the bright floral sudoku quilt top.
Nine different fabrics in a sudoku format -
nine in each square and across and down.











This quilt will be reversible - bright florals one side; black & white the other.
Here is the mix of black & white prints in a test block:

Playing with Inktense pencils

I bought a box of 12 Derwent Inktense pencils in 2008, but haven't done a lot with them (besides colouring in parts of a Christmas stitchery). I discovered that Eckersleys art shop in Brisbane has the full range of Inktense pencils available to purchase in boxes or individually. So now I have a whole lot of colours! :-) Plus I now have an outliner pencil (dark grey pencil that doesn't react to water) - good to draw the basic design with.

To use these pencils on fabric, you need to use textile medium with them. You can either paint on the textile medium and then draw over with the pencil, or draw with the pencil and then paint over the textile medium. I traced a few leaves and hearts with the outliner and set about colouring them in. Then I used textile medium (1 part medium, 2 parts water) with a fine brush and painted over each coloured area, cleaning the brush in water between each colour. I also did some very fine lines surrounding the leaves, creating a halo, and painted over. Colouring first and then painting with the textile medium keeps the colours lighter, as seen in this photo:

Next I experimented with doing both methods to see the colour difference. The red flower on bottom right was done by painting on the textile medium first, then colouring in with the pencil. Much more intense colour this way. The top left flower was done by colouring first, then painting over with textile medium. The photo on the right shows how the colour intensifies as you paint on the textile medium.

Here is the finished block with the two techniques used. The colours in this block generally are brighter, as more of it was done by painting first.

I think the damp cloth draws more colour out of the pencil as you use it. You do need to be careful that the cloth isn't too wet (esp if you go over your line), as it will bleed into that wet area. I also found it harder to have different strengths of the same colour. eg when colouring in on dry cloth, you can put a heaver concentration of colour in different spots (eg as shadowing), but I couldn't do this with the other method. Of course, it may simply be that this is my first experiement! :-)

It has been decades since I played with colour pencils (except helping little girls to colour in). I really need to play some more.....

View from my room

I'm a member of an online quilting group, Southern Cross Quilters. Recent topics have included the view from your sewing room and thread jars.

My sewing room looks out onto the side of our yard - really the side for the 'out-of-sight' things like the bins and the garden shed. We had started a garden bed but never put any plants into it. The main thing I looked out onto was a topiary fig with a wooden fence beyond. So I was inspired to go to the local nursery and buy a few plants to finish off the garden. So now when I sew during the day, I've got more greenery in my view. :-)

For around twelve months, I've been collecting my threads cut when sewing (hand sewing and machine sewing) and putting them into a big coffee jar. It will take a long time to fill!

I'm also a member of Coorparoo Quilters and I take along hand-sewing for our Tuesday night meetings. I've been working on a series of stitcheries by Robyn Allen Waters - The French Collection. Here are the ones I've finished so far - nearly done on a fourth one. I just fell in love with the designs and the hand-made buttons. We visited French speaking Switzerland last year and saw villages similar to these patterns - entrancing!

Here is the link to the designer:

http://www.orangedaisy.com.au/

Craft show

Wow, it's been 2 months since I blogged... and what have I done in that time, quilt-wise... well not much at all. I seem to skip from project to project, without finishing much. Mind you, our younger daughter and her husband have moved back home to save a deposit to buy a house. They have brought two puppies with them, who sleep in the laundry. Trouble is, the laundry is close to my sewing room and I'm being careful not to disturb them. And probably another factor is the rotten flu I had several weeks ago, that I'm still getting over.

I've put together the bali pop blocks into a barn-raising set and now am stuck on what to do next. It definitely needs something... got some embellishments that I'm mulling over... So that quilt top is sitting in a corner for now.



I loved the Sudoku quilt pattern shown in a quilt magazine recently, so I've cut out 2 colourways- one big bright florals and one in black & white. I plan to make it a reversible quilt, so will do QAYG to match the sides. I've got 3 of the bright blocks sewn together.. still heaps to go.



The Craft show in Brisbane recently just gets better, particularly as there are more stands for textile craft. I did a class in felting and made this groovy felted flower from wool with silk strands on top.




I also bought two pieces of beautiful velvet along with a bag frame, to make a handbag for a Masquerade Ball this weekend. It's to go with a dress that I made years ago - luckily I still had some of the fabric, so lined the bag with the fabric (seen in the background).

At the same stand where I bought the velvet, I also bought a wonderful selection of sequins - a bit different, they were square or flower shapes! They come from Colour Stream Sequins: http://www.colourstreams.com.au/


I've also done some sorting out of my scraps into strips, trimmed some to various square shapes and left others in scrap piles. Great to get it done.

Bali pops - more

I've made 36 blocks from the strips. From each strip, I cut 2 each of the 3 sizes I needed for the logs. eg for the pink/purple logs, I cut 2 1/2 inch, 4 1/2 inch and 6 1/2 inch logs.

I chain-pieced each section of the log cabin blocks, taking the next log from the pile, without specifically choosing the log, excepting if the same colour would end up next to each other. I wanted a random look.

As the tones are very low contrast, I wanted a layout that would show the colour differences between the pink/purples and the blue/greens. These are the three layouts that I ended up deciding between: