My first ever quilt

I have finished the quilt, all hand stitched, many hours of work. The quilt travelled across Australia over Christmas while I visited family in Perth. I found the navy material in an op shop while there. It was perfect to bring it all together.


In early January we drove from the Sunshine Coast to Townsville (2 days drive) to present the quilt to my daughter for her 21st birthday. I sat in the back of the car working hard on hand quilting the whole thing. I finished the last stitches as we drove into Townsville!

I backed the quilt with a maroon sheet which also acted as the edging. Unfortunately I forgot to take a photo of the finished quilt. I will have to get my daughter to take one for me and post it later.

Sad stitches

Well I must apologize and explain my absence from my blog. My mother came for a 2 week visit in early september and has not been able to return home. I took her to my doctor with a chest cold and he diagnosed Multiple Myeloma (bone marrow cancer). It has been a downward spiral ever since. Blood tests, pokes, prods, xrays, MRI's, CT Scans, chemotherapy, massive doses of pain killers......almost too much for an 81 year old woman to bear.

Unfortunately I fear she has had this disease for some time and I am very angry with her own GP for not picking it up sooner. You would think losing at least 20kg in weight last January, would have been an indicator. Not to mention the blood test results he overlooked. She was under a lot of stress at the time with her husband being diagnosed with dementia and providing 24hour care for him. Her GP put it down to that, no further investigation necessary, apparently!!

She has been in hospital for the last two weeks and has now been moved to a paliative care unit indefinitely. Life can be very cruel.

I have been stitching through this time, it helps sooth the soul and while away the hours in waiting rooms. I am attempting to make a large quilt for a very special person who shall not be named at the moment.

This blue and white linen cloth was rescued from an op shop and is the centre-piece and inspiration for the quilt. I have appliqued a woven heart to the centre.

Below is part of the design progress. It has changed some what since this pic was taken but you can get some idea of where I'm heading. The white backing is a queen size sheet which shows the scale of the project. I'll hopefully find some time soon to get some more detailed pics.

Nine Patch addiction

I just love stitching these nine patches. I have 15 of them so far. I think they will grow into a quilt of sorts but at this stage I just enjoy the stitching. I might branch out into other colours but for the moment just working with the blues and tea dyed fabrics.

The Magic Feather Project

Jude Hill has a fantastic project going on here. I have had a wonderful time stitching my feathered piece. It will be flying away to Jude on Monday.

I have called it "Feathered Rainbow Reflections". This has been stitched on a piece of parachute silk rescued in 1942. My stepfather lived on a farm next to an airfield in far northern Australia. A parachutist missed the airfield and came down in a tree on his farm. The parachute was salvaged from the tree and some of the silk was used to make underwear for the family during the wartime period. My mother hand dyed some of the silk many years ago and this is what I have used. She still has more of the original undyed silk which eventually (I hope) will be passed on to me.

A cloth with a very long history and who knows what it will become in the future. But for the present this small piece is flying (again) across the world to join in feathered unity.

Very worried feathers have got lost in flight to Jude, sent 3 weeks ago, hope they are just hovering somewhere and will eventually drift to their destination!

Hooray, finally arrived! (only took a month, talk about snail mail!)

Lucky me

I was lucky enough to win a give away from Judy's Fabrications blog and I received this wonderful package in the mail. The faerie shoes are delightful and would you believe this is the first ever ATC I have received. Thank you very much Judy.

A bird is nesting

I saw this pic on someone's blog of a humming bird in a nest and loved it.

Unfortunately I can't remember which blog I saw it on. The picture gave me the inspiration to start my latest piece. If anyone recognises the picture can you please advise so I can give credit to the photographer.

I chose three shades of green and cut numerous leaf shapes which have been basted on to some cream flannelette backing. There is a lot more stitching to come, finer branches and more leaves..... lots more growth to come.














For the nest I have used some white silk which has been dyed using pottasium permanganate. This is an interesting technique which I picked up from Ailee Snow who was my tutor at the Tafta Orange Fibre Forum in April.

Place dampen silk pieces in an alfoil tray, scrunching them into folds, then lightly sprinkle over the pottasium permanganate crystals. The crystals eat into the fabric leaving lovely lacey patterns and staining the fabric. The process works faster on lighter weights of silk, so it's just a matter of checking the fabric every so often to see how much has been eaten away. Medium weight silks take approximately 2 hours. This process will work on any natural fibre material. I experimented with various natural fabrics with varying degrees of success but I found silk works the best. This is a piece I did in class which I have used for the nest.

PS: Can anyone else see a cat on the lower left hand side of the piece. Enlarge for a better look!

Heart Banners

I know it has been quite awhile since I've posted but my fingers haven't been idle. These banners were started months ago but only just finished. The background is woven pieces of blue stripe material.

The banners were inspired by my previous piece the Heart book mat seen here

Happy Birthday Mum

I couldn't put this on until today as it is a birthday present for my Mum. The backing is a piece of indigo material with scraps randomly placed over the top with various embroidery stitches.

Embroidered Evening Bag

It seems like I can only manage to post here once a month. I have been busy making an embroidered evening bag for myself. I pieced various silk and velvet strips then embroidered over them making up the designs as I went. I let the materials give me the inspiration for the flow of the designs. This is the finished strip of material backed with maroon silk.


The following three pics are close ups of the embroidery,
















......and this is the finished product, front and back or back and front??

Tropical stitches

I decided to go to a tropical island. Stitched on hand dyed silk, lovely to work on.

Another little cloth

I love stitching these little cloths. No planning they just come together as I play with various materials.

Still not sure when backing the cloth, I am experimenting with various ways.

I would like to do some more of these and put them together as a cloth book for future reference.

All heart

Now Christmas is over and all gifts unwrapped I can reveal my little hearts. Little trinkets given with love.













































HAPPY NEW YEAR to you all.



May the best thing that happened to you in 2010 be the worst thing to happen in 2011.

"Old Man Wind"

As an avid follower of Jude Hill, I am constantly amazed by her wonderful cloths. I have made my own little holiday cloth, "Old Man Wind".

It's funny how things evolve, this started off as an experiment following Jude's lead. I cut up various fabrics into tree and moon shapes then washed them. The frayed results were wonderful. Particularly the white silk moon, the fraying was quite extensive which lead me to the resulting picture. The green velvet frayed beautifully also.















After backing and edging it, I think next time I would prefer to leave the raw edges. Thanks Jude for your inspiration.

Christmas Banner

I was asked to make a sign to go over the noticeboard in the community hall for our local social club committee. I decided to go all out and make a banner that could be used each Christmas. It measures 1.7m long by 90cm deep. I have appliqued each letter on with blanket stitch and decorated with holly leaves and red berry puffs. I was fortunate to have a pile of xmas patchwork squares of various patterns that were the perfect size for the letters.

Making up for lost time

Sorry I've been away from my blog for so long, no excuses, just needed a break, I guess. My Fantasy Garden theme is slowly coming along. This is was my first piece finished. It measures approximately 54cm x 38cm.

The second piece measures 44cm x 41cm. The kantha background gives a lovely effect.


The third piece is only small, 24cm x 27cm. A mythical butterfly.... perhaps!


The fourth piece is just getting underway, pinned and ready for invisible tacking. It measures 53cm x 37cm.

Haven't fallen off the planet

Sorry I haven't posted in ages, I am away scuba diving in Bali at the moment. Will be back next week and promise to update with photos of my current work on the "Fantasy Garden" quilt. I have been doing lots of stitching while relaxing between dives. I have also picked up some wonderful pieces of batik and ikat material. Lots of pics soon!

Spring

Found these two blue tongues in my vege patch yesterday.



Spring has sprung!

Fantasy Garden

As usual I am slow to add more pictures of my work. I am enjoying the stitching. This section is almost complete, just have to finish kantha stitching the yellow sky and maybe some tweaking of the clouds.....

I have started planning the next section of the fantasy garden quilt, this is what I've come up with so far.

Eventually I plan to have 5 or 6 pieces of various sizes in this theme of colours, which will be randomly placed onto a background material and then quilted to a backing material.

Stitchers Block

That's what I've had for the past few weeks, hence zero posts on my blog. I've pulled out all my material so many times lately looking for inspiration that the house looked like it had been ransacked. Still nothing jumped out at me. I had so many ideas running around in my head but nothing would take form. It's a frustrating process for me, starting a new project. I eventually found inspiration at the local op shop when I spotted two large batik tablecloths. The pieces are very faded in the middle where they were covering a table that was exposed to sunlight, but the draping sides have kept their colour. For a dollar each they were the bargain of the century and more importantly an idea had formed!


This is the first of a series of blocks based on a "Fantasy Garden" theme. I have used Jude Hill's invisible basting technique to attach all the pieces. The bird and the yellow flowers have been cut from the batik cloth. The clouds are the batik off cuts that were surrounding the bird and flowers. I loved the unusual shapes that appeared after cutting out the pieces. The moon is cut from an old silk tie (another op shop purchase).

Life is good now I'm stitching again!

Nine Patch experiment

Thanks Deb for the fascinating tutorial "Fibre Fossils" found here. I gave it a try with some success. I was unable to get the Golden Heavy Gel Matte that you use but impatient as I am I purchased Atelier Impasto Gel instead.

I stitched a sampler nine patch with various materials and threads.

Then hemmed and glued it onto a small stretched canvas. Waited 24 hours for the glue to dry then gave it one coat of impasto gel. It did "fossilise" quite nicely although the maroon material went very dark. Again 24 hours later I gave it another coat of the gel to get a slightly harder effect. I probably wouldn't have needed to do this if I had purchased the Heavy Gel! Anyway it was a good experiment and I'm now working on some more small pieces.

It's fun to play!