"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!