Tag: quilt

A new quilt every time we redecorate; madness.

Quilts are for using, and enjoying, signs of wear are badges of honour for a quilt.

Sally's quilt full size

Here’s an idea for a quick quilt to match your bedroom décor. This quilt was made by my mother for her granddaughter, my sister’s daughter. Sally had recently repainted her bedroom and her mother had bought her new bedding to tone in with the Lavender walls. Her old quilt no longer fitted in with this new colour scheme, and a new quilt was required.Sally's quilt;backing

My mother, went back to the shop where the bedding had been bought and bought a king size duvet cover in the same pattern, one side had very large cabbage roses printed on it, not suitable for cutting into small pieces, so that side would be used for the backing, the other side an easier fabric to cut up being an all over swirling pattern.
Using small amounts of toning fabric, a paler green Broderie Anglaise, bright and greyed Lavenders, dark Blue, and Teal green, with large amounts of the duvet fabric in an oversized 18inch block, she achieved a pattern apparently floating in space.
Sally's quilt detail 2
I have been looking at the photographs trying to see where the block begins and ends. I think it’s an asymmetric 4 patch block, 4 of which are placed in the centre of the quilt each one rotated 90 degrees from its neighbour. There’s an extra half block strip top and bottom to make the quilt rectangular.It was a lovely quilt when it was made, and a great idea for making a quilt to tone in with an existing décor.

Sally's quilt detail 1

The bedding was polycotton and has long since worn out and been made into dusters, and the quilt, although still in existence, up close has the appearance of worn poly fabrics, stray fibres pilling across surface. I think I could shave them off with a safety razor to improve the appearance, but to be honest I like the fact that it shows wear and tear, it is what it is, and sometimes when well used quilts are a little tatty, they invite further use. No longer preciously perfect, they can be used, thrown about, even sicked on without conscience, and enjoyed.
When I see a quilt which has lived it’s life packed away in a drawer kept for best, or for a wedding day which never happened, I feel sorry that someone’s handiwork lost its purpose, and the point of its making was missed. Quilts are for using, and enjoying, signs of wear are badges of honour for a quilt.

A challenging challenge

I like the curvy line quilting because it’s easy to do and does not rely on the accuracy of the piecing, in fact if your piecing is not accurate curvy line quilting is very forgiving. That’s always a good thing.

What do you do if you don’t like the challenge block? Hide it.

Cecily's favourite churn dash block

This Lap quilt is made using the Churn Dash block (or monkey wrench), I think it was the favourite block of our most venerated late member and the instigator of our quilt group’s challenge, Cecily. But I dislike it. I wanted to rise to the challenge as always but I find the block rather pedestrian, perhaps because I’ve only made it in co-ordinated colours and plain fabrics, so a decided to do it in heavily patterned fabrics and mix it up so that the pattern was lost and the fabric became the star of the piece rather than the block.
Good idea, but I think I took it too far, the pattern is completely lost and with it the sense of rhythm to the quilt top, as a consequence what stands out are the pale squares, rather than the fabric in general. All of the fabrics are Liberty scraps from the printer’s factory shop, I’m so lucky to live nearby; I call in occasionally to buy craft packs, but I can also buy off the roll if I have a big project in mind.

Detail of quilting on Churn Dash quilt

In other senses I’m happy with the quilt; it hangs beautifully flat and straight and is evenly quilted throughout. I created my own wavy line quilt guide using taped together strips of cereal packet, with a hand drawn wavy line. On one side the wavy edge has wide and fairly flat curves, on the other side they are closer together and therefore appear deeper. I used the flatter side, drew on the lines with an air dispersible pen, and chalk pencil taking the quilt pattern right out in a continuous line to the edge of the quilt.
I like the curvy line quilting because it’s easy to do and does not rely on the accuracy of the piecing, in fact if your piecing is not accurate curvy line quilting is very forgiving. That’s always a good thing.

Am I a lucky girl?

I have pulled a few fabrics from my stash and cut them into apple cores but together they lack a certain something………maybe….. as it’s a scrap quilt I should just throw it all in and let it all hang out, wherever the fabrics fall… if you see what I mean, and pardon my clichés.

Santa brought me a Sizzix Big Shot, I’d seen apple core quilts on Pinterest and coveted them, so when I discovered how the pieces were cut I coveted the Sizzix machine as well, but I couldn’t justify buying one just to have a go at making a quilt. My Dearest however thought it would make an excellent gift this Christmas. I am delighted with it and have already begun cutting apple cores from my stash.

The Sizzix Big Shot

If you are not familiar with this piece of equipment it’s a die cutter, basically a miniature mangle, which presses dies (a shape cutting blade) onto whatever you want to cut the shape in, paper, card or fabric, mostly used by card makers and other crafty people. I have already worked out that I can use it for appliqué, with bondaweb, and to make other paper crafts as yet not crystalised but bubbling away at the back of my head ( no doubt you’ll be the first to know when I get round to trying out my as yet vague ideas)
I always find myself wondering how other quilters manage to make such well balanced colour coordinated Scrap quilts, I generally find I struggle to have the right amount of sufficient variation of colour and pattern to make a balanced quilt; do you think maybe they cheat? Maybe they go out and buy new fabrics to achieve the look they want and then just call it a scrap quilt? Surely not!
I have pulled a few fabrics from my stash and cut them into apple cores but together they lack a certain something, I’m not sure what exactly and don’t want to cut any more till I know what it is that’s missing; the dreaded yellow perhaps, or maybe greater variation of darks and lights, at the moment what I have cut are mainly mid shades. I shall need to pull out a great many more fabrics from my stash and throw them in a pile I think, then pare it back, pulling out the ones that don’t work, till I have the right mix.

my first apple core quilt in the making

Having said that I think one of my weaknesses is a need to control, perhaps, as it’s a scrap quilt I should just throw it all in and let it all hang out, wherever the fabrics fall… if you see what I mean, and pardon my clichés.
The truth is I didn’t pull out of my stash the fabrics I love, I pulled out the fabrics I could spare, the unloved and languishing bits, so it’s no wonder they aren’t yet making an inspiring mix. I need inspiration, one or two well chosen fabrics to pull it all together, or white, or navy? Oh Help! What I really need is a few days of free time in my studio to let this quilt come together.

Scrap comforter

One of my most used quilts, most washed and cuddly, the one that gets to sit on my knee when I’m ill is this one

One of my most used quilts, most washed and cuddly, the one that gets to sit on my knee when I’m ill is this one. It isn’t really a quilt as it has only two layers, the back being fleece. I based it on the Double Irish Chain, traditionally made in red and white. This one was made with my favourite hyacinth blue and a collection of my two inch scrap squares.

It is made up of two alternating blocks one block is made up of 25 two inch squares put together randomly apart from the centre square in each side which is the hyacinth blue fabric; the other block is a 4” square of the hyacinth fabric, surrounded by 4“ x 2” rectangles of hyacinth, topped and tailed with a random 2” scrap. When put together alternately the two blocks blend into squares and chains.


Sadly it has become rather faded over time, but still goes with us when we go camping and is a great comfort on chilly summer evenings. It sits on the back of the sofa in winter ready to go over a lap when a nod in the chair is needed, and even gets the occasional trip in the sports car if the roof is down and the weather less than perfect. I’m not precious about this one it’s just a comforter and a great comfort it has been, the epitome of what a quilt should be, bright and cheerful, soft and warm, always to hand when needed.

There in the middle is that fabric again, no show without Punch!

I think this was the last quilt I made which has a little of that old dress fabric in it.

Pinwheel Quilt

Looking at it now I think it reminds me of the sugar bag quilts of the 1930’s, it’s a happy quilt, and deserves to be seen.

This is one of the first quilts I made circa 1985, and the first I think which expressed my love of bright colours. It was intended as my own bed quilt. Not sure why, but I don’t think it ever sat on my bed, or was ever slept under.  I suspect that by the time it was finished I already despised it, made as it was with (shock, horror) polyester cotton sheeting! I didn’t really know any better back then, I think I was a student at the time so money was in short supply. Finding fabrics in saturated colour was difficult, and 100% cottons almost unheard of, quilt supplies hard to find. It was made with really thick polyester wadding so it is not heavily quilted, but it is quite puffy and pillowy. I think it would benefit from more quilting, but I’m not planning to do any more, I’d have to re tack it, and as it’s hand quilted, the additions would have to be hand quilted too, it’s a long time since I hand quilted anything, I’m terrible at it, as you can see if you look closely.

 

To see how the block is made  you need to see it as a four patch, divide the block into 4 quarters diagonally and vertically; each of these squares is made up of two triangles, each of which is made of 4 pieces, which when put together make the pinwheel in the centre and the frame surrounding it.

 

It began well but I suspect I lost interest after making twelve blocks, another row would have required an additional 18 blocks, instead of which I made 4, one for each corner and finished it off with very wide borders.  It did mean that there was plenty of colour in the quilt, perhaps if I’d had more pinwheel blocks it would not have given as much impression of colour, the balance of colour and white in the finished quilt would have been more even, and perhaps more anaemic.

see that 60’s fabric yet again 12.00 till 2.00

 

Looking at it now I think it reminds me of the sugar bag quilts of the 1930’s, it’s a happy quilt, and deserves to be seen. I might put it on the bed in my studio, rather than allow it to languish unseen in a packing box in the corner of that room. Then at least it will be slept under occasionally. I sometimes retire to that bed in the middle of the night if I cannot sleep; too hot (me), or too much snoring (not me).

The Quilt on my bed

my Dearest likes a 14 tog duvet, while I’d be happy with 4 togs (it’s my age, I’m told). In that single week in May we call Summer when the nights are warm and the duvet is cast off the bed, a sheet and this quilt suffice to sleep under.

This is the quilt which lives in my bedroom and is the first to be put on the bed if extra warmth is required, admittedly rarely because my Dearest likes a 14 tog duvet, while I’d be happy with 4 togs (it’s my age, I’m told). In that single week in May we call Summer when the nights are warm and the duvet is cast off the bed, a sheet and this quilt suffice to sleep under. It is my most used quilt but my Dearest still gets told off for sitting on it “en deshabille”.

The block is a simple collection of 16 x 2 inch squares put together randomly from scraps to create a 6 inch square, each block is interspersed with another block made of 4 quarter square triangles in ivory and burgundy, which are then placed with the colours positioned alternately in each row; so that each block of scraps appears to be set in the centre of a larger square of either ivory of burgundy.


Again I used some of my favourite tiny scraps, my 1960’s dress fabric features again, probably only because it could be made from such tiny pieces, and all I had left were the tiniest scraps. In fact I tend to cut 2 inch squares if I can from any fabric scraps I have left, on the grounds that if I can’t get a 2 inch square out of it, it probably isn’t worth keeping. These are then stored in a tin for my next scrap quilt project. It is hand and machine quilted very simply in ivory thread, I didn’t think it needed anything elaborate, scrap quilts don’t, their beauty lies in the fabrics.

The quilt is titled Remembrance, the blocks were a ”Block of the month” challenge which I won sometime back in 1996; made into a quilt that year and exhibited the following year. I didn’t attend the group meeting the night I won the blocks, I had been at a funeral that day, my cousin had lost a long fight with cancer. I thought of her often as I made this quilt, she was younger than me and the first person I had lost still in the flower of youth. Over the years this quilt has been packed away, or otherwise hidden from view, but whenever it surfaced my cousin was always my first thought when I saw it again, it might seem morbid but it isn’t to me, I’m happy to be reminded of her, she was a beautiful woman, and she lived her life. My memories of her are happy ones.

Pyramids Quilt

I took the pattern and volunteered to give it a trial run, to see if it would work as a group quilt

My quilt group have an exhibition biennially; we use it as an opportunity to raise money for charity and like to choose a small local charity rather than a large national charity. We don’t raise much but a little often goes a long way for a small charity, and makes a real and tangible difference. We always create a group quilt to raffle and to publicise the forthcoming exhibition.

This design was presented as a possible group project to create a quilt to raffle, as a member of the committee at the time I took the pattern and volunteered to give it a trial run, to see if it would work as a group quilt. There is one simple piece to cut, and to achieve an optical illusion similar to the tumbling blocks design, it’s necessary to chose fabrics in light, dark and medium tones, one of each tone is then sewn together to produce a triangle; placing the light, dark and medium in the same position in each block to give the effect of a pyramid viewed from above.It’s important always to have the three tones in the same position because the 3D effect of the pyramids only works if the light appears to be coming from the same angle across the whole surface of the quilt.

Although the triangles are put together in rows one pattern which also emerges is the hexagon; it was the hexagon I used as inspiration for my quilting design, as can be seen where it extends into the border.The design never made it as a group quilt, there were just too many possible variables, group quilts work best when the variables are kept to a minimum, this pattern required hand drawing of pieces round templates, cutting with scissors not rotary cutting, there would be fabric placement variables, seam allowance variables….. etc… etc. No there were just too many possible ways in which blocks made by many individuals would fail to go together neatly to produce a quality finished article.

Nevertheless I liked the finished article, so much so I began to make another quilt, from the same design but with a limited palette of just three fabrics, but somehow, somewhere I lost the template, and the impetus to finish, so for years I had a number of cut pieces and a bag of bits, but no template. The original pattern came from an Australian Quilt magazine, which didn’t belong to me, and I’m not sure who owns it. I have subsequently found another template for the same design in a quilting book I bought in (of all places) ALDI. Maybe I’ll get round to finishing that quilt, or maybe not, the thing is … the moment has passed.

Thought Stalking

Have you ever been stalked by a thought, or an image, or a half formed plan?

Have you ever been stalked by a thought, or an image, or a half formed plan? Some months ago I saw a block of a yacht and had a half-cocked idea for a quilt but the block itself didn’t really do it for me, it had no sense of movement and wasn’t very yacht-like, so the idea didn’t progress further than that initial “hmmmm” moment.

However since then I have been stalked by images of yacht’s, not just the real thing at sea or on lakes but wherever I go, in stained glass, in shop windows, in magazines or on fabric, toy pond yachts on window sills in houses I pass (not one but several in a single week), postcards, even in a bag of Haribo sweets, and a shower curtain.

Am I being stalked or are Yacht’s simply ‘on trend’ at the moment, either way I think I need to work out my thoughts in fabric. What is a Yacht without billowing sails, a floating gin palace; a glorified floating caravan? My Yachts must have wind in their sails, and movement in the block, I don’t want the quilt to represent a flat calm, but I’d rather have a brisk breezy day than stormy weather.

In only half an hour

I now have a mini bin to sit on the corner of my work bench, in which to drop all those snips and threads, and it only took half an hour to complete start to finish.

My Dearest often complains about stray threads on the carpet, and I have to admit that when sewing I tend to put threads in a little heap on the nearest surface meaning to sweep them into the bin later. My threads and fabric trimmings have a tendency to creep and float, catch a lift on clothes and end up anywhere but where I put them. I’ve been meaning to find a suitable bin to put wherever I sit to sew and recently came up with a solution.

This is something I think a saw in a magazine years ago, long before Pinterest , maybe even before I had a PC, I have no idea who to credit with the original idea.

 

 

 

 

I recently emptied this container for in-wash stain remover, but it could just as easily have contained mini flapjack or millionaire’s shortbread. I rubbed the surface over with a wire scouring pad to roughen the surface, and spread the surface with PVA glue, using a finger.

Then I used fabric scraps cut with pinking shears which have been sitting in a drawer for years since mail order fabric buying relied on receiving actual samples through the post to choose from rather than choosing from virtual reality fabric in on line shops. I stuck each scrap on, slightly overlapping the one before, dabbing a little glue on the dry edge of the previous scrap to make sure the overlap stuck.
I now have a mini bin to sit on the corner of my work bench, in which to drop all those snips and threads, and it only took half an hour to complete start to finish, though probably years in the incubation of the thought.

On the subject of Yellow

it was a perfect day, mild climate, sun shining and not a breath of wind.

What a beautiful day we have had today, the sun shining in a clear blue sky and the forecast for 12 degrees was well exceeded; it must have been nearer 20 degrees in Bowness. We drove up the A6 from Lancaster and through the Lyth Valley to Bowness, and then walked along the Lake edge path to the marina, and the Windermere ferry. We had hoped for Autumn colour and were not disappointed, but more than that it was a perfect day, mild climate, sun shining and not a breath of wind.

I took the opportunity to take more pictures as inspiration for the autumn leaves quilt I may one day get round to making.

I also enjoy taking pictures which I think of as ‘studies in colour and texture’, others which I mentally categorize as Quilting designs, and others which might one day become studies for pieces of work made for a City and Guilds qualification in needlecraft.

I’m not sure I will ever have the time or inclination to enrol on such a course of study but at the moment thinking about it and taking pictures of images which I find inspiring is enough for me.