The influence of other quilters

How often do you look at quilts made by others on the Internet at quilt shows or elsewhere and get influenced by their styles or skills?

It happens to me quite a lot and I think that's one of the reasons why I play around with so many projects.

At the recent Sydney quilt show I was drawn to this piece called Errant Geese by Jessica Wheelahan. I love this close up photo. It reminds me of the work of Gwen Marston and the Gees Bend Quilters.

I could see how much fun it would be to cut up pieces of fabric and play with colour and form, not worrying about rules or what anyone would think.

 

 Here's the whole quilt and the ribbon Jessica won was for best quilt inspired by an antique quilt awarded by Quiltsmith where I do my Aunty Green classes.

Jessica was sitting in front of me with her children at the awards ceremony and I caught up with her for a quick chat. What an inspirational, lovely lady she is. I was just sorry I missed her speaking at the quilt study weekend recently. I hear it was a wonderful talk.

Jessica doesn't have a blog but is on Instagram as birdie_beetle and has a page on Pinterest featuring a board of her other works at beats and pieces modern quilting.

Heres a totally different style of quilt made by Pamela Brockwell, another extremely talented and lovely person. Her quilt Fiore Della Vita won the best quilt in Victoria last year and is currently travelling along with my Rings And Roses quilt.

When I saw this in Melbourne, I couldn't stop looking at it. It mesmerised me for its machine quilting and all the special details such as the applique and cording. Pamela sure is friends with her machine!

Pamela had special permission from Sharon Schamber to make and enter this quilt as it was based on one of her designs.

This quilt top was pieced by hand by my friend Loz who managed to get all her blocks together at our quilting retreat in May. Of course you may recognise that it's Jen Kingwell's pattern, The Circle Game

It was making my fingers itch to play with fabric and go back to my own version that I started oh so long ago.

If you've been reading my blog for a long time, you'd know that I'm not very biased for just one style of quilt. I love that there's something for everybodys' tastes. I also love that styles and techniques are evolving, it'll be good for all of us by keeping the industry alive and well.

I'm very happy to report that one of my favourite blogs is back after a break. Kathie from Inspired By Antique Quilts is back online, go and check it out. Kathie's blog was deleted for a time so if you want to follow her, you'll have to add your name back again on her followers list.

Until next time, Janet

I had a quilting marathon and then a long holiday

I've been away having a grand old time in New Zealand with family and the time just whizzed by and now I have tons of catching up to do. I even prepared a couple of posts to publish while I was away but that never happened.
Thanks to the friends who emailed me to check that I was ok, I appreciate the kind thoughts of my blogging friends. My apologies to anyone waiting for panel nine of the vine quilt, I'll get to it soon, I promise.

I rushed the quilting on the Animal Alphabet quilt before leaving so I could gift it to the birthday girl and I managed that bar the binding which was done over there. Here's some progress shots from before the trip.

 

I spray basted two battings (wool) to the top to stitch around the applique first. After that was done, the bottom batting was trimmed away. In future, I'd not spray baste the bottom batt as it pulled away badly during trimming. I had to baste another batt to make up for the mess, I used a Quilters  Dream  Orient that I had in the cupboard.

After quilting through all the layers,washing the quilt and blocking it, I tried out these laser levels and my big square rulers to square it up and mark the edges for trimming. It worked a treat and I'll be doing this on every quilt from now on. It pays to have a couple of large trestle tables to do it on if you can't crawl around the floor.

Here's the back of the quilt. I didn't have enough of the animal fabric so I framed it with a plain white and I actually like it better I think as it shows off some of the quilting on the borders plus it makes the quilt reversible. 

I took the wrong camera battery with me so these are the only photos I have of the finished quilt which I took on the i pad.



I had no sewing prepped to take away with me, I haven't done any since I got back either. I did play around with wool and knitting needles though. I hope I get my quilting mojo back soon.

 

I was busy while away, I spent two weeks with family and caught with my Mum who as some of you know has Alzheimer's and is in a home. We took her out for a Yum Cha lunch and a look around the shops. I think she enjoyed it and the little ones did too. I can see the deterioration in Mum which saddens me immensely, she was quiet and subdued, no doubt due to the drugs she's on. She's not the Mum I knew.

I then bought the two youngest girls back to Australia for two weeks holiday. Afer that, I took them back home and stayed for another seventeen days. I sure do miss them all and would seriously consider moving there but the timing isn't right yet.
Here's one of my favourite photos taken at Darling harbour. The conversation between Sophie and her Dah was very deep and meaningful about the poor quality of the chocolate icing on the donut. Chocolate appreciation runs in the family you know.

Ella and Sophie. 

Now that I'm back from my break, I hope to catch up with you soon.

Janet 

Loaves and stitches

Thanks to all of you who helped me make a decision regarding which backing to go on my Coxcomb and Currants quilt. It really helped me make up my mind. This is the Windham bird toile that I thought would be good but after thinking about shadowing and other things, I decided it would be better saved for another quilt.

I had trouble getting a suitably off white wide back but ended up with this Moda Muslin in warm white. It's a 200 thread count, a bit of a higher thread count than what I'd prefer for hand quilting but it'll do.

As you can see I have basted the quilt and started some hand quilting. You might have to click the photo to see it better.

This won't be done in a hurry, I'm quilting 1/4 inch straight lines in the background. I have to pace myself since after a few evenings of quilting, I was waking in the night with tingling, numb hands. It's being done in the hoop so there's a lot of wrangling happening when going around the circles.

What else has been going on, well I've had some lovely mail from Sarah over at Kit-Bik Quilts. I won her  awesome giveaway of  lots of yummy fabrics including Liberty lawn scraps, taupe Japanese fabrics and Denyse Schmidt's. Thanks Sarah!!

Skip the rest of the post if you want, it's all about my bread making. Ive been baking a whole heap of bread, mostly sourdough and the starter is going so well that I decided to rename bubbles. What a prissy name anyway. He shall now be called Chuck after Chuck Norris cause he's just as strong.

I've turned into a major bread head and I've started to experiment a bit more. This one is spelt and quinoa flakes. Makes me feel healthy just saying it. The ancient grains are making a big comeback, have you noticed?

I make up my own formulas and recipes now and love this fig and walnut loaf with a bit of honey, wholemeal flour and cinnamon. It's delicious with cheese.

I made two different Tuscan schiaccatas with some dried yeast yesterday.

Buffalo mozzarella, basil and sweet cherry tomatoes. I like it better than pizza.

The seedless grape with raw sugar and olive oil, otherwise known as schiacciata con l'uva.

thanks for visiting, till next time, Janet

Happy 2012

Happy New Year to you all! Thank goodness 2011 is over, it wasn't a good year.
I set myself a goal to finish the hand quilting on the Double Wedding Ring quilt by the end of 2011 and I achieved that, woo hoo! I felt a bit sad after those last stitches but it's not finished  yet, there's a long way to go with all the trapunto feathers to do, you can see some that I've done in the photo. It's quilted within a half inch of it's life, the most stitches I've done on any quilt to date yet it remains very drapeable with the cotton batting.

To my dismay I discovered a hole in the background on the second to last border and I know the obvious fix would have been a bit of applique to cover it up but........

in the end I went for an embroidered bumblebee inspired by Sandra Leichener.

Here it is and now you know why it's there. It'll do, even with it's little humpback, lol. I call it my humble-bee.

I'm getting excited about the  Just Takes 2 and have my fabrics all ready. I'll be doing the sampler in red and white solids. This red is from P&B neutrals range and the white I'm using is from the same range as well.
When I wash yards and yards of fabric, I concertina it in folds straight off the bolt and use safety pins to hold the edges together. After washing, I remove the pins, unfold it all and put it in the dryer. I get a lot less wrinkles and there's no tangling around the agitator, it works great.

I'm not making any resolutions for the new year, I'm going with the flow and I'm open to possibilities. I do want to concentrate on my many big projects (oldies but goodies) so I guess there'll be more of the same.

Do any of you have big sewing plans for this year?

What I'm up to.

We've had another day trip into Sydney last Sunday, the atmosphere is always great on the weekends. There are usually street buskers and performers trying to make some dollars around the harbour. I thought you might enjoy this aboriginal musician playing the didgeridoo. There's a Kangaroo skin on the stool next to him you can sit on for a photo.

The real purpose for our visit was to get a bit of culture at the Art Museum. We went to see the terracotta warriors that are on display until March. There were about six figures, two horses and many artifacts along with two amazing bronze chariots complete with horses and figures. Probably the only time I'd get to see them unless I went to China and that's not gonna happen.

Onto quilty news, I finally got enough courage to get started with the machine quilting on the Stars and Sprigs quilt. The hardest part was deciding what to quilt. I narrowed it down by an elimination process and have ended up doing a swirly worm like pattern.

In case curious minds want to know, I'm using Hobbs heirloom wool batting and Superior's Kimono silk thread in white which  is so nice to use and the quilting isn't making it stiff like cardboard either. I'm saving my hand quilting muscles for other projects and I don't think this one has suffered from being machined. I'm clipping and removing the perle thread that I basted with as I go and so far there are no puckers.

Remember that possum from a few posts ago? Imagine my surprise when I went outside and found it just outside the back door on top of the broom cupboard again and during daylight.

Well, take a closer look, it's got it's baby on it's back that hopped out of the pouch and climbed up n Mum's back. Cute but not wanted there. DH has gone outside and put a new roof on the possum box, apparently it had been leaking and was wet. That would be the reason it found a new spot.

By machine and hand.

When we were learning to write at school, we would practice every day and I'm convinced if I do the same with machine quilting, I'll improve. I'm still learning how the machine should sound in relation to how fast I push the quilt sandwich through. I'm still having some little thread nests on the back at the stop/start points and sometimes, I swear the needle has a mind of it's own.

I was considering having a wine as a relaxant but carried on without it. I hadn't done any practice for about a week and a half and It showed. I had got rustier. There's the first lesson I learnt today.

I don't need to be a super duper machine quilter but I do want to be able to know what I'm doing and I'll get there because my middle name is tenacious.

The applique has been nibbled at, not as fast as the first border but it's going good.

This quilt  isn't mine but I don't think the owner will mind a little peek, I hope not anyway. It needs finishing off with some perle quilting. The quilt begged me to bring it home, take pity on it and finish it off. I really love working on this one and I'm privillaged to be entrusted with it.

Today I was also trying to get some bread made with big holes and crunchy crust, like a ciabatta. The holes taste the best  you know. This was a little left over dough from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, just enough for two rolls for our lunch. The easiest bread in the world to make. If you're inclined to have a go, I found a link for you to the basic recipe here.

If you do a Google search, you'll even find videos.

Hand quilting tools

I've got two  new hand quilting tools to share with you. The first one is a  quilting hoop for hand quilters. It was kindly sent to me from Harry of Barnett's Laptop Hoops to try out. I use a 14 inch hoop, my arms are quite short really, like the rest of me so this is my ideal size.

At first it took a bit of getting used to but I persevered as it's a little different from using a normal hoop.

This is the bottom part and as you can see, it has a base that you put under your legs to hold it stable. The black knob is to change the angle of the hoop and the metal hardware is actually a magnetic lazy susan. That's the ingenious part of the whole setup. You can very easily rotate the hoop as you work. It rotates 360 degrees and tilts to many angles.

This is the  hoop that magnetically attaches itself to the lazy susan and it just gets placed on and pulled off really easily. The part that I love is having two options for hand quilting, one with the stand and this hoop part that can sit on your lap that you turn manually.

I actually prefer to sit on my leather couch with my feet up on the foot stool because having short legs is such a pain you know. I am a little worried about the base under my legs on the leather but that could be fixed by putting something on the couch first.

I love, love this black knob, so much better than a metal wing nut.

What you didn't know is that I have a lot of pain and fatigue in my left shoulder area and supporting my basic hoop when it has a large quilt in it restricts how much quilting I can do in a sitting. With Harry's hoop, I don't have the same problem as the hoop is supported in my lap.

The other advantage is that when I need to do the odd stab stitch, both hands are free to do that easily.

The only disadvantage is that the base is heavy with the metal hardware which is to be expected and once you have set it up, it's not a problem. I'm still learning about getting the large quilt positioned but I think that's practice and will come with a bit more time.

There are several quilt hoop designs available and I think perhaps the magnetic tilt and frame might have suited me better, just because of the way I work in a hoop. In any case, these are made with a lot of passion, attention to detail and what quilters want.  There are also videos on the website  to see how they work, go check them out.

Have you tried these new clover needles? The price had put me off but I finally buckled and bought a pack. There's only six needles and they cost more than double for my usual pack.
I tried the fisrt one and liked it a lot, I thought they were very sharp at the tip and indeed seemed quite strong. The needle glided through the layers.

I was happily quilting away on my second length of thread when the eye snapped off when I pushed the needle through with the thimble. Could have been a fluke.
Threaded up another needle, didn't even get the thread used up when the same thing happened. Not a fluke, I think I'll keep these ones for hand piecing, the needle is not holding up to the force I'm using.

The joy of quilting

I picked up this old thing to put some stitches in when I didn't have any applique ready to stitch and I'd forgotton how much I enjoy hand quilting on it. I think I might have got a bit bogged down thinking about how much left there was to do and how long it would take. Forget all that, I'm over it and not feeling the pressure any more. I gave myself a good talking to. It worked.

The hardest part is stitching the inside of the applique because none of the background  is cut away and I'm quilting with a cotton batting.

Do you worry about how your stitches look?

Do you compare yourself to other quilters?

Do you get the ruler out and measure how many stitches to the inch you do?

I don't because I lost my quilters competitive streak a while ago, I don't enter shows and I quilt how I quilt and that's good enough for me. I'm happy with what I do. That's not to say that I don't try to make improvements from time to time. I do try to take five minutes every so often to do some pretty stitching, just so I don't deteriorate.

I'm doing my version of echo quilting around the applique, it's quite meditative and exactness doesn't seem to distract from this since it'll be really crinkly after washing.

Oh and I'm being true to my word and getting in some machine quilting practice too. I love this one a lot and found it easy enough. I do believe I might be getting somewhere. I'm amazed at how much the practice is helping.

I wanted to take some photos of some quilting tools I've been trying out but it's been a grey wet day so it'll have to wait until next time.

In the meantime, you could go visit the Minnick and Simpson blog to check out a whole heap of hand quilting information with a series of really great blog posts.

Have you visited  Glorious Applique lately? There are some beautiful blocks being shown in different colour schemes. I've just stuck my latest progress report on there too.

Quilt as desired

The applique is on hold this week and as the weather has turned cooler, I've been quilting my Licorice Allsorts quilt. I'm on the last round before the borders and got stumped as to what to do there.

I usually decide on the quilting designs as I'm making a quilt but had no idea what to do for the borders. How do you decide on the quilting design?

I looked at the square shapes inside the quilt top.

I looked at the curves.

I just couldn't come up with something so I turned to my trusty book.

Perfect! The old Amish pattern echoes the shapes and will give about the same density of quilting. The interlocking circles can also be changed in size and the melon shapes are echoed. Best yet, it's easy to draw and easy to stitch.

These circle templates are the bomb, I use them so often for all sorts of things.

I can't turn the corners the same on each side so I'm just going to say that this is no competition quilt and I'm channeling Gwen Marston and not being precious about it. There's a little girl waiting for this quilt so I'm hoping to have it finished by the end of the month.

If you'd love to win a little wool project, get yourself over to Soggy Bottom Flats to enter Elaines giveaway. You only have until Friday 21st. Say I sent you and if I win, you'll get one too. Pass it on.