Sneak preview

I've been thinking of doing my own book for some time (and have even started writing two but got pipped at the post when others came out with a similar idea first) What else would I do except a book on feathers......

A hat trick and the appliqué

My quilt at Malvern made it on to the video at Just Hands on TV , you can sign on without paying anything to see. It's on the Malvern Video presented by Jennie Rayment.
The hat trick was to make it into all three UK magazines. Patchwork and Quilting, Fabrications and Popular Patchwork.
Slowly but surely the appliqué is coming along. I have new ideas for the middle of these motifs, so I need to do a little playing.

Diane Gaudynski is Blogging!

How great is this!!! Obviously I've added her blog to my blogroll but you can also find her here Her hands are guided by the divine.
I'm delighted we now have the best of the best blogging!!!
BTW Diane, if you are reading this, your name in this house is GODynski. LOLS

Applique coming along nicely

I was asked a couple of things the other day about how I was going to appliqué these down.
So first I cut out the design in freezer paper, then ironed each shape shiny side down onto the wrong side of the fabric.
I then cut out the fabric leaving a very mean ¼" around the edges which will be on show and leave quite a bit more on the edges which will end up under other appliqué shapes.

I then fold over the edges which show and stick them down with a glue stick. (I don't buy special fabric ones, they get washed out and I've never had any problems with any brand so I buy whichever is the cheapest.)

I use a glue stick to position them (this makes the piece easier to manoeuvre and holds everything firmly in place, though it does mean an extra rinse is required when removing the freezer paper).
I've stitched these down with invisible thread on top and in the bobbin. I used stitch number 45 on my Aurora, it's the blanket stitch. One forward and one sideways, so much nicer than using the hemming stitch. If you don't have this stitch on your machine, a zigzag set to the length of your normal straight stitches and a very narrow width gives a very acceptable result. The trick with both is to stitch slowly and lift your foot every few stitches when the curves are tight.

Day out in Wallingford

Wallingford is a pretty little town on the Thames. It has a little museum, two archaeological digs going on (medieval). The ruins of a castle destroyed by Cromwell. And lots of lovely shops with wonderful organic fruit and vegetables, home made chutneys and jams, a butchers the like of which is rarely seen these days, a department store which looks like it's never had a revamp and so much the better for this. We had a fabulous day and a lovely lunch and the rain held off. What made it special was apart from a supermarket, a shoe shop a pharmacy and a couple of pizza places, everything was not from a national chain. This has made the whole town a delight.

Prepared for appliqué

If I hadn't had such a bad night's sleep I might have got this stitched down today. Why do I always forget how long it takes to prepare?

Art in Action 2009 (Best of the Best Marquee)

From sculpture to painting to silversmiths to textiles to blacksmiths to woodcarvers to glassblowers, Art in Action has it all. And it's all over until next year. These photos are from the Best of the Best Marquee. I shall link to specific artists in following posts. Of course the Toad of Toad Hall caught our attention......

Ferret has a book

It looks super, she calls it a sampler quilt and it is but not in the way you might think, it's a sampler of techniques which end up in a brilliant medallion style finished quilt, see it here
This isn't a work on how to do her pictorial style, but how to do many many P&Q techniques. A great book for those who want to know how to do 'this' or how to do 'that'. Work through the book and you'll end up with a great quilt and a huge skill base for your future work.
At this point I'd normally put NAYY (no affliation, yada yada) but I do know Ferret and think her work is great!!!!!

Design work nearly done

The original design on the right called for a very large very thin piece of appliqué from the top lobe to the one at the very bottom.
So I re-drew the shape (on the left) so the top and bottom lobes weren't connected to the inside of the shape. I'm not happy with the green/gold nor the blue so this will need further tweaking. I also don't like how the colours appear on the freezer paper on the 2nd design but as it's larger than the first draft, it just doesn't fit in my sketch book.

Shopping the stash

For the design I showed the other day I needed 13 different shades of red, I do have 13 (or more) different shades but they weren't different enough.
So in another bit of the stash I found this ombre, going from red to pink. I'll mark 13 sections on the back of the fabric and use that. So pleased as I thought I'd have to do a dye gradient of colours.

Then I found the green, it's far less grey and far more green than the camera has shown.

This will be my background fabric, it's a little warmer than this in reality. And for highlights, I thought this blue and one of the yellow/golds but.....

I've found two more ombres. The yellow gold is perfect.

And this blue is lovely again the camera has played tricks, it's a pure blue with little or none of the turquoise.

I'll play some more with the design concept before I start cutting into any of it.

a little designing and a tree struggling to survive

You might think this is going to be a quilting design but you'd be wrong.
I started playing with colour for appliqué.

Fliss and I hit the shops today and in the middle of Reading is an old church with a small old cemetery on two sides. This tree is obviously on the way out but I love the way they've saved the trunk which has always fascinated me. And despite having the majority of it removed, it's springing into life again with new small branches. This has to be one of the most amazing trunks ever. Perhaps the fertilizer from 6' under?

Sometimes you should give up

I haven't quite, but I'm fairly close. You wouldn't believe the pain and suffering I've gone through with the whole cloth and still not a stitch in sight nor even close to one.
The hot weather didn't help either, however I'm determined to do at least some stitching so this little quilt relieved the tension and got me back in the mood. the variegated thread is Aurifil again. Lovely stuff to work with.