After the rant about C&G in my last post, I did eventually finish the quilt but more of that later. Spending time on  it meant that I was late in getting this week’s TAST stitch done, so much so that it became Take A Stitch Thursday. I did get it finished this morning but simply tried doing the stitch, which is Cretan stitch, in different ways rather than having a plan of action. This is one of my favourite stitches though.

I also got around to making a book for this year’s TAST. It had become a necessity when I found next door’s catlet trying to play with a previous sample. It is looking a bit thin at the moment as it only has three pages in it but I have deliberately made it this way so that I can easily add the pages each week. I was able to use some more of the samples that I made in Cherilyn Martin’s class at FOQ in 2010 even though I didn’t have time to add any stitching to them.

A couple of weeks ago I went to one of Chris and Barbara’s classes called Grow Your Own. The idea is to start with a central block and then add borders, eventually making a frame quilt. True to form they started backwards by teaching us how to make some Seminole borders. I haven’t done any more to the borders but have put my central block together using a design from Barbara’s new pattern book. More photos of the day can be found on their blog here. I have added the borders around the edge just so that I could fit everything into one photo.

Thank you to all those who encouraged me to keep going with the C&G quilt. I finished it on Tuesday evening and, although it is technically well made, I am never going to love it. It was ‘inspired’ by the study of Bronze Age weapons that I did earlier in the course.

My next project is on the design wall although it won’t look anything like this when it finished. Thanks to Frances for the tip about marking out the size on the wall first. It really does work well. All will be revealed by mid April.

Having your car serviced can be such an inconvenience but when it means having to leave it in Matlock and take a trip into Bakewell by bus, whilst waiting for it to be done it can also be an expensive outing. I simply cannot go to Bakewell without paying a visit to Wye Needlecrafts. I usually stock up with lots of Stef Francis threads but they had hardly any in stock so I had to make do with a selection of Caron Wildflower threads. They are beautiful to stitch with and just to look at.

And finally, if you are still with me I received a delivery this morning. Did DHL think that I was ordering a rocket launcher or something from Whaleys of Bradford?? To save you standing on your head I have also included a photo of the red alert label at the top of the package.

On that note I will leave you while I head off to watch Earthflight. At least on Saturday(?) they will be revealing just how they actually filmed it.

Enjoy whatever you like doing most.

Maggi

First on the list is a monthly swap from the Popular Patchwork forum and January’s theme was ‘Blast Off’. My interpretation was an image of a NASA rocket launch with text added, printed onto Zeelon and then layered onto some dyed fabric and lightly quilted with silver stars. I had actually finished this in time for my last post but couldn’t show it as Irene had not received it. Now that she has, I can reveal it.

I received Irene’s the other day and she chose to use fireworks and the New Year theme. There is a lot of sparkle in this card but unfortunately it doesn’t show that well so you will have to use your imagination.

An unexpected postcard arrived last week from Jan, a ‘prize’ for guessing how many postcards she had, or at least for being close. Another sparkly card with Jan’s usual excellent quilting.

Included with the card was a fat quarter and this was certainly a useful gift. I had been to Quiltessential with Linda on Thursday and had bought some fabric for a class on Saturday. On the way home I realised that I needed an accent fabric as I had done a less than successful batch of dyeing on Wednesday. Jan’s deep pink fabric was perfect and worked so well with the rather pale dyed fabric. Thank you Jan and I hope soon to be able to show some progress with the project that was started on Saturday.

The other postcard sized pieces are my TAST 2012 offerings. This is the one that I showed last time which was week 2 and buttonhole stitch. I have now finished it and added some fly stitch from week 1 to it.

Week 3 was feather stitch and for this I decided simply to do rows of the stitch in different threads. One of the rows is also very loosely worked and that creates a very different effect and would look interesting if it was massed together and not in a line. I particularly like the effect that the dyed gimp produced, a bit like chain mail. This is a really easy stitch and is good for creating a background onto which to add further stitches.

It has been good to have some hand stitching to do as I have been really struggling with my City & Guilds assessment piece. It isn’t something that, given a free choice, I would  have chosen to do but as the brief was to showcase piecing I had to go down that route. Quite a bit of the piece is log cabin blocks and my normal trusty Bernina hated quilting over all those seams. The piece did go into the bin at one stage but I decided to retrieve it, having already invested quite quite a lot of time and effort in it, and struggle on. It is almost finished and is perhaps the only piece of work that I have felt truly unhappy with. It has certainly made me start to question whether I want to continue with the remaining quarter of the  course. Perhaps I’ll just get this finished and then do some really fun things before deciding whether to start the next module. I am beginning to realise that I work best when doing things to please me rather than those with any external constraints. I don’t think that I could ever be an artist who does commission pieces.

Enough complaining. Enjoy your creative time.

Maggi

Yesterday was the second week of TAST 2012 and it was buttonhole stitch. Determined to get some of this done on the actual day  I sat sewing last night onto a background that I had made last week. It is not finished yet and also has some straight stitches added to it but I hope to get it finished fairly soon. I am doing my TAST work on postcard sized pieces and will be putting them into a book, or perhaps two, depending on how many I actually do.

The background is made from felt which has various additions of scrim and silk fibre added to it,covered with silk gauze and then worked under the embellisher. I have made three of these backgrounds so far. They are quite quick to do so I should be able to keep ahead for each week.

Because I intend to do more embroidery this year I have joined the Free Machine Quilting Challenge. I will be making fewer quilted items so thought it would be a good way to keep my hand in. The first month’s tutorial was provided by Frances Moore and was leaves. She then treated us to a second variation on her blog.

For my C&G work I had to show some FMQ patterns and so made myself a small book of samples. I am adding the samples from the FMQ challenge to this which is why those above have holes in the side. This is the book …

It is only 6″ square so makes a handy resource and lies nice and flat when opened.

There has been a challenge made on the Popular Patchwork forum, by Jan, to create a journal quilt which  reflects something significant that we were doing on the 6th of each month. As I was sewing  all day that day I had to try to decide what to come up with. One of the things that I had been preparing was a shadow applique piece and was left with some pieces that looked a little like stylised birds so that has become my January journal page. The applique is cut from silk dupion and the overlay is silk organza, both hand dyed.

The piece that these offcuts came from is one of Barbara Chainey’s new patterns. I did a sample for her before Christmas, a snippet of which she showed here. I liked the pattern and so am now doing a sample in shadow applique. It is in the frame ready to be quilted. I can’t show you the whole thing as the pattern book has not yet been published but I don’t think she’ll mind if I show a small snippet on here.

In between all this I have been continuing with my first project for my C&G. It is going well so far and I’ll show that when I have finished it. Also a lot of dyeing has been going on and I have a batch sitting ready to be washed and ironed tomorrow.

Has all this enabled me to solve the conundrum of cooking and cleaning – I’m afraid not so that will have to wait for another day.

Here’s hoping that your creativity is going well

Maggi

I have made no resolutions this year as I have now retired from paid work so really just want to enjoy my new found freedom. I have to confess that I do still look at the calendar to check when my next shift is but that will no doubt pass soon enough.

I did make my first finish of the year with a piece for Popular Patchwork’s designer competition using Zeelon (like Lutrador but different). For this I printed a photo onto tea bag paper, applied it to some Evolon then printed the text onto Zeelon and attached it using hand stitching. I also burned away the Zeelon from around the main image. Not technically what would be considered a quilt but it does have three layers.

One thing that I do want to do more of this year is hand embroidery, always a favourite and for that reason I decided to go along with TAST 2012 (see logo on the sidebar). Yesterday was week one and I couldn’t believe my luck when it was fly stitch. I love this stitch as it is so versatile and it had me ferreting round to find an unfinished project that I was able to add a little more to. I started this a long time ago but sincerely hope that I can get it completed now that it is out of the drawer and into the light again.

Also resurrected was the thread booklet, started over a year ago. I had meant to embroider this but the design was not one that I wanted to continue with so I decided to cut my losses and put it all together anyway. All it needs now is a wrap to complete it and make it useable. You can see how all the various compartments work from this composite picture.

One project that I do intend to start is a stitched book related to Richard III. I have been following Elizabeth’s blog and was inspired to read The Sunne in Splendour by Sharon K Penman. This is an historical novel, not normally my cup of tea, but it is a period of history that I know next to nothing about and so I decided to take the plunge and am thoroughly enjoying it. I have not actually finished the book yet but already have some ideas about where I might go with it so watch this space. If you are interested do visit Elizabeth’s blog and see the work that she has done so far.

Finally I decided to treat myself to a little bit of whimsy the other week. it just took my fancy as being very relevant.

Who knows, perhaps now that I don’t have to go to work I may even be able to solve the conundrum.

Hopefully I will be able to post more frequently now although I am promising nothing! And for those who expect the blog to appear on Facebook I suspect it won’t as I have suspended my account, I don’t think I’m a social networking animal somehow.

Until next time – be happy in what you do.

Maggi

I have lots of things on the go at the moment, not least of which is my C&G course but there are certain advantages to that in that I have been able to make a couple of things from samples. Almost a year ago I treated myself to a new digital camera but didn’t bother buying a case for it – well I could make one couldn’t I? Finally the case has emerged from a sample of quilt blocks stamped onto fabric.

This is the front of the case, it closes with a magnetic fastener

and this is the back

I was intending to show it with the camera inside but I am sure you can see the problem there!

The other sample to be used was a Courthouse Steps block. This has been made up into a cushion cover. No quilting on this as I prefer my cushions without, less for the cat to catch his claws in!

I have had some shibori fabric for a long time now and it seemed just right for the bck of the cushion.

In my last post I showed the start of a paper pieced challenge quilt. That has now had all of its paper removed (some of which is still on the floor – what a slovenly housekeeper I am), and has been quilted and bound. The last stage is to add beading. I started that this morning with some sequins and beads  but still a way to go with this. It will be finished for the beginning of December though.

I treated myself to some lovely pieces of eco-dyed fabrics from Connie Rose and they arrived last week. They are so individual and I can’t wait for inspiration to strike so that I can use them. Connie’s shop is well worth a visit.

This particular part of the post is especially for Shirley. Some time ago I started a hexagon wall hanging. I wanted to prove to myself that I could do them. I did surprise myself, but I think that was partly because Shirley’s basting method made it easy to make the individual ones. I did however misread the instructions of the pattern and made them at 1″ instead of 1/2″. I am now considering attaching the flower to a background by appliqueing it rather than do millions more hexagons all in one colour. Thank you for getting me this far Shirley

This is the flower which needs its petals sewing to it.

The black at the bottom is me trying out fabric because I can’t decide whether to do the background in black or grey. The photos below don’t really give a good comparison but any thoughts will be gratefully considered.

That’s about it for now I think. Until next time, enjoy yourselves.

Maggi

So to this latest post. It is all a bit here and there with more in the way of samples, both C&G and class samples but I can assure you that I have actually made quite a lot of progress with various things, just not a lot to be shown at this time.

My cousin’s grandaughter was a year old at the end of September so I decided that, as she is surrounded by dog-owning relatives, I would make her one of her own. This is from a pattern from one of the Tone Finnager books and she loved it but it certainly was fiddly to put together. Glad there aren’t any more young ones in the family!

Some time ago Linda and I went to a workshop with Viv Denscombe on needle felting. Linda made a piece that she hated and was going to throw away. Not being one to waste anything I cut it into six pieces, gave three to Linda and kept three for myself. The challenge was to do something with at least one of them. There was some very vivid pink in the original so I knocked that back with some scrim and embellishing from the back. I then machined a leaf design onto it in black thread, added some stitching and a bead and turned it into a brooch which became a much admired birthday present for my cousin.

On the evening before  her birthday I suddenly remembered that I hadn’t got any wrapping paper but, having just created some block stamps for my C&G I stamped onto newsprint and ended up with a coordinating set of packages.

I’m not sure whether Linda has done anything with her pieces yet but as we are off to Staunton Harold, which houses the Ferrers Centre for Arts and Crafts, next Friday I must remember to ask her.

There have been several C&B classes, all of which have been technique based rather than coming up with finished pieces. This first photo is of the blocks produced in the Whirlies and Windmills class.

I have to admit that this  has led to a bit of experimentation with paper piecing and there are several samples on my design wall, one of which is now pieced together and has half of the paper removed. It has yet to be finished off but am getting there. It is for a particular challenge which I can’t reveal yet.

The last class was called 1000 Pyramids and was a painless method to make triangles. I just put a few on mine up on the design wall, not in any particularly considered design, but haven’t decided what I shall do with them yet. So easy though.

This next one some of you may have seen either on My Quilt Place, or via that on Facebook so you may skip this next bit if that is the case. It is the second piece that I made from the first class of 2011,  Starter for Nine. The first piece was a table runner and this is a wall hanging. Now if I can just get around to putting the hanging sleeve onto it! For the benefit of Angie it will be hanging where the sun cannot reach it so there will be no fading.

For the last two years I have organised group tickets for the Festival of Quilts for members of  Yahoo group that I belong to and Jan and Annette were both kind enough to send me something as a thank you.

From Annette

From Jan

Fortunately I have thanked both of them personally already  but I will say thank you again publicly for their very kind gesture.

I keep mentioning my City and Guilds so thought perhaps I had better show that I do in fact produce some things and it is not just in my imagination. I am in fact getting towards the end of Module Five so only three more to go. First photo is of some prairie points – OK I know you can all do these but I like them anyway, the second using some curved piecing with an accent insert and the third is a fabric collage inspired by the sketchbook page. I have two very full and bulging sketchbooks an am well into another so plenty of future inspiration.

Meet Bobby ..

This little cutie has come to live next door. He is an 18 month old rescue catlet and has the most beautiful white whiskers and one white eyebrow hair. he is a constant visitor and has been accepted by my own cat which is something of a relief. Don’t you jut love his positive/negative front foot.

Regular visitors may have noticed that this blog look has changed. I am a Mac afficionado and decided to change it to a Mac look after the death of Steve Jobs without whom the techie world would have been a poorer place. I may change it back but for the present it can stay as it is.  **Update – I have changed it back again. It looked too squashed as it was. Sorry Steve, WordPress has not done you justice.***

Enough for now. Thank you for being my blogging friends and just keep on doing what you love most.

Maggi

I had a great time there and not only saw some fabulous pieces of work but also met up with some equally fabulous people, some of them for the first time. On Friday I took Linda on her first visit to the show. Did she enjoy it? Does the fact that she actually said ‘Can we go for two days next year?’ answer that? Not bad for a non-quilter and I think is a good indication that the show is not all about quilters and quilts. While we were there we met up for a coffee and a chat with Julie. I didn’t feel at all as though it was the first time that we had met.

Apologies for the poor quality of the photo, not sure what went wrong there.

Saturday saw more meetings, this time with the lovely ladies from the Yahoo group that we all belong to. There was much laughter and we were rather raucous at times. I would like to thank the people who were press-ganged into taking  innumerable photos for us though. Not one person refused, including Katriina Flensberg although she was probably glad to get us  away from her gallery! This particular photo was taken by Katriina’s helper. I did a stint of stewarding in Katriina’s gallery and loved her work.

Katriina in front

Marian who spent the whole time clutching that bolt of fabric  kept rounding up more people  (what did we do before mobile phones??) …

(In case you wondered why we weren’t all looking at the camera, we had two people taking this photo, one with my camera and one with Annette’s.)

… until finally everyone was there.

Back row: Cath, Marian, Kerstin (from Germany), Jan

Middle row: Tessa, Fiona, Kim

Front row: Jane (of Popular Patchwork), me, Annette. (Oops, we lost Angela who is in the photo above wearing black and white!)

This last one was taken in front of the Popular Patchwork stand and was appropriate as it was through their Forum that we all ‘met’ and eventually formed our own group. Isn’t the internet a wonderful place at times?

Kerstin gave me this lovely bag in which she was saving the money for her tickets which I had got for her some time ago. It’s going to be ideal for keeping my hand sewing projects in. Thank you Kerstin, it is lovely.

I did manage some purchases while I was there, well you have to support the traders. And if there appear to be a lot of threads there, my excuse is that I needed to stock up and as my favourite threads seem to be getting very expensive I thought it was an ideal time to try something new.

And for a little light reading …

I was lucky enough to be stewarding in some of the galleries over the 3 days and my favourite had to be Regina Benson’s. I spent an hour in there and forgot to take any photos. Luckily for me a friend has taken some and is going to send them to me. Regina also gave me some small samples of her discharged and rusted fabrics. Definitely drooling!

Another good thing about FOQ was that I got to meet up with my C&G tutor, Catherine Nicholls, who was over here from Canada.  I had reached the point where I was unsure about continuing but a good chat with her and I am re-motivated. I have been doing a lot of that work over the last week so not much to show on here but I did spend some time with the embellisher over the last couple of days and played around at making 3D pieces. I love the way that when viewed from above it just looks like an ordinary piece of felting …

… but when viewed at the right angle it is transformed and is also so tactile.

Last but not least, the day after the festival finished I had a lovely surprise as my jackety-shawl (the prize for making the winning pin in this post) arrived from Cameron. It was even nicer than I expected. She wanted a photo of me wearing it so I took it along to my cousin’s and borrowed their puppy to help me feel less self conscious. I have never had my photograph taken so many times!! You can ignore me and admire the jackety shawl and the puppy.

Thank you for staying with me through this lengthy post. Enjoy whatever you are doing until next time.

Maggi

I will be at the FOQ Thursday, Friday and Saturday and will be doing some stewarding on all three days. You can find me covering Yoshiko Katagari’s stand on Friday from 10 – 12 and Katrina Flensburg’s on Saturday 12.30 – 2.30 so please stop by and say hello if you get the chance. I don’t have Thursday’s schedule until I arrive there.

I was originally going on Sunday as well to do Jacquie Harvey’s Masterclass but have had to cancel. This was sold out so if anyone out there is interested, there is now a place left. And why have I cancelled Sunday? Because of this …

… nine very heavy boxes full of catalogues and Portfolio 17s for the SAQA stand. I am having to go over today to deliver these and just don’t fancy five days of driving to Birmingham and back. Judging by the catalogue, the SAQA exhibition is going to be very thought provoking so do pop in and take a look while you are there. The good thing is that I now get my garage back so can do some felting after FOQ.

If you are going have a great time, I know that you will, and if you are not I will try to get some photographs to show on my blog later in the week.

Maggi