Quote

Remember - Its not the length of your life that's important - it's the depth.

Monday 17 November 2014

Warning!!!!! Please read on!!!

A short post and no new pictures but please read on. I think this is a disgraceful practise and must be stopped! If you have 'favourite' designers and value the fabrics you use, then please visit this link! www.eternalmaker.com  From the website go to their blog page. PLEASE please lets pass this on to stop this fraudulent use of other peoples designs.
Lx

Saturday 15 November 2014

I have been trying to...

...write this post for almost a week on the laptop but it has had an attack of  'I'll write anything you want but don't ask me to load pictures too' itus. However my sewing mojo seems to be alive and well once more! So this is a picture heavy post to bring you up to date. During the last week I finished 2 projects. The Kantha is done, and now looks like this
 Couched strands of thread over a circle of gold sheer which came with the kit, the ends are loose to allow some movement.
 I found a steel washer and decided to couch it on using blanket stitch
 The whole piece finished, (5" x 17.5") I added some cream cotton fabric to the back to cover all the untidy ends of thread and left a gap to act as a hanging sleeve where I also wrote the label using a pigma pen. I called it 'Kontempory Kantha'
Next up is  my design for Christmas Shadow quilting  needed as a sample for the workshop at S.V.Q.on Wednesday evening. The ladies will only use one of the motifs during the workshop and I will suggest they put it in an aperture card or use it as a tree decoration.
Christmas Pud
Tree- I added beads to look like lights once the stitching was done
Bauble - with Ric Rac braid and French knots
The completed wall hanging is called 'Christmas Shadows' and looks like this (6 1/2" x 15" ) 
Iv'e also made great progress on the Row robin (See post on October 21st) the quilting is done, there are 6 rows and 6 techniques were originally set so this is what I've done
 Row 1 - Squares 10" wide
  Row 2 - Triangles 6" wide
 Row 3 - originators Free Choice Block - I chose 'Farmers Daughter' 10" wide
 Row 4 Strips 8" wide
 Row 5 Applique 8"
Row 6 Free Choice 10" wide.
There should have been one more 6" wide row but one girl dropped out. Earlier this week I decided to trim it up ready for binding. Well you would have had a good laugh, the only place I could do it was the on workroom floor so there was I trying to fit in between all the piles of 'stuff', chuckling away and thought I would give you an idea of the predicament I was in!:-)))
as you can see there's not a lot of room, for a 44" x 65" quilt, but with careful manipulation I got it done.  Having decided long ago to use strips from some of the fabrics in the quilt, I cut the binding strips yesterday, and sewed them together and sewed them on today, again working with NOT MUCH ROOM!!
my machine is very close to the wall so there's not much space for the quilt to move into as it goes under the machine but it's on and I hope to sew some of it tonight when I have completed this marathon blog post.
Well that's it for this time folks, I'm off to do some hand stitching in front of the telly.
Byeeee!
Lx


Sunday 2 November 2014

This week I have.....

...been quite busy, on Wednesday evening it was Severn Valley Quilters when the members were making a 7 pocket bag, I was helping to run the workshop so did not make one myself  but I have the fabrics ready and plan to make one at some point. Since then I have finished the embroidery on the contemporary Kantha wall-hanging begun at Malvern last week (see previous post ), and with the weather really warm on Friday, I was able to sit in the conservatory and complete the hand quilting on the last row of my Row Robin quilt (see post on 24th October). I have already decided which fabrics to use for the binding and hope to cut that and start sewing it on during the coming week and there has been some progress on the Big Sweater project. 
On Saturday I met up with Laura for a day at the World Textile Day West. This was the first time it has been held in the Bristol area. We had a great time looking around the various Traders and buying a few items, I got some lovely fabrics and threads  from the African Fabric Shop with which I plan to use to make another Kantha wall-hanging, (a sort of India meets South Africa project!) and some new earrings made in South America from Tukuru Textiles. (photos later) There were two lectures on the theme of the 'Spirit of the Cloth', the morning one by Martin Conlan of Slow Loris Textiles, and the second one after Lunch was with John Gillow, both of whom have an in depth knowledge of the the textiles they were showing from the minority tribes of China and from the Islamic world respectively. I'm teaching a Shadow Quilting workshop at the next Severn Valley meeting and can't find the pieces I made some years ago so I guess I will have to make some new ones.
I'll be back soon with some photos of the above, when I can take them in daylight.
Byee for now
Lx