Friday, 29 May 2015

Quilting Takes Priority

Despite my desire to do something more free-form the need to make progress with making blocks for our Sampler Quilt has to take priority at present.

The Strip Rail Block is completed as shown here and today I have also finished a Dresden Plate Block.

I like it more now I have quilted it.
When the patchwork was complete I decided to quilt the plate in the centre of the block with stitch-in-the-ditch using invisible thread.

But the surrounding background was still looking incomplete so I quickly free machined around the plate with some circular and wriggly lines then it suddenly had an almost 3D appearance, lifting the plate from the background.

It's easier to see the idea on the back.

At our Quilting Arts Group we have planned to make next month a Drunkard's Path and a Spider's Web Block.  After that we'll be making individual choices, again from Lynne Edwards' Essential Sampler Book - hence my trialing the Dresden Plate Block which some people have said they want to do.

Meantime, at Bredon Crafters, we were doing some embroidery - both free-form and also Bullion Roses.  This was satisfying and prompted me to make a page ready to start another Fabric Art Journal containing embroidery samples.  Also I quickly sewed up a spiral bound notebook cover as a base for some free form embroidery stitches.

As we continue on with experiments in embroidery I hope to make more pages for another Cloth Book and more book covers as gifts.

 My aspirations to make a large wall hanging called Gertie's Garden, and which will be a reflection (I hope) of the lovely gardens my green fingered mother used to create, are still an ambition.

Actual work on it has had to be held back to do these other things.  But, together with my on-line Stumpwork course, I hope to make progress soon.
 
 
 But returning to Fabric Art Journals, or Cloth Books, here are some images from the ones already completed and I hope to do more on this as some additional embroidery samples take shape and can be turned into pages.
 The ones shown here contain all kinds of bits that might have been lying in drawers or boxes and have been sewn or fused on to the fabric pages.

There are stitch samples to see what the built-in stitches on my sewing machine look like.

There are labels I have tried out: some printed on to fabric, others machine embroidered and some that are written with a fabric pen.

 Other bits on the fabric pages are Suffolk Puff examples, silk roses and test stitching on tea or coffee dyed calico after the sewing machine has been serviced.

If it looks pretty, or can illustrate something, then put it into a Fabric Art Journal for future reference.




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