Inspiration Station

Mel and Louise (my daughter and her friend) are starting a craft school in Doha, Qatar. Don't you just wish you were there! It sounds great.

Check out the Inspiration Station

Charity Challenge quilt

I said I wasn't going to start any new projects but I've done it again - deadlines dictated that a new project had to be done!

The Counties Manukau guild show is on in a couple of weeks and our challenge was to do a quilt representing a charity. The quilts are then going to be given to the respective charities. I chose to do one for the hospice but didn't even start by hand-in day. Unfortunately there weren't many challenge quilts so I decided to do my idea anyway. I reasoned to myself that it wouldn't take long. Ever the optimist!

Here's where I've got to so far. It's the stylised kowhai flowers from the hospice logo. I only have one more row of green/blue strips to sew on and then quilting and binding. To keep it simple, I'm going to quilt feathers all over it rather than do separate things on the flowers, sashing, borders and background. I don't think that will detract from the design. What do you think?

I've also made a small confetti quilt but I think it needs more.

That tree in the centre is too chunky so I need to cover it up. I like the canopy of leaves but the undergrowth hasn't really worked. I tried to get a feeling of depth by putting lighter fabrics at the top and paler tree trunks for trees that are further away. I don't think that worked. I'm going to add more foreground and possibly put a deer over the fat tree.

Are you a Google Reader user? If so, have you decided what to use when it goes? One blogger I follow recommended bloglovin but I've been subjected to porn in my feed twice now so I wouldn't recommend that!  The first time I told them about it. The second time was time to get rid of it!  I tried Feedly but the app for iPad has a few bugs. Any other recommendations?

Modern Cot Quilt - finished

I've managed one finish, the cot quilt we started with Robyn in our Modern Quilting class several months ago. Why has it taken me so long? Well, I still don't have any grandchildren!! So there you go girls, the first one to produce a grandchild gets this quilt. Granny Pat (aka my Mum) says that the nursery has to be decorated to match!

I used the left-over fabric on the back as well as two blocks that didn't make it into the front. Quilt making should be about being thrifty! Talking about thrifty, I bought the patterned fabric last year for $5 at Fabric-a-brac, a fund-raising event run by the Mercy Hospice. If you ever need to destash, get a stall at this event. On the other hand, if you want some real bargains you'll have to wait until next year.

 The machine quilting on this quilt was very simple and very quick, just diagonal lines through the patterned blocks. Then cross blocks are hand-quilted with 2 strands of embroidery floss matching the colour of the cross and done using nice big stitches. I really like the look.

Craftsy class, Lola Jenkins' Thread Art

I've actually finished a quilt! Ok, it's only small and no piecing but it's finished.

I bought a couple of Craftsy classes just before Christmas and I've been looking forward to doing Lola's project. Then I had a need to make a "Don't touch the quilts" small quilt for our show next month. Putting the two together made sense.

Here's my quilt, about A4 size.


I was originally thinking of using the first photo below of my daughter for this technique but I was going to remove the Christmas hat. Then she sent me the second photo and the idea for an "eyes only" quilt was born.


I cropped the photo and printed it black and white. Then I went over the main lines of contrast with a Sharpie.

I transferred the lines on to fabric with the same Sharpie but used a fine pen for the eyes.

All the hatching is done with black thread. I also quilted Bec's hair with a variegated thread and tight spirals.

I think I used five colours on the iris of the eye! Most of that is coloured pencils but I used Derwent Inktense for the shading on the face. As you can see I follow the less-is-more school when it comes to painting. The rose print on the fabric was already doing a lot for me but I found that by adding just a hint of brown to suggest the eye socket (following on from the eyebrow) was enough to stop it looking flat.

I finished off with a satin stitch edge, using the same colours that I quilted the hair with - not because I'm lazy and couldn't be bothered getting a different thread - well, mostly because I'm lazy but I liked it anyway! So there!

Usually I would do the satin stitch edge with a stabiliser on the back but even with tear-away and a close stitch, you sometimes get little bits of paper poking out. I decided to do an experiment. Sharon Schamber stabilises the edge of her quilts with glue and then glues on the binding. I thought that was a great idea so I glued all the edge with 'No more pins' and got all the pokey threads stuck down. I'm pleased with the satin stitch and there are no pokeys!

All in all, a fun project and one I will try again. More finishes to do for the show before I can start anything new though. Hopefully I'll be posting again soon with my next finish!