In Full Bloom

After delivery of one of the threads I'd run out of, I've got all the stitcheries finished.

The two pieced blocks are made,

With an extra one needing to be made to fill the last spot on the top.

These are all my pieces ready to make the top.  Let the fun begin!

A New Page

Do you remember this? 

I've taken it out of my sketch book, and put it into my Ledger.  I've decided I'll develop different ideas in here instead.

The first thing I did was a representation in paint.

Then there was emulsion on tissue paper with watercolour.  I've used shapes that make up the arches and the outline shape of the brick, in a very simplified form.

Inspired by the cobwebs in the original picture, I've used scrim lace on parchment.  I cut out an arch to mirror the holes in the air brick, and the scrim lace was attached using FME.

This has given me layers to my page, first glance it looks like this,

turn over to this,

Then finally, this. 

There will be further development to this page as time goes on, but it's fun trying out different techniques.

 

Last Two

This is the last of the two crochet blanket squares needed for the afghan.

I can't quite believe I've come to the end of this journey, but for now, I need to collect up all the squares and get them sewn up.

It looks like I'll get a full afghan by the time winter comes this year

Cover Pages

The Ledger class may officially be over, but I am continuing to work on the pages already started, and will be doing more.

The first thing on my list, was to do some cover pages. 

First, was the peacocks.  All I've done here, is print a photo from the Internet onto parchment.  This means you can see through to the page underneath.

I did the same with a paisley pattern.  This time, I did a fainter print, so the underneath page is more visible.

As you can see, there is going to be an addition to the paisley page before it gets inserted into the ledger.

Fusion Blanket

Small progress has been made.

All the squares have now been turned out, pressed, and the turning hole stitched.  There are fifty six squares, so it should be a fair size when finished.  The next stage is to blanket stitch around the edge.  With 56 to do, I think it may take a little while.

July Small Quilt

This may not get finished in July, but the top of the Small Quilt Talk Yahoo Group July challenge has been done.

I really like this one, I think it has to be one of my favourite.  Most of the hour glass units fit perfectly, just a slip of the rotary cutter on one of them, lol.  On the whole though, this is perfect.  Again, as I don't have Kathy's books, I just made this one up from the photos.

I need to do some shopping for the backing, and then this will be another one for hand quilting.

Tiger Wall Hanging

This was a top I put together last year, in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

I found a piece of batting in my bag that was the right size, and a piece of fabric from a previous quilt that was big enough for the backing.

I did quilt in the ditch around the tiger squares, and then the outline of the darker green.  I've put hanging triangles on the top corners, so all I need to do now, is hang it.

There is still a larger quilt with tigers to do, but that will have to wait a bit longer.

Rainbow Scrap Challenge

I've finally got to my blue scraps for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, and have my six blocks made up.

It seems blue has been used quite a bit in the last few weeks, so even though it's been late working on the blue blocks, it's been a blue month.

I have my string block, and a crumb block too.  In just over a week, we shall find out what colour we'll be using for August.

Another one is nearing the end

My pile of quilt tops for finishing is getting smaller, and I picked a small one to do next.

This started off as scrap 2 1/2" squares that I put into four patches, then put into a quilt.  I'd like to use it as a table topper, so I didn't want it wider, but I needed it longer.  I've added some strips leftover from the blue quilts onto the ends and am now waiting for some fabric for the backing.  I did have enough batting in my offcuts, so apart from the back, it's all from scraps and leftovers. 

I won't be able to do any more on this until the fabric arrives, probably towards the end of the week, plenty of time to do something else.

Cover Page

This is a continuation of the page trying different techniques with the tissue paper.

You last saw this page when I was waiting for it to dry.  The right panel is layers of tissue, then stitched.  The edge has blanket stitch lace, and then the page has been embellished with french knots, bullion and web stitches.

It's then been attached to the book as a cover sheet.  My next task, is to make cover pages for all the completed pages, using the different methods we've tried.

Another Finish

This was finished earlier in the week, but with the weather, the washing, drying and photo taking got delayed.

I did some simple quilting, then did the binding by machine, to make a quick finish.

The quilt used up most of the flying geese units, but I had two leftover.

My bonus from this sewing session, is a pincushion.  It's backed with the same fabric as the quilt, and the button is from my tin.

The next top has been taken from the pile, and weather permitting, the finished wall hanging should make an appearance very soon.

Page Progress

With lots going on in the background, a lot of things have come together at the same time and have been added to the ledger.

Based on the embroidery transfer, I drew and stitched a design onto silk, but it didn't stay like this,

It was used to fill in the cutouts on this piece of silk and an appliqued centre.

This was mounted in card, and forms a flap.

This is the page now, with it's fabric page and card flap.  I can't believe how much came from just one transfer.

Next it was time to turn to the peacock feathers.  The centre eyes are filled with french knots,

so a plain page has some textural interest.  This page isn't yet finished, but I like the idea of adding to it over a period of time.

Fabric swatches have now been added to the paisley page.

The tissue paper painting has been mounted in card and attached, so that's another piece safely inserted.  Now, I have lots of annotations and info to do and add to the pages.  I'm hoping to do that this week, and get them added to the appropriate pages.

It may take a while

For some reason, I decided I'd like some patchwork in silk.  I took a large piece of silk, used one of my great grandmother's transfer and added lots of french knots and web stitches.  Before I'd finished, it got put away while I did something else, and then I forgot about it.  I found it last week when I was looking for a particular hoop, and thought I'd better get some more work done on it.

I finished all the stitching, and then up it went for damp stretching.  I then forgot to take a photo, but when it was ready, it got cut up and I'm now making hexagon flowers.  Each of these hexagons measure half an inch!

It's tiny, but I love it.  This will definitely take a while.

Two new pages

I have two more pages in progress for my Ledger.

The first began with a cross stitch project I'm doing as a gift for a friend.  We were to look for simple shapes in different things for a page and I started looking at the shapes in this stitching.

This then reminded me of the picture of how peacocks "see", the colours are not what we see.  The peacock feathers I painted reflected the colours that peacocks see, combined with some we see.  There is stitching to be added to this page, but it's damp stretching at the moment.

As I used the peacock on the other page, I had to find something for my simple shapes page.  I used the black and white fabric as my inspiration.  I need to add swatches to this page, but of course, I had to wait for paint to dry.

What a change a border makes

To be a useful size, I needed to add borders to the flying geese units.  This served a two fold purpose, make it bigger, and to make the flying geese look more attractive.

I was going to do a border in three colour, but chose to repeat the blue.  You can't really tell in this photo, but there are lighter tones to the dark blue, which match the colours in the centre.  This is now ready to be sandwiched and quilted.  Fortunately, the other colour I bought, is big enough to use as the backing, and I've just got a piece of batting leftover from a previous project that is the perfect size.

As you can see, Finley wasn't going to move for anything when I was trying to see if this was big enough.  He did move his nose, as he didn't want it under the edge.

As an extra bonus, I even got another crumb block to add to my growing pile.

Embroiderers Ledger

Although it's been a while since they appeared on the blog, there has been work on the Embroiderers Ledger, but it has taken time for things to dry.

Here are my glued and painted tissue paper pages which took hours to dry.  Instead of hot dry days, we've had cool, wet days, and it doesn't help things to dry.

Once they were dry, work could commence.  This edge has been FME, ready for hand embellishment.

This is the surface I shall be working with.

On this piece, you can see I am no artist.  I took motifs and shapes from the white cloth I did, and just "doodled" on the emulsion base to see the effect it had on different colour watercolour.  Now I know how it works, I shall have to come up with something artistic for the future.

This technique of sandwiching motifs in tissue and hand stitching around, has to be one of my favourites.  It's so easy, so simple, but it ends up being a really effective piece.  For this sample, I cut petal shapes from a beautiful card I received. 

The next stage will be to embellish the machine stitched paper with hand stitch, I shall be looking forward to that one.  Ideas were buzzing around my head for that one in the night.

Flying Geese

For some reason, when I was doing the Fly Boy quilt, I had an excess of flying geese units.  I was just going to put them in my crumb block bag as they're not my favourite, but I thought it would be a waste. 

I've got them all joined together, and this will form the centre of a small quilt.   I have borders to go on, then I might love them a little bit more.

One thing about coming back to something I did so long ago, I can see how far I've come in piecing my blocks.  Some of these are pretty horrendous, the ones I do now are a lot better.  I'm hoping the borders will help to cover a multitude of sins.

In Full Bloom

I'm working to a list system at the moment, as there seems to be so much going on.

I didn't want to lose the stitcheries I'd completed for the next set of blocks in the Lynette Anderson QAL, so I've managed to get them made up.

That means there are two more stitcheries to complete.  That's not at the top of my list, but I'll get there sometime soon.

A win

I am a very happy quilter/stitcher at the moment.  I entered and won a competition on Lyn Briggs blog for her House and Garden quilt pattern.

The journey from Australia was very quick, and now I have this lovely pattern waiting for me to do.

Thank you Lyn, it was lovely seeing you put this pattern together, and I'm looking forward to stitching it in due time. 

If you go to Lyn's blog or website, you'll be able to see more details and obtain a copy for yourself.

Fusion Blanket Crochet Along

Not that I needed another project, but I thought this one would be great to use up the red/white charm squares I had.

All the details can be found here: http://www.littlemissshabby.com/2012/07/fusion-blanket-crochet-along-2/

I've got my fabric squares stitched together, but the next stage is to turn them out and close the turning hole.  The way things are going here at the moment, not sure when that will be.

Page Two continued

Page two has been progressed.  The hexagons have been stitched together and then attached to the page.

Then it was onto experimenting with fabric pages.

I used some of the cotton that I used to make the hexagons, then appliqued a flower shape and added some extra stitching, which doesn't really show up in the photo.  You may notice, an extra layer of cotton on the bottom left.  This wasn't intentional, but I liked it and it has stayed.

The page has then been stitched onto the right hand page.  There are some more ideas spring from this page, but it will take some time to do.

Another one done

I'm gradually working my way through the quilt tops that need to be completed and made up.  This one has been there for some time, I think I did the centre some time last year.

Do you remember this little fellow?  It's hand stitched, then raw edged appliqued onto the cloud fabric. 

I had enough of the dark blue leftover from Jonathan's quilt to do the binding, I just had to buy some for the backing.  Sunday was spent sandwiching it together, quilting, binding and finishing.  It's now been washed and dried and ready to hang on the wall or to be used by a little man sometime, somewhere.