Winter Wall hanging 3

The wall hanging is really coming together as small areas are being completed and sown together.

The area above shows the cut pieces ready to sew for a section  and below they are stitched and placed into position.

Winter Wall Hanging 2

After the embroideries were sown out on my sewing machine,  I added them to the design wall and my chart informed me how many inches I still had to fill with squares.

Some more embroideries.

Winter Panel Wallhanging 1

I have an area in my hall on which I like to hang a wall hanging for each season and I was missing one for Winter.  At the Festival of Quilts I bought a Scandinavian Folk panel which I thought I could customise.  I could have made the whole hanging from scratch but I am very short of time.

I cut out the blocks and placed them on my design wall for inspiration. I cut out a few small squares to test them for colour.

Each panel was  10 inches square and so after I measured the size of the finished hanging, I cut out some 10  inch squares and did a rough plan of where they would positioned.

I rearranged the panel blocks  and then started working in the spaces with small squares.  I wanted to keep the colour palette simple with grey, white, red and pink.

I wanted some of the blocks to look like red work and so I searched through my embroidery patterns on my embroidery unit for any that might be suitable.  I didn't want any Christmas ones as I would like to have the option of hanging the quilt all Winter.

Some designs were sown out with red thread, some with grey and others in white to add variety.

Hexagon Bug - 7

I made and sewed on a row of light brown hexagons inside my border to hide any gaps along the edge of the background fabric.  I  used  light brown so that there would not be a strong line around the edge.

I tacked and then appliqued the border onto the background fabric.

I am going to applique the outer edge of the border onto this beige fabric and mitre the edges.  This might take some time!

Hexagon Bug - 6

I wanted to make sure that the background fabric was covered and to add some more interest to the quilt border, so made some extra  blue hexagons.  On two of the sides I only needed one hexagon to fill the space and on the other two sides I needed two.

I am still not satisfied with the border and want to add some more pieces.  This might take a while!

The Hexagon Bug - 2

After making lots of hexagon flowers I decided it was time to start sewing some together.  I  laid some of them on the floor to plan how I would place them and decide if I needed to make any fillers. 

I sewed all the centre pieces together and then played around with some coloured hexagons to find the right colour combination for the next round. 

The Hexagon Bug - 1

The first quilt I ever made was a hexagon quilt over papers 32 years ago.  The hexagons were quite large and I didn't have a clue what I was doing.  The quilt went together quite nicely and I tied it all over to keep the layers together.  Around the early eighties it was quite difficult to find a variety of nice cotton fabrics and so a lot of scraps were used along with anything else I could find.   I was quite disappointed with the finished quilt and I realised later it was because  there was not much contrast in the fabrics and I didn't know a thing then about design.

Over the years the quilt has mellowed and I have grown quite fond of it even though it is falling to pieces in places.  It has certainly been used and loved to death! The edge repair was made 30 years ago when it was left to close to Eric the hamsters cage and he took a large nibble!

As you can see I didn't have a clue about putting a quilt together.



















In the last few years there has been a lot of interest in English patchwork techniques and some gorgeous examples have been made especially coming from Japan.  I have noticed  a larger amount of hexagon quilts at the Festival of Quilts and my friends have been making some lovely ones also.  The beautiful quilt below was made by my friend Jenny Manning.

With advice from Jenny I downloaded some ready made sheets of templates from the Internet to save me having to copy them all out.  I found this great website that had all different sizes so I downloaded one and made some photocopies, which I have just cut out as I needed them.

Another bit of advice that Jenny gave me was to just cut out squares of fabric.  this made things much quicker as the fabric could be cut with a rotary cutter.  The extra fabric on the back  could be removed at a later date or just left in.  By just just tacking the fabric on the back of each hexagon and not stitching through there is no need to remove any stitching later.

I went on a trip and took with me some of my Japanese taupe fabrics, and started to make some of these hexagon flowers not knowing where this was going to lead.

Autumn Shoe Box Challenge

I have quilt which I hang in my hall every Autumn which was made many years ago by some friends and I on a shoebox challenge.  We all picked a theme and in a shoebox or similar box  put equivalent of 12 inches worth of patchwork which we had made.  We also put in a few pictures, some bits of fabric and a few words describing the type of things we liked or wanted.

We passed the boxes on and the next person would also add another 12 inches of worth of patchwork. There were six of us ( Sonia Clifton, Jenny Manning, Keron Burgess, Susan Tomlinson, Jax Narnor and myself ) and after six months we held a pot luck party and opened all of the boxes.  Each of us would have seen the boxes at various stages but of course we hadn't seen our own box for 5 months.

It was great fun and very exciting when we opened our boxes and we spent a lot of  time arranging all the pieces.  We then took away our pieces and made them into our quilts, adding extra pieces as required.  My theme was Autumn and I particularly love this quilt as it was partly made by some of my very best friends, some of who do not live near me any more.

I could not stand back far enough for a front photograph, sorry about that!














My two cats used the quilt as a climbing frame when they were little and so my scarcrows mouth looks a little skew whiff.

 

Circles Quilt - Continued

I have now finished sewing around all of the circles on my quilt and have also added a few  echo circles for interest. I think the next stage will be to add extra quilted circles on the back ground, but I do not have any extra time for now.  Here are some photos of how the quilt is looking.

Scrap Box Challenge - 6

 The quilt top is finally finished.  I decided to add some appliquéd stars for interest.  I bonded them and zig zag stitched them on.

Festival of Quilts - Quilts

I always stay for two nights at Birmingham  with my sister and some of our friends  in which to enjoy the Festival of Quilts. We always have a brilliant time but this year my sister Sonia couldn't come because she is suffering from a very painful slipped disk.

As always I found lots of brilliant work to inspire me and whipped around with my I-pad on Saturday to take a few photos. I am sorry but I was taking the photos quickly and some are not square. Anyway these are a few of my favourites.

On Green Pond by Judith Wilson.  I have seen this quilt before and think it has a brilliant design, love the colours and it has been made beautifully as well.

   
What a Waste by Mirjam Pet-Jacobs.  I am not normally attracted to darrk themed quilts but this quilt has such fabulous quilted textures and really facinated me.

Billboard for the Soul by Anne Smith.
I love the colours and find my eyes want to keep exploring this quilt. I am a bit bias on colour as my entry into the show was in these colours.

The  Russian Gallery -  Drawing Lessons by Elena Folomyeva. 

This whole exhibit was wonderful and I would love any one of her quilts on my wall at home.  The quilts were very modern and simple in style with minimal colour and gorgeous quilting which was a major part of the design.  Russian quilters are so talented.

Below the Surface by Margeret Owen and Sue Roberts.

I loved the design, colour and techniques used on these three quilts.

One of the lovely country entries for the EQA Competition.  I really enjoyed this exhibit and could have spent much more time looking at all the many small quilts.

One very cute entry from the above competition made by Nelli Textor named New Bird.

My Love for Liberty by Tracy Aplin.

I enjoyed this quilt every time I passed it by.  This photo is a bit dull and does not do the quilt justice.

Eloquence and Integrity by Ruth Parker and  Best in Show.

This quilt just grew and grew on me and I just loved those thin little curved lines and the effect that they created.  The technique used was quite simple but this quilt became more than its parts if you know what I mean.