The second post in a week can’t be a bad thing and it feels good to be back in the swing of things.
One thing I did forget to mention in the previous post was that these managed to slip into my suitcase.
SAQA sells this and I use a lot of it so by purchasing 40m I managed to save myself about £50! I got hit with import duty when I ordered online before and it’s not cheap in the UK so how could I resist, especially as it’s light and takes up no space at all.
The other thing that I forgot was to say thank you to all those who gave me input about what I should choose to do for my SAQA Benefit Auction quilt in this post. In the end I decided to go with the finished piece so took that to Portland with me. However, your responses were very helpful and I am likely to go back to the suggestions, so watch this space.
I’m continuing with my journal quilts for the contemporary group and am almost up to date, just need to get June’s done now. Linking up with the East Midlands Textile Group monthly challenge, April’s challenge was to use fabric scraps 3″ square or less with the theme being landscape. They despair of me there because I just don’t have scraps that are much smaller than about a quarter of a metre but the group decided that 3″ square could also be interpreted as the area of the scrap e.g. 9″ x 1″. That was better for me so I pulled out my dyed scrim, cut it into small pieces and laid it down onto a base fabric until I felt it looked like a landscape. I then just machined across the whole piece to secure the pieces. I was going to add a field of poppies with French knots but ran out of time so just did a few. I finally added the trees after coming back home. Not one of my favourites and not really what I would call a finished piece but for me journal quilts are experiments.
May’s challenge was to use transfer paints and the theme was fish. I had so many pieces that I had done in Cherilyn Martin’s class at FOQ a few years ago that I decided I would try to use some of them rather than create anything new. Belper River Gardens have some lovely stylised fish on their gates which I had used in this quilt.
I made a stencil of the larger fish and cut it out from some transfer painted Evolon and then added it to a background of transfer painted Lutrador. The grasses are from dyed silk. Fairly quick and easy to do.
I must be getting my mojo back as I even started the quilting on this piece. It was originally planned to be for FOQ but deadlines came and went without anything happening. I decided that I was tired of it sitting on my design wall looking dejected. I haven’t done much on it but there are a million ends to bury at the moment and I’m slowly working my way through them in the evenings. if you click on the photo to enlarge you will be able to see all those threads that need to be hidden!
I have my month’s residency on the And Then We Set It On Fire blog starting in July and have started working on my posts for that. I obviously can’t go into detail at the moment but I do have a sneak peek to whet your appetite
Finally, it seems a long time ago now but I entered my Wheels and Windows #8 into the Uttoxeter Show in April and when I paid a visit to the show on the Friday, I saw this …
Yes, yellow 3rd place rosette in the top corner. I was pleased with that as I really like this piece.
Well, I really do think that this post has gone on long enough. I am linking up with Nina-Marie Sayre’s Off The Wall Friday if you fancy heading over there to take a look at the other blogs on there.
Thanks for reading and have a lovely weekend.
Maggi
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