Friday 31 May 2013

About turn - Janus

My apologies, my piece is not yet completed. I felt I had to post something before the deadline, so this is a sneak preview.
The Roman God Janus immediately came to mind when I read the topic for this month's challenge. This design is based on one I found online. Unfortunately I was unable to find details of the original and so cannot credit this accurately.
The figure above is free machine embroidery onto calico bonded to heavyweight Fast to fuse. This has stabilised the surface making it so much easier to stitch. The thread is Wonderfil Accent which is rather thicker than I am used to using. It is a variegated thread.
There is more to be done to this piece before I will feel it is complete, but that will take a few more days yet.

Wednesday 29 May 2013

Turn about

This is not the best quilt I ever made. This theme was giving me lots of problems. For some reason the word round about kept coming up. So I decided to combine those two words. The snail has decided that it will take it's own decision and not follow everybody else who obeys this traffic sign :-).

A Messy About Turn!

Hi everyone, the reason for this title is that I always have to have everything straight, square and as neat as possible so this "about turn" is about me!!
I made a resolution in January to try out some of the "best buys" from lots of shows that have never seen the light of day; I took a piece of snow dyed fabric, another first, and stamped some expandable paint medium onto it using foam letters that my grandchildren play with.  I ironed them from the reverse so that they swelled nicely and then painted the words.  The green reversing arrows were Markelstick applied through a cutout stencil. Finally the really messy part was the free machine quilting, when I took off the feet and just let the needle go where it wanted to without much control; quite a scary thing for me and the stitching is very messy but it was soooooo liberating!!  The additional words were two that our seven year old made from the letters in "About Turn".
Ann


Monday 27 May 2013

What Plans Have You Got

I am wondering what people plan to do with their 12 inch challenge pieces. It would be nice if our group some time in the future could show some of them. I wonder would any of the English shows be interested in them as a unit.

Saturday 25 May 2013

June theme

The random number generator picked Light and Dark for our June theme. Good luck to you all with your interpretations of this theme. And I better start working on my May quilt :-)

Wednesday 22 May 2013

Tenerife Ride

For 'Turn about'  I went back to an adventure on holiday in Tenerife, where we were taken with cycles up to the top of Mount Teide.  The organisers were a bit concerned about the age of John and I, but we soon showed we knew how to ride a bike.  This time we cycled back to sea level,  quite hard on the brakes,  but very enjoyable.

Monday 20 May 2013

Blue Sky thinking

This is Hilary's piece for the challenge. 

Twirling Circles


I was puzzling over how to interpret the title. I kept coming up with ideas but discarding them. Then I suddenly thought an idea I had had for about a year might suit. I had put off trying the technique as I could not work out quite how to do it. I like to work out techniques and construction ideas in my head, it saves me hours of frustrating sampling. Once I actually got down to trying to work out how to do it I made 2 quick samples and I was off.
I planned to have spotty  twirling circles in four different plain coloured 6 inch squares to make the top but then found some lovely spotty black fabrics in my spot pile, I have a stripe pile and a spot pile; both very precious. I am putting up a number of views of the piece so you can see how it works.
I did a bit of free machine quilting in multcoloured threads. This made a fairly stiff piece, as it needs to hang away from the wall,  it can be hung from 2 corners or from just one corner. 
Now for the back view. It has less good fabric on the back.
Now to think whether I will build on this idea. Thanks for the challenge - about turn- I think that was it or else it was - turn about.



Tuesday 7 May 2013

Meta

Meta is cutting down on her commitments. That means that she is leaving this group.

Wednesday 1 May 2013

Breaking through.

My apologies for being late with this one.


A rather facetious image. The thought behind the design was a fervent wish that we could have some sunshine. This dates from the dark and windy days of early April when Spring seemed a very distant prospect. As I write this, we have a beautifully sunny and warm day here in Cheshire.

The image is a collection of dyecatchers, cut through to reveal plain blue fabric with a sheer fabric sun with bondawebbed features. Free machine embroidery added to highlight features.