African Animals at Sunset

This has been a long time coming!  I had the idea in 2014 to make my uncle an African quilt in time for his retirement and 65th birthday.  My mother's family was from Africa.  I purchased the black fabrics and a background way back then.  I did not like the original background and so the project got shelved.

During 2019, I pulled out this long neglected project because my uncle's 70th birthday was approaching in 2020 - and we all know how quickly time passes.  😉

I used  evenings to trace the shapes onto fusible webbing and cut out the fabric silhouettes.  I was still unhappy with the background and the project got put away in December.  Early in January, I spied a new range "sky" ombre of fabrics in a local shop window.  BINGO!!!  I had finally found the right background.

Background fabric.

Relief.  Suddenly I could see my way forward to getting this quilt made with the vision in my mind.

Sun is inset into background.

I used a dinner plate to trace a circle on gold lamé fabric to make the sun.  I then, very, very carefully cut around the cloud pattern on the fabric and inset the sun.  Once fused in place, I appliqued around the edge of the sun and clouds with rayon threads and machine blanket stitch.  I did not want that sun to move.

Animals and tree being placed.  Not yet sewn on.

My 15yr old son arranged the animals.  The men in this house liked the bright background and the silhouettes of the tree and animals.  I think they might want a quilt like this for us.  It turned into a family affair with Mr 18 and Hubby having a say too.

The animals and tree were stitched around with a very dark navy rayon thread and a very small machine blanket stitch.

Sun detail.

I did not quilt the sun, but I did quilt sun rays and followed the pattern in the fabric to give the illusion of clouds.

Giraffes against the sky.

The quilting in the lower half of the quilt was a wavy design to represent shifting sands.  I changed the thread colours as I moved down to the darker parts of the quilt.

Rhinoceros  

I love how the backing shows up the quilting design as well.

Backing onto front.

On the Saturday before my Uncle's birthday, I got the last stitch in the label and made it to the local post office/general store right before closing. And... in  a stroke of good luck, the parcel arrived 4 days later on the actual day of his 70th birthday.  I could not have planned better.

A final photo before posting.

Uncle Ian holding up his new quilt which
arrived via post on the day of his 70th Birthday.

I am so pleased that I decided to go ahead and make this quilt.  Once I got the ball rolling, it came together easily and was a complete delight to work on.  He called me after receiving the parcel and was almost in tears with joy.  My heart is very full of love.


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NB:  For the applique shapes, I used this pattern.

9 Patch Illusion

Sometimes, when you have completed some very involved quilts, such as my versions of the 1718 Coverlet and Rotherfield's Grey, it is nice to work on something which has only 2 fabrics.

This quilt went together surprisingly fast!  Rotary cutting and strip piecing just made it so very easy.

9 Patch Illusion quilt hanging at the Kilmore Quilters Quilt Show in Oct 2019.

Backing fabric.

I had to wait until there was a quilt show to hang this quilt so that I could get it all in the photo.  It turned into an absolute delight to make and quilt.  

For the quilting, I kept it very simple.  Cross hatching through the 9 patch blocks and feathers in the borders.  I used Superior Threads #100wt rayon for the quilting.  I did not want the quilting to overpower the optical illusion of the 'waves' over the quilt top.

The hardest part of the whole quilt was choosing just 2 fabrics that would play well together because I did not want a plain white background.  I loved the dark teal as soon as I saw it, but the initial background I had chosen was unanimously rejected by those who live in this house with me.  Back to the shops to find another background.

In the craziness that only Quilters can understand, there were 3 shops  and approx 200kms of driving involved in the front and back fabric selections, which gave me 3 very nice days out!

Starting with in the ditch quilting..

Feather quilting around the outside border.

Sometimes simplicity is what you need to keep the mojo happening and this quilt did "soothe my soul" by giving me a fun project with terrific results.

The pattern for the quilt can be found here:  Rolling Waves Pattern published by McCall's Quilting

Now I can share! - 1718 Simplified

Ahhh, the major exhibitions are over, for now and I can finally share my 1718 Simplified Quilt story.....

My excitement which I shared last year can now be shown as photos and I can tell the whole story of my own amazing personal journey.

The 1718 quilt had been a “want to make” quilt for me for many, many years, after I first saw a photo of it almost 20 years ago.  The chance to make my own version of the 1718 Coverlet and to travel to the UK from Australia with my quilt to visit the original quilt was truly a dream come true.

It was a picture, a very small picture inside the front cover of a patchwork book.  Interesting shapes and designs, seeming to be both logically placed and then random at the same time.  A conundrum.  One that I wanted to solve.  It was 15 years from when I saw that first little photo until I could start to make my own quilt.

During 2014, I chanced upon a brief advertisement, the quilt I had been coveting in the picture was being faithfully reproduced and a book was to be published.  In early 2015, I became the owner of that very newly released book...  The 1718 Coverlet:  69 Quilt Blocks from the Oldest Dated British Patchwork Coverlet by Susan Briscoe.

Getting there....

For a long time, it seemed like I wasn't really getting anywhere with the blocks.  I would prepare some applique blocks, put them into a zip loc sandwich bag and take them in my hand-bag for filling in waiting time or while on travelling.  When sewing in small stints and then changing to the next block, I lost where I was up to.  It wasn't until I laid all the blocks out on the floor, that I realised how far I had progressed.

I would often have little machine sewing sessions where I would make a group of blocks, say, all the square in a square, then maybe the hourglass blocks.  I found by doing this way, I could match things up a bit.  The 1718 Coverlet is symmetrical from left to right, but not top to bottom.  This was something I did not realise by looking at the book, but only picked up on when I was laying out the blocks.

There were many techniques used in the making of this quilt, including applique, piecing, english paper piecing, templates, fussy cutting and more.

Adding in the centre

A true labour of love - taking 3 years to make, with lots of hand and machine work.  Each block was carefully made, pressed and trimmed to the correct size. 

Completed centre panel.  Just love it!

I used a very, very fine wadding, called QuiltLite.  It was like a fine interfacing, but with a bit more give in it.  With so many seams and lots of applique, I wanted my quilt to hold and have a little bit of body to it because I wanted it to hold up to handling and hanging during the exhibitions.

Detail showing quilting with 100 weight invisafil thread and a 60/8 needle. 
The thread is a fine line, about the thickness of hair running down the needle shaft.

I used a very fine #100 weight thread to quilt each block to closely mimic the "coverlet" style of the original quilt, which it to make it look like it has no quilting over the patchwork.

Blocks after quilting before trimming and assembling.

Assembled blocks after quilting

Detail showing how the quilt as you was assembled without cover strips.

The method I chose for quilting allowed me to use a whole piece of fabric for the backing, with some stitch in the ditch on in the seam lines to attach it to the front with no sagging.

Not all blocks were easy to make, but all were very rewarding.

Ta Da!  A fully quilted, bound and labelled quilt.  Totally elated!

The coming together of this quilt was a complete joy.  Every block was wonderful to make, except the ‘cockerel’ (the block must have known that I don’t like chooks in general!!!).  My quilt has been called ‘1718 Simplified’ because I did not piece the applique backgrounds, allowing the unique shapes to be highlighted.  I used modern piecing and quilting techniques.

In June 2018, I was notified that my quilt had been accepted as part of the 1718 Exhibition at the Festival of Quilts, in Birmingham - a huge event that is well renowned on the world quilting calendar.  Of course I had to hand deliver it!  Off I went, with the quilt carefully packed into my hand luggage.  An incredible experience where I got to see the original 300 year old coverlet -WOW - attend lectures about the 1718 Coverlet; meet others who made their own versions of the coverlet and get my book signed by the author.

At The Festival of Quilts

1718 Simplified has been exhibited at and appeared in:

• 2018 - Festival of Quilts, Birmingham, UK - part of the special exhibit celebrating 300 years of the original quilt.

• 2018 Nov - Axedale Antics (local paper).  Article I was asked to write, telling my story of how and why I made the 1718 Coverlet.

• 2018 - Quilt Mania magazine - issue 128 Nov-Dec 2018- Celebrating 300 years of Britain's oldest dated patchwork coverlet article.

• 2019 January to May - with Grosvenor Shows, UK, as part of a travelling exhibition highlighting the 1718 Quilts throughout England.  Newark 18-20 January;  Ardingly 25-27 January; Harrogate 22-24 February; Duxford 8-10 March;
  Exeter 29-31 March; Quilts UK Malvern 16-19 May.

• 2019 July - Victorian Quilters Showcase, Melbourne, Aust. - entrant in the mainly pieced, amateur, single person category.  Received an Highly Commended Award.

• and is slated to appear in one or two more exhibitions during 2019.

Quilt Hanging in Melbourne at Victorian Quilters Showcase

My winning ribbon!

And.... would I make a second one?  Yes, I would.  

1718 has been the most interesting, at times challenging and
most delightful quilt that I have ever made.  

Thank you to those who supported me for your faith in me,
especially my Aunt Libby, who just "gets it"
and my husband Baden for his never ending patience and love.

Liberty Star

It's been quite a while since I last posted on this blog, but Liberty Star was entered into a couple of exhibitions and then I took a break for a while to refresh my mind.  With exhibitions that are being judged, you are not allowed to publish photos of your completed quilt before hand so that the judging can be completely impartial.

Now, I can tell the story of one of my most favourite quilts that I have ever made.

In September 2017, my husband took a work trip to the UK.  He called me from London on his last day and said he was going into the city center, was there anything I wanted.  Of course there was - fabric from Liberty!  I told him to just choose what he liked the look of.   About 20 minutes later, he called me again and said "Don't worry about the news reports, yes that is the tube line from my hotel, but because I was talking to you, I was walking and missed the train"  A bomb, which had failed to detonate properly on the underground train, had injured people and damaged the train.  Enough said.

These are the fabrics which came home.  Seven were in the pack and I added one more.  Not all my usual choice - but oh, so very nice.  

I planned a Lone Star Quilt.  I cut the strips, labelled them and started sewing......

I found the perfect background fabric, which unfortunately, is very directional.  Clever cutting was required to make sure that all of the flowers were standing up and not falling down.

 

 Ta da - the center is finished.  WOW - all the background pieces are going the same way and there is some 'movement' in the star - it radiates....  So happy....

Now what??  I had an idea in my head for the borders, but making them work was taking quite a bit of planning and thinking and drawing and more.

After a while, I managed to get the corners to work.  The rest of the border just flowed then.

Eventually, I had a completed quilt top.  It was huge.  Now it had to be quilted.  It took me a full week to pin baste on my trestle table.  Bit, by bit while drawing on the quilting pattern with chalk at the same time.

It was so hot and I was on a deadline.   The tension on my machine was fine while I used the walking foot in the star, but when I tried to quilt a large feathered wreath 'behind' the star with free-motion, the thread just kept on breaking, or gave me birds nests on the back.  I gave up and used the walking foot again with different a colour thread and quilted the borders.  Nice and smooth, some tension issues, but not too bad.   

Back to quilting the feathers, nope, no go.  I don't whether it was the weather, my stress at meeting a deadline or what it was, but that feathered wreath did not want to be on this quilt.  In the end I gave up, changed the thread and simply meandered the background behind the star.

Finally, late afternoon, just before the sun set, I was able to get my two teenage sons to stand on chairs and hold the quilt up for me.  It is quite heavy, finishing at 100in (2.54m) square.  But they did it.

 A few groans when I asked them to turn it around so that I could photograph the back to see the quilting...

Then, all of my hard work of quilting this very large quilt in very hot, over 40 deg C muggy weather was worth it to see my quilt hanging at the Liberty Quilt Exhibition, which was held over the long weekend back in March.

And, I managed to get the backs of two of my strongest supporters in the pic.  Very pleased with that!

After the exhibition in March, I entered Liberty Star into the Heathcote Quilters Quilt Show, 9th and 10th June 2018, where my quilt was awarded 1st place in the Viewers Choice awards.    [sorry, no photo]

Finally, I took the plunge, after being a member of Victorian Quilters for many years to enter a quilt [for the first time ever], in the "First Time Entrant, One Person" category at the Victorian Quilters Showcase, in July.  I won a ribbon!!  Highly Commended.  I'm pretty chuffed  - the competition is pretty tough.

Everything about Liberty Star is meant to be, from my husband bringing home the fabric, the design and wonderful enjoyment I had with making it.  The prize winning ribbon really is the "cherry on top".

Happy New Year 2018 and ponderings

Recently I read the following statement:

" A legacy of quilts shared with others is better than a garage sale of

quilt tops after you die." Author Unkown

There is a lot of truth in that statement.  I am always surprised when I give a quilt or get asked for a quilt that someone else really likes what I do.  Yes, I have received criticism over time, but that only seems to strengthen my resolve to improve what I do and not spend too much time worrying about the [bad] critics.

I have many goals to complete for 2018 and many of them include quilts to give, keep or exhibit as well as many knitting projects and hopefully some embroidery too.

For 2018, I appear to have a goal each month until August and then it'll be time to take stock.  There are many big projects in my list.

Up to March, I need to complete the following, which are my own designs:

• Boy cot quilt - done, needs label.
• Girl cot quilt - done, needs label.
• Liberty Fabric Quilt for exhibition - centre is pieced, borders started.  
• Quilt for friend's 60th in early April (to be valued mid-March)

Other things which I have planned/started, designed by other talented ladies are:... 

a) my ultimate goal which is to complete the 1718 Coverlet by Susan Briscoe for an exhibition in the UK in August '18.  This is one heck of a big task, started, but only just.  

and: b)  in the meantime, because I saw something bright, new and shiny - I started the "Daisy Blue" BOM by Esther Aliu .  I was more than happy to let myself be distracted during this holiday period.  

Here's my centre panel so far....

The pieces are sitting on the paper pattern at the moment and still need to be fused onto the background.  I'll cut out the circles when I find my circle template.  A nice mix of hand embroidery and fusible machine applique.  I have seriously mixed up fabric genres in this one - Kaffe Fasset, batiks, fossil ferns and some more traditional patterns.  And... surprise of the day, my Hubby, who often has no opinion walked in when I was taking the photo and said "WOW, I really like this one!"  Far out, I didn't think he took any notice of what I do....

I'm feeling happy; lucky to have some truly amazing friends, access to wonderful fabrics, a good sewing room and a family who support what I do.  Yep, you guessed it, my "word" for 2018 is Blessed.

Wishing everyone, peace, love and joy for the coming year.