Short burst of speed!

Having posted only last week about the current state of my USA themed crazy quilt, I am now about to post again! This is mostly thanks to the school holidays which means that I am able to get on a little more. (But only a little, as my mornings, a couple of afternoons and a weekend day are taking up with teaching English to foreign students!)

I was very pleased to finish all the red patches, and I made a start on putting the red pieces onto the backing.

As you can see my fabrics are mostly red, with hints of white, and include two fabrics that incorporate other colours. I wasn't sure if this was going to work, so I've just done a small section, and it's only tacked down at the minute. Actually this caused a crafting dilemma for me - all the fabric I've used so far has been from my stash of fabrics. I have only bought thread. I was battling with whether to try and stick with that, hence the fabrics with other colours, and the dominant red, or whether to try and find some white fabric with a red print or pattern. In the end I decided to use what I've got. It looks good, there's variety of pattern, and the white patches really stand out. Crafting can be a very expensive hobby, and I like to try and limit what I buy to stuff that I really need and haven't got in my stash already.

I also started adding the decorative stitching to the blue section of the quilt. My original idea was to use blue and white variegated thread on the blue section, and red and white combined on the red section. (Red variegated thread is inevitably pink...not the look I wanted!) However, when I made a start, I soon realised that you couldn't actually see the stitches. I think it's important that this detail stands out, so now I am using red on the blue section and blue on the red section. As an added bonus it helps the embroidered patches to stand out more.

Here's the first few borders!

What happened to that quilt you were making then Jo?

Waaaaay back in January I posted about a crazy quilt I was planning to make. It had a USA theme, and was going to be based on the Stars and Stripes. I had given myself the year to make it, and after that initial post I haven't mentioned it on the blog. 

So what happened? 

Well, I am very pleased to say that the quilt is ahead of schedule! I used an app called Priority Matrix to plan the quilt and that's helped me stay on track as I could organise what image I wanted on what colour, and allocate it a month.

As you can see, there are lots of green ticks :D 

So where are all these images? I've used the same process as for the eagle - find an image using Google (what did we do before Google?) put it into Adobe Ideas and turn it into a line drawing.

Print, trace onto fabric then stitch using stem stitch.

Here are the finished blocks. The blue and white ones are now stitched onto the backing fabric, which is an old sheet, along with other blue and white fabric.

Map of the USA

American Eagle

The White House

The Statue of Liberty

Chicago skyline

All the blue patches on the backing fabric.

The red and white blocks are still in progress, I've got one underway and 3 more to do. Then they can be stitched onto the backing fabric. Obviously because of the proportions of the flag, there are more red than blue blocks.

Orchard House - Louisa May Alcott's home in Concord, Massachusetts.

Sitting Bull

Fender guitar

Martin Luther King

American football player

Wolf

Mount Rushmore

Baseball player

Cowboy - I added a lasso.

Buffalo (or bison)

Golden Gate Bridge

Navaho pot in progress - you can see the pen lines, which will disappear over time.

Of course, once all the pieces are sewn on, then I will be adding decorative stitches, as I did to the Green Knowe quilt.

Some of the decorative stitches I used.

I think this may take the rest of the year!

A patchwork denim skirt or how to make life difficult for yourself!

I bought this lovely, very simple skirt pattern - 3 pieces, a side zip, very straightforward. Unless you decide that you want to make a patchwork denim skirt, and that it can't be square patchwork, it has to be crazy patchwork!
I had an old denim skirt, which I had made from a pair of jeans, and had some old jeans of Adrian's. I traced the pattern onto freezer paper, then cut out pieces which I pinned onto the freezer paper. I used yellow thread and a zig zag stitch to sew the patches together. Now that all sounds quite easy, but I forgot to go forward and back when I started and ended my stitching, and then when I tried to pull the paper off the back it didn't come off very easily. So my front panel needed extra patches and some resewing. But, hey, it's all adding to the general worn, hippy style look.
I learnt some lessons for the back piece - by sewing back and forward and by overlapping the pieces more. Pulling the paper off the back still was a pain, and needed tweezers, but it worked.
So here's the finished skirt. Due to my weirded shaped back I had to make the darts much bigger than they were on the pattern, but I'm pleased with the end result. Denim skirts from jeans tend to be all of the 'adding triangle panels to the legs' variety, so it's nice to have done something very different!

USA quilt is underway!

It's taken a while to get going on this, despite my plan to do some each month, and I didn't want to get behind straight away!
I have now planned my embroidered sections, choosing images and then one of four colour ways. The images will be sewn in blue or red on white, and in white on red or blue. Scuppered a little by not having any white thread, I started with a blue on white bald eagle.
I used a photo from the Internet, and, inspired by Adrian's Christmas gift of iPad for Artists, I reduced it to a line drawing using Adobe Ideas. I transferred the image using a water and air soluble pen. I tried using the iPad as a light box, but as it's pressure sensitive that's a little tricky.
But here we are, my first patch ready for my American themed crazy quilt!

Frustrations, plans and new friends

In September I started the first full time job that I've had in five years. I love the job but it's been a shock to the system. I expected to have time in the evenings to do the creative things I want to do, and I was determined not to end up just working all day and vegging out in front of the tv all evening. But, of course, I'm exhausted and spend my evenings vegging out in front of the TV!

Thankfully a kind friend told me that it took her a year to adjust from part time to full time work, so I've taken some of the pressure off myself. What's left is frustration; I don't want to waste my evenings or my half terms (I'm working in a school) I don't want to be resting, I want to be making and doing and being creative. (I also had some good advice from Mum who said to do the creative stuff while you have energy because you can always do ironing etc when your brain is fried!)

I've managed to keep going with the Tag Tuesday blog and that's inspired me to make some plans for next year. I've also picked up puppeteering again, so there's an outlet there. I'm probably actually doing more than I realise, just not as much as I want.

So plans! I have in mind to make a crazy patchwork quilt, similar to the Green Knowe one I made. I want to base it on iconic images from the USA, and on the Stars and Stripes flag. I've been feeling the pressure to get on with it, so I've set myself this as a project for next year. Each month I will design and stitch a small panel, then in the school holidays I will assemble the panels that are done. By December 2013 it should be finished!

As for new friends, I've made several puppets. (See what I mean about doing more than I realise!) Excuse the photos, for speed I took them with my iPhone and iPad, and you don't always get the best results.
The old guy is paper mâché and fabric. I made the head ages ago and have finally got round to finishing it off. I've since replaced his hands with some felt that is more akin to his skin colour,and more to scale with the rest of him. I would make a longer sleeve next time.

The camels are adapted from a pattern I got from this website.
http://www.puppetpatterns.com/index.htm
I intend to make a third, what with Christmas coming up!

The little green guy is called Crockford, because of his jumper! He is so cute, aged about 3, and very talkative! He loves crocodiles and now has a big 'brudder' called Brookland. (Brookland looks the same but only talks by whispering to another person. He's about 6 and loves taking photographs. They are both named after places in Surrey!) They are made from the Roly pattern from this website, with Brookland being a 125% version of the pattern.

http://www.projectpuppet.com/servlet/StoreFront

There at last!

Finally the projects are finished, the hooks are hammered in and my final major project is complete! Tonight was the private view for our exhibition, and today was the first time I've seen my installation as I planned it to be. Have a look at some previous posts to find out about my inspiration.
It's called 'Claiming Sanctuary' and consists of 4 parts:
A torn curtain which represents the stresses and pressures of the everyday world
A wall hanging to represent a cathedral, the sense of space and peace.
A memorial plaque, which is a very personal piece, in memory of 3 babies I lost to miscarriage last year.
An icon of St Clare, the patron saint of embroiderers.

I'm so pleased with how it's come together, and that people went in for a look, which I was worried they wouldn't!

Really going to miss my fellow students, but not all the research!

More Stained Glass Patchwork

Gone to pieces!

I decided to combine the crazy patchwork technique from my last project with the stained glass patchwork technique I've been experimenting with. At Winchester cathedral there is a huge window which was destroyed by Cromwell, and restored at the Restoration (ha ha!) What's so amazing is that all the pieces have just been put together in any order - you can see where bits might have gone together and you can see glimpses of what it's supposed to be, but the window is like a giant crazy patchwork. I wanted to recreate this so I drew a design, copied it and cut pieces of both cotton and satiny materials. 

Pinned and ready to go

 Here I've got all the satin fabric pinned on - excuse the pictures, they're taken with my iPhone and look washed out in one corner for some reason! Anyway, everything is pinned and ready to be stitched. I used a small zig zag stitch on the cotton and a large zig zag stitch on the satin material. Both times I used invisible thread.

Stitching

 This is the cotton being sewn. It was tricky sewing the satin as it was prone to fraying. The cotton behaved much better but didn't look so good. The satin looked more like glass because it's shiny.

Cotton

Satin

 
The final stage was adding the  bias binding. It was complicated making sure ends were tucked under the right parts. I used thicker binding on the satin and thinner on the cotton. I am really pleased with the results, but definitely think the satin gives the look I want. I would like to combine it with some heat transfer press printing as this would allow me to create images on shiny fabric which could then be cut up for my window.

Green Knowe Quilt

My penultimate project is due in on Tuesday and is not quite finished, much to my frustration. I am discovering that textile art finished to the quality I want is very time consuming, and I could quite happily spend another month on this piece.

The starting theme was Landscapes, but the discovery of crazy patchwork mid way through the project led me down some unexpected paths. And here is the end result. It's a crazy quilt based on the Green Knowe books, by Lucy Boston. I created a special piece for each of 16 patches using a variety of techniques; cross stitch, fabric crayons, printing using a pc, crewel work etc. I then used fabrics suggested by the books, especially The Chimneys of Green Knowe where patchwork features in the story. I included velvet and 'satin', printed cottons and linen.  The photos show the patches in blocks of 4, then all sewn together. As you can see I haven't managed to embroider all the seams, and I have ideas for further embellishment. Backing and binding would also be desirable but way out of reach for Tuesday!

If you want to read the books they are available from Amazon http://www.amazon.co.uk/green knowe books

Topiary and Roger and Toby's patches

St Christopher, Alexander and Susan and Jacob's patches, the peacock's tail feather

Oscar, Ping and Ida and Linnet's patches with topiary animals

Tolly's rocking horse, Neptune the carp Chinese style, the witch ball and Hanno the gorilla

the whole quilt, as yet unfinished but you get the idea!