Thursday 19 July 2012

What have you been doing?


I can't believe it is over a week since I last posted here. I'm not sure what I've been doing but I have managed a bit of stitching to share with you. I have now finished Module 4 of the Creative Quilt making course I am doing with Design Matters - half way through!

Here are a few things I have had to do.  One skill I have to practice is piecing curved shapes.  These samples are not too bad and if I quilted them, hopefully the wrinkles would be less noticeable.  However it is not a very inspiring thing to practice - it uses up lots of fabric and I just end up with a heap of wrinkly squares.



Another quilting skill I have had to learn is creation Prairie points all you quilters will know what they are - but they were new to me.

The next activity was using tabs as part of a design and below I chose to make mine in the shape of ridge tiles.  I used painted pelmet vilene and one of my dyed fabrics, the blue, with one I bought at a textile show.


The final activity I had to do was use couching and appliqué in a piece.  I took ages to decide what to do and wanted to use the methods to try something more significant. So I used this photograph as inspiration


 I used some of my dyed fabric and used free machine embroidery to lay down the basic shapes.
I then used couching of different threads and fabrics and a variety of stitches to represent the grain in the wood.  The whole piece is about 6x8 inches.

I have also been practicing my free machine stitching. These are on a calico/batting sandwich, the cut-outs are stitched pelmet vilene, cut out and then painted.


I hope to be enrolling for the next module in the next few days so I'm sure to be doing some more stitching, if I can cope in the coming heat wave of course! 
I've had a lot of lovely communications with fellow bloggers recently and I just wanted to add what a super lot you all are.  Keep on posting,
Jill