summer serenade part 7 - the finished quilt!

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I took photos of the quilt in my studio, in various places and at various times, but had great trouble getting one that showed the true colours or the quilting design.  In the end Murray and I took it outside and tried there.  This is the best of a bad lot.  The closeup photos are much better though, so I hope you enjoy looking at them.

I sent the photos away to my tutor, who replied that she loved the quilt and that the quilting was 'exquisite'!  Needless to say, I was more than a little pleased at her response.  I received my certificate from City & Guilds in the mail yesterday!  Yes!!



summer serenade part 6

I like to use a wool/poly blend batting for quilting.  I like the loft it gives and the fact that it has a bit of body to it.  I pin basted the layers of the quilt together using the same cream fabric on the back as I used on the front.  I was a bit hesitant because it would show every wobble in the quilting stitches but then I thought "just go for it".

The first quilting I did was four long wavy lines in red thread just on the edge of the coloured areas where they border the cream section.  I didn't do the pebbles until later though.  I didn't mark the lines on the fabric.  I made up a freezer paper template.  I didn't want to tear off a piece of freezer paper that long, so cut off a 16" piece then cut that into 4 strips, overlapped the ends and dabbed them with the iron to stick them together.

Next was the flowers.  This is the flower motif I quilted in the coloured areas of the quilt.  I cut the circles for the flower centres out of freezer paper and ironed them to the quilt top.  I quilted around them then removed them before finishing the flower petals.

I enlarged the outline of the flower motif to quilt behind the quiltlets, the same as I did in the play piece.  I drew the outline on greaseproof paper with water-soluble pen then pinned the paper to the quilt top and quilted through the paper.  It's easy to tear off the paper although I had to just scratch over the top of a few little bits that got caught under the stitches.  To mark the cross hatching design I used painters tape.  It's really low-tack tape and doesn't leave any residue.  It can be used several times before it runs out of 'stickability'.

I drew out several different ideas for the background of the cream section then quilted them out on a scrap quilt sandwich, using dark thread just so I could see it a little easier.

While I would have liked to do the mctavishing, it was going to be just too difficult to see.  It might be easier to do mini mctavishing on the longarm machine but I haven't tried it yet.  I did some little swirly quilting and decided to add a few areas of straight lines to add a bit of interest.  The two photos below are before and after adding microstippling to make the checkerboard design in the flower outline.

I decided to do some quilting on the purple quiltlets as they bagged out a bit without it.  I used a single strand of embroidery thread to quilt around the main elements in the flowers and echo quilting in the background.

Next post - the final product!

summer serenade part 5

I had to show samples of the quilting before I started doing any on the actual quilt, so this is my 'play' piece.  I was thinking about doing some of the quilting in gold thread.  I used Raiman rayon thread which quilts up very well on my Husqvarna, with a bottomline pre-filled bobbin.  The cream quilting in the background uses the same bobbin with Signature thread in the top.  The micro stippling was SO time consuming that I didn't do any that would be behind the purple quiltlet.

I placed it against the sample of the coloured fabrics.  I thought that it didn't really need the gold thread as I wanted the quilting to be more of a background than a feature, so I decided to do the quilting on the actual quilt with cream thread instead of the gold.

I tried out some ideas for the cream background next - micro stippling and mctavishing (the swirly design).  I LOVE the look of the mctavishing but it was very hard to see the cream thread on the cream fabric.  I finished it on this little piece though.

There were some leftover coloured strips of fabric left over from where the main quilt so I stitched a couple of borders around the 'play' piece and made it into this little quilt.  I really like the way it turned out in spite of the fact that I had to add the borders quilt-as-you-go style, because the backing fabric was cut the same size as the cream bit on the front.  It was a bit of a pain to do but turned out okay if you don't look at the back very closely!

summer serenade part 2

The next step was choosing the fabrics I wanted to use.  I knew that I wanted to use purple, red and gold (more about those colour choices in a later post).  Most of these fabrics came out of the stash.  I just played around with the arrangement until I found one that looked right to me.

Ahh, this is the one - a light centre section with a darker 'frame' and then the other colours sort of graduating out to the edge. Luckily I liked the lighter purple paisley design on the edge as that's the fabric I had the biggest piece of.

I cut a few strips of similar fabrics to stitch together so that I could do a sample of the quilting.  So glad I did!  I found that no matter what colour thread I used, none of the quilting showed up against the orange-y fabric.  The design of the fabric was way too busy and the quilting just faded into the background.   So I changed that fabric for a tone-on-tone with a similar value.  It worked much better.

summer serenade part 1

Summer Serenade is the name of the quilt I've recently finished.  It was the final assessment piece for the City & Guilds Level 2 Patchwork & Quilting Certificate course I've been doing through Design Matters (Linda and Laura Kemshall).  Edwina Mackinnon is the wonderful tutor I had for the course.

Each step in the making of this quilt had to be explained and sampled.  These photos show my initial ideas.  I changed them a little during the making of the quilt but really didn't deviate that much.  I tried to take some photos to show the process but forgot quite a few I think!

what I've been working on recently - a cushion!

I don't make cushions as a general rule- they're small...and fiddly...and, well, not very satisfying.  I make quilts, and they're mostly biggish ones.  But for my city and guilds assessment, I made this cushion.  The photos don't show up in the order I thought they would (I never can seem to get that right) but I'm sure you can follow them.  I used plain white homespun and some of my hand dyed fabrics.

I had to show where I had tried out various different things for the quilting and applique, which slows down the process considerably.  Usually I decide on something then just go ahead and do it.  If it doesn't work, I say 'oops' and then unpick it or, more likely, tell myself that's what I wanted to do in the first place!  I did find it useful for this project though, as I changed my mind about a couple of things after doing the samples.   

On the whole, I'm pleased with my cushion. I hope you like it too.

Cheers, Cat

city & guilds stuff - part 2

The next step was to slice the main piece again and insert the remaining smaller units.





Nance Crow has her quilts hand quilted, but I machine quilted mine. I haven't done much in the way of hand quilting for the last 10 years so it wasn't a difficult decision! She mainly uses straight lines or grids so that's what I did too.



After I'd finished the quilting and looked at it, I decided to do some little wavy, swirly bits in a few places.



I really enjoyed making this and I have a few ideas on how I can go further with this technique - all I need is the time coz I sure don't need any more fabric for it!

city & guilds stuff - part 1

One of the activities I had to do for my city & guilds course was to choose 3 internationally known quilters and make a little quilt based on their style. The first quilter I chose was Nancy Crow. I love her work, I find her inspirational. I decided to focus on her strip pieced quilts and tried to strip piece without it being anything like Nancy's work. I needn't have worried - mine is like kindergarten work to her wonderful quilts!

I wanted to use some of my hand dyed fabrics so I chose 3 of them as well as some quilter's muslin and a grey homespun.

I cut them into strips of varying widths then pieced them together into several different units.

Then sliced the biggest unit apart and stitched in two smaller units joined end to end.

More in part two...

speaking of the Kemshalls

Linda and Laura Kemshall also run the online City & Guilds patchwork and quilting courses ( as well as Creative Sketchbooks and Creative Computing). I've wanted to start the quilting courses for a few years now, and recently I decided that now was as good a time as any. So I'm now doing Level 2 7822-10 Patchwork and Quilting, which is the first course of three. My dream is to be able to do all three of the courses but that will depend on finances. They're definitely not cheap, but are high quality courses of study. I've got a while to decide though.

Module 1 was about colour mixing and fabric dyeing. I've done LOTS of fabric dyeing over the past 10 or 12 years so I got through that module fairly quickly. Module 2 involves playing with acrylic paints among other things, and I'm having a great time with that at the moment. My husband had carved a heap of lino stamps for me this week - I tried but don't seem to have strong enough hands. Apparently plumber's rubber gasket is easier to carve and the resulting stamps work the same. I have no idea what plumber's gasket is, but will try and buy some so we can test it out.