a couple of fun projects

I'm onto the second groups of 24 QAYG blocks. The fabric I used for the backing is driving me crazy coz it's not sliding across the sewing machine easily - I have to fight with the d--n stuff! Aaaargh!! So to distract myself I thought I'd put up a few more photos here.

The 'tribal dancer' quilt started out as a piece of calico that I used as mop-up cloth when I was palying with some acrylic paint. I mopped up paint drips and cleaned the paint brushes on it. It didn't look too bad when I'd finished so I added some more paint and stamped it with rubber stamps, but then I didn't know what to do with it so it sat on a shelf for a couple of months. I liked the tribal dancer stamp so I enlarged the design and use if for the applique motif in the centre. It's quilted to death but the quilting was the most fun part!





I like to see the backs of quilts as much as the front (well, that's if the backing fabric isn't too busy) so here's the back.



Some of my medication comes in these white boxes, so I get a new one every couple of months. A quilt magazine will fit neatly in them so they're a useful size. I've given heaps of them away but still have 8-9 in the studio. I decided to try out some paint on one of them to see how it looked. Oen problem was that the pharmacist had written my name in black pen, which the paint didn't cover. My sister Rose and Mum were visiting at the time, and Rose suggested putting some flowers or something on to cover up the writing, so I did.




Mum asked if she could have one of the boxes to put some stuff in so I gave her this one. If I'd kept it I would have done a few more layers of paint or similar to it, but I have plenty more to play with yet.

bushfire quilts part 1

I've made some progress with the quilt-as-you-go scrap blocks. This is the pile of strips thatI cut on Friday. I cut 6 layers of fabric at a time which made the process much quicker. I had a lot of check fabrics in the stash from 10-12 years ago so I made use of them here.



I cut twenty four 13" squares of backing fabric and batting. I'll cut the finished blocks down to 12.5" when I've finished them.



Here's the blocks as at 9.30pm Sunday night. I just have to fill in the corners. They're certainly not pretty but they are colourful. Tomorrow I'll have to scrounge up some more backing fabric to cut out another 24 or so squares.



I've actually enjoyed stitching these. It's so mindless! This week I had been planning to start quilting a quilt for the state exhibition in July but there's plenty of time for that. These blocks will take precedence for a while.

On the 25th we fly over to Melbourne for the Australasian Quilt Convention. We've been to the convention the last 2 years but this is the first time I'm doing a class. It's a 2 day class with Jane Sassaman called Abstracting From Nature. I'm looking forward to it, but a bit worried at the same time. Not about the class itself, but about how I'll cope with having to focus on something for 2 days. We're taking the wheelchair over with us and Murray will push me round in that while we look at the quilt show and the vendor's stalls so I can save energy for the class. Whatever parts of the brain that deal with speaking and language have been affected by MS, and I find being around people where I have to concentrate on words and participate in discussion or conversation is exhausting. Not just mentally but physically to the point where my balance is affected and I start to stumble, my left arm shakes more than usual and my speech starts to slur. I'll warn the tutor before the class starts in case she thinks I've got vodka in my water bottle LOL. The venue isn't air conditioned either, but I'm taking an electric fan and an extension cord with me. Only 10 more sleeps before we go.

quilts for Australian bushfire survivors

The quilt group that I am a member of here in Devonport have decided to make some quilts for survivors of the bushfires in Victoria. We are making quilt-as-you-go blocks that will be joined to make single and queen size quilts.

I went through my stash on Thursday and found a stack of fabrics to use. I want to concentrate on quilts for teenage boys and men. There will be heaps of quilts made for girls and little kids but boys and men seem to miss out. My Mum came over yesterday afternoon and ironed all the fabric for me then I started cutting strips to do string piecing. After a couple of hours I had to stop and have a nap LOL. (The fatigue associated with having MS is a real bugga sometimes.) Poor Mum kept ironing till all the fabric was done. After tea I went back out to the studio and started sewing the blocks. I had 24 squares of batting and backing fabric cut so I'm piecing them all in a big production line. I got quite a bit done today and should be able to finish those 24 blocks tomorrow. I took a couple of photos today but won't post them here till tomorrow as it is just after 11pm now.

Just a thought if anyone outside of Australia wants to help. A couple of wonderful quilters have offered to send fabric which is very much appreciated. If anyone is interested, you could contact our local quilt shop and order a gift voucher instead of paying postage to post fabric over. If you email Selina, the owner, she will be able to tell you how to go about it. Her website has a contact email address http://www.picturepatchwork.com.au/ also phone and fax number. If you do want to do that, please make the voucher out to Devonport Patchwork and Quilters, not to me.

Thanks to those who have already offered to help. Goodnight for now - I'm off to bed.

ever seen a double rainbow?

I just found this photo again. I took it just before Christmas, I think. It's taken just outside our house. The colours in the inside rainbow were so bright - you really can't see it well in the photo. The outer rainbow was quite pale and indistinct. Neither of us had ever seen anything quite like it.

fabric cover for hardback book

My sister Rose asked if I could make a cover for a hardback A4 diary. She wanted to be able to replace the diary next year and use the same cover. I'd never done this before but I didn't see why I couldn't. It wasn't much different to making the journals I posted photos of last year.

This is the final result. The base of the cover is a heavy fusible interfacing. The one I used is called heavy badge backing. There are many other with various names but I can't get them here. I had some charm squares of Aboriginal fabrics so used some of them on a plain background.


I just noticed that I stood the diary upside down to take the photo. Oh well...




This is the outside of the cover laid out flat.




This is the inside with a pocket on each side to slip the diary covers into.



I'm pleased with the way it turned out. The worst thing about it was satin stitching around the edge - not because it's difficult, just because it is so tedious! (But worth it...)

scrap bags and sun prints

At our state guild meeting in December, one of the members was selling grocery bags full of scrap pieces. I got in early LOL, and bought this bag of batik scraps.



What a treasure trove it turned out to be! Many of the pieces were smallish but most were between 10" and 12" square-ish plus quite a few bigger than that. A lot looked as if they were originally shirts or pieces left over from making clothing. They were all cotton though. I'm very happy I bought it.



I tried sun printing for the first time just before Christmas. In the first photo I used Pebeo paints and love the way it turned out. Of course I poured too much out of the bottles so I watered it down a bit and used it to paint some small bits of white homespun. I chopped the ends of some fern fronds to use.



I used cheap acrylic paint for the fabric in the next photo. I thinned it down a bit and the colours are not so bright, but I still like it. I'll definitely be trying some more of this.




If you want to find out a bit about the process, here's some links:

http://www.dharmatrading.com/info/sun_paint.html

http://andrusgardensquilts.vox.com/library/post/indoor-sunprinting-mini-tutorial.html

http://www.andrusgardensquilts.com/view.php?cat=Sunprint%20Mini

It's been a while...

... since I last posted anything here. Thanks for your comment, Melinda. It's about time I put something else on this blog. My MS is behaving fairly well at the moment. I haven't used my walking stick for a few months now which is great! My memory has been behaving in an 'interesting' way recently. One day last week I went into the kitchen and couldn't remember how to open the cupboard doors - how strange is that? One time I was putting on my sneakers, the first one was fine but when I went to do up the second one I couldn't figure out how to do it. Another time I went into our local pharmacy to drop off a prescription, and I couldn't remember where the door was to get back out. In the first 2 examples the delay was only about 15 seconds or so, but I never did find the front door of the pharmacy - I found a door that connected it to the doctors surgery and from there out to the street. Sure makes life interesting!

I've still been playing in the studio though. I even got out the dyes that have been hidden away in the cupboard for a few years now. The first photo is where I was trying to make brown from blue, red and yellow. I put a heap of small scraps of calico and homespun in, and this is what came out. The actual fabric is a bit darker than it looks in this photo.



The next group was done using the principles of colour wheel dyeing but instead of blue and red and yellow, I used pink, green and black. I really like the way they turned out. The photo below shows some fabrics that I put in some of the dye pots when the dye was almost exhausted, resulting in lovely pale shades.






I made two pieces using the leftover green, black and brown dyes. They came out lighter than I hoped but still very nice. It's inspired me to do some more.



I have quite a few more photos to load and should get to that over the next week.

cheers, cat