Lobster Designs

The Crazy Women project is finally over, all except the card and accompanying note which will go with it to the charity it's going to. I picked Forward UK because I wanted to focus on something connected to female sexuality, a theme we all explored in this project. They do fantastic work in an area many people do not want to think about. It was challenging and inspiring to work on this project, and I am honoured to have worked with the women of the LJ Birthday Block swap group who contributed, as well as my blog readers and friends who helped with advice and even an impromptu photo shoot in a nearby park.

( Photos! )

I have eventually realised that due to forces beyond my control (OK, buggering up my arms with RSI for months on end was sort of my fault, but you get my drift), I really am not going to finish the 2011 Bead Journal Project. I had fun, I learned some more about beading, and I completed seven nice little pieces. The time has now come to finish them off, and I've decided to make them into little individual wall hangings and give them to assorted friends. They're all 5" on the dotted basting line at the moment, apart from the bottom one where I miscalculated and made it 1/2" bigger. Does anyone have any particular suggestions as to how I should frame them? I think the January grey tree needs an unbeaded border, probably in a darker grey batik with a gentle pattern, while the turquoise round spiral could work with something more elaborate, perhaps even several borders.



In other news, my hands are finally improving, possibly because I've been in an ME crash lately which has made me rest properly, and I'm starting to sew again a bit at a time. Right now I'm finishing off the quilting on the Crazy Women quilt.

There were two leftover blocks that didn't make it into the quilt. The first is a crazy block using three very similar fabrics, so there wasn't enough contrast for it to sit well with the others. I plan to make a matching cushion with it, as it is fine as a stand-alone piece, and to have fun with embroidery.

The second has a photo below. This was quite an interesting slant on the original brief, with a pixelated design instead of a crazy quilt block. So again it didn't sit well with the others as a quilt, but I think it could make a very effective wall hanging. I was a little unsure about the pixelated look, it's not my usual approach to things, but it's nicer than I thought once I stepped back a bit, and hey, challenges are good for me!

( Photo - not terribly work-safe - and thoughts on borders )

Below the cut: baby Noah with his quiltlet. As the proud uncle put it, he hasn't quite learned how to stay still for the camera yet! He's six weeks old. They really are the best photos, quilts with babies on them.

( Read more... )

Well, mostly. I still have to sign it and make a little hanging sleeve, which I think I'll do tomorrow as I'm feeling lazy. I present to you the final version of Dr F's quilt. It's 8 1/2" x 16", pieced, beaded, and with organza ribbon/satin cord/cotton thong.



ETA: You do know that you can still comment even though I've moved the journal, folks? Go to the little link at the bottom of each post where it directs you to the DreamWidth original post, and then you can sign in using OpenID (takes about three seconds) if you don't have a DW account.

ETA2: I've just realised that the automatic settings for this DW blog weren't allowing non-DW commenters. That has now been fixed, and it should be very easy to comment without having to register with anything.

Not long ago, I fell in love with Welsh quilting. While America is undoubtedly the home of an incredible variety of patchwork blocks, the quilting, as in the stage when you go through all three layers with thread (let's call the overall process Quilting to distinguish them), has always left me cold. Modern free-motion quilters such as Leah Day are doing fantastic things, but the traditional quilting patterns are rather limited, sometimes twee, and designs such as the omnipresent feathers just don't do it for me.

I discovered Welsh quilting through a stunning red wholecloth quilt in one of Barbara Chainey's books, and was moved to buy Making Welsh Quilts. It's a fantastic book, containing a thorough discussion of Welsh quilting, photo gallery, projects, and a particularly useful bit at the back which assigns a page to each common motif, such as paisleys, hearts, spirals, leaves, gives a host of examples of how to vary them, and good clear instructions on pattern drafting. I've also found an excellent blog about Welsh quilting, Welsh Quilts, and you can see many beautifully photographed examples intelligently discussed there. The patterns in Welsh quilting really speak to me, being at once classic yet fresh and modern as well. The designs are graceful and elegant, with great scope for creativity yet easy to put together once you know the basic principles.

My second cousin is due to have a baby in about a month, and naturally it took me mere seconds to offer her a baby quilt when I heard the news. ( Plans for my first Welsh quilt )

Unfortunately I'm rather tired out from all the basting, so I've had to take a few days off while I wait for my hands to stop aching, but I'm sure I'll be quilting soon. Ironically, I spent ages with my support worker creating a huge diamond grid from 15 sheets of paper I'd printed out and taped together, and then I absent-mindedly marked the grid on the wrong way around, after all that fuss! So I'll have to recalculate where I put the beaded stars, but I think it should still be perfectly manageable. For some reason everyone seems to be incapable of taking a non-blurry photo of the thing. I can take a close-up of the centre if anyone wants to see the embroidery detail, such as the stripes on the waistband.

It's come out very nicely, I think. Now I just have to work out how I want to quilt it. I'm fairly stuck on that one. Aunty D has suggested that as it has so many diagonals, to use horizontal lines for the waves and spirals inside the shell. Not sure if I like that idea or not. It's sitting pinned to a noticeboard above the sofa while I get on with my Hoffman Challenge quilt, I'm sure something will come to me sooner or later. Though D would quite like to be able to sit back on the sofa without hitting his head on the board, especially as it has a few pins on it!

These little things are addictive. My mother's just had eye surgery, and while attempting to cheer her up and get us off the topic of painkillers, I started talking about quilting. Turns out she'd like a needle case too, please. Here it is in all its glory.

( And a pincushion too! )

I'll do separate posts for the methods later, but meanwhile here are most of the pictures for my earlier work.

( Cushion covers )

( Carpenter's Square )

( Fish baby quilt )

( Coffee cosies )

( Purple peacock quilt )

( Rachel's Star )

I finally finished my 89" x 87" bedspread, and you may see it below the cut and also here, here and here. The design was based on this quilt, only I used 30 degree angles where hers are sharper, and batiks in autumnal tones. The diamonds have sides 6" long and were initially sewn in strips of 7, which is half the length of the completed quilt and was a more manageable length to deal with at this stage. Finally I sewed the strips into full-length ones fourteen pieces long, added triangles at each end, and sewed those strips together to make the final quilt. The quilting design can be seen here (well, I added another little spiral in the end), and it's based on Klimt's Stoclet Frieze (the Tree of Life). Since the quilting lines were as far apart as I could get away with, it was surprisingly quick to quilt. Everything was sewn by hand as usual. The worst jobs were laying all the half-strips out to decide which ones should go next to each other, and crawling around on the floor for two hours to do the pin-basting, which had to be done for half the quilt at one time since the floor wasn't big enough.

( Picture time )