Hello - I'm back again!

Not really sure why I lost my blogging mojo - lots of excuses - all important - but I am still here and I am still quilting!
Since March I have been working hard on my final two City & Guilds pieces, desperately hoping to have them completed before the end of this month but it didn't happen.
My Tuesday patchwork classes have finished now for the summer and we had a fantastic end of year celebration and 'show and tell'.
I have also made a baby quilt for a dear friend's grandson, 15 yards of quilted bunting for another dear friend's daughter's wedding and two lots of birthday bunting for two lovely little girls.
I have been on holiday to Scotland last week and visited the Loch Lomond Quilt Show for the first time.
So as you can see I have been very busy but the good news is I have lots of photos of all these things and hope to share over the next couple of days.


The significance of the photos in this post is that these are two of the inspirational photos I have used for my City & Guilds pieces. I am making a red wholecloth quilt based on designs found on Welsh Celtic crosses and I am also making a 'Golden Wedding' wallhanging for my parents.

Their Golden Wedding anniversary is 15th July - so still a bit of time left!

The wholecloth is nearly finished - just four cornerstones left to quilt and millions of ends to bury!

I am in that strange pre-holiday limbo at the moment as we leave for a very special holiday on Tuesday (00.30 hours). We are flying to Chicago at 11.00 Tuesday to travel to California and back in a hire car, returning to the UK on July 1st. Our house will be turning into a teenagers hostel and so I am busy packing, washing, ironing, cleaning, shopping etc.

I hope that you will be able to join us on our special 'California Trip' (in the words of the song) through the blog. The first two weeks will be Route 66 in its entirety and then we return via Utah, Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska. It is Geoff's 50th birthday treat so lots of car stuff! Plenty of quilty stuff too!!

Snow, Cabin Fever and a giveaway.

Here are the inevitable snow pictures! Everything I have tried to do this week has been cancelled due to the white stuff and now I feel that I have a dose of what can only be described as 'cabin fever!'
These photos were taken by Geoff on Wednesday and things are not much different now. Our street is treacherous due to compacted snow and ice and we live on quite a steep hill.

Fancy a camping trip? Ironically we have just acquired one of those 'camper covers' but who knows when we will be able to use it!

What about a nice sit on the patio?

This weekend I was supposed to be at college for my City & Guilds course. This also has been cancelled - although I don't think I would have attempted the drive to Skipton anyway.

The down side with this is that I don't get to spend time with my classmates, Rachel, Anne-Marie and Hazel. This is a real shame as we have become good friends over the 3/4 years I have known them.

However you can get to know Hazel a little bit better by heading over to her blog where she is having a great giveaway with 3 prizes all relating to the Quilt Show.

Woven Fabric Mini Quilt

This is actually one of my City & Guilds 10 inch square mini quilts but I thought I would share it on my main blog as it is a technique that I have never tried before. It is a lot of fun and you can achieve quite good results with a minimum of effort.
The fabric is cut out as two squares, one blue and one pink. Bondaweb is applied to each. They are each then randomly cut into wavy strips which are woven together. The whole thing is then ironed to stick it all together abd then the raw edges are zig zagged in satin stitch.
I then appliqued a flower using bondaweb and used raw edge applique and stippling on this.

The inspiration for this little quilt came from this book which is full of lovely woven quilts.

Image Transfer

This is one of my City & Guilds pieces but I thought I would share it as I am quite pleased with it. However I have really struggled to get a good photo of it so it does look better in real life.
I printed Jonathan's photo in black and white onto some lightweight vilene. I backed this with white cotton and then stitched the coloured lines using my twin needle with red in one and orange in the other.

I then layered it with wadding and backing and quilted it with a silver metallic thread.

Photo manipulation

This weekend I have realised that I need to get on with my homework for college next weekend. The topic for this month is image transfer and one of the first things I had to do was digital photo manipulation using computer software.
I didn't know where to start with this but luckily Hazel came to the rescue with some free internet software that you can find here.

So I started with a photo of Jonathan my eldest son and tried to get some Andy Warhol effects.
This was the best one.
Then I used a photo of one of my 1960s plates I am using for my personal theme this year.

This one is using the 'pencil sketch' effect which I think would be great to 'colour in' with machine stitching.

This effect squares the image up so you could translate it into patchwork blocks.

And this is one of those crazy effects that are great to play with but I am not sure how I would use it!

Don't call the quilt police!

I thought I would share this City & Guilds piece with you this morning - but beware some readers may find it upsetting!

The part I am referring to is the background quilting - if you look closely you will see it is all loopy. What's more - this is how it is supposed to be! Apparently it is a legitimate stitch in the world of machine embroidery - feather stitch!

Usually I have no problem getting this effect but I really struggled to get it to do this on this piece. I have to say I don't like it and it jumps out at me everytime I look at it. Anyway I have done the piece as I was instructed.


It has made up into a mini quilt 10 x 10 inches. When I showed DH he really liked and and asked if I could enter it into one of the quilt shows! Oh no I said, I would be ashamed to show it!
Do you think the judges would get it?

Another Mini Quilt inspired by a Vintage Plate.

I really enjoyed making the first mini quilt so decided to make another. This one is actually for my City & Guilds Machine Embroidery Collection, it is fusing snippets of fabric onto a background, covering with a sheer and free machining over the top using an automatic stitch. The only thing is I am actually free motion quilting using the automatic stitch! It is 10 inches square like the other one.
This is the original plate made by J&G Meakin in 1966 and the design is called 'Aztec'.
I really like how all the triangles fit together to make the circle - and I love the colours too!

I cut some strips of fabric, 1 inch or 1.5 inches wide and attached bondaweb to the back. I then cut the strips by eye into triangles and removed the bondaweb backing. Starting in the centre I arranged them into a circle onto a square of calico and as I was happy with each circle I ironed them down. I added a blue circle to the center and then covered with a sheer.

It took me a while to decide how the quilt it but I decided a spiral starting from the centre would look best. I have used a pale blue polyester thread and the automatic stitch is a scallop shape which I have stretched a bit by playing with the stitch width and length.

Here is the back so you can see the detail of the quilting.

A Mini Quilt Inspired by a Vintage Plate..

Following on from my City & Guilds samples I decided to make a mini quilt based on a 1960s plate made by J & G Meakin.
I started with a four patch, 2 calico squares and 2 linen squares. I then bondawebbed strips of fabrics into the star patterns.

Here is the plate which I used as my inspiration. I liked the scribbles on the stars. I tried to use a similar colour scheme.

I then covered the four patch with a sheer fabric and layered up with wadding and backing. Using the automatic stitches I machine quilted the scribbles on the stars. I really liked the patterns which formed by the overlap of the stitching in the centre of the stars.

It was then bound with a skinny binding. Finished size 10 inches square. I will put it into my City & Guilds folder but as an extra to the work we were asked to do.

Crazy Patchwork

I have now started my new City & Guilds course so a lot of the work you see will be related to that. Our first topic was crazy patchwork which I am not a big fan of. However I did enjoy making this piece out of recycled shirts - it is only 10 inches square.

The second sample is made out of paper something I have been wanting to try. Turned out quite well I think.

If you want to read about these samples in more depth click over to my other blog - details in sidebar.

In other areas of my life I have also been quite busy - back at college teaching my usual subject of food safety. Also we have cleared out DS1's bedroom to get him a new desk and wardrobe and make it more like a university style room than a teenagers bedroom. This required trips to the dump and charity shop yesterday plus lots of cleaning but it was worth it. He is very pleased with it and I was glad to get rid of so much stuff!

City & Guilds completed!

On Saturday I completed my City & Guilds Certificate in Patchwork and Quilting!
Two years of hard but enjoyable study is over and I have achieved my goal of obtaining a patchwork and quilting qualification. The course was the reason this blog was set up and I am so pleased to be able to report my completion.
The Laura Ashley quilt was completed at 2am on Saturday morning and our exhibition started at 10am - I really wished I hadn't cut it so fine but at least I finished.

Here are some pictures of my pieces in the exhibition.

Piecing closeups!

My Laura Ashley quilt has been my greatest achievement in my quilting journey so far. I am most proud of the central medallion which was entirely handpieced. It was one of those projects you start without being sure if it will work. Because I found it quite 'scary' I kept putting it off but as the end of my course approached I knew I had to 'just do it!'

So here are some close up photos of my hand piecing.

All the pieces had to be fussy cut to get the kaleidoscope effect I wanted.

As always the most scary thing about piecing is matching points, especially where 6 meet together.

And of course the ultimate challenge is the centre where 12 points meet.
This was the greatest challenge of all!

I have already started on another, more traditional welsh quilt using these Laura Ashley squares and after a very successful fabric swap with Mary I have enough for another red, white and blue Laura Ashley quilt.

However I also have loads of scraps from this first quilt due to the fussy cutting so my next Laura Ashley project will be crumb blocks.

Final College Weekend

It has been a beautiful weekend here in Yorkshire and I have spent it in the best possible way - at college quilting with my fellow students. (Well not that much quilting actually but enjoying the company of fellow quilters and embroiderers)
I have made some more progress on the Laura Ashley quilt and after some input from my tutor the end is in sight, I will post progress soon.
I just have a few random photos to share. The full time students are in the process of putting together their end of term show and I could not resist taking some photos.

As you may know I love using recycled fabrics but this dress made of capri sun drinks containers was stunning - beautifully designed and made.

Also the lovely shopping bag - I loved it!

Also a fan of Andy Warhol art - this artwork also caught my eye - stunning!

Finally, one of my fellow students, Judith, brought in a wonderful sampler quilt to show us but this block was the highlight for me. I hated doing clamshells but clamshell cats! - how cute are they? Thanks Judith for allowing me to share this on my blog.
Technically college is over for this year, I have four of my five pieces signed off. Only my quilt needs to be finished. In two weeks we have our end of term exhibition and I aim to have everything finished by then.

Laura Ashley Medallian Quilt Update.

If you were reading my blog in October you may remember this quilt. It is my main City & Guilds piece and I never really seemed to get on with it. However the end of term is now looming so I have got to get it done. If you read the two previous posts about this quilt you will get all the background info.
I did decide to hand piece it and to be honest that has taken far too long and has not been as enjoyable as I was hoping. The hand piecing is now finished and I am putting the borders on by machine.

This first photo shows all six segments completed before they are stitched together (by hand of course!)

Now it is all stitched together and I had to decide on the fabric to frame the central hexagon. After much deliberation I chose the plain red - but of course this is in 4.5 inch squares that I had to piece together! I am going to machine quilt this red area quite heavily to try to disguise the seam lines.
The first border print is called harebell and it is the only yardage I have got for the quilt top. I bought it on ebay for a couple of pounds earlier this year - it is reclaimed fabric as it used to be a curtain!

Here is the quilt with the harebell border - don't forget you can click on the photos for more detail.

The next border is blue and I think this really works well - only problem is I had to piece it out of the little squares. There are 4 more borders to go on and then the finished size should be 54 inches square. The central medallion is 26 inches square. I don't have enough fabric for binding so I am going to make butted edges as in the Welsh Quilt book I have. Luckily I have been able to buy some of the red and green flower fabric on ebay for the backing which should arrive in the next couple of days.

Still a lot of work to be done - this quilt needs to be finished for June 27th but hopefully I can do it!

Skull Cushions

This is my final City & Guilds piece - a cushion.
My theme was human skulls - following on from the work I did on Jamie's Gears of War quilt which I showed in a previous post.

The skull shape has been bondawebbed onto the background fabric. I have zigzagged around it and then free machine quilted the background.

Click on the photos if you want to see more detail.

I was inspired by skulls in popular culture and also these pieces of clothing.

This is a Billabong hoodie - the red stitching around the skull inspired my zigzag applique.

This is a T shirt design - this inspired my fabric choice for the skull.

This is my alternative design which has already been shown but is now made up into a cushion.

I am now concentrating all my efforts on my last piece,my quilt which was the first one I started! I have finished the centre piecing and hope to start on my borders today.

BQL Challenge May

This is actually a sample piece for my City & Guilds but fitted perfectly with the BQL theme of machine trapunto and free motion quilting.
My final C&G piece is a cushion for Robert and the theme is skulls. The cushion is almost finished and I will post about it soon.

The FMQ on this piece took hours because the quilting was so dense. I have used a variegated grey cotton thread which I think works well however cotton does tend to break on my machine when I use it for FMQ which is annoying to say the least!

As well as working on the skull cushion I still have to finish my biggest piece which is the Laura Ashley Quilt I started before Christmas. The centre of this is all hand pieced and it is much more time consuming and difficult than I thought. I still have quite a bit of hand piecing left to do, so this is going to have to take all my quilting time for the rest of this month.