Beach scene embroidery

The piece below came back from the framers earlier this week. It is an art quilt/embroidery made during a Cambridge Quilters workshop in the autumn. The speaker at our meeting was Natalie Manley . We were asked to take floral fabric to the workshop and to have ironed on some Bondaweb drawn with one inch square. Just to be contrary, I decided to use a selection of fabrics from my stash. Marram grass and beach prints, beach huts, sea and skies. We removed all the Bondaweb and carefully placed it on a base fabric with wadding. Ironed it all into place then added free machine embroidery, etc. I was quite pleased with the composition and how I mixed up the beach hut pieces.  I spent a considerable amount of time adding more thread work followed by a few small shells and ceramic discs. Looking at it now I think I must revisit this technique and see where it might evolve.  My first step will be to trawl through sketch books to look for new starting points. 

MSQC and Cambridge Quilters

Will probably be back later in the day to do a 'proper' blog posting but couldn't resist adding the logo for the Missouri Star Quilt Company . I often check out their tutorial postings on YouTube. The shop owner, Jenny Doan, posts a fresh tutorial every Friday. She usually uses 'pre-cut' fabrics such as layer cakes but she finds quite quick methods of cutting and piecing to make some complicated looking quilt designs. I once spent hours doing a 'Hunter Star' block using a special template. Jenny simplified the design so that you only need make half square triangles.  

I am also a member of Cambridge Quilters . I waited ages to join before realising I could visit and pay a small fee (later refunded once I joined properly). They are a lovely welcoming group with two meetings most months. Either, the evening of the second Wednesday each month at Orchard Park Community Centre 

or Granchester Village Hall, the third Friday of the month but this time in the morning. 

Cambridge Quilters is a great group to belong to. Not expensive and open to all abilities. The programme is varied, sometimes members take the lead with a talk but quite often they have visiting speakers who will then teach a workshop in their specialism. The workshops are very reasonably priced and more local than struggling to get to The Bramble Patch (Northampton) or Quilters Haven (Suffolk). I've been to quite a few workshops and always enjoyed myself and learned something new every time.   

Baby Quilt Commission

Following Cambridge Open Studios, my friend Alison asked me to design and make a baby quilt for a soon to be expected grandchild. The mother to be loves elephants so that was the starting point for my brief. After an initial design Alison decided that it was a good idea to keep the quilt gender neutral so we agreed that I would make the quilt bright red, white, bright blue and navy. The central part would be an elephant print, white on red; the main work would be kept to the borders, partly to keep the work and therefore the price to a minimum. The photo shows my preparation for the border units called 'Flying Geese'.  These are rectangles with a large central triangle which is the 'goose' flying in some direction.  I made over 50 geese units in case some turned out to be too wonky to use. 
The next photo shows the method I used to create the geese. You lay two smaller squares on a larger piece, draw a line down the centre, stitch on both side, cut, flip and press. Then with each separate mini block you add another square, draw the central line, stitch on both sides (1/4" seam of course). Therefore one large square and four smaller squares yields four flying geese units. It's not as complicated as it sounds and you can make lots of units in a short space of time. 

I cut the central panel, added a dark border then laid everything out to see if the design works. I know many quilters 'out there' use a design wall but I don't have the space......I put everything on the rug in my studio! Many apologies as to the quality of the photo as I can see it's somewhat out of focus at the back but you can get the idea. 

Finally, a close up of one of the finished corners. I quilted the central portion using a meandering line with the odd five pointed star. The navy border and the flying geese borders had a random quilting stitch as I didn't want the quilting to detract from the fabric print.  I used a different elephant print on the reverse and added a very simple blue binding. The whole thing came out quite large and I hope that at some point in the future I will add another loose layer on the back with some Velcro tabs so that it will be possible to include a small duvet which will extend the life of the quilt when the baby is ready for a big bed. 

Mary's projects

Mary's mum has kindly sent me a photo of the five projects made during our jewellery lesson last Saturday. The main necklace using a toggle clasp incorporated beads that Mary brought herself. We went on the test out making some earrings, then Mary made a pair without help. We then followed on with the bracelet on the right which used Stretch Magic and finally I showed Mary how to make a bracelet with Memory wire.  She decided to keep the beads loose on the wire instead of packing the beads on. It really works.