Joy Of Stitching

Oh dear....I've been so good all year getting my Contemporary Challenge quilt finished each month on time. But for some reason July took me two months. I've just finished it this morning. Not sure why this was, because since finishing July this morning - I've almost completed August!!! The above picture is a 'cropped' section of the 8" Quilt. The fabric itself is a piece of Deborah O'hare's hand painted fabric.  As you can see, I'm continuing exploring the possibilities from this picture..   Which also inspired my June piece of work. Who'd have thought I'd get so much work out of such a simple scene.   I marked out the 8" square and started hand stitching from the bottom up.    Using different colours and either one or two strands of embroidery thread. I decided to just put some highlight stitching onto the sky. Added seven birds in flight (odd numbers are always good) And I'm done....

I've been working on this months - April's - Contemporary Quilt Group 's Challenge with The Quilters Guild of the British Isles. I began by making some headless sheep using water soluble plastic and freemotion stitching. Being a bit scared of getting their heads wrong I decided to make their heads later out of felt Then I machine embellished wool roving onto a felt background and added some wool to create the path and wall. I hand stitched and felted yellow flowers, Some grasses Swirly clouds and mountain trees Backed with a lovely grey wool fabric which I turned over to the front of the work as a self binding. Finally, I used a variegated thread to create a quilting stitch along the binding.  I thoroughly enjoyed working with the felt and wool  I'm going to explore these further.

Just wanted to share with you all this picture, as it involves the hexagon blanket from my last post. I posted this picture on facebook last week and I've had so many comments from friends and family about it. I was looking after William for the afternoon and I'd wrapped him in his Hexagon Blanket and laid him at one end of the settee. I sat at the other end and when I looked over and saw his little feet peeping out from the hexagons as he slept, I couldn't resist taking a picture. How cute is that?  EnJoy . 

Yippy! I've just today finished this crochet hexagon blanket for my baby grandson William. I even blocked it. First time I've ever blocked a piece of work - it always sounded so difficult. But it was simple. So I'm feeling rather proud of myself. Next it's back to the wavy blanket I started last year.

Happy St. Davids Day from Port Talbot - Wales  This is the third of my contemporary quilt challenge quilts. And being March's I thought a daffodil most appropriate. AND With it being St. Davids Day today (1st March) St. David is a patron Saint. of Wales AND The Daffodil is our National Flower You'll see lots of these worn in Wales today. If you see someone with a daffodil on elsewhere in the world on 1st March Chances are they are Welsh and showing their Welsh pride.  Anyway I digress This is another project using my new needlefelting machine. I cut out the daffodil shapes in felt  and needlefelted them onto the back of the black felt background to create a 'painterly' effect on the front.  I then freemotion stitched around the outlines and into the leaves and flower I stitched a grided 'nine patch' effect and then stitched around the edge using yellow thread and a zig zag stitch. I had intended ...

This picture kept calling me last week. It was in the foyer of the hotel we stayed in. And I was facinated with it. Inspirational I would say. Could I achieve something similar in fabric?

Well I'm busy working on my second contemporary challenge quilt - Febuary's offering. I've decided to keep to a Welsh theme for the year. And this one is the Welsh Pear or paisley to most of you. I'm still playing on my needlefelting machine. And here is a close-up of the work in progress. The red and black fabric you can see around the outside edge has been used as a backing to the black felt. I've then needlefelted the outer border and a paisley shape from the back of the work creating a more subtle red and black image. I'm currently hand stitching quilting lines onto the work. Just thought I'd share with you my progress so far. Update - All finished now - mind you it's not a very photogenic quilt - looks better in real life. Still - I've finished it - and I've learnt lots in the process.