Mini landscape

I've been working on a piece of silk with silk tops and corded pintucks but I seem to be a bit stuck at the moment.  I need to buy some extra threads etc. which, despite my stock, I don't seem to have.  I'm also not sure of where to go from here so, yesterday I made the little felted landscape.  It didn't take long and I really enjoyed the change.  It's quite a while since I got out the baskets of threads and roving.  I didn't use any water soluble stabilizer this time - just netting (actually it was a bit of left over bug screen!) and it worked quite well.  I've still got a bit of work to do but it's nearly there.

Free motion

Another teaching day helping give ladies from Norfolk Quilters confidence in tackling free motion machining.   We begin by doing practice patterns with this unique 'pen machine' made by my ingeneous  husband!  It works really well with its spring loaded pen and gets the user into the way of moving the hands to make the pattern instead of the pen!  No need to worry about threads, stitch length, wasting fabric etc.

At the end of the day the stitched samples were assembled and reviewed.  The ones here by Kate were especially good but all achieved some perfectly good pieces for a first day.  Having put the fears to rest it's now time to do the frequent practice that is the only way to make progress and I think most of them will.

Bubbles Under the Ocean

Just finished with its hanging rail, this is my response to reading about the melting of permafrost and release of methane from the ocean floor.  It co-incided with buying a pack of strips which were curve pieced and then appliqued with the scraps.  I then cut and reverse appliqued with voiles, turning the circles to suggest the refraction of water. 

Cards

I've just had a week of card making to bring my depleted stocks up to date.  They're a mixture of textile related ones and water colours.  I've cleared up, rearranged the workspace so I'm ready for a completely new piece. 

Trailing Vines2

I love the organic sweep of these trailing plants but I'm not happy with the outcome.  It was all going well until I got to the paint stage and then something happened and it's a bit of a disappointment.  It's heavily quilted all over with trapunto leaves and then painted with fabric paints and paintsticks but the colours haven't turned out as I wanted them.  It's tempting to start all over again and get it right but I'll wait and see. I'm working on the bubbles from the ocean floor while I think about it.

Laura's cushion

When I started quilting I made my grand-daughter Laura a cushion for her bedroom with a Sunbonnet Sue on it.  Well, she's 11 now and when we had a family day on Saturday (a late birthday celebration for me!) she gave me her first cushion.  It's (apparently) a picture of me!  My 3 children and 4 grand children all met at Cambridge and had a lovely day just enjoying being together - it doesn't happen very often now they're all busy with their own lives and careers and the children are growing up so fast.  I hadn't seen any of them since last September so it was special.

Studio day

Yesterday I spent a few happy hours at Yvonne Brown's studio in her beautiful new house!  I was in need of a second opinion on the piece I'm working on and Yvonne's input was just what was needed 'Thanks Yvonne'.
It was great to see Yvonne's work displayed in such a lovely setting and pieces from really small to large at every turn.  We sat out to enjoy lunch in the sunshine - so unusual in March.  About 6 of us from the Alveva group had a lovely day sharing whatever we were doing and being inspired all over again.


Back to work on the new quilt - the thought behind it is the melting of permafrost under the arctic and the escaping of methane gas in quite alarming quantities.  Apparently, (and I'm no scientist) by the time it gets to the surface it's many times more polluting than normal carbon dioxide.