Boxing day....

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........... The traditional day in England (as in the Victorians) to give gifts (gift boxes).  Here are two quilted pictures that H made for her two Grandmas....

All foundation pieced and quilted in the ditch around the teapots and cups.

With the mock piped binding - which H loved as she hates hand sewing bindings!

This is a block that I made for the Calder Quilters block swap - but I arrived too late and couldn't enter it... but hey I get to use it in a quilt for me now!  I found the pattern on the internet - there are other patterns, but I like this one.  Here's the link to the free pattern....

Happy Christmas Quilting

Here is what I made for Jackie's 'not red or green Christmas Wallhanging Challenge'   Jackie provided the pattern.

Sorry its on its side....free software is not what it could be!!!!

Rydal Hall 8 November 2012

And here we are STILL at Rydal Hall........

Photo of the gardens from the dining room

My interpretation, background painted with machine detail, foreground applique with machine stitch detail.

Free machine stitching on wash away stuff.

Rydal Hall 7 November

Printing and stencilling....

Using zig zag to make impression of leaves on a branch.

Back at Rydal on 6 November

A painting day at Rydal Hall

We had to run out in the rain and collect some leaves and then mix the acrylic paints and paint a leaf the same colour!

Moved on to two leaves after one

Saw this little chap sitting in a river on the way in to Ambleside.

Then I painted the back ground of the leaves and filled in with stitching.

Haiku

The finished page.....

Long time no blog.....

... sorry about not blogging for a while..... I have a very good excuse....... my son reorganised my computer for me, and it works so much better now, but I couldn't find where my photos were being put and now after an hour or so on S k y p e - I know where they are..... so here we go....  quite a back log I'm afraid, but will take it one day at a time...

We went on a Gillian Travis course which was held at Rydal Hall in the Lake district - Rydal in fact.

We were sent out to photograph anything and everything, because the weather was lovely when we arrived on 5 November.  This is the photo I decided to use and Gillian said I should crop it and use only a part of it.

So here is the cropped bit, which I traced from the photograph and stitched on my fabric.

I then painted it with intense blocks (thanks T+J - a very useful gift!!)

and a bit more paint...

and more paint

until I was happy with the result

I wrote a poem around the edge with the sewing machine. 

So that was the first day of the course.....

Yorkshire Modern Quilt Guild

Went to the first meeting of Yorkshire Modern Quilt Guild yesterday - there's a blog for them which is here

The definition of 'Modern Quilting' is that it is both useful and easy to achieve.  The idea is that someone will look at it and say 'ooooh I could do that!'

We were shown how to make table mats in a modern style.  I took my Halloween fabric and made two on the day and another since....

Cutting the strips 2 inches wide

The first mat pieced and layered ready to quilt...

and ditto with the second

The pumpkin fabric is for the backing

Quilting in straight lines- dead easy!  You don't get a closeup of that because they are not all very straight!!

Someone mentioned mock piped binding and I found a tutorial and had a go.  You can find the tutorial here

How cute is that?  And ALL machine sewn.

These are the pieces cut and partly sewn for the mat to go on top of the bookcase.

ditto

The quilting took a whole 20 minutes to complete!!!!!

One mat finished!

Two mats finished!

Three mats finished!

A closeup of the fabrics used.  The black cats on green and the white line pumpkins to the left were lovely presents from my DS and DDIL who came over recently.  Most of the others I bought in America when I visited them last year (in fact this week last year!).

The backing is Dia de los Meurtos fabric which I bought from equilter.com  a few years ago.

All ready for my Dia de los Meurtos display (which may have to wait for another year - ha ha)

 

20 October 2012

Today would have been my baby brother's 58th birthday.  RIP Dave xx.  I started this blog in Dave's memory 4 years ago today in 2008.

Here's a quick look at the oak tree project  - 6 acorns which were from my brother's oak tree were planted on his birthday 4 years ago - two germinated and are alive and well and living in a plant pot on my decking.....

 Today I went to the Contemporary Quilters Yorkshire Branch.... and we did lino cutting - well, its not lino these days, but plastic.....

This was my little sample piece, mainly just to see how the tools work and have a go at cutting it. 

And this it my print on fabric - how fabulous is that?  I am very excited by this technique.  I can't believe I have had these tools for over 30 years and NEVER tried them before today.

I then had a go at printing on paper........