Writing by Machine

I'm still struggling to get my machine writing to be as nice as my handwriting!  I think I need a lot more practice but here is this month's journal quilt for the Contemporary Group challenge.  The text is from Ralph Waldo Emerson, 

"Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air,"

Note: In Emerson's poem, Merlin's Song, the line ends, "drink the wild air's salubrity".

Sewing in the Rain

Today it is raining.  It is DH's birthday but we will celebrate it when we are in Norfolk.  So, he has spent a lot of the day trying to sort out our account with Anglian Water (who seem to have increased our charges by 33%), and I have been sewing.

Firstly, chain piecing the final quarter of the blue and white quilt.  I have realised that I have made a very elementary mistake with this piecing, hangs head in shame...

I didn't cut each strip to the correct length but rather joined them by eye and trimmed off the ends!  

I know, I know...

I will have to quilt it to within an inch of its life to settle it down.

On the subject of mistakes and accidents - I was changing the foot on my machine recently when suddenly there was a pain and then blood pouring everywhere.  Is your thread cutter anything like this?

Well I now know that within the plastic hook is a tiny razor-like blade that is not fixed in any way, it just sits in place.  At some point, presumably when I was moving my machine, this little blade had jumped out of its slot and settled protruding from the machine and I cut my thumb on it!!

On a more positive note, I also started my journal quiltlet for June today.  It's on a sort of life's a beach/getting back to normal theme using my favourite Japanese and batik fabrics (and keeping to my rules).

Just Keep Swimming, Swimming

I have finished my March quiltlet for the Contemporary Quilt Group Challenge.

The quilt follows the rules I set for myself using fabric from my stash which I have hand pieced.  I applied a variety of gold fabrics and hand stitched the quilt with a selection of goldwork threads and cotton perlé.  

The quotation from Dory is written with permanent ink.

The design was inspired by the idea of looking up from below the sea to the sunshine.  The rays of the sun offer an escape route from the cold, dark depths but the sun is distant, frightening and hard to reach.

March 1 - Just Keep Swimming

The inspiration for my journal quiltlet for March comes from several places.  

The text is the most obvious, that great advice from Dory in from "Finding Nemo" is appropriate this month.

But as well as swimming, there is the opportunity to look upwards from the dark and murky waters and see the sun shining down on that water, extending its rays like lifelines.

I have pinned a curved seam, using fabric from February's quiltlet (as per my rules) and some hand dyed cotton.  I am now auditioning fabric for the sunshine and then I will get stitching with gold threads.  

More soon.

In addition I have been making some goodies with batiks for the latest Global Piecers' swap.  We've been a bit quiet recently, it goes like that, but it's good to be swapping again.  These will be for Easter and need to be flying soon!  I can't show more than these pinned pieces, ready for the machine....

Postcard Delivered

This is my journal quiltlet for February finished.  Thank you for your comments, I decided to write in Maltese, the proverb translates as,
"After bad weather comes fine weather".
I used lace and thread dyed with woad on the quilt as well as commercially produced cotton perlé and a little of that Chinese silk thread used for tassels.  As the Chinese New Lunar Year was celebrated when we were in Malta it seemed appropriate.
Now we are home I shall return to my New Zealand project before thinking about the next journal quilt in March.  We also have two great workshops coming up in Country Roads Quilters, one to make a lantern-style fabric bowl and one with Jennie Rayment so I'm going to be busy!
The weather is awful here, grey, grey, grey and wet, just right for sitting by the fire to stitch.  Enjoy your Sunday.

Not Waving But Drowning

I have finished my first quiltlet for the Contemporary Quilt Group Challenge, eleven to go!  I enjoyed making the piece, finding the mediative process not dissimilar to working on prayer flags.

Here it is, photographed outside in the glorious sunshine (although the temperature is below freezing):

I also took a couple of photos of some of the detail:

Here is part of my statement which accompanies the quilt:

Not waving … but drowning

The first in a series of journal quilts inspired by the mood of each month reflected as a seascape, “Not waving … but drowning” is my response to January 2015 which was...a predominantly grey time.

The 12” x 6” quilt is made of commercially produced fabrics from my stash ...  The fabrics were machine pieced and then quilted with hand embroidery in cotton sashiko thread and variegated cotton perlé. The text is handwritten with permanent ink.

Stitching Fish

Having survived a wild and windy night (although not as bad as in the north of the country and Scotland), much of it spent awake and thinking, I am working on my trout today.

My original thought was an appliqué fish, if I could ever get the design right, I even have some vaguely fishy fabric. Then, during one of those periods awake last night I thought of Angela Daymond, or, more specifically, of her Kantha Hare.  Let me explain...

Last time I did a workshop with Angela she was talking about two kantha stitch projects she had designed and made, the hare and a heron, and is considering offering as kits at FoQ.  She asked whether I and the other ladies at the workshop would be willing to trial the kits to help her get thread quantities right etc.  Of course we would!  So my thought process last night took me from appliqué trout to kantha trout.  

This morning I got out all my embroidery threads and made a cunning plan:

This afternoon, while the wind continues to blow and the rain is only a short time away, I am sitting in front of a lovely fire stitching my fish. Bliss, thanks Angela.

Trout Stitching?

This is my fifth journal quiltlet from my NZ trip. I have just layered up the landscape ready for hand stitching, now I have to draw a trout.  I think it might turn out that catching one was easier than sketching one but I am quite determined. The inspiration for this piece was, of course, Lake Taupo and the stunning Tongariro mountain range beyond, plus those trout.