Where are my Spectrum Spiral Quilts?

Thanks to Kerrie Hay at Bernina Sewing Machines, seven of my Spectrum Spirals are now on their way to Jenny's Sewing Centre in Angaston, in time for the Barossa Valley Vintage Festival.
Three others are hanging at the office of Jim Madden MP, Brassall.
Thank you Jim, Kerrie and Jenny, I so enjoy having my quilts on display!
All Spectrum Spirals and their story is on my website
Here is one of my favourites.

Next projects

I was gently pushed into making an entry for the Glen Rock Quilters' Challenge: Wine, Roses and All That Jazz.
I agreed, because I happen to have something already half made!
This
This is a quilt made with gold fabric, music fabric for the binding and for a previous exhibition, I temporarily attached some postcards. They were a gift and I had to give them back, but I still have this quilt.
Unfortunately the gold organza I used cannot stand the heat of the iron necessary to have something fused to it.
But I can make some elements and just hand stitch them on.

The deadline after that is "Down to Earth" I don't want to make anything that takes too long. Painters are lucky in that respect, they seem to be able to do a painting in a week with lots of time to spare.

At the moment, my thoughts are going to a snake. This is an outside exhibition, could I make a fabric snake that curls and that can be hung from a tree?
What if: I cut a wide spiral out of fabric, wide enough to stitch the edges together, stuff it to make it into a kind of spirally sausage??

I can then decorate it with stitching, beads and whatever.

Hands and Gloves is finished!

Here it is! It is 26" square, mounted over stretcher bars.
I am very happy with it.

Stitching the gloves on

This is a bit of a boring job, but it does look nice. Better than if I had been able to use a machine stitch, which was my original intention. I couldn't do that, because the foot doesn't move freely over the kid leather. I believe it needs a roller foot, which I don't have and don't want to buy.

What I do like is whipping another yarn through the stitches so, even before I finished the stitching, I am experimenting.

This is a relative fine thread that can be used with an embroidery needle.

This yarn is much thicker and I had to use a big needle with a very big eye.
It hides the original red stitching a bit more, it is marginally harder to use.
What does show well on these photos is that the kid leather is very fine and I am conscious that it really IS skin as I push the needle through.
I think I will be going with the finer thread.
I bought the yarns, threads and some fascinating fabrics at the Textile Art Festival in Brisbane last Friday.
Threads and yarns from The Thread Studio and fabric from  Beautiful Silks.

Also bought a "Studios" Magazine.  Our house is for sale which means that, eventually, we will move into another house and I have an opportunity to redesign my sewing studio. I like the one I have, because although it is only small, we had the house built to our specs, so I have been very happy with my sewing studio, which, in fact, I have always called my sewing "room". As we very likely will move into an existing home, I will have to work with what I get!

Creating background

The quilt sandwich is made and is approx. 32" square.
Layers: Iron on interfacing on the bottom fused to bamboo wadding fused with paper backed fusible to the Dupion Silk.
I made templates of the outline of my hand in 3 sizes. (resized in CorelDraw).
25 Hand outlines are drawn on the back of the quilt sandwich, which is the interfacing.

I went through my threads and yarns and selected 2: an orangy hand spun silk thread, given to me many years ago by an 80 year old lady called Norma, a variegated jeans topstitching thread.
I made a test quilt the same as the main quilt and tried them out.

I liked the orange thread the best, with it slightly lumpy texture.

Deconstruction 1 and 2

What if....
I opened up one glove, so I could applique it and see both sides at once?

This is what it looks like. Because you can't see the thumb, you can't appreciate how unpleasantly organic this object looks!


Next: just cut each glove in half, so I have 2 outside and 2 inside pieces.

OK, this was an experiment and I was very much prepared to sacrifice this pair.
I don't have to sacrifice the 4 pieces, but I learned NOT TO USE STEAM ON KID LEATHER!
It makes it shrink like plastic would.

Next step:
I have a piece of gorgeous magenta Dupion Silk for the background. Thought I could tuck it, but tucking needs more fabric than I have.

Gloves, gloves....

I bid on 13 pairs of ladies gloves on ebay and I got them today. They are just gorgeous: most are soft, kid leather, short ones, long ones, some are fabric, most are cream, one black, one brown, one midnight blue...or is that black?
Now I have to decide what to do with them. Of course, they don't all have to go into the next artwork...


Initially, my plan was to stitch some gloves onto a background quilt and then embellish them. I don't want a big quilt....

I am stuck at the moment....

"Hand-in-hand"

This is the theme for the next exhibition of our art group to coincide to the multicultural festival end July.
What I would really, really love to do is create a chain of paper dolls into a Mobius strip that way, either 3D or drawing, but I don't have the technical skills to do either....If you don't know what a Mobius strip is, search images in google.

What I do have is the ability to make a paper doll chain and a quilt I do not want to keep as it is.

I have paints, mediums, a brayer, which is a hard roller to roll paint for block printing, but I am considering using the brayer to roll paint lightly over the quilt, covering to top layer, but leaving the deeper, stitched lines.

I can use the paper doll chains as stencils.....

Beatles Songs

This is another project ready for the Musical Gems exhibition. 

Some time ago, I made 40 weekly postcards, these are the ones that feature Beatles Songs.

The cards are attached with small buttons and beads, after the exhibition they will be removed and returned to the rightful owner.

Round...like a circle in a spiral

These are the first words of the song.

 

Here the music score with lyrics has been scanned in, twisted in Corel PhotoPaint. That design has been printed on cotton. It will be attached to the background with free motion stitching, keeping to the spiral design. 

Until I am ready to do that, I will put it on Vliesofix but I won't take off the paper backing till I am sure of where I want to put it.

More ticky-tocky

 

It is looking good, isn't it!

I love the way the organza mutes the design of the fabric underneath. 

The stars are now defined.

Being able to design on the computer and print has made this element so much easier. especially the numbers on the clock. 

What I like about blogging this project is that, even though I think I am not getting anywhere, I can see progress.

I've ordered the wrought iron quilt hanger, I am committed to enter a new piece in the Musical Gems exhibition at the end of next month. Thank goodness for deadlines!

I am going to start on another element, while I consider how to design the hands of the clock with a sense of movement.  If I can't think of any way to get that effect well, I'll just put 2 hands in.....

36" x 34"

I discussed my dilemma about the size with husband Gerry. By that time, I had the size down to 24" so I could hang it from the wrought iron hanger I already have.
When I showed him the 30" triskele and discussed the impact I wanted to make, he suggested I go with that size and get a hanger to fit.
What he said was "You'll make it beautiful and it will be well worth getting a nice hanger for it"
Next I had to find the materials to make the base and a fabric to cover it:  I have the iron-on Vilene for the back, wadding for the middle layer and the only fabric I had enough of for the actual background was a piece of ivory Dupion silk. Considering how much of that is going to be covered by the triskele, it seems a waste of time and materials to cover it with embellishments. It is better to embellish once the triskele is on.
What I don't have is enough Vliesofix to fuse the silk to the wadding, hopefully I can get that at Twilight Craft today.
Meanwhile there is plenty I can do: get the triskele ready to fuse on, start working with the elements. Thank goodness I have enough printable cotton!
I am now at the stage where I am happy to let the piece design itself.
What it means is that I take it the way it wants to go. For example, the decision which fabric to use for the background is simply based on a choice between the fabrics I have enough of. No agonising, no racing to the shop to buy another fabric.
The hard decisions are made, now comes the fun part!

I've got to decide on the base now

I need a base on which to put a background first, then the triskele.
I've got Peltex, which is really firm, but I only bought enough to make the finished square 30".
Oooohhh....another decision made: it will be a square!
I would prefer a circle, but a circle is too difficult to hang well.
If the base is 30", the triskele has to be about 25" across. I've printed the tiled design out 3 times now!!!
But: if I don't use the Peltex, but a normal quilt sandwich, I have no restriction on the size.

The background

The base is the structure, the background is what you see behind the triskele, it is placed on top of the base.
I want it to look as if I had glued music fabrics on it, put white paint over it, then wiped the paint off, exposing the fabric in messy streaks.

 

These are the music fabrics. I am thinking....bleaching....covering with sheer fabrics.....fraying......

Still more about EQ6 and wondering about the centre of the block

This morning I opened EQ6. Nothing in the Fandance project. NOTHING!!
How could that have happened?? I knew I had saved, saved, saved.
Rather than bothering Penny again, I went online to the FAQ and there was the answer:

I named a project, added things to my Sketchbook, and exited. But when I opened the project again it was empty. Why?
You may have over-written your full project with an empty project of the same name. So be sure, when you want to open a project you have saved, that you click the "Open an Existing Project" tab, and choose your project from the list, rather than typing a name in the "Name a New Project" tab.

If you type the name of a project, and already have a project with this same name, your new project (empty), will replace your existing project (full).

OK.....
Lucky I had saved the image of the quilt as a gif file and didn't really need anything else.

I've made a few fan blocks and have started adding the quarter circle. Tried a few different sizes and also considered how best to get the smooth curved applique.
When I do a full circle, I make 2 templates. A plastic template of the circle plus the seam allowance. I used that to mark and cut the patches.
Then I have a  cardboard template of the circle's finished size. I stitch a running stitch along the edge of the circle, place the cardboard in the centre on the wrong side of the fabric, pull the stitching tight over the carboard template and press. After it cools off, I take the cardboard out and give the circle another good press. Voila, nice, neat easy circle.
That doesn't work so well with a quarter circle.
What is working reasonably well is this:
Make 2 templates: one of the quarter circle plus seam allowances, another on where the seam allowance is cut off the curved edge.
I cut 2 patches from the big template: one of the fabric, one of some fine white lawn.
With the smaller template, I mark the sewing line of the curved edge only on one of the 2 fabrics.
I stitch the 2 fabrics together with a very small running stitch.
Turn the fabrics, cut some of the excess white lawn off and applique stitch the curved edge over the fan blades.
The straight edges are lined up with the raw edges of the block and I baste them together.
This really seems to take longer to write it all down than it is to stitch.

Here is Fandance!

OK, this is a VERY ambitious project, because it has 14 x 14 blocks and is 100"x 100"
I may well still make changes because if I make it as a large quilt for my own bed, it needs to be rectangular rather than square.
Anyway, I got fantastic support from Penny at EQ6, especially when you consider this was in the silly season, between Christmas and NewYear.
The problem lies with a another program interfering with EQ6 and one day, when I need a challenge, I'll sort it out. Meanwhile, I can use it the way it is and of course, I mustn't forget to SAVE!
So far I cut about 100 6.5" background blocks for the centre and hundreds of fan blades.
I don't care how long this takes. It is like a hexagon quilt, once everything is cut, I'll just work on it when I feel like it.

Working in Photoshop

I have fully completed 16 Tarots and another one needs some hand stitching and beading. This means I am on track to complete 2 more this month and the final three in April. Hooray!!


For The Devil I needed an image of chains. (for addiction).


My attempt to draw some was not very successful. I remembered DH had some heavy chains in the shed so I got those out. I mucked about with paint on fabric, which didn't go anywhere.


I cropped one of the photos I took, manipulated them further in Photopaint and I was thrilled with the result.

This was the cropped photo of the chains on our verandah floor.

This is the image which I then printed on ready-to-print cotton and which became the background for this piece.

I have come to the conclusion that your weaknesses as well as your strengths contribute to developing a style.

Had I been able to draw, I would have done that and stopped there.