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.

Handing over the ACE Quilt

Here's the quilt finally being handed over to the Ipswich Hospital. I am  in the centre, Dr. Alison Cutler on the left, Carol, nurse manager of ward 7C on the right. (19 Dec 2014)
It was a lovely morning and my quilt and me were made very welcome and appreciated!

 A nice finish to a project I really enjoyed and was really happy with in the end.

Good progress

The project is now ready to be trimmed back to 32.5" (the half inch is for the seam allowance) and the border to be added.
It may, at first glance, look very much like the previous one.
But here are some close-ups.

There is wadding behind each shape and freemotion embroidery added.

The border has been designed, so the next picture will be of the wall quilt ready for quilting.

Point of no return

Here it is, ready to be stitched!
The hardest part has been done.
Looking at the left bottom leaf, I should have......

Choices....choices....

I am so envious of artists who can whip up a design, knowing intuitively or from experience what it will look like and that they will be happy with it.

This is not me.

Remember the background? That was a dead end.
After that, I thought the complex flowers I designed for my Shadow Applique book would be nice. I got quite a few ready to fuse on, but didn't like them.

Went to the simple flowers I designed for a project for Country craft Quilts. YEAH!! Happy with them.

Pinned them onto the quilt, thought I could do better, took them off again, made an arrangement where the ACE letters were on top of the flowers, thinking it would add a bit of depth. All it did was create clutter.

I had to step back again and admitted that the first design with the simple flower shapes was the best.
Also, this wallhanging is going into an aged care ward, simple shapes will be more appropriate.

 

 

 

 

 

Samples are not really in the right order. The bottom one was the first. ACE in the centre, flowers around it.

The second sample is the right top one: flowers arranged prior to adding ACE and in the first one ACE has been pinned over the flowers.

 

It is, more or less, back to that first sample.....

 



I've made a start!

The letters are ready to be fused to the background, but are still loose, only pinned.
The process I want to use is to prepare all the elements first, that is, use a paper backed fusible and get each piece like the letters,  to enable me to play with the lay-out before the fusing, a step that cannot be corrected.
And of course, once all the parts are fused on, I can start the stitching.

I will use a kind of machine trapunto I developed for Floral Bouquet,  a project I did for Australian Country Craft and Decorating some years ago.
 

About the thin guidelines on the board: they are black thread anchored onto pins to help me with the lay-out.

The lines mark a 32" x 32" area for the design divided into 4. After I did this, I remembered the art rule, to work with thirds...next time!

 

The excess is not only the quarter inch seam allowance, but the machine trapunto could pull up and distort the fabric somewhat so I need to give myself extra fabric for straightening.

 

This is how the threads are attached to the pins:

 

 

Really love this design board. Well worth all the time and effort it took.

 

I had thought of designing this project on my computer, using EQ7, an excellent program.

But for me, EQ7 works best for patchwork, where the pieces must fit together.

For a project like this, the ACE quilt, the background becomes my canvas, cutting and arranging the fabric elements my way of painting.

 

 

 

 

 



Colour wash

 I cut out over 400 squares of fabric and soon I realised, it wasn't going to work. Because of the dark border, it was too small for what I had in mind.

Rather than discard them, I did join them and will keep that piece for a future project. Another UFO it is...Unfinished Object.

Here it is:

Next: back to the ACE quilt....seriously because I have a few other projects I want to work on.