London

Peter and I are enjoying a lovely and lively holiday. First, a week in London, lots of walking, training and just a little cycling yesterday!
We have seen palaces, galleries, towers and gardens!
A day trip to Stone Henge and Bath with a very lively guide was a fun day!

Excellent porridge at Bill's, they have free wifi and ok coffee, a feature of our holiday- food, wifi and drink!

 

Afternoon tea with the Queen, shame - paper cups, I did enjoy her dresses! Wonder if the cutlery is biodegradable?

 A tapestry at the V&A, inspiring

 Sunken garden at Kensington palace, a nice little place to sit and rest

 I was warmly welcomed by the London Modern quilt guild, a nice meeting.

Tyvek period costume at Kensington palace.
We went to the theatre to see Michael Crawford last night, sadly he is ill! However the show was wonderful!
We are off to Edinburgh today on the train, seeing and nook packed!

Free wifi and other news

Searching for free wifi in London is interesting! We take our mobile phones and the generic home wifi for granted!
Never Mind, there is so much to see and do, we hardly have time to use computer, however googling addresses and finding shops and other landmarks a little free wifi comes in handy.
Pictures another day. It's my husband's birthday today, also the 19 th anniversary of the death of Diana. An interesting array of memorial notices and flowers at the gate of Kensington palace.
Off to the Tower of London today!

Leaving on a big plane

Tomorrow we are leaving for 5 weeks in Europe!
2 weeks in the UK and 3 in Italy, with a side tour to Alsace to the European Patchwork Meeting!
No sewing much happening here, but hopefully lots of pictures and good stories to tell!
Keep an eye out for our adventures!

A long break

I have had a long break from blogging, I have been using Instagram, and trying to post images of my stitching every few days, its easier than loading the SD card into the computer to get good quality pictures. My Lenovo tablet is great but its camera is very ordinary.
I have completed  a collage of the project a day from April, and submitted it to the course I was doing through Tas uni- Photography for social media. This was a really interesting course, I learnt a lot about photography and lots of Apps for Instagram, and other social media.

 These small blocks will be made into a banner or bunting soon.

 I entered 3 small quilts into the Ekka, agricultural show, am very happy to say I won 2 prizes, the Nine Patch? quilt won second in Art quilts, this was a fun improvisationally pieced quilt.
I am planning to do some more of this style of piecing, teaching a class at the Brisbane Visual Arts Community in October. Its a great way to use up scraps and small pieces of fabric, too small for much but too precious to throw away.

This little quilt won first in small professional, its a tablecloth mounted on a hot pink silk/ cotton blend fabric and quilted with some added trapunto. The tablecloth belonged to my mother in law who passed away a few weeks ago, so its nice that her cloth won a prize! She use tablecloths all the time, so its well worn and loved.

Making my mark

 Continuing on with my project of documenting the 'making of a quilt', I have taken some images of mark making, some hand stitching and some machine stitching.
Hand stitching is relaxing, these are Ali's pieces, using silk, they are very tactile, and soft.

                                                            Close up of hand stitching

 Same piece as above, not so close!

 Cream, soft and supple

 slightly coloured, loving the pink, it just adds some luxury!

My own favourite skirt, hand stitched to hold it together for just a bit longer!

A lovely little bird, designed by Ali and Rebecca. Hand stitched by me.

Hand stitching on tea bags, they are used, then dried, and torn then stitched down. 

A lovely soft and interesting tactile surface to stitch.

My tools of the trade, my favourite Bernina feet

Some machine texture on a project, sometimes you just need to stitch with black thread on white fabric!

A few more rows stitched....

 I am really enjoying the process of documenting 'the making of a quilt,' I have taken inspiration from hand stitched pieces and am also documenting tactile surfaces and hand stitched pieces- up close!

Its a bit time consuming, its eating into my stitching time, but I am enjoying the learning of the camera and its ways! also learning about cropping, and photo editing, also Photography for Social media- which is the on line course I am participating in. 

At the end I am hoping it will improve the quality but also the quantity of stitching pictures on my social media- Instagram and facebook and this blog.

my Instagram tag is janemadlyquilting

Making a quilt part 2

There are many things to consider when making a quilt, size, colour, design, composition. The competition challenge requirements are dictating several parameters for this quilt -size, theme and fabric to be used, it is also for machine quilting competition - so the machine quilting need to be a big part of the overall effect.
Starting with a white design wall, the fabric and the theme Celebration, I have designed a basic floral spray, one of the main emphasis' of this quilt will be the machine quilting, so leaving lots of space for that is always in the back of my mind when designing.

Cutting out shapes, saving each last piece, just in case I need to use it. There is nothing worse than running out of fabric, in this case I only have a small amount of each one. I am using an iron on fusible webbing for ease when adhering the shapes to the background, and speed in creation!

I have chosen a cream background fabric with gold dots on, the gold is quite dense at the bottom, then becomes less dense towards the top of the fabric, creating a secondary design. I am hoping that the background will not detract from the machine quilting when it is completed, but create an interesting, but not to overpowering aspect.

 

 Using my petal shapes, and choosing where to put them. I decided on 3 simple flowers, using the red, orange, purple and blue fabrics for the flowers themselves, and the green and grey for the stems. I added one red print for some variety as the selected, and 'must be used  in a recognisable amount' in this challenge prints, are a little flat.

One version, the balance is not there, the stems are not flowing nicely, some tweaking led me to the next layout, I am quite happy with this. It does need a little fine tuning when the pieces are ironed onto the background.

 The final layout, the flowers and stems need to be ironed down, then some serious stitching needs to happen. I am happy with the balance, it has a good structure, the next phase of stitching will finish it off and give it life- I hope!

Documenting Making a Quilt

This week I am starting week 6 of the UTas course I am doing- Photography and Social Media.

The task description is to develop a visual theme, how to tell a story through images.

I have thought hard about his, making textile art is a big part of my life, I have all the items I need to document this project. I have been inspired by one of my tutors with her images of circles worldwide and also my husband with his pictures of Sewer Drain covers, but those are their stories, I need to tell my own story.

And I do  have a story to tell. 

The story of Making a Quilt.

My plan is to document photographically The Making of a Quilt.

Hopefully this will ensure I blog more frequently and may also encourage me to take more pictures to document my progress.

The camera is a Fujifilm X20.

I am participating in a challenge for AMQA, the fabric and size is predetermined (up to 100 cm square), the theme is Celebration. hmmm many reasons to celebrate. 

Today I started with the fabric and some random thoughts about celebration.

I have had a few ideas, while lying quietly having a massage I came upon the idea of a bunch of flowers to celebrate an occasion. It has just been Mother's Day, what a good thing to celebrate- I am a midwife- it is mothers day everyday where I work!

So it will be a bunch of fun flowers with a funky twist.

  The first background, hmmm, needs some life put in it.

 The fabric, on my cutting board, moving the fabric to have the orange on top makes an improvement, the blue does stand out, it s part of what is required so I cannot delete it.

 Adding the rotary cutter to the mix, cropped a little.

 The first raw sketch of the plan, made quickly but with good intent, using the only paper available in the car wash! Using the fabric for inspiration.

Ironing the fusible webbing to the back of the fabric,a  big part of fusible applique.