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Category: quilting

• *123* baby floor quilt

  Posted at 10:50 am by quiltwhileyoureahead, on September 17, 2019

  

  My cousin has the most gorgeous baby daughter. Seriously ovary-twitching cute. She’s soooo cute as a matter of fact that I made her a 2nd quilt and she’s not even one.

  I was asked to make more of a floor mat than a quilt, really thick and insulated for winter playing on hard floors.

  

  The fabric was all from the stash apart from the back and the batting.

  

  

  I keep making quilts out of the stash and I swear the fabric reproduces itself in the night. I can’t remember last time I bought any. Weird. AND in my post Japan frenzy I gave away three bin liners full…. so really I don’t know what’s going on.

  

  I machine stitched the binding (made out of the same colour of the reverse fabric) for added strength. Quite a feat with the thick wadding, let me tell you… it’s synthetic super insulating wadding which I’m sure will be perfect to use on the floor, but it was a beast to work with. I tried quilting it and failed spectacularly… so I tied it and actually I really like it.

  

  It felt so good getting back to making things… I must make time to do it more often…

  Posted in craft, quilting, sewing | 2 Comments

• *84* a baby quilt

  Posted at 7:21 am by quiltwhileyoureahead, on June 10, 2019

  

  Yes, you read correctly I actually made a quilt. In real life (as the boys used to say, when they were small and cute and still did as I asked them too). We’re on our last week of exams: A levels, GCSEs and end of year … all three boys are at it. It’s not pretty, folks.

  Anyway… I give you a real life, baby quilt for a most gorgeous boy still small and cute.

  

  The crazy thing is that I still managed to make it without having to buy fabric and without leaving a visible dent to the fabric stash either, although in fairness people better start having girls now… there’s a lot of girlie stuff on those shelves.

  

  I used some of my favourite… those goldfish with googly eyes.. and the cute cars… I’ve had those for years…

  

  

  I only had enough for two square of the elephants one, but had to include it. The binding is a fabulous Anna Maria Horner fabric cut on the bias (go me!) and I’m particularly happy I had enough of it. It uplifts the whole thing, me thinks.

  

  It is only a tiny quilt, 36″ by 36″ but I find that size useful for prams or carry on play mat when mine were little, about 467594935 million years ago.

  AND it felt soooo good to be sewing again… I managed to make this up in just under three hours on Saturday afternoon and it was a wonderful, quiet way to spend my birthday (which was great by the way, everybody was super nice and I received thoughtful presents and cards from lots of people!). I didn’t even listen to the radio or a podcast… nothing. Silence and the hum of the sewing machine. Bliss.

  My next project will the be Wiksten’ Shift. I printed out the pattern, stuck it all together and I just need to wash the fabric and before that decide which one to go for… I have a charcoal linen and a mid blue/denim linen… mmmhhhh decision decision… (I’ve used Jenny’s patterns before, they are brilliant and always fit well, and the instructions are super detailed, which is what I need!).

  Wish me luck!

  Posted in quilting | 1 Comment

• – 2018/194 – a Christmas quilt

  Posted at 4:38 pm by quiltwhileyoureahead, on November 28, 2018

  

  I love the idea of a Christmas quilt.  A Christmas quilt means Christmas and sofas and hot chocolate and Hallmark Christmas movies (which I looooove but don’t tell anyone)… and snow… and children cuddling up to you and so on and on..

  All that is well and good, the problem is that my children are not into cuddling up to me anymore, snow NEVER falls at Christmas, nobody wants to watch Hallmark movies with me AND I really struggle to find Christmas fabric I like.  Here in the UK Christmas fabric tend to be really traditional and it’s not really my style… but…

  … this year I did find some really cool fabric and I was thrilled!  Especially because I was commissioned to make a Christmas quilt and working with materials I like is so much more enjoyable, right?

  

  Look at all those festive modern patterns! 

  

  I even like the subtle metallic details…

  

  for the back I choose this subtle snowflake fabric that it’s happy and minimalist and pared back, but fun.  Christmas is all about fun with family right? (She says trying to convince herself…)

  

  I wish I’d taken a full picture of it… but I was keen to send it to its new home and didn’t want to wait another day for a spare pair of hands to help me.

  

  And I also wish I’d bought extra fabric to make one for myself too!

  Sigh.

  Posted in quilting | 1 Comment

• – 2018/179 – a quilted gift

  Posted at 8:19 am by quiltwhileyoureahead, on October 30, 2018

  

  M’s story is not mine to tell… but it’s a little sad… and whilst I’ve never met her personally I know of her and Mr M and his friends from way back then are all helping her out

  I wanted to do something too so I made her a quilt.  It’s what I know to do.

  A simple quilt, from fabric I had in my stash.  A quilt made quickly because it’s getting cold and nobody should be cold in winter.

  

  Warm browns and soft blues and flowers because I know she loves flowers.

  

  Mr M said she liked it.

  I hope it reminds her that she’s not alone.

  

  Posted in quilting | 0 Comments

• – 2018/158 – another quilt

  Posted at 2:48 pm by quiltwhileyoureahead, on September 18, 2018

  

  Two quilts in one month… you could be forgiven for thinking this is a quilting blog like it used to be in the good old days!

  Anyway, this is a commission, and like all commission it’s a bit scary because… well… what if the person doesn’t like it? what if I misunderstood what they’re after…

  

  The pale colours are very different from what I normally work with but surprisingly I loved the challenge of this scheme.

  

  It was actually quite a restful experience working with pale blues and sage and gold…

  

  I took a gamble on the fabric for the reverse… I don’t know what it is, I remember buying it years ago in Purl Soho in New York… I still love it but it was time to let it go to a good home.

  

  Yes,  I enjoyed this one a lot.

  I’ve got another two in the pipeline and I just heard my cousin is expecting a little girl… bring it on!

  Posted in quilting | 1 Comment

• – 2018/152 – a new quilt

  Posted at 7:57 am by quiltwhileyoureahead, on September 4, 2018

  

  My talented nephew is beginning his student life this week at the London College of Fashion and I simply couldn’t send him off without a quilt to keep him warm, also, he cheekily asked for one so…   However it’s a tough call to make something for someone who loves textiles as much as he does… ah the pressure… I couldn’t settle on a design for ages… in the end I went with my gut instinct and settled for simple shapes and two colours.

  

  I used slightly different shades of off white to add some interested (and I can promise you the quilt is straight… the helpers around here are not what they used to)

  

  Simple quilting lines echoing the black shapes, which are just random triangles on a corner of a 6″ square.  No measuring, just sew/trim/go.  It was an incredibly satisfying quilt to do.  It almost made itself and such a liberating experience not having to measure everything.  Each block is different and took the pattern into a new shape…

  

  I ran out of time and couldn’t embroider the label, so fabric marker it is… fingers crossed it doesn’t fade too quickly.  Should be wash proof… but still!

  

  The recipient loved it and I was really sad to see it go.  I think it is my most favourite quilt.  I’m seriously tempted to make another one for myself.  As a matter of fact being forced to make something by a deadline stopped me from procrastinating too much and now my creative mojo is back in full force.  Shame my available time has totally dwindled…

  

  Doesn’t it look good in my room?  Sigh…

   

  And just to show you how hard it is to photograph quilts in my house… here’s a couple of outtakes…

  

  This photo above speaks volumes about the level of enthusiasm I’m surrounded with… (and also laundry, always laundry)

  

  Some other helper are a little vertically challenged…

   

  Posted in quilting | 0 Comments

• – 2018/144 – FoQ 2018

  Posted at 9:45 am by quiltwhileyoureahead, on August 16, 2018

  

  More quilts.  Hang in there…  I wrote this post yesterday and then managed not to press ‘publish’… so today you’re getting a long double one effectively.  Grab a cup of tea and let’s go

  So first up Ruth Singer ,  who had a residenship at the Staffordshire Record Office and researched and created artworks inspired by female criminals who’d been imprisoned in Stafford Prison from 1877 to 1915.  First of all let’s ignore for a moment the horrible things that go on in society right now and marvel and rejoice for the fact we live in a world that still makes space for art and where a Record Office has an artist in residence.  There’s hope after all, right?   Second… what an interesting job!!

  The series is called ‘Criminal Quilts’ and it’s strangely (or perhaps not) moving.

  This is a shawl made by photographs of the prisoners… a lot of the prisoners were wearing shawls in their photograph so the link is tangeable.  Also… I have a box full of familly vintage photographs… this kind of gives me an idea… mmmhhhhh

  

  hands of prisoners embroidered on vintage linens

  

  Heights

  

  And now for some old ones…

  Nothing is really known about this top, provenance nor maker, but these mauve fabrics came into vogue in the second half of the nineteen century, when new dyes were discovered that yielded this colour.  In 1856 a gentleman called William Henry Perkin accidentally discovered a dye that turned silk purple: mauveine.   Mauve was also an acceptable ‘half-mourning’ colour after a period of ‘black’ mourning… so perhaps… who knows…

  

  Gorgeous, crazy gorgeous crazy patchwork coverlet from 1886

  

  Bratton Baptist Church Coverlet 1913

  

  Topsham Museum Crazy Patchwork coverlet 1889, signed Emily Seward

  

  

  Printed cotton hexagon coverlet 1780 1820

  

  … and the famous 1718 Silk Patchwork Coverlet… 300 years old…

  

  let’s walk the floor for a while:

  Stupidly I didn’t take a note of the author of this wedding ring quilt… but it was made out of paper it seems… absolutely gorgeous.

  

  And check out this quilting! (Deborah Lobban, Where’ s Dave)

  

  Another whose name escaped me… part of the SAQA Concrete and Grassland exhibition

  

  Snow in the desert, Caroline Villars

  

  

  Then there was the 14th Quilt Nihon

  366 days, Yogo Eguchi

  

  Welcome to the heavenly flower garden, Yukiko Nakao

  

  We meet again, Tomoko Tanabe

  

  Card Magic

  

  And to conclude this tour de force a few from the Fine Art Quilt Masters 2018:

  Strelitzia, Karen Callaghan

  

  detail of Electric Storm, Ann Barbara Smith

  

  Captivated by nature, Olga Gonzales-Angulo

  

   

  And that’s a wrap… you’ll be relieved to know.  I enjoyed the show this year, I went on the last day and it wasn’t too crowded and the photos I’ve shown you are only a very small percentage of the amazing quilts that were there… the ones that cought my eyes, the ones that rang a bell in my mind… but there were more many more… and I already look forward to next year!

   

  Posted in quilting | 0 Comments

• – 2018/143 – FoQ 2018

  Posted at 8:51 am by quiltwhileyoureahead, on August 14, 2018

  

  Today I’m going to show you some of the quilts that caught my eye at the show.  No theme… just as I saw them here and there…

  First of all the quilt above was the winner of the Art Quilt category, it’s by Jean McLean and it’s called ‘And the Sky Danced’.  Not my stile… but you have to admire the ‘skillz’!

  Alexandra Kingswell

  

  She uses mathematical sequences when arranging her colours and blocks so even though her quilts might seem random… they’re anything but.

  Clever, eh?

  These ones for example, entitled ‘Four slices of Pi’ (who doesn’t love a pun?) are a four different visual representation of the Pi sequence.

  

  Let the Forest sing

  

  Sequence 1 and 2 started off as two separate pieces set always to a mathematical sequence but as study of cold and warm colours.  They were then re-cut and integrated with each other.

  

  Galaxy

  

  As part of the ‘Contemporary Quilters West’

  Secret Geometry (Carla Mines)

  

  Lime Zest and Blood Orange (Christine Seager)

  

  

  Chorus Line (Angela Knapp)

  

  

  And now for a few on the ‘floor’ so to speak

  Balance (Yvonne Kervinen)

  

  Sanderson Star (Pippa Moss)

  

  Little House no 3 (Roberta LePoidevin)

  

  Forty Shades of Green (Ethelda Ellis)

  

  Sherdley Road (Leah Higgins)

  

  Memorial, Ely Cathedral (Magenta Kang)

  

   

  tbc…

  Posted in quilting | 0 Comments

• – 2018/142 – FoQ 2018, Shizuko Kuroha

  Posted at 1:30 pm by quiltwhileyoureahead, on August 13, 2018

  

  This week it’s going to be a quilt party around here…  I’ve taken a lot of photographs yesterday and I want to share with you all that caught my eye.  Also, believe me when I say that not a lot is going on behind the scene if you discount school shopping and normal holiday life (nobody wants to walk the dog, nobody wants to do holiday homework, nobody wants to do the washing/ironing…)

  So without further ado left me show you another favourite exhibition at the Festival.  Totally different from the style of Nancy Crow, but equally mesmerising.   The show is called Indigo & Sarasa: pieces of my life.  Indigo… well we all know about the wonderful blue fabric dyed with the indigo plant, a tradition which is really strong in Japan;  Sarasa is the name of the block printed fabric, traditionally in lighter, warmer, earthy colours.

  Shizuko Kuroha is a famous Japanese quilter, authors of many books, she works mainly with vintage fabric from her tiny studio in a Tokyo suburb.   The story goes that in the 1970s, whilst living in the United States, Shizuko saw an old quilt that gave her such an emotional response and left such a lasting impression that she had to learn how to quilt…  when she moved back to Japan she started to explore the rich quilting tradition of her country and these latest work are simply sublime and hasn’t stopped in 40 years.  She works on normally just about two quilts a year (look at the following photographs and you can see why) but she spends her time teaching and giving lectures too.

   

  Remembrance of wind, 1996

  

  so many different fabrics…

  

  such tiny pieces…

  

  Echo 1, 2007 (left) – The sun shines brilliantly 2011 (right)

  

  I love how you think she uses a clam shell pattern, but that it’s only in the quilting… it’s all in the clever use of log cabins blocks.  Genius.

  

  all hand stitched…

  

  This minuscule logcabin miniature quilt was mind-blowing.

  

  Wind and Tree 2010

  

  The peaceful Sea 2010

  

  And a personal favourite, Wish for a beautiful earth 2000

  another ingenious log cabin block in a courthouse step pattern…

  

  Aren’t they magnificent?  Her eye for shades and colour variation, her skills in manipulating geometrical shapes almost magically into other make believe ones is just incredible.  Fabric dances in her quilts, don’t you think?

  Posted in quilting, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

• – 2018/141 – FoQ 2018, Nancy Crow

  Posted at 4:29 pm by quiltwhileyoureahead, on August 12, 2018

  

  I’ve just got back from this year’s Festival of Quilts in Birmingham (UK…).  I almost didn’t go because last year was so overcrowded and I ended up feeling overwhelmed and frazzled and frankly didn’t enjoy the experience at all.  I almost didn’t make it there because my car tyres were a little flat and at my first attempt of sorting it out I actually -deflated them causing all sorts of bells and whistle to go off … (never confuse your bars and psis when it comes to tyres… just saying)… no worries, we fixed it and with beautifully inflated tyres we made it in time.

  The main reason I made myself go though was Nancy Crow.  I’ve been a huge admirer of her work for years and I simply couldn’t miss it.  I would have regretted it forever.

  This exhibition showcased a new direction in her work (for the uninitiated she’s famous for colourful, contemporary pieced quilts, some would say she pretty much started the modern quilt movement)… she’s exploring and mastering the art of mono printing on fabric and the results are mind blowing.

  

  (Mono prints #16/#23 blue, Self portrait: focus)

  This is what she says,  and keep in the mind she’s 74yrs old…

  

  10/12 hour days… for weeks…

  

  (Mono print #97 red, Self portrait: focus)

  She works on a large scale.  I admire the confidence of doing that.

  

  So beautiful.

  

  (Mono Print #83 short, Self portrait: focus)

  

  (Mono Print #88 short, Self portrait: focus)

   

  

  One thing I learnt today about Nancy Crow’s work is that she never quilts her quilts herself but works in strict collaboration with other quilters to realise her vision (she acknowledges this on the back of the pieces).  Also, for this body of work she moves away from hand quilting because the strong mark making she required were only possible with machine quilting and thicker wadding.

  

  I couldn’t leave the stand.  I kept walking up and down, trying to discover her secret.

  She graciously agreed to take a picture with me and as you can see I’m not awestruck at all..

  

  … not at all…

  Sigh.

  Definitively glad I got myself to the show.

   

   

  Posted in quilting | 0 Comments

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