2020 Review

Well, what a year!

It began OK, with the birth of another great niece in the US who already had her quilt ready and waiting for her.

Then we headed off to Dubai for a fabulous birthday week staying with good friends and meeting up with other friends who were stopping over on their way back to the UK from Australia. Who knew that the following month Covid 19 would strike and we would all be locked down at home? My sewing changed pretty rapidly from pretty quilts, useful bags and pouches and interesting improv to masks and scrubs. That took up most of the early summer.

After that I pretty much concentrated on scrap quilts and special requests, such as the football quilt for my oldest grandson and a commission for a new baby whose mum liked my Mondrian quilt from the previous year. There are pics of all of these on the Gallery page for 2020.

There were several bags and pouches too. My favourite was the Flip Pocket Folio by Aneela Hoey. I made four different versions of that for each of my grandchildren and filled them with a mixture of stationery essentials and sweet treats for Christmas.

Out of my comfort zone

This was a challenge for me and definitely took me outside my comfort zone. I am involved, peripherally, with a local Art Group which produces an exhibition every year in November. Most of the exhibits are paintings and drawings in different media although there are always a few sculptures and ceramics as well. I was asked if I would put some textile art in so I had a think and decided I would have a go at some mini-quilts based on famous artworks. Here is the result,

Clockwise, after Monet, after Mondrian, after Klee and after Rothko

I decided it would be fun to use different techniques in each of them. In trying to evoke the spirit of the Monet’s water lilies, I layered many different fabrics, attached them using machine appliqué and then free motion quilted over a layer of fine chiffon. Finally, I machine couched some variegated green embroidery floss to imitate the hanging tendrils of weeping willow.

I chose to base my second mini quilt on Mondrian’s “Composition in red, yellow, blue and black”. This was the simplest to do but it did involve precise piecing and some choices about how much straight line quilting to do. I decided that less was probably more in this case.

My choice for the third piece was Paul Klee’s “Senecio”. The was probably the most challenging of the four to interpret. I searched through all my scraps to find the right ones and used Bondaweb to secure the shapes to the background. I then used a mixture of raw edge appliqué and free motion quilting (FMQ) to secure everything, followed by concentric quilted circles in variegated thread to give some texture to the background.

The final mini was inspired by Rothko’s “Violet, black, orange, yellow on white and red”. this allowed me to use some of my precious scraps of Oakshott fabrics. Leaving the raw edges showing demonstrates how the shimmering effect is achieved by weaving two different colours to produce the fabric. The straight line FMQ was great fun to do, using a variety of threads.

Two more finishes

It’s been a busy time here with two more quilts that have been gifted to family. The first one is very thrifty as it uses up some left over blocks from the wedding quilt featured below in “A Wedding Quilt for a special couple”.

The quilt front

My feather quilting

The quilt back

Feathers on the back

This one is “lap quilt” size and has gone to live on the bottom of my mother-in-law’s bed in her care home in Wimbledon. She has had a succession of my quilts there since since moving in 14 moths ago and enjoys the changing view she gets. I’m sure another one will be heading her way before too long.

The second finish is another baby quilt that has already found its way across the ocean to await the arrival of another great niece. She is due in December in South Carolina USA. I enjoyed using lots of different 2.5” pink squares in this one and I was delighted to find the white hearts on grey print for the background and backing. The design of the front gave me lots of opportunity to play with the quilting design and to wrestle with getting my loops to go round 90 degree corners!

The front

The back

Quilting close-up

A "secret" bag make

This fun bag was a secret project because I was a tester for a new pattern by the very talented Samantha Hussey https://www.mrs-h.com . It’s called the bucket tote and as always it was very clearly written and easy to follow. Very few comments were needed after making it and I have used it frequently over the summer.

It’s a classic shape with a diagonal strap that can be carried in half over the shoulder or fully extended as a cross-body. Very useful!

I’m sure all the participants at Mrs H’s bag retreat will have enjoyed making it.

A wedding quilt for a special couple

This is already a well-travelled quilt as it is now on a bed in Minturn, Colorado, USA. I made it for my lovely niece Zoe and her new husband, Kevin, who were married this summer. She chose her favourite colours and I found the fabrics at Sew Hot https://www.sewhot.co.uk . It was a quick pattern to put together, but I knew it was too big for me to quilt as I was still in my small sewing room at that point. I shipped it off to my very talented friend Trudi Wood (@trudi_wood) who produced all those wonderful freehand feathers and loops. Thank-you Trudi!

A flurry of baby quilts

I’m not quite sure what is the collective noun for four baby quilts, but I’m pretty happy with a “flurry”.

I have made all of these in the last month and all but one of the babies has now arrived safely.

The first one had different quilting in each of the squares, some of it more complicated than other bits. It was fun to do.

These three were simpler, although I did quilt random stars in the middle of the star in the pink one.

There are more pictures of all these quilts in my 2019 Gallery.

A colourful baby quilt

The latest commission to go to its new home is a rainbow quilt for a toddler bed. I had such fun sorting through my scraps to try and achieve a gradient from purple to blue, blue to green and yellow to orange. I used a lot of Kaffe Fassett fabrics left over from last year’s Mystery Quilt (see the “Works in Progress” section as it still hasn’t been quilted!). I also found some lovely ombré fabrics for the sashing and a very bright rainbow fabric for the backing. All of these were sourced from the wonderful Lady Sew and Sew.

I enjoyed quilting this with random wavy lines and stars inside the actual stars which are all constructed in my favourite Oakshott fabrics. Here are some close-ups of some of the blocks.

And finally, the rainbow backing.

A first bag commission

I was excited to be commissioned for the first time to make a bag for a customer. The plan was for this to be a 24th anniversary present for the customer’s wife. He had done his research and discovered that 24 years’ marriage should be celebrated with opal, tanzanite (a beautiful clear blue semi-precious stone), lavender and musical instruments. I set about my own research and found the following fabrics,

Opal, tanzanite and lavender, all fused and ready to go.

I used a pattern from https://noodle-head.com. It’s a tote bag called Explorer. I really like Anna’s patterns. They are very clear and easy to follow. I added an internal zipped pocket because I can’t imagine a tote bag without a zipped pocket. I worked on the bag over a weekend and by Sunday tea time it was time to “birth” it. Turning a fully interfaced bag with a heavy wool base through a small hole in the lining is always stressful, but this one wasn’t too bad.

A relatively easy birth!

Once the hardware was installed ( a turnlock on the front) and the gap in the lining sewn up, it was time to call the client and hand it over. He seemed very happy with the product and I certainly enjoyed the process.

Another Liberty Quilt - Flowers and Leaves

I spent far too long looking at my stash of beautiful Liberty pieces, so I finally decided I had to make a quilt top from them. Then I couldn’t decide how to quilt it. Finally, inspiration struck and I decided it had to be flowers in the squares and leaves in the sashing. The quilting took a considerable amount of time, but listening to endless Radio 4 programmes and podcasts helped.

I quilted flowers in each of the squares first.

Then I added leaves with double edges in the internal sashing.

Next came smaller leaves in the single sashing surrounding the squares.

Finally, the most time-consuming element of all, I filled the white-on-white border with more interlocking chrysanthemum type flowers.

I made binding for it from another Liberty fabric that I used for the backing and then it was done. I’m happy with this one and I think it will be on my bed for this summer.

A finished baby quilt

This quilt has become a free motion quilting (FMQ) sampler. I decided to try out different motifs in the squares and rectangles and see which worked best. I marked some of them out with my water soluble marker before starting to stitch. With others I just winged it. I used Aurifil 50 weight thread in the top and Bottom Line thread in the bobbin.

I have a feeling that the designs I am happiest with will reappear in my next quilt, a Liberty squares design that is ready to go as soon as I am.

Latest Project - a quilt for baby Sylvie

This is a quilt that I sent off to its new owner yesterday. It is a simple checkerboard design which showcases the delicate Liberty Tana Lawn fabric perfectly. I did the free motion quilting on my beloved Bernina 750QE after discussing it with Trudi Wood who I met at the brilliant Sewcial Retreat run by Purple Stitches last month. She was great at demystifying the process of choosing a quilting design. Basically she told me a quilt will tell me how to quilt it if I just listen to it!

The quilting design shows up better here,

and here,

PS The recipient seems to be very happy with her new quilt!

First Project - A Liberty Coin quilt

In March 2013 I re-started my quilting journey. There was a fabric shop in Wimbledon Park Road called Stitch Up, which had a teaching area downstairs. I enrolled on a patchwork class with Alison Garrett and took my first tentative steps back down a road I had left 20 years earlier. Alison re-kindled my love of fabric and stitching and soon I had dug out my trusty Bernina 1001 and was busy putting this simple quilt together.

Liberty Coins Quilt

I learnt so much making this first quilt, about fabric, pattern, how to make a quilt sandwich and how to bind a quilt. Needless to say, it was far from perfect, but it is still in use today, almost 6 years later!

Soon after that, I visited an exhibition by the Wimbledon International Quilters. I was more than blown away by the work on show and met Maggie Barber who kindly allowed me to join a fortnightly class of hers. I learnt so much from her and loved every minute of it.