More quilting on an oldie

I seemed to have dropped off the blogosphere there for a while. Sorry. But don't get the idea I've been sitting around twiddling my thumbs. (well maybe just a bit) No, I've been continuing to finish off some ancient UFO's and adding more quilting to some others. Here's one that got more quilting added to it. I was never particularly happy with the quilting I originally did on it. So following the adage that there's no such thing as too much quilting, that's exactly what it got.





and a close up

.....and I bought myself a new toy (HINT: this makes 21) .....but more about that next time

Another ancient UFO bites the dust

Many moons ago there was a quilt competition. About 1994 I think. Quilts had to be a specific size 90cm x 125cm (35 1/2" x 49"). Many hundreds of entries were received and a large number of these were juried in to a huge exhibition held in the Sydney Opera House. Of these 40 were selected to go in the book and also to be a part of a travelling exhibition touring around Australia for about 4 years. The exhibition was shown in regional areas and country towns that wouldn't normally have the opportunity to see a quilt exhibition. I was fortunate to have a quilt selected. Because it was an acquisitive exhibition the quilt was no longer mine so at the time I made a duplicate. The quilt titled 'Keep the Aspidistra Flying' was air brushed using fabric paint and hand quilted with heavy black crochet cotton around the main shapes. The duplicate never progressed further than a top so when I came across it recently languishing at the bottom of a pile of UFO's I decided to drag it out and quilt it. Only 15 years late. Got done eventually.

I got a little sliver of it showing on the cover.
At the time I made it, it was very unusual for me to do anything so 'arty'. I had been playing around with a recently acquired air brush and compressor and was doing a lot of fabric dyeing and printing with leaves and found objects around this time.

Another Journal Quilt and a UFO finally finished

I've been so busy quilting the last couple of weeks I've neglected the blog. This is one of the pieces I finished recently. It's another journal quilt for the Aus/Nz Artquilters Group. We don't necessarily have to do the monthly themes in order so this is actually the June theme - The Centre. These journal quilts are A4 size and quite fun to work on.

As I was doing this I remembered a quilt top that I did many years ago along similar lines and never really finished off so I dragged it out and was inspired to finish it. The background green is piece I hand dyed. The black border was sewn around it and then I printed with grevillea leaves using gold fabric paint. The 'woven' bits are actually cut from the one piece of fabric that I dyed and appliqued after the printing. I felt it didn't stand out from the background very well in places so I ended up couching a heavy metallic thread along the edges. The title is 'Unravelled'. I'd love to hear your comments.

Another Journal Quilt

This is another journal quilt I made for one of the on-line groups I belong to - Aus/NZ Art Quilters. We have a monthly theme for the journal quilts. This was February's and the theme was 'Love'. I was a bit uninspired by this. As you may have gathered if you've looked at my work, I don't do - cute, pretty, tizzy, frilly, lacey. Nor will you ever find a cute bunny, pussy, chicken, duck, cow or any other farm yard animal on anything I have sewn in the last 40 years or indeed likely to sew in the next 40 years. Sorry to offend the bunny lovers out there, but it just ain't me.

Done at last

I've just put the last stitches in the binding. Doesn't have a hanging sleeve yet but that can wait. The quilting seemed to take forever. As you can see from the detail, there's quite a bit of it. I've hand-dyed all the fabrics in this quilt. I'm on a roll with quilting at the moment so I think I'll drag out a couple of tops from the 'I'll get around to quilting these some day' pile and finish them off.

A bit more progress

I've put a border around this now. Still not finished. I was a bit bothered by that centre block in the bottom row. But really it looks a lot bluer in the photo than in real life so I decided to leave it. I'll add some more strippy/leafy bits to 'spill' out into the border areas. Did I mention it's ............ yellow? It's very, very.........yellow. I've never before made a quilt quite so ........yellow.


I've also had some fun doing a couple more journal quilts this week but I haven't put the bindings on so I can't show you yet.

January Journal Quilt

This is my very first ever Journal Quilt. I belong to an online art quilters group and decided this year to do the journal quilts each month along with the other members. Yes I know we're half way through February. The quilts are only small - A4 size (12" x 8 1/2") There is a different theme each month - January's was Heat. Appropriate as I was stitching this last Saturday. The hottest day in Melbourne's history (46 deg C) and the start of the worst bushfires we have ever known. The last report I heard 185 dead and nearly 800 homes burned to the ground. That death toll is sure to rise as more bodies are discovered in burnt out homes and cars.

Show and Tell

This is a bit of show and tell from many years ago. I thought I might drag out some of the old photos of quilts I have made over the years and scan them. This quilt used and lot of my hand-dyeds, some that I had overprinted with leaves from the garden, and some drapery fabrics. The dark areas don't show up very well in this photo. I really should re photograph many of my quilts with the digital camera.I've been shifting around sewing machines this week. So....you think. What's the big deal. You pick it up you put it somewhere else. No. I'm talking about industrial machines. They weigh a ton. They have a large solid table with a large heavy motor that is attached under the table. The head of the machine (the bit that actually sews) can be lifted out of the table. I can barely lift them, they're so heavy. I have five of them that I use for my business, well four really, cause one I had set up for machine quilting in my studio. They have sooo much more room under the arm of the machine than a domestic machine. These have about 12". I needed to swap this one for a different one that had been geared down and was a bit more controllable at slower speeds. So I had to wait until someone came to visit that could help me lift them. Where's a man with muscles when you need one?

Thumbs up - Thumbs down?

I'm not really sure what I think about this quilt top. I put it together over a year ago. Occasionally I pin it up on the design wall and wonder if I feel like doing something to it. Whether I might use the other bit of hand-dyed pinned up next to it in a border, or just wad it up in a ball and toss it. It's probably the colours. I'm just not a yellow, green, orange person.

I have no recollection of what was going through my head when I started it. Let me know what you think.

So?....watcha been doing for 2 years? Part 2

OK its Part 2. Don't groan. I said I'd give you the abridged version. Then we'll get on to the quilty stuff. I suppose the most memorable bit of 2008 was ending up in hospital for a week in December for a bowel resection. I have Crohn's Disease and although I haven't had a flare up for over 2 years some previous bouts had caused some problems and the surgeon needed to remove about a 12" section. I seemed to recover from it very quickly and even got back to the gym after a few weeks. Nothing too strenuous.


I managed to get quite a bit of hand sewing done while I was in the hospital. I've been doing this very traditional Grandmother's Flower Garden (English Paper Piecing) for most of last year. It's my 'take to meetings' project when I can't get to a sewing machine. It might get finished in another year or so. It needs to be about twice as big as it is.

So?....watcha been doing for 2 years?

I noticed the other day that this is the 2 year bloggerversary of my last post and as good a reason as any to get back to blogging.

Quite a few things have happened since then and I've been sitting here trying to remember them all. Don't worry. I'll just give you the abridged version.

I suppose the main change has been that my mother moved in to live with me at the start of 2008. (remember I told you - only child of an only child of an only child.....) She turned 90 last week and drives me insane most days. She had been living on her own since my dad died 7 years ago and in mid 07 had a pacemaker fitted. A couple of months after that she had a fall and broke her wrist. It became clear that it wasn't really a good idea for her to be living on her own. This necessitated the recently relocated studio in bedroom 2 to relocate again to bedroom 3 so that she could have the bigger room. And Daniel (son No.2 age 24) to relocate himself entirely to his fathers house, a few kilometres away, instead of living in both places.
Daniel spent a month in Greece with his girlfriend in July 07 and then went to Scotland for a couple of weeks.
I'll tell you some of the other things next time.
Only a modest amount of non work related sewing was accomplished. A few quilts, including this one using my own hand-dyes.

.......more sewing machines

Seems like I spent a large chunk of yesterday fiddling with sewing machines. Gave a couple of them a thorough grease and oil change and set up the 2 Singer industrials specifically for machine quilting. The 12" throat straight sewer I set up for free-hand quilting - removed the feed dog and made a new cover plate with a single small hole for the needle. Industrials may not have a lot of the fancy bells and whistles but they are infinitely adjustable and totally unkillable. The 2 Singers normally take long shank feet but I can loosen a screw and drop the whole shaft down to take short shank or even up to take the longer pfaff feet. Also I can get the MR (multi-range) needles for them. These are the needles that the long arm quilting machines take. They are designed to avoid skipped stitches when stitching in any direction. (Normal needles are really only designed for stitching forward)
This machine actually cost me nothing. We were having the bi-annual neighbourhood hard rubbish collection and I was driving home this particular day just as a lady was dragging it out onto the foot path. Slammed on the brakes and backed up. 'You throwing it out? Can I have it?' 'Doesn't work' she said 'Don't care' I think to myself 'It can be fixed'. As it turned out it was only a short in the motor where some of the insulation had broken away. It ended up costing me $17 for a new pulley and belt to gear it down because it just went too fast even for me.
The other Singer machine (a 20u) does a 9mm wide zig-zag which is unusual for an industrial. I've set this up for machine quilting with the foot on. Adjusted the foot height and pressure so that I don't need a walking foot and tweeked a few other things. So now I all I need to do is quilt something on them. This one still has a bit to do in the border.