Feathers and Ferret

Great day on a free machine quilting workshop taught by Ferret who is one of my quilting heroes! I'd been looking forward to this workshop for ages as I did her Machine quilting part one workshop about 18 months ago and learnt a lot on that. Once again we were shown a whole range of patterns and while encouraged to try them all were also reminded that we all have our preferred designs that suit us and that we feel comfortable with.
To start off with we stitched flowers, hearts, pebbles, and then leaves and mussel shells.

We then moved on to the notorious feathers! We were shown a number of ways of sewing these and warned not to expect results first time. This was when I began to feel rather embarrassed as mine went well from the start!

Apart from not managing to fill a square I found feathers in general fun to do and enjoyed trying out all the different versions we were given.

I love the peacock feathers at the bottom and I'm now thinking about how I can get feathers into my next quilt.

At this stage Ferret announced to everyone else about me that "It's official, I hate her!" I feel so proud!!!

Baptism, birds and bank holiday

Well I have finished the first of the bank holiday tasks I set myself which was to work on the design for the Baptism stole my sister has commissioned. I had spent a long time trying out different ideas, googling images for Baptism symbols before realising that I was in danger of over complicating it and that my sister had given me my starting point when she talked about watery shades of blue.
My first idea was to use a technique I used a few years ago when I made a purple stole for a relative's ordination present. Shades of blue fabric, cut into random and variable width strips and layered up using a rough edge technique before stitching in vertical lines with a metallic thread.

I still wasn't happy and then remembered the technique I learnt a month or two ago using layer organza and which I used to make this picture.

I felt this would work very well as I love the way you can layer up and then stitch back the organza to reveal different shades and that I could achieve the shades and movement of water using this technique. I think what also prompted me to pursue this idea was that this time I was designing for a Woman Priest and so I felt that organza would also produce something more delicate.

As I was going to use organza I decided that instead of using paints or coloured pencils to work out my ideas I would use a tissue paper collage to explore they way the layers of colour work with and change each other.

I then added small seed and bugle beads in blues, greens and silver to add texture and also to suggest light sparkling on the water. - Though this has not photographed quite as well.

In the actual design the beads at the bottom are darker and well scattered and they gradually get lighter through to silvery seed beads at the top which are also closer together.

I now just need to see if my sister is happy and then work out my shopping list/costs.

As for birds well I made 4 sets of small fabric birds in jubilee themed fabrics and sold them all at school on Friday for £5.00 and I have requests for more as well as for a cushion in the same fabrics so I need to get busy on some more to take in next week.

Well at least I have plenty to keep me busy indoors as with the weather as it is I don't think I'll be out gardening tomorrow!

What a week.

Well it's been an emotional week all in all - starting with the excitement of my first Etsy sale, small but it's a start and finishing, sadly with having to have my lovely cat, Grace put to sleep due to kidney failure. What with the return to work and some emotional things to have to deal with there as well as feeling off colour myself I didn't feel up to any sewing that was too intense or heavy so instead had fun using up some of my scraps to make a couple of cushion covers for my shop.
One uses jelly roll strips and some of the fabrics left over from my sister's quilt.

And a detail to show the decorative stitching over the seams

I had to put in a seam running diagonally due to the amount of fabric and the length of the strips.

The other cushion is smaller and uses some of the left over fabrics from the cushions I made for Alice and Charlie. This is an appliqué cushion - I applied bondaweb to the back of the pieces and  drew around a template to get the circles and then ironed them in place before stitching around them.

I've decided that it will also be topical to make some small pieces - birds and possibly some cushions using some London/Jubilee themed fabrics so I've started making some birds before thinking about cushion designs.

My other project to get started on is designing the first of my commissions from my sister for a Baptism Stole - designing that will be a good excuse to get the coloured pencils and watercolours out and should be therapeutic - just what I need.

Jenny's Quilt

Delivered this last week and I'm now feeling very relieved as she was thrilled with it and described it as a future "heirloom".
So time for some pics.

When designing it I tried to make it  personal as possible so I used Jenny's favourite colours, some African fabrics as she has links with Uganda, a block design with a Celtic feel to it, and the picture in the middle is of a small statuette she gave me several years ago to reflect our relationship as sisters.

I took a photo of the statuette and then printed it on to fabric which I then appliquéd on to the background fabric. 

I quilted fish at each corner to represent her faith and her ministry as a Lay Reader

A wavy line quilted around the border is for her (and my) birthplace of Portsmouth.

Well a busy few days - not only completing a piece for my sister's birthday but finally going to the Hockney Exhibition and also taking the plunge and "opening" my Etsy shop - no buyers yet but quite a lot of interest - and for anyone reading this who is interested it's called Gilli's Creative Stitchery. I've got a few things listed at present and plan to put on a couple of cushion covers soon as well as some more decorative birds in some London themed prints. I must give my daughter a mention here for not only encouraging me to do this but also in posting the link on her Facebook page.

I also have two commissions which I'm very excited about, one is from my sister and the other is from a friend of my daughter and son-in-law who has requested a quilt similar to the one I made Charlie for his 21st
"Sweet Dreams are Made of This"

So the next stage is to work out some costings! And for the commission from my sister get together with her next week to start discussing design ideas/fabrics etc.

I don't expect to give up the day job but it will be good if I can can at least finance my hobby - and it's just exciting to be taking this next step - and of course it will feed in to the E17 Art Trail - and after all until you try something you don't know what might happen. 

Finally here are a couple of photos of a candle holder I recently made for friends who were celebrating their golden Wedding Anniversary.

Obvious colour scheme - and I also used some Angelina Fibres in which gave an additional iridescence to the piece. 

I'm just finishing off the piece I'm making for my sisters birthday - just got to put on the hanging sleeve and label now - I'm pleased with it and hope she is - it was quite a challenge as I don't want to disappoint her and in designing it I tried to make it personal to her.

April thoughts

I have decided to re-start my blog and so once I have done this initial (short) post I need to work out how to link to my previous posts - or how to copy them to this blog. I am then going to take my daughter's advice and set up an Etsy shop in the hope of selling some of my quilts/hangings as she is quite right and I am running out of wall-space on which to display them. I also have to start thinking about my statement for my entry in the E17 Art Trail. All very exciting and all very scary! I've come to a standstill with my current project (a piece for my sister's birthday) as I'm awaiting the delivery of some thread so decided that I would make getting my "on-line" presence sorted out and generally getting up-to-date in terms of what I've been working on recently.