a completed quilt

I am delighted to blog that I have finished the wristwatch quilt which I did with Paula the Sassy Quilter and it is now on the back of Helen`s sofa.   It stayed as a flimsy for a while as I could not work out how to quilt it but then we decided to do butterflies and hand quilt it all.    My fingers suffered,  I had a thimble on my right hand but struggled to use one on the left hence the sore finger.  Helen   she is my younger daughter wanted a quilt in pinks and grey and she loves butterflies and cats so with having the patterned butterfly fabric we decided to repeat them in the grey rectangles.  These were traced and then stitched with perle cotton 16 and I also did some squiggles and smaller butterflies in grey perle on other spaces and just did diagional stitching in the patterned blocks.  I do not know how quilters do tiny stitches, I struggled with these but I am glad to say I am more than happy with the final result.   Unfortunately when it came to binding I could not find any of the fabrics I had used again so opted for pink with the white spots, I think it worked well.  Even made a label and used the trial butterfly for it. Machine skills not good enough to embroider the label so used a permanent pen.   The backing was a dark grey sheet, disappointed as it was thin and when I washed the quilt tiny bits of wadding came through so might have to add another layer one day  needless to say that will not be quilted. I used the eco friendly wadding and how nice it was to hand quilt   just as well as I have a 15 metre roll of it!  Sorry I have prattled   now for the photos.  The quilting on the main photo did not photo well so have done close ups but don`t look too closely!

The whole quilt  unfortunately the wind was blowing,  it usually does here!

The single butterfly was quilted on all the grey rectangles on the outside of the quilt 10 in total

These were used on alternate rows so 4 of these were stitched making 8 in all

these were sitched in the other alternate rows again 8 in total

This is the label that I hand stitched to the back.

 
I am now working  on the sampler quilt but this is being quilted with the bernina,   I must admit I prefer to hand quilt, it might take much longer but it is not a wrestling match I don`t think I could ever do a double bed quilt by machine.

eye candy from two quilt shows

I am just going to share one more quilt with you from the festival of quilts that was made by my dear friend Cheryl who not only is a quilter but also has a degree in theatre costume design and makes wonderful wedding dresses.  Cheryl has just completed her city & guilds in patchwork and is about to start the diploma course at Missenden , her tutor is Barbara Weeks.   Her inspiration came from the Virginia Creeper that grows in her garden.  All the fabric was dyed by Cheryl

  Now onto Harrogate quilt show,   this is the winner of the pieced section and also won the award as favourite of one of the judges and a merit from the judges.   I am privileged to also know the lady who made this.  Liz is a member of the Yorkshire Modern Quilters Guild that I also belong to and this quilt was made to celebrate the tour de France that started here in Yorkshire

   here are a few more of my favourites from the show

Hope you enjoyed these.   The next blog with a bit of luck will have my largest quilt to date on, have just finished hand quilting it and now have the binding to do then into the washer with it, fingers crossed all will be well!

completed quilts and other bits

I did not realise how long it is since I posted any of my quilting attempts so now have a few photos to load
   This is another small quilt completed using 24 of the  tula blocks which is now on the back of the second couch to hopefully compliment the one on the other couch.  I machine quilted each block individually they all vary as they are all different shapes an then quilted each side of the seams on the sashing.

and I have used some Ikea fabric on the back

The spring sampler I did as a BOM and was not happy with is also completed,  having shown a photo of it to Jennie Rayment she advised me to add turquoise in each sashing block,  not having enough I added the owl fabric and it seems to have pulled it together a bit better, I do still not like the white sashing but can live with it now,  it is on my bed not that it is big enough but  it looks quite nice.

                                           This is the sun the hexie block for august show

                                                 and now the september block a cute birdie

Still doing the CQJP challenge and here is september,   3 to go and then will have to decide how to put them together   sorry no, no doubt Helen will want to take control of that as it is for her

My monthly block I do for bee blessed   this month it is a sail boat and have heard that it sailed over the Irish sea and arrived safe and sound

   Not sure what happened on a previous blog but when I looked back to see what needed adding to this one I saw the wonky block was not there so here it is now. Can`t recall where I fond it but hope to find it again as I rather like the effect and would like to make some more, maybe a table runner in Xmas fabric would work

I am now busy hand quilting the wrist watch quilt for Helen,  have done 26 butterflies so far will post  photo on my next blog

Festival of quilts 2

As promised here are a few more quilts that won prizes at the FOQ.   I seem to be behind myself these days s I have been to the Harrogate quilt show since Birmingham so much catch myself up,  means a few blogs over the next few days.

This is the winner of the Quilters Guild challenge, the theme was gardens and this quilt was made by Yvonne Brown

this is the winner in the my first quilt category,   made by Jill Johnson and quilted in the quilt as you go method,   very nice, this one really caught my eye.  This one got a lot of attention,  a first quilt and beautifully made, what impressed me too was her fabric and colour choice

this is the art quilt winner by Merce Gonzaez Desedamas in Spain called sunrise, moonrise

 

winner in the 2 person quilt section was this one by Mark and Bridget Mann who are mother and son. Screen printed onto recycled men`s suits creating a portrait of the mathematical code breaker and founder of the Computer Science   sorry do not know his name, not in the catalogue

this is the secondary school winning quilt, made by the Rebecca Palmer original sewing group form Cappamore Ireland

this is the group quilt  winner, made by Tanglewood Textiles a group of 6 

seem to have slipped up here and have no details of this one but I am sure it was in the winning section

this is I believe the winner in the miniature section,   Roberta Le Poidevin from St Peters stitched this one

 I did not find the section with all the miniature ones in,   this was in the section where they had all the winning quilts.

Hope you enjoy seeing these,   sorry will not be sharing all 700 with you all but maybe will share a few more in a couple of days if anyone would like to see more.