Looking Forward

 I gave up writing new year targets and goals a few years ago and as it made no difference to the amount of creativity that happened during the year, so I see no reason to change!

My plans for the year so far are to take part in Contemporary Quilts Journal Quilt challenge, restart working daily in my sketchbook and complete a 'year of stitches', all of which are underway.

Journal Quilt

This year's challenge is a little different to the previous few years in that there are guidelines for each set of four months.   The first set (January - April) must include a sewing technique, preferably one that you do not usually use so that you are more challenged.   Suggestions given were applique, reverse applique, traditional quilting, EPP, foundation, trapunto, curved piecing, chenille and collage.

Straight away 'curved piecing' jumped out at me as it is one technique I have never used.  I have tried it with disastrous results which I vowed never to repeat again.  If a curve was required, bondaweb and zig zag stitching was the order of the day!

I have also been drawn back to rust recently and together with indigo dyeing I decided that as far as possible I would use the two for each of the quilts.  I discovered rusting powder so no more wrapping fabric around bits of metal!

So, for my January quilt I made two drunkards path blocks using some rust dyed fabric and some very old indigo dyed fabric.  It must be nearly 30 years old as I remember doing it while doing C&G in the 1980s.   I consulted the web for instructions for curved piecing which was worthwhile as the two blocks were made with no unpicking and the seams layed flat!

The addition of free machine quilting in a circle design plus some hand stitching using perle cotton - another technique I intend to use on this year's quilts - completed the quilt top.  For the binding this year I am using a patterned fabric from Jim Holtz Eclectic Elements range called Travel Labels.  Once cut up the colour is perfect for the binding.

     

 Year of Stitches

I have also decided to challenge myself to regular stitching by making a commitment to stitch during every month.  I have seen various challenges on Instagram so went for a circular format divided into each month.

This was the starting point.  It's only an 8" frame so hopefully I will be able to keep it going.  So far it has been very slow stitching but I do have lots of ideas for the next few weeks so I will catch up again at the end of the month.

Finally for this beginning of 2019, I have restarted my daily sketchbook with the intention of creating some sort of art each day.  Once again it will be a mixture of sketching, collage, mixed media, stitching, in fact anything that takes my fancy or inspires me on that day.

So far this is what I have completed....

Pen and watercolour sketch

Collage of sweet papers

Pen and watercolour sketch

Acrylic paint layers

Pen Sketch

Collage of Christmas stamps and lettering

Acrylic paint stamp with watercolour wash

Layer of silk organza of printed photo with machine and hand stitches

Collage of gelli printed tissue paper

Finishing up 2018!

Before I begin to talk about 2019 I must finish updating you about 2018!

I had a quick check through to see where I was on the blog and the first thing I realised was I had not mentioned November and December Journal Quilts.

For November the colour palette was violet/purple so I started my log cabin with a square of fabric hand printed with a purple swirl pattern and added strips of various shades of purple from my fabric stash, all dyed by myself.   I made the block on point to make it a bit different.

The completed block was then free machine quilted with a swirl pattern to reflect the centre print and finally bound with more of the swirl fabric.

    

December saw a return to the beginning of the colour wheel so had to be purple and red so starting with a larger central square gelli printed with red, I added strips in slightly different width of purple and included so red piping as I went.  Once the quilt was free machine quilted in a 'greek key' type pattern, I bound it with red gelli printed fabric.

This is the first year I planned each month in advance and stuck to the plan!   I'm really pleased with the end result, particularly the way they look when stacked up .....

..... and as a group they look good too!

October Journal Quilt

Had a busy few weeks with many things getting in the way of me creating and keeping up to date!

I did manage to get my October Journal Quilt made but somehow never got around to posting about it so now is my chance to do so.

October meant that I had reached the blue/violet section on the colour wheel so for this I decided to do a log cabin that had a chequered effect.  I didn't really think it through to0 much so although I can promise you that the construction was very much a log cabin, the end result doesn't really look like it!

I free machine quilted the flower design using stitch and tear as I was frightened of not having an all over pattern.  It worked very well until I had to remove the paper and found that at the centres of the flowers the stitching was too dense to completely remove it.  Great learning curve for me and thank goodness it was on something that I don't plan to exhibit!

Only two more JQs to go for this year which has already got me thinking about what to do next year .....

Other creations this month

I was a bit late with my Journal Quilt this month.  It was done within September but for the past few years I have been ahead of myself so I felt quite guilty that it wasn't done until the middle of the month.

This month I reached the "blue" month so decided to have something linked to the sea for the gelli printing.   I've made my own print blocks with polystyrene in the past so used this method to create some texture on the plate inspired by waves and using fabric paints, printed some of my dyed blue fabric.  I used two or three different shades of blue fabric paint but once again I found that you don't get the same definition as you do when using acrylic paint.  The results were good though for the task in hand.

For the Log Cabin part of the quilt, I've again used the Courthouse Steps as the basis of the design with a bit of a twist.   For three of the sides I used different shades of my own dyed blue fabric and then the gelli printed fabric for the fourth side and the binding.

For the quilting I used a stitch on my machine which gives the appearance of waves going up and down.

It's time for a change of season so my thoughts turned to ideas for an Autumn hoop for my mantelpiece display.   I love the colours of Autumn - I always think it is because I was an Autumn baby!- so I knew it had to be something to reflect the colours.

My choice was a simple maple leaf (another favourite, particularly at Autumn) and luckily I found just the pattern I needed on the internet.  I've gone back to cross stitch after many years absence and as I enjoyed it so much, I think there will be more.  So therapeutic!

The display in coming together but I want to add some sort of foliage in a vase so am still thinking about that.   The other hoop and owls are from a Craftpod box I did last year when I began my seasonal project.

The garland of Autumn leaves is another pattern from Attic24 which I made using the ends of yarn left over from her Woodland Blanket which I made earlier this year.

Journal Quilt - Green and Blue

For the August Journal Quilt, I used green and blue fabrics from my stash of hand dyed fabrics.   Some I printed on the gelli plate using a stencil which had some text.   It was one of those occasions when one print was enough - the colours and the print looked so good I was reluctant to do further prints in case it was ruined.

For the log cabin part, I started with a Courthouse Steps design which had a larger than normal centre as I then cut the finished panel into four, rearranged the pieces so the centres were in the corners and then reassembled them.

The centre 'cross', which was the gelli printed fabric, was machine quilted along with 'in the ditch' for the other rounds.   For a change I bound each edge separately so I could have different colours.

I know it doesn't show in the photo, but the sizing of this quilt went horribly wrong!   I started by drawing it out on paper, cutting it up to see what it looked like and to help with the colour placing.  I then diligently added all the seam allowances, including those needed for the reassembling, but somehow or other it did not work out!    I managed to tweak it as far as I could but the long side is more 8.1/2" instead of 9".   Never mind, if at any stage they go for exhibition, I won't include this one which after all has been said, is one of my favourites this year.

This month's Journal Quilt

For this month's green quilt I printed some of the fabric using skeleton leaves on the gelli plate.  The results were not as clear as I really wanted but that's the fun of a gelli plate - you never can tell how it will come out!

However, once the fabrics were cut the results were not as bad as I thought.

For the log cabin bit, I started with a uneven corner shape and then cut each of the strips into even widths as I added them.  Once complete, I quilted the strips of plain fabric with a leaf shape to tie in with the leaf prints.  It's a design I used last year on my March quilt and as I like it so much I will no doubt use it again.

When this part of the quilting was done I still felt it needed a bit more so I stitched in the ditch on all the strips.  I chuckled to myself as I did this as it doesn't seem that long ago I did the minimum amount of  quilting I could get away with whereas now I prefer as much as I can get away with!

When I was sorting out the quilts I've done so far this year, I noticed how good they looked in a stack, so good I had to take a photo!

Journal Quilt for June

Moving on from yellow, this month's JQ is yellow and green.

I started with a random pieced panel in the centre which was created using fused fabric which I bonded to a backing fabric and then cut to shape.  This was then bordered as a log cabin first with yellow which I then cut at angles before completing with a green border.

I was a bit worried about the raw edges on the centre panel so decided to machine quilt narrow lines and hope it was enough.

You may recall that one of the criteria for my quilts this year was to include some fabric that I have gelli printed.  Well, I got so carried away with creating the quilt that it was only when I had finished that I realised I hadn't used any printed fabric!   The border came to the rescue and I printed some fabric with fabric paint using my own foam shape blocks on the gelli plate.

Journal Quilt for May

I've now reached Yellow on my journey around the colour wheel so I decided as it was one colour I would do a 'whole cloth' quilt and print it after quilting.

I started with a piece of yellow fabric which I had in my dyed stash and quilted it as a traditional log cabin.   Once complete, I gelli printed it using a wooden block in a leaf design.  I use two shades of yellow fabric paint but as the quilt still looked a bit plain, I also added some prints using the same block.

For the binding, I used some more of the yellow fabric which had been printed in the same was as the quilt.

Another month, another Journal Quilt

For my April Journal Quilt I reached orange and yellow on the colour wheel and although on the face of it there is a traditional look to it, I used a variety of widths for the strips and included some orange and yellow striped strips too.  The centre square is also from the striped fabric.

I used a hand made block for the gelli printing on some of the yellow strips, using string wrapped around a piece of card and using an orange fabric paint.

To finish I machine quilted in straight lines from top to bottom, again varying the distances between the lines to reflect the different widths of the strips.

March JQ

Moving on to Orange for my March Journal Quilt, this log cabin is more or less formal but with each colour only used on three sides.   Once again I used my own dyed fabric in various shades of orange, some printed with a Gelli plate using a map stencil. The results of this month's gelli-printing were better and using less of the fabric paint seemed to make a difference.  

The finished quilt was   machine quilted in a spiral pattern, working diagonally across each strip, and then bound with some of the map-printed fabric.

February JQ

For my February Journal Quilt I continued my journey around the colour wheel, moving from red to red and orange.  It's not strictly on the wheel but a combination of two colours suits my plan for this year rather than the accepted red-orange.

I started with a piece of the same red fabric I used in January, placing it on the corner slightly to one side and used different width strips in a combination of plain orange and red fabric as well as some orange fabric I printed with red fabric paint using bubble wrap on a gelli plate.  I also put in some extra folded strips of red for accent.

It's the quilting of the finished block that always gets me stumped and this was no exception.  In the end I opted for quilting in the ditch on each strip as well as free machine quilting in a bubble pattern on the plain orange strips using an orange, red and yellow variegated thread.

The finished quilt was then bound with some fabric that had also been printed with the bubble wrap.

Once again I found the second print was better than the first but I think this is because I was putting too much paint on the gelli plate - this must be a difference between fabric paint and the acrylic paint I normally use - so next time I will be more sparing with the paint.