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!

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 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.

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.