Friday 31 August 2012

Brit Quilt Swap 3

I am loving life in Blogland......

I see what other sewers are up to and gain great inspiration from them, diving into swaps take it to another dimension...

I have to move out of my comfort zone, which is a very positive move..... Brit Quilt Swap 3 was the last swap that I joined as a result of the Fat Quarterly Retreat... (we have the dates for next year..eek!)
The criteria was to make a small quilt between 12" and 24" square.. as with the frame purse swap we had to make an inspirational mosaic to show our partner and then 'blog stalking' is also allowed..
I have just finished my piece and it will be on its way to a new home this weekend... I had an idea from the get go of what I wanted to do and of course 'Miss Procrastination' came to stay for a few weeks while I hummed and haahed (!) about how I would create this piece.

Once the Olympics were over I had to send her away and knuckle down... I drew a rough sketch and went to my stash.... I had thought I would finally get to use some of the fabulous hand dye fabrics I have been buying from Heide Stoll-Weber her fabrics are glorious riots of colour and have a wonderful sheen.. but then I found some other fabric that I thought I could work with better. Sorry partner my stash remains intact - it is waiting for the day that I feel confident enough to just make a whole-cloth quilt.

This fabric had bands of colour across it and as they were all from the same 'dye family' I felt sure they would take the angst out of colour matching for me....

I joined in the group as we posted pictures on Flickr but I didn't want to give too much away as my partner might be intelligent and work out that it was for her... so I just put up glimpses..

I used some traditional elements as you can see in the flying geese but the rest of it I made up as I went along.. it was really fun to cut and sew, then offer it up alongside the sketch. The background was a pack of hand dyed grey/blues that I found in the depths and that little bit of deep green is hand dyed silk velvet from my friend Lin, in fact the only fabric I bought was for the backing and I didn't really need to buy that but I purchased some at the festival of quilts to use for the borders but then decided I didn't want to introduce other fabrics..

The quilting design was going to be horizontal until I got it framed and then I thought that diagonal lines would look like rain... and I found just the right variegated thread in my stock that added to the feel of sleeting rain (I must have been inspired by our 'summer'....)

So here it is... ready for its journey - it has been 'blocked' to keep it square but who knows what will happen on its trip...

I've really enjoyed this trip out of my comfort zone and will be stalking our postie as in a few days time I hope that a little mini quilt will be arriving to live with us from my mystery partner...

So I am up to date with all my swap sewing, the fabric from my september Kinky Bee partner will be here soon and I have one block from my Fat Quarter Designer mystery to be going on with...

And would you look at that..... Up in the top right hand corner - a new button has appeared.... 


Watch this space... 
"To the Stash Cave Robin........"



2 comments:

  1. What a great quilt: i love this next bit of the swap, seeing who gets what!

    ReplyDelete
  2. This is a really lovely little quilt.

    ReplyDelete

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