I finished my crazy patchwork mini-quilt today. It’s 25 cm square and I actually did put a binding on. When I come to think about it I believe this is the first piece from the C&G’s course that I have actually “finished”. I’ve been treating everything as samples up to now and haven’t bothered to complete them with batting and binding. Although there are some pieces that I feel are good enough to warrant the treatment. Myrna would not be pleased with me.

But this time I felt that it was time to go the whole hog and put a binding on too. I can’t remember the last time I actually made a whole quilt, whatever the size. But before binding it there were a few other things to do. I sewed down all the patches with different threads and embroidery stitches on my machine. Sometimes it’s a bit tricky to judge when to stop to turn a corner, the needle is jumping around all over the place. I also added some of the sheer fabric as patches over the rest using gold thread to sew them down. They added a bit of interest where there was just plain coloured fabric. Then I did a bit of hand embroidery and added a few sequins sewn down with beads in one corner.

So here it is:

And here’s a detail to show some of the hand embroidery. I tried out doing chain stitch with two colours of thread. Once you get the hang of it, it’s quite easy. You can’t really see it on the photo on the blog It’s the brown and yellow stitching in the left hand corner. I added some straight stitches too.

This C&G course is having one positive effect at least. It is forcing me to try out things that I’ve just collected articles on in the past: see my cathedral windows piece. I even paid to do a course at QU on crazy patchwork and then never got started. It’s the only class where I paid my dues and then didn’t do the course work. So now I have again been made to do something that I had been slacking over.

I got my act together last night and made a first layout. Then I went to bed and this morning before work I took another look. I decided it had too much orange and not enough yellow. So this evening more or less the first thing I did when I got in, was to remove some orange and add more yellow. I also rearranged quite a bit of the last corner from last night. This is the state of play:

I used light weight iron-on interfacing as the foundation and not a piece of muslin as directed. This is my lazy way of getting around doing any basting. As we are to make a quilt sandwich and then do machine embroidery over the edges of the patches I decided I could get away without the extra stability offered by a muslin foundation. My interfacing is quite flimsy so as not to add too much extra bulk in the way I usually use it.

I got as far as auditioning the threads to use for the embroidery. Considering I’m trying not to buy any extra materials for this course except those that are really necessary I’m pleased I managed to find enough fabrics and threads to cover the whole colour range of the inspiration photo. My stash is quite paltry compared to some of the photos you see on the internet from other quilters.

I have a couple of sheer fabrics in the right colours too that I may use as some extra embellishment. One of them is folded up in the top left hand corner of the photo. Having got started I’m now looking forward to doing some extra embellishment on this piece. As we have to make a complete quilt sandwich I shall probably also finish it completely with a binding. I feel it’s time to complete a piece again rather than just keeping it as a sample.

Secret Garden patchwork is a variation on the Cathedral Windows pattern. It wasn’t one I’d heard of before taking this C&G course. The only reason for the name that I can think of is that the finished effect looks like four petalled flowers.

This piece has also been made in the evenings in the hotel bedroom. We are currently staying for a week just outside Valencia, near enough to drive into the town each day, but far enough out to be a quiet hotel. We also have a large balcony to sit out on and as the weather has greatly improved it is being put to good use.

I’ve been making holes in my fingers again this weekend while making my first attempt at sashiko quilting. It is a simplified version of the fan pattern. I didn’t have enough blue fabric that was fairly loosely woven so I used green instead.

As I couldn’t find a local shop to buy the authentic supplies I used the suggested alternatives of cotton perle embroidery thread and chenille needles. Something wasn’t quite right with my combination of supplies, I had the devil of a job getting the eye of the needle with the double thickness of thread to go through 3 layers of fabric. I ended up using my thimble as a battering ram and then a circle of grippy plastic that usually lives in the kitchen for opening stubborn jam jars to get enough grip on the needle to pull it all the way through

I missed a few stitches on the back and I blame it on the generally adverse conditions under which I was working!

From the front the stitches look pretty good though - quite evenly sized. Not bad for a first attempt.

I was intending doing a bit more than just the bare minimum for this activity but I have decided to find an internet supplier for the genuine supplies before doing any more. Then I can see what I should be looking for as an alternative. I have a good resource book called the Ultimate Sashiko Sourcebook by Susan Briscoe that I bought at a quilt show. It explains really well how to work the various traditional designs over a basic grid. Lots of inspiration just browsing the book.

I’ve been making pin cushions of my finger tips this weekend doing some hand quilting. The tip of the index finger of my left hand looks like raw meat I’m not a very accomplished hand quilter and I can’t say that I really enjoy it. I always seem to get into a fight with the quilting hoop for a start. I had a go without the hoop but it didn’t really improve matters, although I’ve read on some blogs about people who don’t use hoops or frames.

Here’s what I’ve been doing. The object of the exercise was to try various threads and colours to see the different effects you can get. The quilt top was from the exercise on transparency in module 2 of the course.

I made the mistake of using the all cotton batting that I usually use on my quilts that will be machine quilted. It is great for machine quilting because it kind of sticks to the top and backing and makes it less likely to get wrinkles sewn in, but it is compact and hard work for hand quilting. On my first attempt at hand quilting in a QU class of Hawaiian appliqué and hand quilting we used high loft polyester batting and it was much easier to quilt.

This image shows the quilting in a little more detail. I was trying out various thicknesses of thread. The blue thread going across the quilt is the variegated Valdani thread. Although others rave about this thread I find it quite variable in thickness as well as colour. It tends to beard more too.

In this red corner I tried out (bottom to top) ordinary red cotton sewing thread, one strand of stranded embroidery thread, gold thread, 2 strands of embroidery thread, more gold thread and then some different thicknesses of cotton sewing thread.

I liked the effect of the double stranded embroidery thread and it wasn’t any harder to quilt with than sewing thread.

I need to give my fingers a chance to recover and then I have one more activity to go and I’ve finished module 3 of the course. My goal is to complet module 3 by the end of May.

As the appliqué was hand sewing I made a start on it in the week. I like to have this kind of craft work to do in the evenings. I find it quite relaxing so long as I don’t do too much at once. I finished the piece this morning. I didn’t find the technique as frustrating as Lori did although it is a little annoying to keep having to remove the stitching that was used to outline the design to be able to keep sewing.

This method is really reverse needleturn appliqué because the actual design is the lower fabric and one cuts through the upper fabric to reveal the design. The method I learnt at QU was to cut out the design from fabric and then appliqué it onto the background fabric. The stitching was also using the needleturn technique.

I think the orange and purple fabric I chose is on reflection a little too busy. It rather overpowers the design itself in places - particularly the centre cut out shapes. So a lesson leant there. This detail shows the center shapes without being confused by the pattern on the fabric too much.

I was quite pleased to see that my sewing followed the tracing lines of the design quite accurately. There are a few wobbles but then it is hand craft!

On balance I think I prefer the technique I learnt at QU. Although it was an interesting exercise to compare the two methods. Both will have their uses.

It amuses me that this technique is known as the English paper piecing method. Just goes to show how we are influenced by the American view of the world. To me this is just paper piecing. It is in fact the first technique that I used to make a patchwork quilt at the end of the 1970s. My first ever quilt was mostly hand pieced as a Grandmother’s flower garden design. I didn’t know at the time that this was what it was called. It is in all shades of blues and purples as this was the colour of my bedroom in my parents house at the time I started. It took so long to make that it become a double bed sized quilt because I’d got married in the meantime! I also didn’t know that you were supposed to use batting so it only has two layers.

So 30 years and more later I am again doing paper piecing but on a much smaller scale. I actually enjoyed doing it but only in small bursts. Here’s the finished piece:

And here it is next to the original photo. I like the way it goes from representational to abstract.

This time round the mini quilt benefitted from some of the previous courses I’ve taken. Especially learning the Secrets of Circles at QU with Myrna Giesbrecht. I have some nice “roses” on the back of the piece so that the seams lie nice and flat:

The points aren’t too bad on the front either. Also as a result of the same class.

My next activity for the C&G course was reverse appliqué. I’ve done some on the machine before, but not by hand. Instead of just basing the design on one of my images of lines I decided to make something a bit more challenging. My first place to look for inspiration was the book 1000 Patterns by Drusilla Cole. I’ve mentioned this book before on here. It’s a book I am always referring to. The chrysanthemums in the Japanese section first caught my eye, but then I saw the daffodil in the index. As they are my favourite spring flower and are just starting to come out here in Frankfurt (but not yet in Schmitten!) I changed my mind. Here are my first sketches from last weekend:

During the week I did some browsing around the web and came across these drawings of daffodils. These were another source of inspiration. I also came to the conclusion from looking at some stencils on the web that my original sketches were too complicated. I was fixated on making lines with the reverse appliqué instead of shapes. Having realised that, my final design became much easier to sew.

Here is the finished design:

When my final sketch was finished I realised that I hadn’t really left enough space between the shapes for the edges to be turned under when sewing. So when I traced the design onto vellum to make my template I moved them all out a bit to make room. I used a 2B pencil to trace the design onto the green fabric. I prefer using pencil to the coloured marking pencils. It washes out well, takes a good point and they are a darn sight cheaper than the “quilters marking pencils” I usually don’t have trouble seeing the pencil lines on most fabrics.

The actual sewing went quickly. I was finished in one evening. No thick paint layer to get the needle through!

And here’s a view of the back so that you can admire my stitching

When I started module 3 and was looking at the activities that were coming up, I thought what a coincidence it was, as I had just been reading about broderie perse at womenfolk.com. It is one of the techniques I am learning in this module. Take a look at the article at womenfolk.com to learn something about the history of this technique.

Well this weekend I started the activity that is a modern form of broderie perse. First of all I stamped some leaf motifs onto fabric using acrylic paint and my felt leaf stamps. I have often read that acrylic paint alters the hand of the fabric so I was interested to see the effect for myself. Here is a photo of the stamped motifs.

After they had dried the fabric did feel quite stiff, but as the next step was to iron “wonder under” or Vliesofix, as it’s called here in Germany, onto the fabric it really didn’t matter much. The bonding glue makes the fabric stiff too.

I had originally in mind to make a kind of autumn wreath on some yellow ochre coloured fabric from one of my dyeing classes. I pulled out the fabric in all the gradations and auditioned the cut out leaves. It wasn’t quite right so I though I’d try some of the various green fabrics that I have dyed. As I was looking for them I found the monoprinted fabrics from module 2 and one of those seemed just the right choice. Here is the current state of play:

I am now embroidering around the edges of the leaves in blanket stitch using 2 strands of stranded embroidery thread. I could have done it by machine as mine does a quite reasonable blanket stitch, but I felt like doing some hand embroidery. It is quite hard work though - getting the needle through 2 layers of fabric, acrylic paint and the bonding glue! I’ve done about a third so far and I do think it will be worth the effort. You’ll have to wait for the next post to see the results

One of my activities for the C&G course has been causing me pain. I was to take a shape and use it to create a design with bonded appliqué. At the same time I was to think about the colours I was using. In a previous activity I took photos of shapes around the house. I was really supposed to use one of these shapes but I wasn’t coming up with any inspiration.

I still hadn’t any idea what I was going to do for this exercise when I saw a photo in a magazine of an elephant in India wearing ceremonial garments. Part of the design on the robe was using the paisley motif. So I thought I would use that for my shape. Then I had the idea to use one of the pieces from the previous modules as my background fabric. I thought of the piece with the curved piecing. When I pulled it out I saw the 4 petalled motif on one of the fabrics and realised that this should be my shape. So I traced the shape off the fabric and made templates of the larger and smaller shape. As for the colours I picked out the gold of the printed design to use for the shapes. I cut them from some hand dyed fabric scraps that I had. The red one was originally going to be green, but that didn’t work so it became red!

As the motifs are quite small I used a narrow zig-zag stitch for the outline. I have used other decorative stitches on my machine on projects but they would have been too wide here. I originally outlined the yellow shape with the red centre with red stitching, but didn’t like that effect either so I ripped it out and replaced it with yellow.

It was quite a tortuous path to get to this result but I like the finished result and like the fact that I was able to do something more with the curved piecing sample.