Sew2Speak » Quilting

Paper patchwork

Ruth — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 19:56:06 +0000

There wasn’t anything particular that caught my attention in the last week to merit a sketchbook page, so I returned to my roots as it were and made a little patchwork from paper. The design was inspired by quilt patterns that I have seen that remind me of pathways or trails. One was called the Oregon Trail that I found a few years ago now on a website that no longer appears to exist. Another is the blended triangle pattern from Barbara Dieges.

My little paper quilt doesn’t quite form a trail. There wasn’t enough space on a double page and I didn’t have the patience to cut my triangles any smaller, but I am quite pleased anyway with the result. I like traditional quilt blocks, but put together with a twist. I haven’t ever made a full sized bed quilt. I keep thinking I might, but then some other idea takes precedence and the traditional quilt never gets made.

That is actually not quite the truth. The first quilt I ever made was back at the end of the 1970s. I hand pieced a double bed sized quilt using the English paper piecing method and the grandmother’s flower garden pattern. As I’d never seen a patchwork quilt at the time I didn’t know it should have three layers so mine was just lined with curtain lining and didn’t have a proper binding on it. In fact it started out as a single bed quilt, but I got married before I’d finished it so it grew into a double bed quilt. I still have it, but the curtain lining shrank so it doesn’t lie flat any more. Another thing I didn’t know then, was that it’s good idea to wash your fabric first!

So here’s my little paper quilt. I was interested in getting some texture into the pattern by using different images torn from a magazine. The other thing I like is the contrast between dark and light as in the log cabin patchwork block, so I was experimenting with light and dark triangles.

Colour Vortex

Ruth — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 13:46:00 +0000

Well a 2 1/2 year journey has come to an end. I finished my final assessment piece for my C&G Certificate last weekend. We had to wait until this weekend to get some decent light for photographing as I only sewed the last stitch in the evening of Easter Monday.

I have to admit that when the quilt top was finished I didn’t feel as happy about the outcome as with my Reflections piece. Although I had done what I set out to do, I felt a slight sense of disappointment. I think the Reflections quilt is a very powerful design and making a direct comparison is probably unfair. Reflections has a direct visual impact, but there are not so many details to surprise and delight when you get in close.

Colour Vortex

Colour vortex has a visual impact that is perhaps not so instantly compelling, but I think the quilt has more details to discover when you move in closer. You only discover then that the piecing comprises hexagons and triangles (albeit not straight-edged) and that these piece together to form stars. The quilting is discernible as writing from a distance, but to read all the text you need to get in closer, because the colour of the threads is chosen to fade into either the light or dark fabric.

I could still improve on the quality of my quilted writing, but my piecing is very accurate, my hand sewing is tidy and hardly visible. I achieved the effects I wanted in the composition – the colours increase in saturation as they move in towards the focal point. The rings of colour are well matched so that the shades of colour do form cohesive rings. I enjoy the slight imperfections around the black circle as I believe this adds some tension to the design without which it would be too bland and predictable.

I gave myself a challenge with this piece. I attempted things I hadn’t done before – like the quilted writing – instead of staying within my comfort zone. I think I have shown that I understand the use of colour and can accurately evaluate the values of colours. I could have taken an easier option and produced a quilt that was of a higher standard of workmanship in all areas, but I chose the learning experience over familiarity.

Summing up, this quilt is one that will stand up to closer scrutiny (despite having one error in the quotes, that I noticed too late and chose to leave in, as attempting to remedy it would have left lasting marks on the quilt top) and can stand on its own merits next to Reflections.

Within the next few days I shall be adding a gallery of photos for this quilt. Come back later a take a closer look!

Quotes and quilting

Ruth — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 19:22:04 +0000

I have decided what to do about the quilting on my hexagon spiral. I’ve collected lots of neat quotes about colours and am going to quilt them onto the quilt. It’s not something that I’ve done before so I thought I’d better get some practice in first.

This was my first attempt – a bit wobbly.

The second attempt was better. I fished out my quilting gloves and reread the advice in Heirloom Machine Quilting by Harriet Hargrave. She recommends trying quilting barefoot. It was a bit cold for that, so I left my socks on It does seem to make a difference though. I also upped the machine speed a bit.

I wasn’t very happy with the Rs though, especially at the end of words. I couldn’t figure a neat way of joining up to the next word without having great loops in between. Back to the internet and more research on handwriting styles. I changed to using cursive script because it always takes the letters back down to the baseline (with a few exceptions such as v and w). After a bit of practice with pencil and paper and tracing over the letters on school worksheets (!) I did some more practice quilting. This time on curved guidelines because I want to quilt along the spirals on the quilt. You can see I wasn’t as focussed today – I got some of the quotes wrong. I’ve been feeling a bit spaced out all day. I did remember to cross all the Ts though, which I didn’t on the previous samples.

I think the Rs are a big improvement. I changed to using cursive Ss too.

You can see on the last image I’ve changed how I am marking the guidelines too. I didn’t want to have to wash the quilt after I’ve finished all the quilting so using pencil lines or some other kind of marker pen wasn’t an option. I’ve used my dressmaker’s tracing wheel to imprint the guidelines onto the quilt sandwich. I don’t possess a Hera marker, which is the official way of doing it. I think you could use the blunt side of a knife too. I wouldn’t recommend marking up too much at once though, since I don’t think the lines would remain visible for too long if you have to scrunch the quilt up to get it under the harp of your machine.

Quilts 1700 – 2010

Ruth — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 20:55:00 +0000

I’ve written before about the exhibition Quilts 1700 – 2010 that will open on Saturday at the V&A Museum in London. This last week the Guardian has had some interesting articles about it. Lucky journalists who get to see a preview of the exhibition before the madding crowds get there.

And madding crowds there probably will be according to this review:

Already, it is one of the museum’s most successful exhibitions, with 8,000 advance ticket sales; quilting groups from the US, Australia and Japan have made block-bookings with local hotels.

Germaine Greer has her own take on it here – mostly autobiographical, but she does mention the exhibition in the last paragraph!

If I am underwhelmed at the prospect of a show of quilts at the V&A in London, it may be because nobody cared to rescue the great textile heritage left us by hundreds of tribal peoples. The great resources of the rich nations have been used instead to preserve work that isn’t a patch on it.

It’s worth reading some of the comments too. She still manages to stir up emotions.

And finally you can get a sneak preview of some of the quilts here.

Reflections quilt is finished

Ruth — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 16:29:01 +0000

I sewed the quilt label onto the back of the quilt in the afternoon of New Year’s Eve as the final task to completion. So I did complete it in 2009. It wasn’t particularly my goal to finish in the old year, but it was a nice way to close the quilting year for me.

Looking back I see that I started the work on this quilt in mid August 2009. It has been more than 4 months in the making, which is the longest of any of my pieces to date – I think even longer than my CHF piece, although I spent more of my free time working on that piece. However it has been time well spent. I have learned a number of valuable lessons and have produced a finished piece that I believe has pushed out the boundaries of what I can achieve. It has been a valuable step on the road to finding my own creative voice.

I am very pleased with the way the wall hanging turned out. It is how I imagined it to be in my mind’s eye. It is also a piece that reflects my personal style, which I think I am becoming more clear about as the course progresses. I like the more abstract, geometric type of design. Although I like looking at figurative artwork, it is not something that appeals to me from the personal design and creation aspect. I am happy that I managed to find a theme that is based on natural world (as the assessment brief stated), but that I have been able to use to fit my own style.

I used a new to me technique for binding the quilt and have found a new and valuable technique to add to my tool box. I was particularly pleased to have learnt this technique, because it produces a good sturdy edge (as Marie my tutor had told me) and allows one to achieve an excellent finish without having the additional element of a binding in the design. With my wall hanging I don’t feel that a traditional binding would have been an appropriate finishing for the quilt. I found a really useful tutorial on this technique by Brenda Gael Smith over at Serendipity Patchwork and Quilting. A big thank you to Brenda for her generous sharing of experience.

Please take the time to look at some more images of my quilt in the gallery. I wrote a little about the process of creating the quilt there too.

Wandsworth Prison Quilt

Ruth — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 18:42:14 +0000

I first read about the quilt being made by the prisoners in the high security wing of Wandsworth Prison in the Autumn edition of the magazine Intelligent Life. You can read the article here online.

It has turned up in the news again on Times Online, as the newspaper is supporting the charity Fine Cell Work in its Christmas Charity Appeal, that is involved in the production of the quilt.

The quilt is to go on display in the V&A Museum in London in the Quilts exhibition that is to run from 20 March – 4 July 2010. The exhibition will show British quilts from 1700 to the present day and will show quilts from the V&A textile collection not usually on display. Sounds like it will be worth a visit, if one is in London.

First pieces stitched together

Ruth — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 20:00:12 +0000

Having said that I was going to make a start on the quilt top I had to get into the studio at the weekend. It was raining and cold and generally a miserable autumn day so there was not much incentive for putting one’s nose outside the door. In fact I don’t think I did all weekend.

I’ve done the first couple of rows and so far things are looking good. Maybe I won’t have to paint over the browns after all.

This shows the complete width of the quilt. I’ve started at the top.

This is the top left hand corner. The brown looks fine here I think.

Big clue

Ruth — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 15:30:03 +0000

Well no-one came up with any ideas as to what my wall hanging was going to be, so here is another big clue.

The full size cartoon for the wall hanging is rather daunting and is up on my design wall looking at me accusingly. Today I decided that avoiding it was not going to be a productive strategy and sat down and made the half size colour cartoon. I think I am in avoidance mode because I’m not at all sure now how to go about making this. I know I should be sampling now, but just don’t seem to be able to get started. None of my ideas seem to fit to the shapes that I now have in the design.

I am thinking in terms of selecting an area of the design and then trying out various ways of piecing it. My ideas are:
- to try out “half square triangles”, but now with curving sides
- to try out strip pieced diamonds, again now with curved sides
- to try just cutting out the shapes as they are and sewing them together
Should I be doing the sampling at full size or half size? I hate to use up loads of material on sampling so I sometimes do a smaller piece than the finished item. But maybe here I should be doing it all full sized. I don’t know. Any suggestions? I’m just dithering about here finding excuses to do something else

Here is the colour scheme. I am still intending to do some shibori dyeing for the background – hence the marks on the background pieces.

Trapunto and corded quilting

Ruth — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 17:15:17 +0000

Last weekend was gorgeous weather – too good to spend in the studio. I did some gardening instead and then sat out and surveyed my efforts. It seemed like a good time to do some hand sewing, so I made a start on the next activity for the C&Gs course, which was to make a sample of trapunto and corded quilting. I chose to combine both samples in one design. The inspiration for the design came from browsing through my book on textile designs. A Japanese fabric with a butterfly design caught my fancy. I also remembered a needlepoint pattern I have with a butterfly as the central motif. (I’ve actually made the cushion cover in needlepoint) So that was the basis for my sketch.

I decided to go with the left hand side for my actual sample. I used medical gauze for the backing and was able to open the weave enough to get little holes that enabled me to stuff out the shapes with little pellets of batting that are sold for stuffing toys.
I used my hemostats for getting the batting in through the holes. They came into their own again for this task. It was quite difficult to get the threads to close back over the holes though, so maybe making a small slit and then sewing it closed again is the better option. I used some thick cotton knitting yarn for my cording and that went in like a dream. For an impatient person corded quilting is definitely the method of choice for quick results

Here are a few more photos.

A new twist on tradition

Ruth — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 17:58:51 +0000

Here is another piece of my coursework for C&Gs. I had to produce a patchwork block using inserts. My first thoughts were along the lines of flowers, which is what most people seem to do. But then I decided to try to interpret a traditional block using inserts. When I made my sampler from a pillowcase I used some rectangular inserts that are folded in half to make a square, which is then inserted between two square patches. The insert can then be opened out to look like triangles. So I chose a block that was based on half square triangles and made it up using inserted rectangles instead. You have to choose a block which has the two half triangles side by side to make one larger one. I found about 15 blocks that would have been suitable and chose to do one called the mosaic block. As the edges of the inserted triangles are then on the bias you can fold them back like the cathedral window blocks. It is very quick to make. Much faster than sewing the block using HSTs. Of course it does take a bit of time to hand sew the edges of the triangles down, but if you wanted to you could use the blind hemming stitch on your machine.