Bank Holiday

So here it is. My grandad's pillow cases. The cotton is so soft and cool to touch. Can I really cut it up? Gulp.



I sifted through the enormous scrap bag I have. I have decided that I have to use some scraps with every quilt just to get it down a bit. I think doing a small hexagon quilt will help reduce the mountain, but that's a long way off. For now, I have just pulled out a few things including a great stripey sheet I got from Emmaus with Ray for £1!



I opened Kim's bundle I bought which I always hate doing as it never looks as perfect again.

I really am on a roll here!



I even started laying it out. All I need to do is start sewing!

Maybe I'll just do some gardening on the terrace first. Prepare myself and decide which kind of quilt I am going to make! I might just start and see what happens. Not much of a plan I know...

Worn and Washed

So Mum and I decided to go to see Kim's show. We are huge fans after having done the day course Kim offers. It's just such a lovely concept, All these faded soft fabrics; favourite old sheets, soft shirts, brushed cottom pyjamas; all reused and put together in bundles which you can just make into simple strip quilts. We were quite excited about the show as Olney is a very beautiful place and I have finally worked out how to use the sat nav.

In the end mums 'crew' who all gang together and go on road trips to shows and shops decided to join us and off we went in Angela's bright red mini, whizzing down country lanes in the fens, sneezing at the oil seed rape fields which were in full bloom.



I was a bit sad we weren't doing the class again as it was a lovely venue and would have been a great day to just dedicate to a project. The show itself was lovely. There was a great array of quilts made my people using Kim's bundles, all of which looked really soft and handmade. If you're not familiar with Worn and Washed, here is a rundown.

Here is a classic bundle



Here is the classic strip quilt you can make really quickly



And that's all there is to it! But the exhibition showed what people had done to take the idea that one step further. It was really great to see what it could all lead on to.

Here are a few of the things I really liked



I think the quilt on the left by Ruth Eglinton is lovely. I love the mixture of blocks and applique. The colours are also very faded and lovely. I am thinking I might ask Kim to see if there is a pattern available or else I will try and work it out myself. I even like the slight puffiness of the quilting. I am not sure how you achieve that effect, perhaps merely by washing it lots.



I also really liked Liz Tew's quilt, which you can't quite see as it has quilts on top of it but I didn't want to touch the display as it was so perfect. It seemed pretty simple. Just long rows of three up strips with white white strips which had been quilted with hearts.



I loved all the washed out tones, the use of stripey sheets and the whiteness of it. It's also a great chance to do some more Durham quilting on the white areas. I think I might actually make it!



I bought the roll for this quilt of Kim's below but now I am torn and think I must make Liz's quilt above. Oh I shall probably end up making a mismatch of both and wish I had stuck to one of them. I am so fickle



Here are some other lovely things



This quilt was tiny squares, slightly wonky which just made it seem perfect.



This one was a bit more complicated than the norm but I liked the quilting around the star and mum was quite taken with the button in the middle.


This one reminds me of the Petra Prins quilt kit I have stashed away for a rainy day



I think overall, that I have decided that I like it when the strips are small. I'll probably change my mind though, but this tiny quilt was lovely.



One day, I will dive into the whole Liberty thing. It is so tempting.



I'll stop now. I know I am gushing, but what can I do? Worn and Washed is exactly my kind of thing, whereas a lot of other kinds of quilting isn't always on the mark for me. At heart I am small sprigs of flowery faded fabrics and Little House on The Prarie. I have fought it, but I can't help myself. I always seem to return to it. My mum gave me my grandads old stripy bed linen years ago as it held such lovely memories for me. I can see it in one of these quilts, I have just never had the guts to cut it up. Bank holiday might see the scissors coming out!

Progress

Rachel asked me what I was working on the other day so I thought I would post it up here. The answer is... I am hand quilting the 60° degree Material Obsessions quilt.



After thinking that I would never have to hand tack a quilt together ever again now I had discovered 505 spray glue, I have since come to the conclusion that its gluing properties are very weak and unless you are about to whizz it through a machine, it fails when constantly twisted on the lap over a week or two. I don't mind though. I have been feeling that my quilts were rather too flat; too perfect. I am seeking the puffy scrunchiness of an old-fashioned much loved quilt. A quilt you might find in Bagpuss' house. Although, this traincrash of colours would hardly feature there.



I have decided this is the kind of quilt I would have in my Barbican flat, my Erno Goldfinger flat or my Frank Lloyd Wright house. It is kind of 50s 60s quilt.

Anyway, I went to my local craft shop which is kind of one up from a pound shop. It's the cheaper side of craft equipment which is actually great as there are lots of great things in there. One of the best things is that they stock a full range of Gutterman thread. I just bought some of their cheap thick thread in orange, yellow, turquoise and blue and decided to use all of those randomly on the quilt. The finer, more subtle specific quilting threads I have are all in pale colours and just didn't see to fit. Plus a pool of King Tut is £6, whereas a spool of Guttermans is £1! Mum would probably tell me that there is a very good reason for that... but then she did tell me spray glue was not a good idea. One day I might actually start listening!



Yeah, so every evening I do a little bit more. I would say I am half way almost. It's a huge quilt, but I am doing very big stitches so they show up. All the spirals are just done by eye, well I sketch the next bit with a white pencil so then I can not think about it for a while. The last spirals I did were all traced and measured so this is an experiment. I will line then up side by side and see which is the most successful.

Finished!

So at last the speaker quilt is done. I am free of the task which has been sitting on my list if things to do for what seems like years.



I based it on this lovely Amy Butler quilt really. Although her one is a bit too wonky for my virgoan tendencies.



I did the same as before by sewing an odd patch of buttons on it and using the letter function on the Bernina to write some words associated with its owner. I did them all really badly but I quite like that.





And I also tried some of the other decorative stitches that I never use.

Now that is out of my system, and now that my 'Warm and Natural' wadding arrived from Quilt Direct, I am ready to baste together my big psychedelic quilt this weekend. I am a convert to the spray glue method. I washed my last quilt in the washing machine and it seemed fine so spray glue is cool with me. my mum thinks it takes away from the process, but basting is my least favourite part and is always the moment where I stop a project and out it away forever, so I think, well, you might as well choose not to spend time on the things you don't like.