Journal Quilt 2009 November

Despite planning to tackle the JQ this month as early as possible it has taken me till now to finally make it, although the idea had been finalized in my mind at the beginning of the month.

I have just started another large quilt and was rather carried away by my piecing. A sort of frency seems to overtake me once I start and I do have to tell myself to go a bit slower at times as otherwise I would be at it day and night.So it was hard to put that aside for the time being to start work on my Journal Quilt but all the advance thinking paid off in that I only had to search for the necessary materials to make it into a reality.

As I'm sure you all know by now the Journal Quilts this year are sized 6 x 12" (either horizontally or vertically), are made for the Contemporary Group of the Quilters' Guild of the British Isles, and mine are all dedicated to the Edwardian music hall artist Marie Studholme.

Ebay is still tempting me with more vintage cards featuring her, that are not in my possession yet and I've used a recent acquisition for this JQ. It shows Marie with another of her marvelous hats in a circular shape and I digitally altered her from black/white into purple. This was to tone her in with the fabric paper background I had made for her (and also used for the Napkin ATC swap shown in an earlier post recently). I printed her out on an organza fabric sheet (from Crafty Computer Paper) so that you can see the background vaguely through the image. She was added using Bondaweb (Wonderunder in U.S.) and also zig-zag stitched on and beaded around the edges. This collage was then stitched onto the previously machine quilted background (using a furnishing fabric) and added beaded around the edges. The finishing touches were one large vintage button, 8 smaller purple buttons and the text : "be my intended" at the top, with beading around the edges.

All the JQs this year are finished with transparent ribbon around the edges, this month is was purple, and I will put them all together into one large quilt when they're all done!

Beautiful scarf

I went to a talk by Lauren Crawford yesterday at our local branch of the Embroiderers' Guild in Peebles. She is a graduate of Duncan of Jordanstone in Dundee and is now getting established as a designer and maker of hand woven textiles. Her inspiration is Venice and the wonderful colours of that place can be identified in her absolutely stunning weavings. As you can see in my banner and background to this blog Venice is also very close to my own heart and Lauren has captured it in her own way and medium beautifully!

Needless to say the scarves proved too much to resist as far as I am concerned and here is a scan of a detail of the one I purchased, shown here with Lauren's permission.

Check our her website for more information and pictures of her work. She's only 24 and I'll bet her work will be finding it's way all over the world before too long!

Gladioli

I feel like I'm neglecting you! Two whole days without a blog! It usually means I'm beavering away in my studio although today I did venture out to the Borders Bookshop and Hobbycraft to sort out some Xmas presents, while slipping a few beading magazines in my basket at the same time!

But I don't want to leave you (or myself!) without inspiration so here are some pictures of gladioli that I took in Kailzie Gardens during my mother's visit in September. They are quite old-fashioned flowers but the colours simply are stunning, so soft and romantic!

Star Madonna Ornament

I've uploaded the tutorial for this Christmas ornament on the Alpha Stamps Yahoo Group so it's only fair that I'm showing it to you here. And after all as someone mentioned to my horror on the television yesterday:" there are only 6 weeks left till Christmas". How did that happen??

How does such a regularly occurring event manage to catch me by surprise each and every year? Perhaps because if I'm honest with myself I really don't like Christmas at all, not the food, not the artificial trees, not all the shopping in very busy shops. There seems remarkable little Peace on Earth about wherever you go. So much for my grumbling!!!

Here are the instructions for the star and let's all try to bring some Serenity to our lives somehow!

Start with a white background fabric and layer this with Fast2Fuse interfacing by ironing (following the manufacturer's instructions, always a good idea!). Add strips of lace and fancy yarns in white and silver by couching using your sewing machine and a large zig-zag stitch to hold things in position. When your original fabric is almost completely covered it's time to stop. Now take out your white gesso and a large brush. Water down your gesso a bit and spread it out all over your background. Let dry.

Find a star shape you like, and trace to the back of the Fast2Fuse and cut out the star. Iron on another fabric to the other side of the Fast2Fuse and finishe the edges of the star by zig-zag stitching using a silver thread. Make a hole at the top of the star (I used my Crop-a-Dile) and thread through a thin blue transparent ribbon (available from Alpha Stamps) and knot at the top.

Using a mega bottle cap (again from Alpha Stamps), layer a piece of background of your choice in the back of the cap. Mine was stamped with a large snowflake stamp (from Alpha Stamps Snow Clear Stamp set). Cut out the Madonna image from Alpha Stamps Mega Cap Madonna Collage Sheet and glue onto the background as shown. Add the text (Serenity) from a Judikins Transfer Sheet by following the instructions enclosed with the sheet. Glue on a silver snowflake charm. Add size 11 blue seed beads around the edges by glueing. Add a layer of Glossy Accents to the bottle cap and let dry.

When dry make 2 holes on opposite sides on the bottom of the cap and use these to stitch the bottle cap to the star, using a size 11 seed bead. Also make a hole on the bottom edge of the cap and add the pendant, which was made with a blue pearl, a blue bead pendant and silver wire, and hang from this hole.

Also make 2 holes on either side of the star and add a pendant on either side. The pendant was made using a blue transparent bead, a silver snowflake charm and silver wire.

Napkin ATC Swap

How could I possible resist an ATC swap on the ATCsforAll site with as its theme napkins, that have to be used somewhere on your card. Sadly I somehow managed to miss the preceding napkin swap but as I already have enough paper napkins to have about 10.000 people to dinner (not that I would ever contemplate such a thing!) there was no problem finding a napkin. The difficulty came in making a choice from such a wide selection. But at the top of my gigantic plastic box with all the napkins I found a beautiful purple one which I was given during my visit to the Borders Textile Group several weeks ago.

It was meant to go with my lovely lunch but of course as soon as I saw it, I knew I could not possibly use it for such a mundane purpose, so I whipped it into my handbag surreptitiously! I love the look of those gorgeous purple daisies and they were the prime ingredient in one of my fabric-paper collages which served as the background for these ATCs

I added some beautiful purple Dresden scrap in a circular shape to the cards (from Paperwhimsy) and added a fabric image on top ( from Alpha Stamps The Court of Flora fabric collage sheet). I added size 11 purple seed beads around the image as well. Suitable summer-like vintage quotations were glued on and an additional flower bead (Alpha Stamps) was added with a size 11 seed bead.

Finally the edges were zigzag stitched with purple thread by machine. Of course I made 4 for the swap and one for me to keep that can be seen above. It's lovely to make some landscape orientated cards now and again. Most of mine tend to be portrait, just like my quilts.

A leaf in time

After our brief cold spell, autumn proper has returned. The cold has had an amazing effect on the leaves laying on the ground. Black spots have been added to the heady mix of oranges, browns and yellows. What a beautiful example of nature making patterns.

The colours brought to mind a Journal Quilt I made back in 2004 (and thus never shown on this blog as I did not start blogging till 2006). The detail shows velvets, transparent scarf fabric and cotton in autumn shades, combined with hand stitching. The cockerel of that time (now gone to chicken heaven long ago) also figures as well as the resident phaesant.

It's hard to believe that life before blogging actually existed. My blog has become an integral part of my life and I spend a lot of time during the day thinking about what to give centre stage to in the next blog post. My camera is almost glued to my hand so that I can preserve anything that grabs my attention during the day. Together with many other advantages the blog has taught me to really LOOK, THINK and PUT INTO WORDS whatever life brings on any given day!

Winter has arrived!

And it came in with full force. It was -7 degrees Celsius last night! Not sure what that is in Fahrenheit but definitely cold!! Everything outside was frozen solid and a low mist hung over the entire landscape. You could only see about 10 M in any direction so when I walked the dogs I was amazed to see 2 deer suddenly looming up out of the gloom. They were equally shocked to see me and scarpered quick fast into the forest so no pics alas! Just a greyhound going mad on her lead.

But I did catch the mist before it lifted. I was further amazed to see a stoat who performed a merry dance in our courtyard before disappearing, again before I could grab my camera. But I caught him (or her??!!) in my mind's eye instead. All in all a beautiful day filled with nature's wonders.