Tuesday 26 June 2012

Yoooo arrrghhh me hearties and avast all y land lubbers it be pirate day..... no it isn't but it made you think. Can you imagine a day spent where we all ran around doing a Captn Jack Sparrow .. my 10yr old is hilarious especially as she is female and you jsut don;t expext a Cpn sparrow  from someone so small and feminine .

Anyway you may be wondering what I;ve been up to . you might not care quite frankly and yr only interestedi n the patterns and the disaster that is my typing.


WEll ........ for those of you that do give a monkies keep reading. We;re high on tecxt but low on pics

Above we have the teachers quilt . The front top made in the pandoras box style in 8.5 inch finished squares.

THe back is made of the machine filled/embroidered names of the kids in the year names. Each one was given the opportunity to put their name in ..... we got around 75% . not bad.

I have also been commissioned to make a quilt for a 16th birthday gift. Time is tight . THe design and colours are selcted RED AND WHITE !    So far the strips are cut and the ones going to make the central 4 square blocks. I have pressed the,m to open the seams and will do more cutting on Sunday as my week is now CHOCKA with work . I fl,y to Manchester on Thursday at 7am to go to a training meeting and then i have my own clinic on Friday.

Work funds quilting. We have another trip planned ot the guild in September for wadding etc and basics. If we;re lucky.

I am awaiting my next Stash bee challenge block and aim to have it out the door in 7 days of challenge issue.

I am also going to make some laundry tags to go on my bed linen sets. These are simple tasgs that I put on the bags that my bed linen sets in the draws so i know which sets are in use. SO I am making a variety of embroidered nad applique to make the id tags and then simply safety pin to the fabic case I put my setsi n ... Obsessional yes .... smart hell yes . 

I have to embroider significant dateso n the wedding quilt that is due in 6 weeks. I have to locate the dates I have written down ( oops~)  and sit down and decide on the appropriate  font and get them done. Then sew the 4 large blocks togeher and put their back sheet on and bind....

Lets say I have a lot to do and might be fisishing it up the night before the wedding !

anyway me and my jet setting life style I had better get on with it and hope you keep safe and be happy

The road of righteousness is a lonely one ....... be brave and know you have done the right thing.

Love

Raven .

Thursday 7 June 2012

Greeting from Norwich UK and land of FINALLY downloaded pics from my Iphone.
I'm notsure how we coped before technoloogy .. maybe it was photos and letters and scheduled phone calls . NOw it just feels all a bit intense and fast.

SO anyway this friendship briad got completed and sent to Mauritius . This was designed cut and made and quilted within 1 week which is pretty bloody fast even for me.  It looked great with the bright orange binding I put on it.


 This bundle of hairy naughtiness is one of the lights of my life and certainly keeps me on my toes. He is sooooooooooo cute but soooooooooooo naughty .



Right this is the hexagon project I have taken on for a collegue.  It is BIG and HEAVY and a sod to move around and I am a bit scared of quilting it ... It will be done before August this year.


Ah you might remember this top before quilting. Zooming in will let you see the quilting is very simple in a gentle looping pattern that semi resembles medals or balloons . It looksd pretty cute for a Jubillee Olympics combo.

This was my mini quilt FQ challenge quilt in the Sew SWap it group and flew off to USA for delectation.
I have since made one in blues and greens


THe Karate club quilt for ESKA  this was made in a heavier weight cotton to resemmble the gi suits they wearr and the quilting was done in 4/5 lines  to mimic the edges of hte gi. It looked really good with the specially cut logo and the multi binding.

 That cat again .... chasing "can't see ems!"

The special bag and tie made for the karate quilt. THe Japanese  spend as much time wrapping the gift as the gift inside. This looks great and yes I will say so myself.



The next Sew Swap it swap is a sewing companion so after a search and a mutter and a bit of adaptation I made this one above  as a mini to take with me for small sewing  . It has room for scissors , thread and needles and pins ... and tyhen I got silly and made this one ..... for machnes needles and reels of thread and pins and stuff and things and yeah well whatever I jsut got over excited and made it pattern free. OK it;s not perfect but .............. it works .



NOW this one is interesting and you might wnder what has she done .... well this is a block I am submitting to the MQG Quilt con selection for the quilt they arem aking as the main prize.

Quilting is a very visual and touchable art form . THe colour, pattern, texture all make the quilt what it is and quilts are really living usable art .
However QUilts rarely are audible, How do you confer a message with a quilt in an audible method ?
Well I was chatting online with a lovely lady in Colorado  andwe were chatting about sensation and sensory stimuli etc .... and I said hmmmmm braille ..... ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Morse code .

COde a quilt block convey a message using morse code. ?? well yes ... if you do stuff small enough .


So after sitting for an hour drawing up plans ........................ another hour poo pooing them .............. 2 hours tearing my hair out thinking how to best execute this and several failed attemps to do it in the classic postage stamp method I opted to draw this out and then cut and sew each piece. THere is no quick way to do this every piece is cut andsewn individually . I trimmed and tidied and then thought this is going to be wayy to weak in this format and so I have supported it on the rear with feather weight iron on vilene. I have overlocked back seams and now I jsut have to write it;s notes and send it off DHL to USa and see if it makes the grade. . You never know.

 This came about due to a fail on my part making chevron ..... yup so it got adapted and made into a cushion front  to be completed .




Same with this . A simple improve Log cabin block to be made into a cushion cover ( will be anyway )

 ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh the planning sheet. Just to prove I do draw some stuff out .


And now .............. blocks of kids names from my daughters year at school that have been embroidered andp ut into a back for a quilt for their leaving teacher. A nightmare of a job ... now to decide how to quilt the front.

Anyway . Hope you enjoyed the Jubilee bank holiday and seeing our HRH do her thang ! I personally missed it all or most of it anyway . It;s a long long and very tedious story that no one needs ot hear.

Live it like it;s the last 5 mins !

Love

RAVEN xxxxx