comments and controversy

Typically I have peaks and troughs of work depending on my creative streak  but I do remember the words of a very wise if not fashionable philosopher .... Gene Simmons from Kiss.... he said you can sit and wait for inspiration or you can just shut the ..... up and work .. as long as you are working you are doing something but don;t expect something brilliant to come out of nowhere . This seems fair enough to me .



This is a statement I make about myself .

My work
My words. My belief .

When you put yourself into a public forum be aware it will turn and bite your backside at some point .

Don;t go out there and ask to be judged if you can't take the judgement

Don;t go on X factor if you can't sing sort of thing

SO when you make and post or make and sell or make and exhibit be ready for someone to turn around and go............... "Meh .. not my thing"

They have NOT said they are going to scream yr name around town as some wierdo  or felon,  They have NOT said all your work is terrible and you should give everything you have to charity /goodwill... and never make again ...   They have not threatened members of yr family.

They have expressed an OPINION

now as am as I am aware that within the UK  and probably that within the USA and Canada , Australia .. well.................. you lot have funny rules .... but we'll let you play on this occasion ....

that asl ong as you do not threaten , threaten to harm, threaten to overthrow a government ( shaky ground here )  not are deliberately libellous  then you can express yr opinion and be free to do so ....

Many won;t like you for it but then again that's life

So where am I going with this .... well  would you believe a quilt has raised this topic ... this quilt won Best in Show hence typed BIS  at the Modern Quilt Guild  QuiltCON .... now whoever thought QUILTCON  was good name really was taking the piss ... I;ve had it thrown at me that yes Modern Quilting is a CON !!  Tempting though it is to bite at that you rise above it ... you hope ...

So anyway BIS was a "reworking of wedding ring in some highly unusual colour combination.

Now until I opened my big chops ... all I had read and heard was ohhhhhhh it;s marvellous ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh so wonderful.... so unique............... the quilting was amazing ....

OK you had your say and I will now have mine and you can agree , disagree  whatever but yr opinion is yours and I WILL have mine .



That quilt was a mess .. a hot mess ...  such a mess I refuse ot even show it's image but you can go look on the Bernina site or the Gen Q site ...

MQG is trying to raise it;s profile to raise appeal and awareness.... I don;t think that quilt helped at all .

The initial appeal of MQG was accessible , clean , fresh approaches almost heading into a minimalistic pared down ... clean  from farm to fork.. designed at home , cut and pieced and quilted at home ... quilting by cheque ohh come on ....

Elizabeth Hartman was helping us all  get to grips with free motion quilting .... funky ideas , Red pepper was bright and vibrant piecing to give rippling colour , film in the fridge was super simple but let fabrics sing .... all done by the individual.... so what happened MQG what happened ???

Now I had a chat with a friend who is an artist ... a well known artist .... and they said ...... it might be the Emperors New Clothes... everyone is so scared of not getting it that they say they do get it ... like a class f kids and a physics forces lecture... all look mystified but won;t own up to being completed baffled. .... yup i am baffled.  Maybe my science and tech and medicine background has cleared out any Arts empathy I might have .

so if you feel the need ot clarify please do so on the back of a $50 note and send to me in the UK /

AHA!!!!

 

Yes it is a while since I last blogged and that is because .... if your blogging yr NOT sewing

 

and I love to sew . So I made a decision to sew more and type less . SO here you go and it;s a big one with an update and tutorial at the end . so start reading ..

 

My Baby and her Bear ears a lovely Xmas pressie from her friend in Ireland.

 

So anyway it has been a few months of production . I spent more time sewing both for Stash bee ,y swaps on sew swappit and a number f quilt tops .

 

This little creation was made for my friend Nancy in Tennessee . Nancy is a gun toting , mooonshine sipping, wonder woman . She adores her grand daughter Addi and she makes superb tutus and bags/totes. Therefore Nancy and I did our own swap. She made me a tote and i made her  a pair of pillow covers in my funky free motion edge styler .

 We went for bunting/flags and kites and flowers

One in lemons and oranges and one in purples and turquoise adorable

Soon it will be MY turn on STASH BEE and lord it seems to have taken forever . Really ... really long time ..............really long time . I am the last one and I am desperately hoping people won;t drop out . We have lost a whole pile of people and the less charitable side of me would say some pretty direct things about taking the michael . ie taking blocks early on and dropping out . disgraceful . 

 But anyway ... my choice will be the SWOON block

This is using the 5inch charm square as the template and only a couple of blocks need trimming by half an inch .  so if you;re in the bee then get ready and get yr seam placements in place .

 This block offers so many lovely colour combos so we will Be using white as our base /neutral .

Anyway the above Swoon went into pillow /cushion which went ot my swappit partner

I made several of these and loved them all .

I made this one with one of my fav fabrics of all time ...

Jeanean Morrison picnic parade .

Ahhhh grandmas garden a commission quilt for a special lady . 

daughter at my bernina ! I must love her to let her loose on this 

This flying geese pillow cover . Made in a couple of hours . No problemo . 

This is the lovely Shea and and Ryan  who we got to meet before New Year .

Shea was my fabric "mule" lol and brought me my XMas gift .

 



SO i have made a whole pile of new tops to be quilted . I faffed I did stuff and left them in the boxes for weeks....ok ... months .... so I made a blue and lemon rai lfence I did wonder how best to quilt this and I sat for days loking and thinking ... then i put it back in the box... I didn't like the back sheet ... I didn't like my ideas I was truly in a funk ... a right temper really .

 

SO it sat there for nearly 3 months I made other stuff and did otehr things I made swaps I cooked I went to work I spent hours on skype talking to friends in USA  and on phone to Germany ... I jsut avoided it .

 



 I received an email from Justhands tv to come and do a talk /.presentation on modern quilting so i had to run up some examples of negative or neutral spacing . This one is ultra min mod ... a simple log cabin style parred down to the absolute minimum ... this wil lbe line quilted with occasional accents of colour line quilting ...  lets see how it comes out

 

 

 

Oh Swoon again !! This time in aqua and peacock ... Lovely and this one I hand quilted.

 

 

 My 2nd sample for JusthandsTV  is a remake of a moda bake shop pattern ...

ON the website this is made with all the arrows facing in one direction ( screaming teenager moment ?)  I do not do............... normal . I don;t do pastel I don;t do floral  rose garden trad ... ewrr no . I like strong colour strong design ethic etc ... I therefore made the blocks using a simply colour jelly roll .... went for opposite sides of the colour wheel .

 

I then spaced these with a couple of breaks in the pattern and then ....I thought hang on lets sling one completely out of sync... I share a birthday with Clint Eastwood  and i always remember his films with the orangutan and the orangutan was called Clyde so in honour of Clyde I name this quilt

RIGHT TURN CLYDE ! 

 

Quilting to be decided .

 my blocks for Jan Stash bee . Sent

 

 In grandmas garden is a custom made quilt for Doris Merrit who makes special scarves for serving troops in Iraq and Afghanistan . This is for her grandaughter and will be a special 1st birthday gift .

My baby turned 11 !! So we took her to have her hair done for her party .... I still don;t think her father has recovered .



A special picture pillow/cushion for my friend Catherine . Her fav pic of her girls printed onto special fabric and then built into a simple pillow .... it was lovely . 

Stash bee FEb sent

 

 



THe FQ swap challenge requires us to receive 5 FQ and make something from them .. I received a pack of 18!!!

Well the fabric is peacock and so I decided on a quilt to reflect the peacock theme . The blocks in simple log cabin style build and they will Be tempered with blocks of embroidery  and other bits . 

This is the quilting on the tail of the main peacock block . tiny tiny tiny 

 One day out in a tiny town near the coast i came across this piece of linen. Printed with those lovely blousy poppies it jumped into my shopping basket . I brought it home and quilted it wit my sulky threads and made a pillow cover . This has been sold to raise funds for Keeping Cadence . My thanks to Rosalyn for supporting KCoL

 

This tropical scrappy has gone to Mauritius as a gift for my friends brothers child . It is a lovely vibrant tropical little cot/lap quilt . simply quilted and bound in a vibrant coral colour 

 I angelled up for our Feb swap and made this wonky star to go to New Zealand . Made in an hour Loved it .

 

The purple sweet 16 birthday gift to go to a friend of my daughter. This has taken quite a while . but it is finally completed . 

A sweet mini blanket for grandaughter of work colleague . free motion free edge applique . sweet .

 



 Te quilted out wonky star .

 Photo pillow for grandmother .

 

 Calypso ... lovely

 

 The detail of the applique blanket .

 So this appeared again ...... and I changed the backsheet ..... and then decided on

"SKYLINE" quilting ... it looks like the skyline of an imaginary city . It;s really sweet and I am extremely pleased.

My love of pezzie prints is known  and I bought a layer cake and made this ,,.,,  I love this .....

so I ripple quilted it adding lots of texture and seeing how the print sat back once the sewing went in ..



 The backsheet is a cotton duvet cover and it has provided me with 6 back sheets in total .. Very pleased adding colour and motion to the rear of my quilts at a good price .

 

 

 My Stash bee blocks for March ...

 My swap it starter bag which i decided i was keeping this is made of foundation pieced selve edges ...

boy thats a lot of sewing . But I put a wide gusset in to give me the width i wanted   and the pleated the top .. to stop it gaping so much ... I love this and have used it already .

 This is a chevron pieced medium kids quilt . This is to go to a colleague at work who is expecting a baby soon . Well it will as long as she is nice to me ... if she isn't I am keeping it hahahahah .

 

The cityscape quilt got bound today ! hoorah another one off he list.

 

So I decided that if i wasn't going to send my selvedge bag i had ot make something nice ... so I chose

CATHEDRAL window... but with a twist .

 

as you can see a shot of vibrant coloured "glass" peeping from the lead of the window.

A tut was requested.  so here goes.

 

 

 

you need 4 squares. These are 3 inch square . you need one "backing" square 1 colour"glass" square and 2 "leaded" squares .

 

 

 

here we go .  you lay the "glass" over the mounting square .

 

you can sew or tack these if you wish .

 

 

 

 

You then fold the remaining 2 squares in half on the diagonal  still with me ????

 

You lay them over the "glass" and pin in place .. I have done the sewing with contrast thread to show you more cleanly ... you can sew y hand or machine the choice is yours .e

 

 

Stitch 1.4 inch from edge ...  there you can see in the centre a little peeping shot of colour or "glass"

 

 

Now the clever bit ... you gently fold back the edge covering the material

 

see there it is .....

 

pin and then either hand sew or you can top stitch by machine . I like machine for things like bags etc.  it looks rather ike a beautifully stitched navy blazerwith a sparkly shirt underneath ,.....I love it .

You make as many of these as you want and arrange in whatever arrangement you prefer ....

I like the trad "flower" type . but i suspect this would look amazing in monochrome ... in a mod styling ... I'd love to see.