Quilt Planning

I am having a bit if fun planning the next quilt for my husband's next great grandson. His sister has given him a name, we're not sure it has parental approval! I won't publish it here.

I'd assembled some fabrics, including at least two from his sisters quilt, and two from their cousin's; I like to feel they have that link, even if the various parents never notice, it pleases me. 

So, blocks chosen, a design on graph paper, just the outlines, scanned into the computer

Copy and paste fills in the gaps for a printable graphic

which can then be coloured in, to plan where each fabric will be used

It's a story about a mouse on an island in a lake surrounded by woods where bears are camping. Tractors are working on the autumn harvest, and there are autumn woodlands to explore

This mockup was done by scanning in my fabrics and using the image of each to fill the shapes of each block. It gives me a better idea of how the colours will work together. Of course the real thing will be much more lively as the various fabrics respond to each other.

And here is the mouse, friend of fox, owl, rabbit and hedgehog on the other two quilts. Perhaps they will all play with each other again one day.

Absent but busy

 It really has been rather a long time since I posted, but I am still here, just been rather busy.

A dear aunt of mine, the last of my paternal aunts, died in April and, as one of two executors, but the one closest to her both geographically and emotionally, I have been dealing with her estate, which is taking some considerable time. I have still been stitching, just not had the energy to post here about what I was doing. I did have a break from this in June when I went with Stitchtopia to Indonesia for two weeks; a fascinating tour, rather spoilt by going down with Covid as soon as I got back. I am still contemplating what I thought of the trip, but will try and post in the other place once my ruminations are done.

My priorities have been twofold; first getting the stitching finished for my part in the lovely book we made to celebrate the life of Christine Chester. This was entered into the Quilt Creations Gallery at FOQ this year, where it garnered much enthusiasm and comment, including from the delightful John J Cole-Morgan of IQuilt Studio who featured it in his live feed on Facebook, calling it “one of the most stunning pieces at Festival”. Liz did us proud in talking about it, having been caught completely on the hop! You'll see a couple of brief glimpses of my finished piece, Moonflowers, as they flick through the book, but also so many of the other lovely artworks which our Studio11+ group created in Christine's memory. I also had the honour of stewarding at Christine’s retrospective gallery. It was such a pleasure to talk to folk about her work, and see how many visitors were deeply touched by the message behind her pieces. One of my favourites is this beautiful sheer image of her Dad using English Paper Piecing and fabrics she created herself using voile and paper lamination (here demonstrated by Claire Benn from whom I suspect Christine learnt the technique she made her own). Don't you just love those echoing shadows on the wall?

My second priority has been making a small floor quilt to welcome the latest great grandchild in my husband’s family. He was born on June 1st and I have just completed the finishing touches. Summer suns and little creatures to greet a summer baby, a couple drawn from his cousin's quilt to create a family link, along with a rabbit and fox to talk to, some mad cats dancing with the birds, and lions and tigers contemplating the fluttering butterflies. It will be given to his parents in late September when we are all meeting up during our annual pilgrimage to the Lakes. 

By then I will hopefully have a third quilt almost finished for his next cousin, who is due in October. What fun "senior cousin" will have with two boys to boss about; she will be just three when her brother is born. This will be the fourth in the series which started back in 2019 with a little girl who is now about to start school! How time flies.

I hope your summer has been productive too

Stitch in Japan

The three highlights of my Japan trip were the indigo dyeing, the gardens and, of course, stitch. We had three stitch experiences; one a workshop with the Japanese quilt artist Noriko Endo, then two visits; one to the magical sashiko museum, tucked away on the mountains to the west of Tokyo and another to the Museum of Quilt Art in Izumo. 

I will start with Noriko Endo, a renowned quilter who is famous for her confetti technique, creating quilt pictures which she calls Impressionist Quilts. These grew from her pondering how to make use of all those little bits of fabric that are the result of traditional quilting, too small to be used elsewhere. We were honoured to take part in a workshop led by her, and I came home with a partially finished picture which bears a vague resemblance to what I was trying to achieve, but entirely without the delicacy of colouring and stitch which her quilts embody.

Here she is showing how she builds up her images using layer upon layer of finely chopped pieces of coloured cloth. Her technique in creating her confetti pieces with narrow strips of fabric and a rotary cutter was amazing to watch, but one felt the need for steel finger tips when trying it out!

Her studio was full of examples of her quilts, which were very reminiscent of the impressionist movement, but with her own Japanese aesthetic and feeling for landscape.

Once we had been shown both her work and how she achieved it, we all sat down at a table where our backing fabric, some wadding, a piece of black fabric, some black net, and our tools were artistically laid out. Great bags of fabric strips separated into colour families awaited us and we gathered bits together and got to work with the cutter, chopping, sprinkling, and layering (keeping fingers out of the way!)

Her assistants were there to help us with the background: little bits of fabric scattered; greens browns and golds for trees; a smattering of ochre and grey for a path running slantways across the middle and more green for grass in front of the path. Once that was achieved a layer of fine black net was laid over the background and we were shown how to cut the piece of black fabric into an approximation of tree trunks and branches. These were positioned on the composition, then Noriko came around with her "little posts of magic": small tubs with very finely chopped scraps of purple, green, orange and black. These were applied by her, and another layer of fine black net pinned carefully down over the whole. Then we stitched the entire piece with invisible thread and a wriggling, meandering vermicelli'ish pattern to immobilise the various bits of fabric beneath their layers of net. The final stage, not completed on the day, is to use machine embroidery to add the shaping and highlights on the boles of the trees so that they look 3D and are blended into the image. 

Here you can see how it should be done

My effort, unfinished, is rather dark and mysterious, but I am hoping that a bit of machine embroidery on the trunks and perhaps some more greens and golds with stitch will bring it slightly closer to a viable image!

A close up of the anchoring stitches

At the end of the workshop we were all pretty happy with what we had managed as compete novices. There was much shoulder rolling, finger wriggling and easing out of kinked necks before, bowing our thanks to our delightful host and her assistants, we took our leave.

The following day we drove out of Tokyo and up into the mountains to visit the sashiko studio of Ginza Akie. Crossing the red bridge we found ourselves in a magical space, surrounded by trees, green growth and early spring blossom. 

Here we were treated to a tour of the museum, crammed full of displays of the most beautiful sashiko stitching on wall hangings, cushions, door curtains and garments. We also watched a video about her life, which told us how, after the breakdown of her marriage, she had used all her courage, resourcefulness and hard work to build up a business reviving the art of sashiko, updating it for the times she was living in and teaching others the skill. 

The sashiko displays were up in some steep stairs in a wonderful warren of little rooms and corridors with steps up and down and dead ends. The main rooms on the ground floor were just as mysterious, with subdued lighting and walls and shelves full of the most fascinating collection of objects she has amassed over a long life. 

She was an extraordinary tiny little bird of a woman, with soft grey hair piled on top of her head and a very shrewd gaze, as you can see if you pop over to her Instagram feed here, where you will find more images of her sashiko.

The following day we had journeyed south from Tokyo to Izumo, where we visited the Quilt Museum, nestled in a patchwork of green fields, with the distant mountains a blue ripple on the horizon. 

The museum houses the stunning quilts of Mutsuko Yawatagaki. The displays are changed to reflect the seasons and each quilt embodies a mastery of colour, stitch and design all brought together into one softly shimmering whole. She constructs them from vintage kimono silks. Her detailed piecing and placement of colours results in a delicately nuanced imagery. This is enhanced by subtle quilting which draws the eye around the whole. We were asked not to take photos within the house, so I can only show you the garden and surroundings, but a quick search on Google wil bring you lots of images of her beautiful quilts. 

At the end of our tour we were seated and offered green tea and delicious (though very sweet) little cakes all laid out with the customary Japanese attention to beautiful presentation.

It was a refreshing end to a wonderful afternoon's textile pleasure.

another new arrival

The second of the next generation of children in my husband's family has arrived recently. Another earlier than expected event, she entered the world on his birthday. Very fortuitous, since she is his first great grandchild. He was, as you might imagine, overwhelmed with delight. 

I had been working on a quilt for her, and took my trusty old Bernina and other necessaries on our Lakes pilgrimage at the end of September. We knew she was a she, and we knew she was an autumn baby so I thought autumn stars would be appropriate and, on the advice of a quilting friend, chose a square format, making a floor quilt for her to roll about on. The quilt is backed with a lovely soft brushed cotton which I have brought to the front using the self binding method.

There are a selection of little animals for her to tell herself stories about; a deer and her fawn in the autumn woods, some butterflies, a hedgehog and friend, and a pair of lovebirds which also appeared on "Flopsy's" quilt. 

Then there are a mother fox and her cub snuggled in their den and a very vibrant cat

Another pair of cats (we do have two after all) and a wise old owl

And a proud dog fox with his mates. We had five youngsters in the garden this year!

This was the block which started it all, one I made pre lockdown when I was doing a second patchwork course with Naomi (remember that hand made one from 2018?). For the rest I assembled some autumnal fabrics and was given a very valuable lesson by Christine on which ones of the great selection to choose, and how to check whether I had enough of each colour to make the blocks. There is a huge amount of calculating and counting when doing this, so I was deeply grateful for her wise advice. The majority of creatures are from great grandad's garden. We are a little too urban for deer though and, with badgers, there are never going to be any hedgehogs here, but I couldn't find any suitable badger fabric.

Great grandad is travelling up to Yorkshire to meet his great granddaughter at the beginning of December, so has volunteered to be the quilt courier. I do hope that her parents like it and that, in time, it will be a source of pleasure to her and will feed her imagination. I have so enjoyed making it.

With apologies for my long absence, I am still here, honest!

A week of finishing

I have been busy this week getting up to date with a couple of projects. First a quilt I have been making as part of the online Studio11 workshops which Christine is running, having been rather scuppered by Covid. I blogged earlier about the project with Coronavirus as a theme; that is still ongoing as I've been doing too much thinking and not enough doing, which is often a failing of mine. However her "Potato Chip Quilt" project was straightforward, and took much less thinking about to achieve. There seem to be several variants with this name: one is a series of blocks with a square at the centre and a different coloured border on each square; another, similar to the one we made, consists of strips joined with a diagonal seam. The one Christine teaches comprises a pile of fabric strips of a consistent width but differing lengths and a pile of squares the same dimension as the width of strips. You make a long, long, looooooooong strip by alternately stitching strip, square, strip, square at random. The strip is then seamed and trimmed several times until you have a rectangle. Sounds very simple, but you have to get the maths right in order to know how big your quilt will be, and to make one that has sensible dimensions. 

It is all finished, 

quilted with a design I based on some of the fabric, 

 

with some hand dyed fabric as backing

 

I am really pleased with it, and have enough strips left (my poor maths!!) to make another of a similar size, though perhaps with less random and more deliberation.

Then there was my Noro jacket, started back in 2018. It too is finished, though currently awaiting a decision on buttons. 

 

You will see that I ignored the Noro "just make it random" philosophy (be "charmed by the non-uniformity, unevenness, & coarseness of nature"), I prefer to mirror the colour changes. This did involve quite a bit of reeling off from the start of the ball to get a match, but I used those bits in the back to vary the changes where no matching was needed. The yarn feels lovely knitted up and this jacket will get a lot of wear I hope, but I'll probably steer clear of any future Noro temptations. Beautiful as they are, with such a high price I don't like feeling that they are using a bit of marketing BS to cover flaws in both the yarn (which did sometimes fall apart in my hands as I was knitting) and the multiple knots and joins per ball (presumably because the yarn fell apart as it was being spun).

And yes, I am decidedly less sylphlike than the model in the pattern, but hey ho, I am somewhat older than her as well, and did once have my sylphlike moments!! The cat chaps don't mind, so long as they provide biscuits their humans can be any size they like!

Ambushed by events

I have had a small project on the go - a cot quilt for the first child of the next generation to be born in my husband's family. He nicknamed her Flopsy when she was on the way, so Flopsy she has become to us. She was due to be born on the 20th November, but snuck in two weeks early. Her quilt (Flopsy's quilt) had been designed, planned, all parts cut out and ready to go, but not quite assembled. So now I am hurrying to catch up with events.

The quilt is just about finished - with Mrs Rabbit and, of course, Flopsy, Mopsy, Cotton-tail and Peter being tucked into their winter coats to go out and play. There are lovebirds to chat to along the way

And trees in the surrounding gardens and woods to run in and out and roundabout; they might frolic in fields of blue and yellow flowers and have busy chats with the bees.

Layered together with wadding and a snuggly brushed cotton backing, there is some hand quilting, but mostly machine. The binding is one where the backing is brought forward to the front, so the soft brushed cotton folds round the edges for little fingers to grasp.

There is just a little bit of hand quilting left to do (Flopsy must be highlighted of course), then the finished article can be tucked into a squishy parcel, along with a lovely soft blanket which darling daughter has crocheted for her, and a book from her great great uncle to amuse her as she grows. We hope she enjoys both snuggles and book for many years to come.

She does, of course, have her own name - in fact three of them and very lovely names they are too, but I won't be so indiscreet as to launch them into the ungoverned spaces of the internet.

In between times I have been doing other things too. I'm not sure you saw the finished "One Over the Eight" quilt that I have been making in our monthly patchwork class. We have, since then, moved on to several other things, all of which need finishing, some of which are not yet started

We had a lovely crewel work workshop at the Embroiderer's Guild with Fay Maxwell, a delightful and patient teacher - you can hear her talk about her crewel work in the linked video. She adds an extra element to the traditional crewel work by cutting out felt shapes for the basic design elements, which are tacked onto the backing cloth and then embroidered.  Freehand cutting of felt shapes was quite a challenge, especially as I was basing my design on fabric that once covered some cushions of my grandmother's; fabric that echoed crewel work designs itself. I think I managed OK. Now to finish the embroidery!

and finally, from last weekend, this little fox is gradually appearing, poking his nose through the bluebells, He was designed by one of our branch members for us to try out some bead embroidery during a half day workshop

So, quite a bit has been happening, just not in Mesopotamia!!