Sunday, June 1, 2008

3 Quilting Generations..

.. and I am soo proud :D

After 10 years of parading yummy fabrics and patterns infront of my mother and her mother (Nanna), and just as many years of them 'going' to make a quilt.. 'one day'.... I think today was the day.

Mum started a quilt a few weeks back and is about 1/2 way there with top, and Nanna was wanting to start, so we had a quilting day at mums.. Both mum and nanna are very skilled sewers and their quilts are looking ace!! (why didnt I take pics!!!!???!!! next time, next time)

Cant wait to show them, once they are done..

In the mean time I finished the top of my "Shoyoen" quilt. Named after the Japanese gardens here in town that are just magnificent.

The quilt was designed to be a quick and easy project, as I just wanted a quilt for around the house, and soon.

So what did I do?

Firstly all the fabrics for the background were hand dyed by me.... I am still unsure about the purple and pink, but well, dying can be a unpredictable art form.. it was this time. so I dyed the fabric..

To make the back ground, I cut 125 6 X 26cm pieces of fabric. Sew together (long sides together) in 25 lots of 5, making 25 26 x 26 cm squares. sew these squares together in a crosshatch pattern.

For the applique (which I discover is not one of my strongest areas:P) I freecut the shapes and appliqued them down, Note... I never use iron adhesive, it stiffens the quilt, bubbles and generally... I hate it! I beileve it should never go near a quilt. So I use a glue stick! yep simple supermarket UHU glue stick, put it on the back of your fabric and iron down, does a great job and washes away afterward.... :D

I lookeed high and low for the right fabric for the border.. i wanted pebble fabric.. but alas this was the best i could do... not 100% h appy with it but well... like i said this was just a 'quicky' and I just dont care enough to keep searching.

So my quilting planned for it...

For the 3 applique peices, some simple outlining and highlighting lines.
For the 'water' I will quilt in some catfish and waterlike stippling (still thinking what tis will be)
And the border will be lots of circles I think to try get that pebble look that its just not giving atm

Heres the top finished (not that happy with it but sharing anyhow)




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