Finished February's TIF in March!

This is the original drawing that I did. I decided to go with my early memories of the barbed wire on the beaches after WWII but I wanted to keep it simple.

I decided to dye a piece of fabric in the colours I wanted rather than sew strips of fabric together. I was quite pleased with the way this came out. Of course blue and yellow make green so there is a greenish element at the edge of the sea but that is, of course, seaweed!

I had kept the dyeing to a basic minimum so I added all the other elements of the design by painting them onto the fabric. I played up the 'seaweed' aspects and made shadows on the sand. I put the sun in and decided it would be early evening when shadows are lengthening. Also this would cast a sparkle on the water. I decided to leave waves alone as I felt that adding white would be a bad move and too distracting. I wanted the post to be the focal point with the wire reaching off on either side.

This is the piece bagged out and edge stitched before doing the final stitchery.

A close up of the stitching for the post and the shadow. I thought a bit of maram grass round the base of the post would be good. Just that added touch of green to go with the clump of green in the lower right hand corner where the dyes pooled a bit.

And this is the finished article. I have enjoyed doing this. It is very simple but I think effective. I could have done more stitching but I didn't want to burden it with over kill so I kept most of the machining to the lower half apart from the sun and it's sparkle on the sea. I'm glad I persevered and got it done. There is a great sense of achievement in not having let it lapse into a UFO!
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I'm not going to do March's TIF as neither the subject matter nor the colours inspire me and also next week is April! Hopefully I can finish April's TIF in April!

Time goes by too quickly!

Time just disappears. I think I'm keeping up with the blog and lo and behold days have gone by. So what have I been doing? When I stop and think about it, not a lot! Sad isn't it!
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I read Gabrielle's blog and had to do this test!

The Recipe For Valeri

3 parts Naughtiness 2 parts Poise 1 part Sweetness Splash of Mischief Chug!

What's the Recipe for Your Personality?

Not the most difficult test in the world! In fact each time I entered my name I got a different result but the above is the first one. I could have gone for a much more erudite rendition of my name but I was honest! Really!
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I have finished the single bed log cabin quilt I was making and it is on the bed! This is the table centre I made with the two left over blocks. I used up scraps of fabric so the colours although consistent weren't from the same pieces of material. It is very bright!

And I was also able to do the quilting using my new Fab-U-Motion tool which I bought at the Exeter show. I am so pleased with this! I had seen them advertised and also read about them on-line but wasn't going to buy one sight unseen. Too much money to take a chance on whether it was going to be good or not. But at the show I saw one demonstrated and had a go and I was hooked. It is the most amazing piece of equipment. It makes free machining a breeze. No more tired, tight, achy shoulders. No dragging of the fabric. Brilliantly smooth underneaths. What more could one want. The plate is set on a set of movable rods for want of a better description and the fabric is put over the plate and then moved side to side or up and down. The hole is quite large and ample for stitching. When one runs out of space just pull the plate over and continue. So easy! The movement is really smooth with no jerks. I found it simple to use, especially with smaller pieces of work. My first practise piece was only about 18" square and I had no problems at all. However I did have to master a learning curve when doing the larger single bed quilt as one has to get one's head round the bunched up fabric at the right of the needle on the machine bed when moving the plate. However practice makes perfect and I accomplished what I'd intended without too much aggro on my part! I'm certainly pleased with it. It works better on my Husqvarna than my Bernina having more room but the picture above is of it on my Bernina. And in fact the quilt was done on the Bernina as at that time I hadn't tried it on the Husqvarna. I am in love!

Day out at a Quilt Show!

I had a really lovely day out today. Myself and three friends went to the quilt exhibition at Westpoint in Exeter. It was a miserable day weather wise with rain and mist for most of the hundred mile journey there and the return wasn't any better. In fact it was worse! But we had a lovely day. Spent far too much money on lovely things, saw some beautiful quilts and met up with other friends who had also made the trip. A few of my favourites are shown above. I especially loved the hanging by the Hope Quilters, shown in the bottom row. It made us laugh as this is so true of quilting groups all over! The picture of the small house quilt (second up on the left) is made of tiny tiny log cabin blocks! It must have taken a while to work it all out. We had the most delicious Danish pastries and latte coffee and didn't feel at all remorseful about our diets!
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However the day was slightly marred when I broke one of my back molars. The hole feels like a chasm and I can't do anything about it until Monday! I feel as if I've been socked in the jaw! The sewing machine vendor where my friend Sue bought a new sewing machine had a bowl of free sweeties on offer and so I thought I'd take one while waiting for Sue to finish the transaction. My mistake as that sweet blighted my life!
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A lot of fabric was on offer and I of course succumbed! I also found some animal strips which are just right for making an eye spy quilt or an attic windows quilt for the grandchildren. Fred is mad about horses and Fenella is well into dogs. Of course I need this fabric like a hole in the head but I just couldn't resist it. I also bought some single embellishing needles for using with my felting technique. And only three books! This is very good for me. One of them is about machine trapunto, a technique that I want to do more of so I am going to be busy! At least I will be busy when the tooth isn't giving me gyp!