Shell Quilt

For my final quilt I had decided to make a mosaic shell design and use hand embroidery with the applique pieces and free motion quilt the remainder. I used Procion hand dyed cotton.

It was a great day when I tied the last threads, and hung the quilt.

Cheers

Techniques for Applique Quilt

I have always liked applique, and I also knew that I would continue with the shell theme in my last quilt. These few images are some of the samples worked to familiarize myself with applique techniques.

The following are ideas for the final quilt worked as paper collages.

I played for a long few weeks before I settled on my final quilt design that would follow to a certain degree the above design. At this time Marie passed away, followed by the unexpected death of my daughter, so creativity was at an ebb.

Finished Quilt

Late 2011 I finished my first quilt.  The theme was shells and in particular a poem about shells by Violet L. Cuslidge and the quilting technique was influenced by Alicia Merritt. The size is 60x80cm and the fabric is hand-dyed using Procion MX dyes. As much as I tried I still got some distortion and I think it was because the handquilted blocks were close to the edge.

Techniques

Throughout the year I have been study with the City Guild, so I have decided to post a few of the techniques that I have doing.  First images are of inserts.

Mosaic Patches

Fabric printed with block below and hand quilted

Stamp made from modified classic 9 patch block

Block with red inserts

Cameo window with foam stamped items and hand dyed fabric.

That is all for now.

Digital Fabric 2

Digital Fabric

Here are some samples of digital fabric that I have been designing with this month.

Using Fusing

I completed this art quilt today, the lesson was from "Using Fusing" (Quilt University).  I was able to use some of my dyed fabrics.  The bird is a stencil design from "Japanese Inspirations".  The quilt is straight it is the angle of the design board that makes it look crooked.  I used a different method of "basting" and liked the results, I stretched the backing fabric on my ironing pad and pinned it, and then put the batting and quilt front on top and used safety pins to hold the three pieces together.  The inner border is fused..an interesting idea.