I'm working on...

... this quilt, I loosely called Pebble Path, although that's just a working title.

I'm not very keen on Christmas and try, as far as possible, to avoid it. Today my girls have gone with their dad and his family, which is wonderful, as they all have a rollicking good time (waving to them all - have a good one!) and I can sit at home and quilt, to which I really hope no-one takes offence - (it's not that I don't wish to see you!)

So I am sitting in the lounge today, with the following view out of the window (isn't it great??)

(please excuse the strings dangling in the middle, which I should have untied - those are kitty toys!)
... and here is what is in the machine:
To those who are celebrating today: may your day and year ahead be filled with all you wish for! And I certainly WILL join you in wishing for peace on earth....

Just finished this

This piece is called "All that glitters (- is made in China)"
The quilting shows rows of textile workers sitting at their sewing machines - both the workers in China and the ones in South Africa who have lost their jobs because of all the cheap Chinese imports. You can't see the quilting here, but you can see it in the previous post on marking quilting patterns.

Pieces of Me 2

I cannot seem to solve the problem of why Blogger won't let me post this picture in the previous post on this topic, but I'm tired of struggling with it, so here is the pic in a separate post.

How to transfer quilt patterns?

I found a great way!

I've been working on a piece (pics coming soon as it's almost finished) and wanted a particular repetitive quilt pattern in specific areas of the quilt. I can't do them free-hand as they need to be uniform enough to be recognisable, so they had to be marked onto the quilt somehow.

I've been struggling with this issue for a long time and none of the solutions I have found in books have been good enough. I've been through innumerbale vanishing pens and pencils which most often either vanish too quickly or not at all, and when they do work, don't show on either light or dark fabrics (and my work has been VERY variegated) etc. etc.

A while ago I hit on the idea of tracing the design onto tissue paper (tears easily), pinning it on and sewing on the lines. This worked well, except that tearing off the paper tended to leave tiny bits which had to be scraped off with fingernails - better than marking the fabric, but still not the greatest.

Yesterday I had a brainwave, while at work watching someone wrap a bowl of Xmas biscuits with cellophane. Cellophane! It's transparent and tears beautifully. I was tired when I got home and had a bad headache but just had to try it. I only had some red cellophane in the house, but it worked like a bomb. I drew a template and traced it onto the cello with a permanent marker in rows. I then cut out the rows and pinned them onto the quilt and then free-motioned over the lines. I think I might just have solved this issue for myself!

The bottom row shows the cellophane after the pattern has been sewn and before it is torn off. The middle row shows the cello just pinned to the quilt, and the top row is after it has been sewn and torn off.

It tears neatly along the stitching line and doesn't pull the stitches and doesn't tend to tear into little bits the way paper does, as it is not fibrous.

I'm so chuffed! I found this all by my widdle self. Next purchase: some clear cellophane!

A Blog of Note

VERY cool pics :)

Small things

My memory card arrived today. My camera has 24 photos of internal memory and since I was used to film containing 24 exposures that was all I needed for the first little while. But I am now becoming a hardcore addict and felt I needed more memory! I was advised to get more than I needed (thanks Jorgen!).... so I gulped and bought 1 Gb, which seems excessive to me now, but I guess I will find a use for it. My camera can do movies, so maybe.....?

S-l-o-w!

This is a slow medium. It sometimes frustrates me. At other times I love it, love that I can take it around with me, to tea-time at work and just sit and plod along on it. I love sitting on the couch with a good movie on, and making slow progress.

But it does mean that I get bored with one thing taking so long to complete. My answer is to have several projects going at once.... like around 12 to 15. So here's an oldie I blogged about earlier, with a bit more progress:

MandelBrot resurfaces

Very Zen

My therapist had this little Zen garden - absolutely gorgeous.

Pieces of Me

I had the good fortune this past year to be in (psycho-) therapy. I say 'good fortune', because therapy is expensive and my medical aid cover exhausts after about 9 sessions. Our local psych hospital trains psych interns and I was able to get a place with an intern for a year. As it happened, we just hit it off and it turned out to be an excellent match. I was able to get so much done and I feel very, very fortunate.

As a thank-you, I gave her this quilt entitled "Pieces of Me".

Still busy quilting, having Escape Hatch'ed the quilt sandwich.

Left: The Ankh (Egyptian symbol of the soul)

Actual colours below. The strong sun tends to bleach the colours when you take pics, but it does show up the quilting detail quite nicely.

Below is the final product (which I will post as soon as Blogger lets me...grr)
Edit 20 Dec - it just won't. I'll try in a separate post.

A lampshade

During a few days of feeling a bit uninspired about working on any pieces, I picked up this old lampshade frame and decided to cover it. Some time ago I had started the wire-and-bead crochet below, and had meant to repaint the frame, but didn't have the paint. I decided it would look even better covered with coiled copper wire, of which I had plenty (cheap at the local electrical supplies shop). I don't think I have enough crochet, so will need to do some more.


Here is what I currently have and below I am holding it as it will be "sewn" (with thinner copper wire) onto the frame. It will look quite nice and best of all, will have cost very little. I found some marked down lampstands of beautifully turned wood at the same electrical supply shop and bought them without lampshades. So once the first is done, perhaps I'll feel encouraged enough to make another :)

I'll post a pic when it is done.



Edit 19 Dec 2006 - and here it is:

Books

I've once again been shopping at Kalahari :) I have spent way too much money there, but these virtual shops are irresistible!
I've posted Amazon.com links here as they tend to have more information about the books than Kalahari does. (I always look up the books on both sites to read as much as I can about it before I buy it, as I have to buy them unseen.)
Uncommon Threads - Gayle Pritchard. Just published in November 2006. My, how small the world has become :). I was interested in reading the history of the art quilt movement, and although it is American history, it's still interesting to see the developments and how they happened.

Art Quilts - Lark Books. A GREAT buy. Large and thick with colour pictures of 400 quilts. Awesome. I bought this one some time back and often just sit and page through sections again or leave it open on a page and just gaze.

Gaudynski's Machine Quilting Guidebook - Diane Gaudynski
I'm about half-way through reading this and it is a great How-To book. I'm wanting to work on my machine quilting skills and as usual it is a case of practising and practising and making all the mistakes. But this practising is great fun so it's going well. I'm making LOTS of mistakes :))
Diane Gaudinski really seems to know what she is talking about and I'm finding it very useful having guidelines to follow.
Contemporary Quilts - I have only glanced in this book so far. It seems to be English. I can't find it on Amazon as the book is at home and I can't see the author from the above pic! Will search some more.

Colouring with Thread - Ann Fahl (sorry, but I cannot resist correcting the spelling of 'Colouring'!) This looks VERY promising. I think it was the 'no-drawing' phrase that drew me, if you'll excuse the pun :)

Some time, no blog

Work has been busy, and I've just been a bit dull and uninspired. Plus we have a new cat: (with green-eye, which is the feline version of red-eye)

... who has needed some attention to settle in (as have the two resident cats who are very rattled, especially as my tenants have acquired a cute medium-sized puppy who is often in the backyard.)

Super-aptly (and quite co-incidentally) she is a PATCHWORK cat (tortoiseshell/white) and has really pretty markings, huge ears, and a very, very cute face! Okay, I am biased. Reminds me of a cat quote: "People say that with cats, training is much more difficult than with dogs. It's not. Mine had me trained in two days."

But I have been plugging away at some items so there will be a few new things to show.

My girls will be going off on holiday with their dad later this week, so I plan to arm myself with a pile of DVDs (wish I could find talking books!) and settle into my studio/lounge and happily stitch some days away, and perhaps quilt some of the tops that are piling up around me.

New beady shoes

Edit 17 Dec 2006: MORE beady shoes: :)

My feet are dressed for this summer! (I'm not a big shoe fan, so it's unusual for me to have several pairs of shoes I really wear and love. Most are obligatory-wear eg work shoes and shoes I can wear with my uniform etc) I feel very shoe-rich now!
Below are my all-time favourite pair of shoes, which may help explain why I am not a big shoe fan. My feet are possibly my best feature at this stage of my life!
(Okay, perhaps that was more than you needed to know. This is, after all, a quilting blog!)

Tread Lightly

(I know I haven't written anything about this. I don't feel I have had a peaceful moment by the computer to sit and type it out. This post will be modified when I do find that moment.)