Village quilt

Village quilt
Originally uploaded by crafty mathea

I seem to be in full holiday mode lately. My brain has turned to mush, and I can't seem to hold a thought in my head for more than a couple of minutes at a time. For instance, I finished this quilt last Sunday, and thought I'd wait and post it for Mini Quilt Monday. Monday came and went, and I forgot all about it. Every time I have spotted the quilt I have thought I must remember to take a picture and post about it, and the next minute that thought is just gone.
Well, here it is at last. The checkerboard or fields in front of the village is made with plaited strips of black and white fabric - a technique I saw described in Quilter's Newsletter Magazine a while ago. The village is a photo, enhanced in Photoshop and printed on fabric, and so is the castle on the hill (not actually a castle, but Whitby Abbey - the famous ruin overlooking Whitby Bay in Yorkshire). The rest of the landscape bits and pieces are applicued directly onto the batting. Size of quilt: 12x18".

Mini quilt Monday

Look! A new mini quilt, and on a Monday too! Well at least I finished it today, although the top has been ready for a while. It is the result of a workshop a while ago, and started out as a purple and cream nine-patch with teal borders and after some clever cutting, twisting of blocks and restitching we ended up with these little windmills. I think I might have to try making another one to remember how I did it...
Anyway, I eventually got round to layering and quilting it, using my version of the escape-hatch method so I didn't have to bother with binding. My version differs from the one Melody uses in that I make the backing of two pieces of fabric which I stitch together, leaving an opening in the middle instead of cutting an opening. I find this works well for small table toppers, -runners and the like. This one is 13 x 13", by the way. I quilted the windmills in a spiralling pattern to create an illusion of movement. I used a purple and teal variegated thread. Here's a close-up of the quilting.
Added later: the pattern is actually called Square Dance, and here is a description of how you do it.

Blushing giraffe

I mentioned this fabric earlier. When I first came across it, it said 'giraffe' to me, and the pink areas suggested that he was blushing. I had a vision of a cute cartoon-like appliqué, but couldn't quite make it happen. When I found a giraffe stencil, a different idea was born.

I used a brown Paintstick to transfer the image to the fabric, added some squares of an African-look Kaffe Fasset fabric along one side and started quilting. And then I was stuck. It just seemed too boring.

Lily suggested that the poor giraffe was hiding in the greenery. And that was just the kind of prompt I needed. A bit of research (or googling) later, and I knew a lot more about giraffes and their life on the savannas of Africa among the acacia-trees. Did you know that giraffes go in for a lot of necking? Really! Maybe that's where the expression comes from ? If you want to know more about these fascinating creatures, this is a good place to begin. Anyway, having read about thos acacias and looked up pictures of their leaves, I was ready to move on. I added some Steam-a-Seam Lite to a piece of green bali and started cutting leaves. One movie later and I was ready to go back to the sewing machine and apply branches and stitch the leaves down. The silhouette of the giraffe didn't stand out as much as I wanted, so I added seed stitches around it, some longer stitches further out, and ended with crosstitch (or kisses) before the hand-stitching merged into the machine quilted hearts.

So there you have it. My Mini Quilt for Monday ended up as a close up of the neck of a love-sick giraffe, lurching among the bushes with a sweet giraffe girl on his mind. Or something like that...

A bow tie quilt for Mini Quilt Monday

Filled bow tie
Originally uploaded by crafty mathea

I'm still doing the cheating thing here by showing an old quilt - there's absolutely no time to quilt these days - all work and no play while getting ready for a trip. This is a baby quilt from 2006, and believe it or not it is a bow tie quilt!
I used the 3D version of the bow tie block in three different sizes, but used four pieces of the background cream print and only the middle square in a contrasting colour. The middle squares are stuffed with polyfil and with stipple quilting all around, the squares lie like small stuffed pillows on top of the quilt. It was quite fun to do, so maybe I'll make another one. There could be a tutorial in this, I suppose.
PS. Can anyone tell me why it is that when I post from Flickr and then go in and edit the post in Blogger, the caption under the photo shrinks into fly specks???

Why is the giraffe blushing?

This fabric has always suggested giraffe to me - a blushing giraffe at that. So I have been looking at photos of giraffes and wondered how I could appliqué a convincing image of a giraffe. Then I found a giraffe stencil, and I started thinking: What if the viewer is really close to the giraffe, only seing a part of his body or neck - then this fabric could play the main part in a small quilt. And why would the giraffe be blushing anyway? Because he's thinking of his lady love? That's where the stencil and a paintstick comes in. I have joined Malka's Mini Quilt Monday, so by Monday you should know if I have been able to make this work.
So that's part of my plan for tomorrow. That and the two layered quilts waiting next to my sewing machine. Some more mundane activities as well - don't you just love how people seem to think: "oh she's got a sewing machine, she will love hemming my trousers/shortening my dress" Oh well, one favour is worth another, I suppose, and I'd best just get on with it and then I can get back to having fun.
Last night I had friends over for cheese and wine, and we chatted well into the night. Today my day started with a bit of gardening - I live in a block of flats, and a couple of times a year we all get together to do some work in the flower beds and backyard - that's the idea anyway, although this time only four people showed up, so plenty of work for those of us who did... And it started raining while we were at it, so I'm done in for today: all achy muscles and creaky joints - I really need to get more exercise! Well, tomorrow's another day...