Flowers of Darkness

There was some good news earlier in the week about this quilt that is currently hanging at the National Quilt Championships in Sandown.

It won 1st prize for Hand Quilting, 1st Prize for Hand Appliqué and 1st Prize for Embellishment. 

It was made during the dark days of lockdown here in the UK and helped me getting through it all. It’s 44.1/2 inches square

Garden of Earthly Delights

It was the plan to write this blog post on Sunday but things got in the way and there wasn't enough time to give it my proper attention so today is the day instead.

This quilt started as a fun project on Instagram. I discovered it back at the beginning of August last year on the@GnomeAngel Instagram feed. Her proper name is Angie Wilson and you can find her here.  The idea was to make all the 100 blocks of the 100 Modern Quilt Blocks book; Tula Pink's City Sampler over a period of 100 days using the hashtag #100days100blocks. I first spotted the sampler book and quilts on the Gotham Quilts stand at the Brooklyn Quilters' Guild exhibition during our visit to New York, and had bought the book.

As luck would have it I needed a good excuse to buy a fabric line I had totally fallen in love with. It's called The Garden of Earthly Delights, designed by Studio KM for FreeSpirit Fabrics, and of course inspired by the painting of the same name by Hieronymus Bosch. I ended up buying the complete range!

When the project was over I had 100 6" square blocks and I decided to surround each block with a round of 1.5" strips so that I would end up with finished blocks that were 8" square and a quilt that measured 84" square (including the border) so that the quilt would go on the wall above our bed.

Because of the riotous colours I knew there would be no point in hand quilting it. The stitching would take forever but would hardly be seen so I decided to ask Kay Bell to longarm machine quilt it for me. Like me she lives in the Scottish Borders and her work is exquisite. It has won her many rewards and prizes. Together we selected an overall pattern (I think it's called Bejewelled) which fitted in with the Garden theme of the quilt.

I have taken some detailed pictures so that hopefully you can see it well. The quilt was exhibited at the Scottish Quilt Championships at Ingliston this past weekend. You can see it hanging there below (not a good picture as the lighting in the hall is not the best) and it was great to discover that Kay had won the prize for Best Computer Guided LongArm Machine Quilting for this quilt. Huge congratulations to her and so well deserved. It turned out that both she and I received a rosette. What a treat. I'm over the moon about how the quilt turned out and after collecting it on Sunday it has now been installed in our newly decorated bedroom.

This was a project that I thoroughly enjoyed doing. In fact I did it all over again (#100days100blocks2017) and those of you who follow me on Instagram @friedaquilter will have seen each block as I posted it finishing in the middle of August this year. I used African fabrics for this year's version (all from my stash) and have now sewn all the blocks together with black sashing. Needless to say I'm going to ask Kay to look after that one for me too.

Dare I mention that @gnomeangel is planning the third round next year, starting in March. All you have to do is follow her on Instagram and follow the instructions that she will post there in due course. There are some great prizes to be won too. The idea is that you  have to post the block on the day set for it, although you can make it earlier. This year I made a start and produced the first 10 blocks or so before the project began, so that I had a head start should life get in the way, and then I simply continued making the blocks in time to stay ahead of the posting. Most of the blocks are simple (not all of them though) and they are only 6" so little fabric is required. It offers a great chance to use up some of your stash! Or buy a whole new range of yummy fabrics!

Artful Adventures

Sometimes the answer to having too much to do and not being happy with what you are doing is to change tack and do something completely different. Something that is undemanding and just plain fun.

So that is what I did. First of all you may remember that last year I participated in the #100days100blocks project on Instagram where we spend 100 days to make all the 100 blocks from the Tula Pink 100 Modern Quilt Blocks book. I am very happy with the resulting quilt that I will share you some time in the future when it goes off to it's first exhibition.

When I read that the project would be repeated this year with the hashtag #100days100blocks2017 I thought: no, definitely not. So why then did I find myself looking at my stash of African fabrics and thinking: would they work? With the excuse of tidying the drawer full of them, I was not so unconsciously looking at which ones would go well together. Why? Of course, I realized that I wanted to do it again. Very much so. The fabrics came out of the drawer and into a project box (that's how I keep organized) and a few weeks ago I found myself making the first block. These blocks are 6" (15cm) square so no huge investment in either time or materials, and I discovered that, yes indeed, the African fabrics look great in these blocks. You will be able to see them all on my Instagram feed daily. It all started yesterday with block 1 (seen above) and today it was time for block 2 (at the top of this blog post).

So much for my quilting activities but I also came across a fun project for art journaling, called Artful Adventures. This is organized by Nathalie Kalbach in honour of the publication of her book Artful Adventures (can't wait for it's arrival!). It's based on a stroll through your hood (neighbourhood) and everyone can participate. It consists of 30 days of photographic prompts as seen above. That's already very inspirational to me but it is accompanied by a series of classes and tutorials that use the photographs as a springboard to art. These are entirely free and all you have to do is sign up on Nathalie's website. Here is the link.

What I'm so looking forward to is seeing all the different neighbourhoods of all the people who sign up. They will all be so different, and spread all over the globe. It all starts off on Wednesday the 10th May with the first prompt: HOME.  Come and play!

MiniMini 18

The same cactus I showed a few days ago is coming in handy again today to show the scale of my latest minimini quilt. No. 18 already and like all the other ones this one is sized 6" (approx. 15 cm) square. I started these originally as part of a challenge set by the Make Modern Magazine but liked them so much that I have kept going and am aiming to make 100 in total. They will then be put together into one large piece.

Like all the other ones this one is machine quilted, raw edge appliquéd with hand stitching and beaded with size 11 seed beads in matching colour.

MiniMini 16

Creativity is on a go-slow at the moment but this minimini was made some time ago, and here it is. This is no. 16 of 100 that I hope to make in total. They will then be put together into one large piece of work but in the meantime each piece is finished as a small (6" or 15cm square) quilt in it's own right (i.e. it's wadded and quilted and has a binding put on.

They are all examples of modern quilt design. The piece is machine quilted, raw edge appliquéd with hand stitching, and hand beaded.

I'm also using it for the FlowerFriday challenge on the Blipfoto site as the top picture shows it surrounded by the aster flowers that are putting up such a lovely show at this time of year.

Embellishment Reward Scottish Quilt Championships

It was wonderful to see my quilt Ramsay Monument hanging at the Scottish Quilt Championships yesterday accompanied by a yellow rozette. It toned in beautifully with the fabrics I used. It also means that the quilt had won the Embellishment Prize.

I collected the quilt yesterday and could therefore photograph it this morning together with it's reward. You can read more about this piece (made with fabrics from The Linen Cupboard collection by Ella Blue fabrics) here. This has been a very successful quilt for me so far!

Minimini 14

It's a very dark, wet and dismal day which came as a bit of a shock to the system after yesterday's bright and sunny one. Definitely not a day for outdoor photography as I didn't want to expose either my camera or my latest minimini quilt to the elements. So an indoor picture was in order to show you the scale of this tiny quilt (sized 6" or 15 cm square).

These small pieces are being made in the spaces in between larger work so progress is of necessity slow but eventually I'm aiming for 100. I have been asked if all the backgrounds will be white and the answer is probably not but they will all be very light. Using different colours in the background means I can repeat some designs as they will look different on a different colour. Eventually all will be appliquéd onto a large background and form a new large quilt. 

I'm using the same techniques on all of them: machine quilting, raw edge appliqué with hand stitching and beading.

Confusingly I'm working on another project called #100days#100blocks about which I will tell you a bit sometime soon but in that case I'm piecing a simple block (unquilted) although I'm doing that in exactly 100 days (I hope!). If you're interested you can follow it on my Instagram feed @friedaquilter

MiniMini 12

As you can tell the garden is looking rather bedraggled and damp due to our recent weather conditions which are better suited to a cold day in autumn than the middle of summer. Specially the cold has had a bad effect on the flowers including these geraniums. But they serve to show the size of the next minimini quilt I have completed (sized 6" or 15cm square): no. 12.

You probably know the score by now so I won't say much more apart from the fact that the quilt is machine quilted, raw edge appliquéd with hand stitching, hand beaded and embellished with a button.

MiniMini 11

Here is the latest minimini quilt, no. 11, sized 6 x 6" or 15 cm sqaure. As you will probably know by now I'm aiming for 100 of them to put together into one large quilt. For scale I'm picturing them with, in this case, a dahlia which has just started to flower.

The quilt is machine quilted, raw edge appliquéd with hand stitching, and hand beaded.

The Chrysler Building

After our trip to New York we were challenged by Judi Mendelssohn, the organizer of the PandQTours, to make a small quilt with the theme of: Window on New York.

To that end she gave us a piece of fabric from a line of New York themed fabrics exclusive to The City Quilter shop that we visited during the trip. Our challenge fabric shows Times Square and you can see it in the background of my piece.

I took my inspiration of the beautiful Chrysler Building, my favourite skyscraper around in NY. I build it using a mix of fabric/paper collage and commercially available cottons. The size of the piece was decided by the piece of the Times Square themed fabric we were given and it ended up 10.5 x 14.1/4" or 26.5 x 37cm.

The piece was machine appliquéd, hand and machine quilted, hand embellished with beads, sequins and Swarovski crystals most of which were bought while in New York.

Our challenge pieces will hang on Judi's stand for PandQTours at the Festival of Quilts, Birmingham during the show, 11th - 14th August so have a look if you're visiting.

After that I will be a treasured reminder of our New York trip.

Minimini 10

Minimini 10 temporarily got lost on my work desk and I only discovered again this morning while working on no. 11. I've pictured it here in among Rosa Albertine and Paul's Himalyan Musk to show the scale. It's 6" or 15 cm square.

You will know by now that I'm aiming to make 100 of these small pieces and then put them together into one large piece but that moment is still some time away! For the moment I'm simply enjoying thinking of a design for each one and making them. 

These are photographs also discovered again today on my camera although they were taken on our one tropically hot day here in Scotland last Tuesday. I sat outside till very late basking in the sunshine and the lovely views from the bench underneath the tree that is my favourite place to while away the hours.

minimini 9

Here is my latest mini mini quilt, no. 9. It's sized (as are all of them) at 6" square or 15 cm. To show the scale I have photographed it against the delphinium flowers. 

The quilt is machine quilted, raw edge appliqued with hand stitching, and hand beaded. 

To see all the mini mini quilts I have made so far just click on the mini mini label below this post or in the sidebar.

minimini 8

I'm well on my way with making the miniminis now and I'm leaving other things on my desk while I dedicate myself to making more. This is number 8 already. I won't be writing much now about how I came to make these tiny modern quilts but just work steadily on till I have 100! For scale I will try and photograph them with other things such as this first rose out in our garden.

This one is machine quilted, machine pieced, raw edge appliquéd with hand stitching, hand beaded and embellished with a button.

If you want to see the other ones I have made so far you can do so by clicking on the mini mini label in the sidebar or underneath this post.

minimini 7

Time to show you minimini #7. You will probably know this by now but I started making these 6" (or 15 cm) square modern quilts for the Make Modern magazine published in Australia. They had a competition on Instagram with the hashtag #MMminimini which has now finished but I got a real taste for making these little treasures and hope to make 100 eventually and put them together into one large quilt. I am trying to photograph them with something else (flowers in this case) to give a sense of scale.

 n the meantime I will be sharing each individual one here but without much explanation for the next ones. You can see them all by clicking on the mini mini label underneath this post or in the sidebar.

This one is machine quilted, machine pieced, raw edge appliquéd using hand stitching and hand beaded.