La Linea d'oro 4 Journal Quilt

Time to show you the latest edition in the series of monthly 8" size journal quilts I'm making this year for the Contemporary Quilt Group. They set the size and also the requirement that a line should go through the journal quilt from side to side. I made the decision to make that line golden as this goes well with the elaborate embellishment I'm adding to all these pieces.

I also made up my mind to put these journal quilts together once they are all done and I am keeping that in mind with every one I'm making. All the JQs are being edged with hand done buttonhole stitch which will provide me with the means to sew them together in due course.

The pieces were started by making a large collection of dotty fabrics using my gelli plate and a variety of circular stencils and sequin waste (punchinello). I made a very large patched background of pieces from all the resulting fabrics using iron-on vilene. Then I selected 8" square pieces I particularly liked compositionally and appliqued on top.

For this particular one I used one large circle. The patched edges were machine satin stitched and then came the fun part: the embellishing with beads and sequins and some hand quilting as well.

Klimtesque 2 Journal Quilt

I've finished the second journal quilt for the Contemporary Quilt Group. They are all sized 12" wide x 8" high this year and my theme for all of them is the Austrian painter Klimt. Every month I'm selecting a small detail from one of his paintings and use that as a starting point for my journal quilt that month. At the end of the year I hope to put them all together into one large quilt.

The detail I've chosen to use this month comes The Embrace, which is part of the Stoclet Palace Frieze, dated 1909. Sadly this work of art is not accessible to the general public as the Stoclet Palace, located in Brussels, Belgium, is still in private hands. You can see the detail above and will notice it consists entirely of triangles, a form that returns again and again in Klimt's work.

I drew out my version on Stitch and Tear and foundation pieced the triangles using batik fabric. I'm trying to use the same fabrics with a few variations on each Klimt journal quilt so that they will form a coherent piece when joined together. And I'm using the envelope method to layer the quilt top, backing fabric and wadding so that there is no need for binding, for the same reason.

Klimt was an immensely ornamental painter and loved gold. Tastes that I share with him and for me the fun begins when I start to machine stitch (using gold thread), hand stitch and embellish the piece, using vintage buttons, size 11 seed beads and sparkly embellishments as shown.

If you want to see all the journal quilts I'm making this year check out the slide show in the side bar or click on the Journal Quilts 2013 tag below this post. Remember I'm making 2 different ones each month, one on the Klimt theme and one on a theme set by the Sketchbook Challenge site. The latter are sized 10" square so it's easy to differentiate between the two.

Klimtesque 1

It's unlikely that I would have participated in the Contemporary Quilt Group's Journal Quilt challenge this year if they hadn't made it too tempting to resist and if I hadn't already had an idea in my head which suited seamlessly with it.  I have long been an admirer of the Austrian painter Gustav Klimt, even before I ever made a quilt. His work is beautiful, decorative and jewel like and all three appeal to me. He is also a very quiltable artist. Hidden in almost all his work there are gorgeous details that just ask to be turned into textile art.

In fact when I saw a gigantic book about him (Gustav Klimt by Rachel Barnes) in Costco before Christmas I simply had to have it. This book can only be read while having it on a table as it's so large and heavy but that also means the illustrations are enormous. When I bought it I justified it to myself with the idea that I would one day make a quilt based on the imagery. And that moment came sooner than I had thought when I read that the requirement for the Contemporary Quilt Group's Journal Quilts was that we would have to set a theme for all our JQs this year. Oh yes! Well, you can guess the rest. Klimt will be mine. The other requirement is that all JQs must be 12" wide x 8" high with a horizontal (or landscape) orientation.

I have also decided that I will put all 12 of mine together at the end of the year to make one Klimt inspired large quilt so I'm keeping that in mind while making each individual one.

This first one came from a detail of Klimt's painting Portrait of Fritza Riedler (1906) and it's part of a frieze behind her head. You can see the detail above. I adapted it to suit my purposes but just have a good look at all the delectable patterns. You could easily make 12 Journal Quilts just based on this one painting!

I used a selection of batik fabrics (as I will for all of them) and the entire Journal Quilt is pieced. The squares with strip piecing and the diamonds are pieced on a foundation using the stitch and flip method. I then removed the foundation. All pieces were stitched together and the backing and wadding (batting) were added using the envelope method so that there is no binding. This will make it easier at the end to put all 12 JQs together into one. At least that's what I hope.

Then I started my favourite pastime: adding decoration in the form of appliqued golden circles, hand and machine stitching, some with gold thread. Klimt and I share the taste for gold and all things sparkly!And of course I could not help but add beads and other embellishments.

There are photographic problems to be overcome regarding all the shine, but I will do the best I can with that.

Remember if you want to see all the Journal Quilts this year you can find them by clicking on the Journal Quilts 2013 tag below this post or in the sidebar. They will consist of the 12 Klimt ones (click on Klimt to find just these) and the 12 square ones inspired by the themes on the Sketchbook Challenge site this year.

Contemporary Quilt Journal Quilts

12 of the Journal Quilts I made for my 52 Journals project last year were also part of the Journal Quilt project organized by the Contemporary Quilt Group of the British Quilters' Guild and they set some rules for their JQs which were colour related. The first 4 months they were to be mainly red, the next 4 mainly yellow and the last 4 months were to be dedicated to blue.

It was suggested on their Yahoo Group that we put a picture into a folder showing all our 2012 Journal Quilts together and this is my photograph.

49. Thoughts fly Swift Journal Quilt

It's December and the 52 Journals project is nearing its end so you will hear me saying the last this and that rather a lot! This is the last blue journal quilt. As well as being part of the 52 Journals, where I aim to make one small (this one is A4) journal quilt for every week this year, this one is also made as part of the journal quilt project organized by the Contemporary Group of the Quilters's Guild. They set some extra rules such as the A4 portrait orientated size and a colour scheme. Their JQs are to be made monthly, the first 4 this year had to be red, the next 4 yellow and the last 4 months blue. This suited rather well as for my inspiration I used wintry photographs taken in past years which had been transferred to batiks using TAP (transfer artist paper). These were made for a project I had in mind which never made it to fruition.

You can see this month's picture in detail above and it features one of the birdhouses in our garden, covered with a snow hat. In fact, I expect it will shortly look again just like that as the snowflakes are gently coming from the sky as I'm typing this and the weather forecast has promised about 10 cm (4") or so before the day is done. I used a technique I learned on Craftsy again (as I did on the previous blue JQ). I had enjoyed Carol Ann Waugh's previous class so much that I wanted to see more of her cheerful presence on my computer screen and did her Stitch and Slash class. And it was fun! I adjusted it to suit my needs and gave myself the additional challenge of adding the image on the bottom of the 4 layers of fabric I used to do the slashing. I also added couching and hand stitching and needless to say by now I hope, beading!  Once again I had great fun with it all and I'm only sorry Carol Ann doesn't do any more classes on Craftsy.

Above you can see the 4 finished blue journal quilts for the Contemporary Group (and by the way if you click on the link to the group you will see that one of my quilts, called Footloose in the Forest is featured there just at the moment!). The blue quilts look good together and I'm pleased with them all. I'm not sure yet whether or not I will participate again in their project next year. It depends on what rules and regulations they will set us and also on the size. I really prefer my JQs to be either 10 x 10" or A4 size. I have found in the past that longer and/or slimmer is not much to my taste but of course I should be open to more of a challenge. Just because I won't be making weekly JQs next year won't mean I will not make any. I love the format so will no doubt return to it in the future.

44. Find an End Journal Quilt

It's that time of the week again when I upload my latest Journal Quilt for my 52 Journals project in which I aim to make one Journal Quilt (this one is A4 size) for every week of 2012. And this week the JQ is also made for the Journal Quilts Challenge run by the Contemporary  Quilt Group of the Quilters' Guild. That's why it is mainly blue. The Contemporary Quilt group has made the stipulation that the Journal Quilts (made monthly) have a colour theme this year. The first four months of 2012 were to be mainly (75%) yellow, the next four red and the last 4 blue. I myself have added another theme that for the blue ones involves using some photographs I had transferred to fabric using Transfer Artist Paper (TAP) for some, now long forgotten, purpose. I came across them in the studio and as the photographs were all taken during a long and snowy winter and were transferred to blue fabric they were just asking to be used. The photo I applied to this JQ is of some fencing in a neighbouring field with the Pentland Hills in the background. 

The techniques I used are a direct result of my newly acquired broadband connection. As a result of finally being able to browse the internet in a more civilized (faster!) fashion I went ever so slightly mad (or should that read: completely bonkers?!). Rather than saving time (which was the intention) I was spending SO much time online that it was to the detriment of my stitching. Of course common sense eventually prevailed (It did take several months) and I have returned to setting myself a firm limit (and yes indeed shorter than before) of how long I am allowed to spend behind my computer (although I'm not counting iPad time). But in the beginning I also ventured into the world of online classes which until then was mainly closed to dial-up connections. 

One of the places I found was Craftsy and when I got my iPad this was one of the first apps I installed. And the class that immediately attracted my attention was called  Stupendous Stitching by Carol Ann Waugh.

The reason why it attracted my attention was that the end product looked very much like my Threadtangle quilt that I made about 2 years ago (detail shown above). After more than 20 years of quilting I know only too well that there is nothing new under the sun and it is perfectly possible for various people to come up with very similar techniques and ideas and I was immediately interested in how Carol went about producing something that looked very much like what I had done on the Threadtangle quilt. So I paid and then had lots of fun watching Carol Ann at work in her videos. She's a woman after my own heart (her motto is There are No Mistakes!) and you can feel her pleasure at making her art shining through on the videos. As I was beginning this Journal Quilt I suddenly thought to myself : I will work through these lessons with her, but rather than using all the colours of the rainbow as is Carol Ann's and my delight, I will try and do it in a monochromatic colour way, blue in this case. And it worked wonderfully well. Not just that but I thoroughly enjoyed myself at the same time. I need hardly add that I just had to add that friedaness to the piece in the form of beads!! How could I not?

I used the TAP photograph as shown  The vintage text (another element that is uniquely mine) reads: "Find an end, or make one for all men in all times". This is in fact a put together sentence, of two lines cut from a vintage book. They were pages apart but to me they seemed to belong together.

I also added a moon to this thread landscape. It's a pendant I bought from Eebeads some years ago and that was originally in black/white. I used blue alcohol ink to paint it to merge with the other blues. The only reason I used the alcohol paints (from Ranger) was because they were still out in the studio in plain view,  after my bookmaking class of a few weeks ago. It worked wonderfully well on this Capiz shell pendant. It was a delight to put this journal quilt together and specially as much hand stitching was involved. Something that will forever be my first love in the textile world I live and work in. In the end I always return to my beloved running stitch but I've also used lazy daisy stitch and cross stitch on this journal quilt.

Contemporary Quilt book

I finally got around to ordering the book CQ@10 when I retrieved the piece of paper I had written the necessary information on to buy it. It had got lost among some other paperwork and I found it when I was trying to create at least some order in the chaos of my studio. I immediately (before I lost it again) ordered it (you can do so by following the info here) and I highly recommended you do as it's a lovely publication, beautifully laid out and produced. It celebrates the 10th anniversary of the Contemporary Quilt group that is a part of the Quilters' Guild of the British Isles. I can't quite remember when I joined but it was pretty close to the beginning and although I'm not a very active member I do always read the messages on their Yahoo group and of course I have been making journal quilts which is a project for which they took inspiration from the JQ exhibitions at the Houston Quilt Show. I only missed making them in 2010 and the colour-quilts-collage solo show I had in 2011 was the excuse. I needed all my time to make work for that. But as regular readers will know I'm doing them again this year, as part of my 52 Journals project. 

To my delight, when the book arrived today, I discovered that 3 pieces of my art were included. 

This quilt, called Daffodil Days and which dates back many years, was exhibited with the Contemporary Quilt group in the Beldam Gallery at Brunel University, Uxbridge in 2004. 

Two of my Journal Quilts were also included. The above one is A4 sized and was made for February 2007. You can read my blog post about it here.

And this one, sized 12" square for the next year 2008, when I dedicated all my JQs to Venice! As some of you know my Venice obsession is long-standing! It was made for the month of June and more information can be seen here.

Such a treat to suddenly discover them in this book and the whole book is a delight of colour and inspiration. If you're a quilter, whether traditional, contemporary or art, you should buy a copy! Click here to do so.

40. The Illimitable Future Journal Quilt

It was hard work getting this Journal Quilt ready in time to upload today, involving 2 days of more or less solid stitching and embellishing after my mother left on Tuesday. But here it is! It's mainly blue as apart from my own 52 Journals project it's also part of the monthly Journal Quilts for the Contemporary Group of the Quilters' Guild of the British Isles. This group has set the size (A4 portrait) and the colour. The first 4 months of the year were red, the next yellow and our final four blue. I'm using wintry pictures I once transferred to fabric using Transfer Artist Paper (TAP) for some project I've now long forgotten about. But the pictures looked great and this is my way of recycling them. For this one I used a view of the Pentland Hills in winter which you can see in detail below. And if you're a first time reader (welcome!) just a reminder that  for my 52 Journals project I'm aiming to make one small (usually A4 size) journal quilt for every week this year. You can see the ones I've made so far in the slideshow (see sidebar) or by clicking on the 52 Journals label below this post.

I started with a turquoise piece of velvet that I machine quilted using one of the decorative stitches on my machine. To that I appliqued (using Bondaweb) pieces of silk fabrics that together told a story of the past that exists only in my imagination. One of these fabrics portrayed the sea and this slotted in beautifully with the TAP transferred image of the Pentland Hills, even though no actual sea exists on that image (nor in reality!), but see above just how seamless that connection is. Meant to be!

The other images I used were of wave like patterns as well as an old town, a ship and a balloon. After all the applique was finished I overlaid the entire piece with a organdie silk scarf in turquoise and then stitched by hand in a variety of stitches and threads, around the various imagery as shown. I beaded around the moon with size 11 seed beads and added star shaped embellishments in the sky. I stitched on the vintage text to which I also added Diamond Glaze afterwards to give it some protection and make it more substantial than just paper. The text reads: "Behind us the irrevocable past, before us the illimitable future". I'm continually surprised by how I manage to somehow find text that goes so well with the image I've build up on the journal quilt. Such synchronicity and by now I have come to trust that when I look for text I will find just what the piece needs. Most of the text I'm using on my 52 Journals comes from Proverbial Philosophy by Martin F. Tupper. My version (now falling to bits and with text cut out here, there and everywhere) was published in 1867 and has amazing engravings which were the reason I originally bought it for the grand sum of £0.50. I have the feeling that quite soon now I'll be indulging and buying another copy on Ebay!

Of course I once again beaded along the binding as I do for virtually all my journal quilts. Only another 12 journal quilts to go now. Astonishing!

36. A Starry Night Journal Quilt

The last 4 months of the year are looming and that means that the last 4 Journal Quilts for the Contemporary Group of the Quilters' Guild of the British Isles have to be blue. We've had yellow and red, so we're covering all the primaries. I'm incorporating mine into my own 52 Journals project where I aim to make one Journal Quilt for every week this year. Fortunately the size for the Contemporary Group has to be A4 Portrait Orientation which fits in well as most of the weekly JQs I'm making are also that size. I had no trouble finding an inspirational photograph for the yellow and reds but had serious difficulties with blue.

Eventually I found a collection of fabrics onto which I had printed winter photographs using TAP (Transfer Artist Paper). I can no longer remember when or why I did so but I think it was to test how transparent the transfers were on patterned fabric. It was probably for a particular purpose but whatever it was, it never came to anything and I decided that rather than using just one photograph as inspiration for the blues I would use a selection of those transferred to fabric pictures. They all are wintery and bluish in character, which seems a bit funny for September but keep in mind that the last one I'm making will be produced in December. And keeping them all in a winter atmosphere should hopefully make them look good together. The first photograph which I'm using on this journal quilt,  features frozen dead flower heads transferred to a fabric with a butterfly pattern.

I went back to basics, as this is really like a strippy quilt, with the strips going horizontally. I used a silver lame with blue stars which is very blingy (a bit lost in the photographs) that was machine quilted outlining the stars. One strip features my by now familiar inchies (made from fabric paper collage), and they were hand quilted and beaded. The next strip is a blue hand-dye to which I added starry stamps and the transferred picture fabric as well as starry embellishments. The bottom strip was embellished with silk hand dyed circles with hand stitching and beading. I used a couched down fluffy yarn to separate the strips.

Text was added to the strip with the photograph, which reads: " Waters on a starry night are beautiful and fair". The water is shown in the bottom strip with the circles and the stars, of course, are up at the top.

I hand sewed beading along the edges of the binding which is my usual finishing touch for these journal quilts.

Remember you can see a slideshow of all the journal quilts I've made so far for the 52 Journals project in the sidebar and read all about each one by clicking on the 52 Journals label below this post.

31. Leaves of Hope Journal Quilt

Amazingly it's August already. How did that happen all of a sudden when we're still awaiting the arrival of summer? But never mind, at least it was time for another yellow journal quilt and yellow does look very cheerful and summery. It had to be yellow as this is one of the requirements of the monthly journal quilts I'm making for the Contemporary Quilt Journal Quilt project and which I'm also incorporating into my own 52 Journals project for which I make one JQ every week of 2012. This is the last yellow journal quilt as every colour gets 4 monthly JQs. For the first four months of this year I made red ones, then yellow and the last 4 months of this year it will be blue. 

Here are the four yellow ones pictures together and you can hopefully see that they were all inspired by the same image, something I did previously for the 4 red ones too and will hopefully continue to do for the blue ones too. This will, I hope, ensure that they look good together as well as individually. 

This is a detail from the gravestone found at Borthwick graveyard which was my original inspiration for the yellow journal quilts. I used it as a template in this last one and configured 4 of the leaves together on the A4 sized, portrait orientated background. They are thus symmetrical both horizontally, vertically and through the diagonals. They were made out of yellow silk and Bondawebbed  as well as buttonhole stitched unto a background which was then machine echo quilted.  Then I went to town with the embellishments, using beads, sequins and hand embroidery as shown. The binding is from the same yellow silk and yet again size 11 seed beads were added around the edges of the binding. 

Finally the vintage text was glued and sewn on. It reads: "The tender leaves of hope".

27. Shady Leaves of Destiny Journal Quilt

It's that time of the week again when I upload my next journal quilt for the 52 Journals project. And this week the journal quilt is also made as part of my contribution for the journal quilt project organized by the Contemporary Group of the Quilters' Guild of the British Isles, and for that the JQ needs to be A4 size, portrait orientation and In Shades of Yellow for this month. I've made 2 previous yellow ones already which can be seen here and here, so this is no. 3 with one more left to make in August. All yellow ones are inspired by the same detail taken from a gravestone in Borthwick graveyard that you can see at the bottom of this post.

For this JQ I used the image to make a pattern as shown above, transferred it to Bondaweb (Wonderunder in US) and cut it out of 9 different yellow fabrics. These were machine appliqued using buttonhole stitch to a yellow background which had been overlaid with a sparkly semi-transparent fabric. The leaves were then hand-embroidered (using a back-stitch) and hand beaded, while the background was seed-stitched by hand, using large stitches and a variegated thread. The text was printed onto yellow fabric using a Xyron Design Writer and stitched on as shown. Finally beading was added to the binding edge as I've done for almost all my JQs this year, and in the past. It's become like my signature, in fact!

22. A New Leaf Journal Quilt

It's almost June and I'm being one day ahead of things by uploading my next yellow A4 sized Journal Quilt. It's part of my 52 Journals project where I'm aiming to make one journal quilt for every week this year and
it's also part of the monthly Journal Quilt project run by the Contemporary Group of the British Quilting Guild. For them the JQ has to be A4 sized, portrait orientated and as an added challenge they are having a colour theme too. The first 4 months this year 75% of the journal quilts had to be red and for May, June, July and August they have to have the same percentage but this time of yellow! I love yellow
so this is definitely no punishment!

As I showed when I uploaded the first yellow journal quilt I'm using a detail of 2 leaves from a gravestone in Borthwick graveyard  (see below)as inspiration for all my yellow journal quilts. For this particular one I isolated one of the leaves digitally (as per the picture above) and used it as my pattern for the leaf shape.

I cut it out from thick yellow felt (bought from Oliver Twist) and adorned it with hand embroidery, sequins, and beads. This was then appliqued by hand to a yellow dupion silk background and the background was then free-machine quilted, echoing the leaf shape. A green - gold binding was added and 3 vintage French postage stamps were sewn on. Finally I printed the text: "turning over a new leaf" onto yellow fabric and sewed it on and size 11 seed beads were sewn on along the binding.