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!

The Garden of Earthly Delights

Finally it's time to show you the quilt that started life as an Instagram challenge. I discovered it back at the beginning of August on the@GnomeAngel Instagram feed. Her proper name is Angie 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 quilt 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 (always good to be able to justify such an indulgence!). I found it at Biggar Stitches and 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! Naughty but very nice indeed.

The idea was to upload one block (finished size 6") every day starting at  block no. 1 and finishing at no. 100 from August to November last year. At the time our dog Rueben was already ill and my head was not in the right place to design new work so in the interim I decided it would do me no harm to make these blocks, and enjoy playing with my fabrics. Despite the sadness of Rueben's death on the 29th September I managed to carry on and complete the project, just a few days after the arrival of our delightful Flora.

The 100 blocks lingered in my studio but there was a new challenge on Instagram: to put the blocks together and post them on Instagram by tomorrow (25th Jan) using the hashtag #100blocksfinished.

The book itself gives a variety of different ways of joining the blocks but I wasn't very taken with any of them. I wanted the quilt to look like a secret garden so decided to add an extra round of strips to each block to make them finished size 20cm and I'm very pleased with the results. I sewed them together so that I can participate in the challenge although I will probably still add an additional border around the entire quilt using one of the fabrics.

Today was the moment to photograph the blocks. Sadly it is a dismal day for picture taking, grey and damp, with wind so this is the best I could do with the help of my able assistant whose arms were not quite long enough. Flora too wanted to participate in the fun and why not. A garden of earthly delight would not be complete without a dog, as least as far as I am concerned.

I am going to send the quilt out to be long arm machine quilted and when all that is done I will endeavour to photograph it again in a much more official and better manner but I thought I would share the whole idea of it now.

It's so worthwhile checking out Instagram for quilt projects. There are lots of them about and @gnomeangel is an excellent place to start. This Australian modern quilter is really on top of things and organizes many projects herself as well as pointing you in the right direction to other activities.

You can also find me on Instagram as @friedaquilter.

The Light at the end of the Tunnel

The new theme for March on The Documented Life Project 2016 is: Seeking Treasure - finding value in the small things. For some reason my brain stored that as: tiny treasures. The art challenge for this week was: go splatter crazy.

I started without any preconceptions by making a background with acrylic paints and a stencil. It's very hard to spot the stencil any more but I used Floral 1 stencil by Traci Bautista. I splattered on the pages to my heart's content.

I then started to think about my wrongly remembered prompt of tiny treasures and grabbed the little stickers, printed from my Instagram photographs by Social Print Studio and thought about making a path with them as the cobblestones.

A path has to lead somewhere and I knew I had this small image of the light at the end of the tunnel which seemed a perfect fit. I also found a wanderer for the path. After I stuck on the images (they are self-adhesive) I outlined the path with a black Stabilo All pencil and outlined each one with a white marker.

I wrote a variety of quotations along the side of the path, all to do with that light at the end of the tunnel. Then I went slightly mad and added the tiny little footprints along the path. I must have been a bit delirious already to attempt such madness as shortly afterwards I started to feel quite unwell, thought I would go for a short lie-down and woke up 25 hours later. I have no idea what hit me but presumably I needed that sleep. All back to normal now!

In hindsight perhaps the spread is symbolic for that journey I took through sleep into the light of this new day now. For me the 9th of March 2016 simply vanished into nothingness.

I love the higgledy-piggledy look of the path and also the fact that the little photographs are now safely stored in my art journal to look at in the future. As for all my DLP16 spreads, this one has been done in the 8 x 8" Dylusions art journal.

Let There Be Light

We are still journalling with photos for The Documented Life Project 2015 in September. Our art challenge for this week is: silhouettes, and the journalling prompt: There is no shadow without the light. I have shamelessly borrowed various elements of my own art for this page. The circular sunset photographs come from my Instagram presence where I tend to put them whenever we have a spectacular sunset. I also like sunrises but am not often up early enough for them! I had them printed out by Printstagram and then used a circular punch. The photo top left is from one of my journal quilts. This one is called: You Leave me Cold. And the idea of two facing silhouettes comes from a sketchbook I did for the Sketchbook Project called: Passioneyes.

I used complimentary colours toning in with these pictures to make my background, as well as the Ripple Effect stencil from Stencilgirl Products.  I also used some vintage text in the background and a stamp by Stampotique, designed by France Papillon.

For the silhouettes I borrowed a face from a fashion magazine and outlined it with white paint and then added blue Radiant Silk glaze on top. The text too came from a magazine.

Finally I added the quotation by Helen Keller: "Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see a shadow" around the two silhouettes and added the postage stamps.

Prinstagram Buttons

When I discovered that Social Print Studio were starting a new line printing instagram pictures on pin buttons (1" in diameter and like a brooch at the back)  I just had to give it a try. I do love how they print your instagram pictures on cards, stickers, film strips and little books but buttons sounded even more delightful. And I was not disappointed.

Here they all are (I could not resist a double order, to save on postage!). 30 wonderful 1" buttons featuring my art and photographs and I predict that you will see them again popping up in future projects. At the moment I'm simply enjoying putting them together in different arrangements. Oh, the simple pleasures of life!