Slow stitching - a calm, enjoyable example

A couple of years ago Helen discovered the art of using cloth from old about-to-be-discarded book covers in vintage slow stitching. Her recently completed cloth book incorporates them with other vintage textiles and hand stitching. She found it a relaxing, meditative process, and the result is a beautiful, mellow one-of-a-kind piece, made over long time, with few rules and no time constraints.

Helen found numerous websites and social media sources of information on techniques for removing and re-using the cloth covers, and suggestions for vintage textiles to re-purpose, and found quite a few materials in fabric and notions already in her stash for use ‘one day’.

Click on individual photos to zoom in for a closer look.

 

A textile book, from a book

Helen is exploring an unusual multimedia project that is proving both enjoyable and intriguing, and quite meditative. She’s making a textile book from ordinary, old discarded hard backed books.

Helen brought in the pages in progress,
and explained the process. 

The coloured cloth is the from the deconstructed covers,
 usually linen, from which the glue has been removed 
by soaking in warm water.

The cloth is then soft and ready to be stitched over batting
and backing, forming individual ‘pages’. Embellishments
include oddments of lace and embroidery,
a shard of sheet music ….

… scraps of fabric and a couched piece of cord …

… stitching, fragments of pages from the original book …

… embroidery and a message from the book …

… a little stitching, or a lot. The soft faded colours are
reminiscent of books you might recall from older family
members’ book collections.

Sashiko jacket

Jenny K stitched a series of Sashiko panels, with no particular final use in mind … until she hit upon the idea of a Sashiko jacket, that she kindly modelled for us.

 

Kawandi +

Interest in Kawandi style quilts and quilting remains high, with several more completed.  We know there are several more in the making.

Susan made her small Kawandi style quilt after a demonstration
 at one of our recent meeting by Val. She used flannel fabrics
for piecing  and the back so it can be used to protect a table
from hot dishes, and intentionally left the sides not squared up.

Pat used her Japanese fabric stash, and finished some
 joins with embroidered top-stitching.

Generalising from her Kawandi quilt, Pat made another
small improv quilt using a crumb -piecing technique as
demonstrated by Teresa Downunder online
at teresadownunder.com

Jill’s Kawandi style quilt started in a workshop
with Lorena Uriarte

Sue’s Kawandi style quilt started in a workshop 
with Lorena Uriarte

Close-up of Sue’s stitching using 12 wt Aurifil
Mako cotton thread.

‘Improvisational Contemporary Quilts’ - new book

Congratulations to award winning Sydney quilter, teacher, designer, textile artist and now writer Jessica Wheelahan on the publication of her first book of quilt designs and patterns, ‘Improvisational Contemporary Quilts’, published by Quiltmania.

Jessica Wheelahan lives and works in Sydney, Australia. For the last ten years, Jessica chose textiles as a means to express herself and creates quilts inspired by fashion, art, design and pop culture. In her creative process, she mainly uses improvisational techniques which she loves teaching to her students.

In her very first book Improvisational Contemporary Quilts, Jessica guides us in her creative universe, gives us tips and techniques to free oneself from the burden of the more traditional methods. Liberty in the shapes, freedom in the assembling, Jessica revisits in a daring and original way the traditional blocs that find a brand-new dimension and a strong visual impact.

For all of you who always wished to push back the limits, while never daring to actually do it, for the colours, the movement and the joy that burst out of her quilts, Jessica’s book is a must-have! … Quiltmania

    You can order it from Quiltmania, or from the Australian distributor Can Do Books

Kawandi quilts update

Val’s Kawandi quilt aroused a good deal of interest while she was making it, so we thought you would like to see the finished quilt.

Val’s first Kawandi quilt was made from
her stash of African prints.

She enjoyed the process so much that Val is making a
second Kawandi, using her Aboriginal prints. And
there might be more to come …

Kawandi quilting

During one of our last meetings before the current Lockdown here in Sydney, Val showed us her current work in progress, a small quilt she is making in the Kawandi manner.

‘ Kawandi quilting is a traditional craft in western India, brought to that region via African slaves. The African tradition is called Siddi quilting ...’ Jennifer Strauser,  Dizzy Quilter. More information is available in her well illustrated blog post.

Val’s quilt  stimulated considerable interest, and there are several examples on recent social media posts.  Small patches are sewn on to the assembled backing and batting, often by hand, resulting is a free-form, improv style, excellent for using scraps.

Focus cutting sewalong

Stephanie and Linda are both participating in the Focus Cutting sew-along, run by Naomi Clarke on Instagram. We love catching up with their progress, so here are their blocks from the last few weeks. These will become fabulous quilts!

Stephanie’ s blocks ... she slips in an extra
hexagon every now and then.

Linda’s blocks ... the bottom right image shows how she
used different elements of a single print for the whole block.

Sun Shiny Day blocks

The Tales of Cloth 'Sun Shiny Day' English paper piecing quilt is proving very popular online, and at least two of our members have embarked on it. Beautiful fabrics, very cute focused cutting. We look forward to seeing both Helen and Stephanie's quilts when they are put together - thanks for sharing them as you go.

Art Gallery Fabrics has a recent blog post of tips for fussy  (focus) cutting beginners if you are considering put a quilting toe in that water. 

These blocks are Helen's:

And these are Stephanie's. There are many more to look forward to:

Which way is up?

We pin baste a lot of quilts during our monthly community sewing days, and we rarely remember which way the batting is designed to go. Especially if you use a variety of brands and types of batting, a well illustrated reminder such as this blog post by Suzy Quilts will be useful:

Batting seems pretty straightforward ... so what else could there possibly be to talk about? We need to talk about the sides of batting, and how to make sure we stay on its good side ...  Is there a right side to quilt batting? Suzy Quilts, 20 December 2018

• The link has been added to our page of 'Quick links to techniques and resources', along with the link to Spring Leaf Studios' series of posts on 'quilt-as-you' go techniques.

Blog series on Quilt as You Go techniques

Quilting these 16" blocks was much easier
to tackle  one by one than the much 
larger quilt they became part of.

These lovely quiet, often slow, free days between Christmas and New Year are a good time to think about what we might do next as quilters - more of what we already know and love, or maybe take a leap into something new.

Before you start your next quilt (or at least before you join all those blocks together), would you find it easier to quilt it yourself if you mastered a 'quilt as you go' technique or two?

Anne Deister, who writes the Spingleaf Studios blog has written a generous series of posts on various quilt-as-you-go techniques that might get you started. The series covers 5 ways of piecing and quilting block-by-block, and a summary of the five.

She says:

... These posts are not QAYG tutorials but they do include links to the tutorials I used. 

I know I certainly learned a lot from my explorations and will definitely be using QAYG for future projects. 

My hope is that you will be inspired to give QAYG a try.

Tutorial for a knit wholecloth quilt

If most of your sewing is quilting, how long is it since you sewed with knit fabrics? You might have noticed that a growing number of quilting fabric designs are being released in a variety of base cloths in addition to quilting cottons, including knits. A quilt in a knit fabric could be particularly soft cuddly. Here is a recent tutorial on making a knit wholecloth quilt:

Sew Your Own Whole Cloth Knit Quilt…Yes, I Said Knit

Mister Domestic, Stitching Sewcial, 26 February 2017

... after a few years of persistence and humility, I can confidently say that I have conquered knit… enough so that I am going to share with you how to make your own whole cloth knit quilt. And I promise that it won’t fall apart ...

A quick guide to making a disappearing 4 patch block

There's been renewed interest in disappearing 9 patch and disappearing 4 patch blocks lately, as some of our members have made them for the first time. Links to tutorial for both are in the 'Links to techniques and resources' list just under the banner photo at the top of this page.

A small sample of our disappearing four patch quilts -
they work well with just two fabrics , a limited palette,
or with scrappy backgrounds and feature fabrics.

Here is a quick pictorial guide to making a disappearing 4 patch block. The starting squares can be any size, and the cuts to the four patch can be any width - this block started with 6 1/2" squares, and the cuts were made 1 3/4" from the centre seams. The wider the cuts, the less distinct the design becomes:

Summer School at the Embroiderers' Guild of NSW

We know that many quilters are also not-so-secret embroiderers - here is a great opportunity to exercise those creative muscles.

Once again, the Embroiderers' Guild of NSW is offering a wide range of classes during Summer School 2017, starting from 7 January 2017.

Check out the other busy calendar of events and workshops and courses listed under the tabs on the left hand side of the Guild's home page - so much going on!

Technology meets quilting: Laura Kemshall on her Festival of Quilts winning quilt

Laura Kemshall's epic quilt 52 Degrees won the UK Quilters Guild Challenge at the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham last weekend. It is difficult to appreciate online because of its size, and the curvature of its display stand, and the complex techniques used that do translate easily to online images.

Fortunately for those of us who may not ever get to see it 'in the cloth',  Laura Kemshall has posted a detailed blog revealing how she went about achieving this innovative and stunning piece of work. It's a lot to take in, but well worth the time to do so.

Another great idea

Do you ever struggle with shifting rulers as you try to align your quilts edges on those rare occasions when they don't end up just perfectly square?

 Here is an ingenious technique, using an inexpensive non-quilting tool - a 'why didn't I think if that?' idea, from Sew Bitter Sweet Designs:

• Laser Level Trimming Tutorial

Off to Bunnings' quilting department ...

An idea for beginners

If you are looking for a quilt for a beginning quilter, especially one who has little sewing experience, Elsa has come up with a link on 24 Blocks that could be a very useful, do-able starting point. Note the 'no binding' technique. Also good for a very quick quilt for a more experienced quilter:

Could This Be The Best Beginners Project There Is?!? See For Yourself!

Revisiting a popular technique ... and some new things

At a recent meeting, we revisited the disappearing nine patch - a clever way of making a quick quilt block that looks much more complicated than it actually is, after a few members mentioned that they wanted to make it, but had not seen it done (it hit the internet about 2008, with quite a flourish, although the technique is older, and Janet Wickell says the term was in use by 2002).

There are links to both disappearing nine patch and disappearing four patch tutorials on our Quick links to techniques and resources page, and to a double disappearing nine patch, that is just a bit fancier.

Julie brought in two quilts she made using the disappearing nine patch technique, but using different block layouts to achieve quite different overall designs from the 'standard' one. There are many other ways of placing the blocks to achieve different effects (just Google 'disappearing nine patch' images, and settle in for some net surfing). You can also see how using border fabrics of differing values changes the look of the quilts. Thank you for sharing your beautiful quilts, Julie.

Julie's red, black and white quilt is a sophisticated rendition,
achieved by both the block placement and the controlled
colour palette. She has aligned the red blocks so that
the somewhat similar vine-like prints run in the same direction.
It does take more concentration to ensure that the blocks
are aligned correctly, but the sewing remains straightforward,
and it is well worth the extra time.

The block layout in this version also requires some concentration,
but is really quite straightforward - you just need to look
carefully to see it (helpful diagram on close-up below). Julie's
use of a single fabric for the 'sashing blocks' in her nine-patch
tricks the eye in locating the four patches.

Val has recently returned from a trip to Japan. 
She says she doesn't need any new fabric, but nevertheless, 
some came home with her - a beautiful collection, ably 
guarded by her planned purchase of a Sarubobo.
'Sarubobo' literally translates from the Japanese
as "a baby monkey". "Saru" is the Japanese word
for monkey, and "bobo" is the word for baby in
the dialect of Takayama.' (Wikipedia)