sewing and more quilts.

Today seems to have involved  quite a bit of walking. Not an amazing amount but more than I have been doing recently. The day started, thankfully later than a work day, with taking our dogs out for their early morning walk. It had rained a little last night so they were enjoying the new smells but at the same time eager to get home for their breakfast. Our normal early morning walk is happens somewhere between 5:30 and 6:15 depending on my work schedule. Once home I got on with the quilting on the St Louis 16 patch quilt. I decided that since time was short to get this quilt finished I would quilt it using the walking foot and keep the quilting simple. I managed to get it all done. Here's how it looks.

Just as I finished the quilting I got a phone call from John telling me that the Christmas tree for the church had been delivered and would I be available to decorate it. I was pleased I'd finished the quilting and needed a rest or a change of activity before sorting out the binding. I walked up to the church (it is up quite a steep hill) with a strong cold wind to my back. I wasn't looking forward to being face into the wind on the way home. The tree is huge and very tall between 10 to 11 feet so we needed the long ladders. Between us we got the lights and the decorations up including the star on the top. Going up and down the ladders was quite scary. I was right to be concerned about the wind on the way home as it was blowing even colder and face on. Once home we warmed up with coffee. Thank goodness that job is done for another year but we will have to take it down after Christmas.

So I promised you some more quilts from the quilt show. The quilts were hung all round the shop so you had to keep your wits about you. I'd seen this first quilt in an earlier show.

Ecce Imaginem by Catherine Millar The fabrics were dyed and stitched by Catherine. The piece was designed and appliqued by Tim Millar.

This is their version of the last and lost panel of the Bayeux Tapestry. In their imagination the women who worked the embroidery are celebrated, only two women appear in the original tapestry but there are twelve in their panel. The Latin words mean ''. Here they are dyeing the wool and spinning, and they are making the picture. Behold the image

I love that there is a sewing machine, modern house and car in the border of this piece.

This piece is titled 'Congregation' Swallows over St Pauls by Angela Knapp. She wrote that swallows have featured in her work more than any other bird and they were pivotal for her work moving from a study of a bird to telling a story and experimenting with backgrounds. The building are stitched using free motion embroidery directly onto the backing fabric and wadding.

This quilt was used as the picture on the programme. This piece is called Tick tock and is by Peter Hayward. The organisers of the show did not expect this quilt to be exhibited as it was in a show in Houston, Texas but it was returned and arrived in time to be on display. Unfortunately there is no information in the programme about this quilt since it wasn't expected.

The next quilt is Desert Ghosts by Pat Archibald. It pictures three of the men she met on her travels through the desert of Rajasthan. The goat herd who needed a hip replacement, the street man waiting to be picked for labouring work that day and the man content to sit and daydream.

Quid Pro Quo by Peter Hayward. He states the that quilt marked a radical change in his style and virtually everything he has made since has been based on the 'false weaving' technique he came up with. The piece is quilted with a walking foot with the lines endeavouring to accentuate the different parts of the image. 

The Crumbs of Comfort by Katheryn Chambers is a memory quilt entirely hand stitched using her Dad's shirts and hankies following his passing in 2019. Some of the cloth was hand-dyed using natural dyes indigo, madder and walnut.

The Three Spring Hares by Dawn Cameron Dick. She uses her own reverse hand applique technique rather than traditional needle turn applique. The entire design was drawn onto white fabric, then tacked onto the directional growing grass fabric and tacked in place. Then she cut away and appliques the white to the green grass.

The next quilt is My Tree of Life by Trease Lane. Trease writes that playing with paint has become something she love.  A wash was applied to the fabric using acrylic paint, the design was done using stencils. The tree of life was cut from freezer paper and applied to the fabric and a white wash of paint was applied over the top. It was then stitched and embellished.

The next quilt is another by Catherine Millar and is titled Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. This piece follows the story of Sir Gawain and his answer to the challenge from the Green knight. The fabric is dyed and stitched by Catherine Millar and designed and appliqued by Tim Millar. The piece was short listed for a prize at the Festival of Quilts in 2023 and received a Judges' Choice commendation at Quilts UK, Malvern 2023.

My Thai Monstera by Dawn Cameron Dick is a mixture of hand appliques, the top three lighter leaves are her reverse applique and the remaining darker leaves are traditional needle turn

This last quilt is such a fun idea. Scandinavian Jumpers by Gillian Travis won a second prize in the Art Quilt category at Festival of Quilts in 2015. It was inspired by a trip to Scandinavia where she photographed many traditional jumpers. Each of the small felt jumpers are set into the felt so they sit flat. She hand dyed the felt and decorated each jumper using automatic patterns found on her sewing machine.

A couple of close up pictures of some of the jumpers.

Those are all the photos I took of the quilts. I will ask John if he has any other quilt photos I can share with you. He had slightly more  time to take the photos as I spent some time with the sewing group.

Tomorrow I'm planning on sewing the binding onto the St Louis 16 patch quilt and then I can get the binding stitched down and the quilt will be ready to be gifted. I also have some things I need to get done for work, hopefully I can do that quite quickly so I can enjoy my day off. Only three working days this week and then I'm not in work again until 6th January. I have so many things I want to try and get done during the Christmas break. If I manage some of them I will be very happy.

Take care 

Lyndsey