12 August, 2007

Little Elements of Fire



Little Elements of fire - folded detail


The „4 Elements“ have been this year’s summer exhibition theme of my quilt group. I have been thinking about a red and white log cabin quilt for quite some time and choose to use that idea for the Elements theme.

I love to work with old/vintage cotton though this time the fabric was rather new; t used to be the curtain for my Berlin apartment a few years ago. 3,80 m high walls, big old windows and therefore lots of white cotton….

The red fabric is silk I bought from IKEA two years ago. And I have to admit I regretted using it. It is not colour fast especially when washed with cold / timid water; it suffered from the hot ironing temperature needed for the cotton and the edges frayed a lot.

The batting is the cotton batting 275 from Freudenberg. It is not very heavy; it looks a little bit like it has been felted which I why it does not loose its shape even after several washing or heavy use. Hand quilting it was pretty good too.

It all started with log cabin squares without measuring their size just sewing one after the other whenever I felt like it. Later I had to trim quite a few of them to size.



Log Cabin Quilt WIP 26 of 35





WIP - another corner



When I have already finished many of the squares I started planning the quilt. Thinking about it size, the amount of squares needed for it in the end and especially making up my mind about how to quilt it.

With the little doll quilt I learned how the quilting lines can change a quilts appearance and with the graphic strictness of the log cabin I wanted to add a little “chaos”, some softer lines to my quilt. That is why I went with an all over quilt pattern with circles and half circles to contrast the log cabin squares, again.


Log Cabin Quilt sketch

Quilted but not finished yet.

Little Elements of Fire - quilted but not finished yet


The finished quilt, photographed in front of a window with the sun shining through it. It is beautiful (I am biased I know…) and very comfy.



Little Elements of fire - red and white quilt

15 May, 2007

little red and white doll quilt

Something different, not exactly Redwork though I added a few running stitches in red just like aviva_hadas suggested.


Doll Quilt

whipup


Inspired by the doll and miniature quilts of the doll quilt swap I created my own version. The progess with such a small quilt is amazing only two nights and all hand piecing, basting and the first quilting lines were finished. If only my other project would go so fast. Now I wished it would grow into a big quilt all by itself…..


My little doll quilt as a WIP after two nights.

WIP -  Doll Quilt

06 May, 2007

Liebst du der Rose Pracht hab'auf die Dornen acht.



Rosenpracht2



My latest fleamarket treasure. It is very old, way to delicate to really use and I am afraid it could break from displaying it alone. But I love it.

The German text reads if you love the rose’s beauty be aware of the thorns.

It has all the marks of its age, the dayly use and the fequent washing. Threadbare and already loosing a few of its Redwork stitches it still is simply beautiful.

I took this photo in front of a window to show how thin the fabric of this Redwork piece is. The darker parts are done in traditional embroidery with white floss. And you can see a few Redwork lines are already missing.

'Vintage

Here are a few photos where you can see the different stiches in white floss used in this redwork piece.

Detail - Text



Detail - Rose & Stem



Detail - Stem & Ribbon



Detail - Head



Detail - Dress & Fan



Detail - Bag



Detail - Butterfly


If you want to re-create the piece here is the pattern I traced from the original.


rosenpracht

03 April, 2007

IKEA hack - "Turntable Ironing Board"

I saw this Clover „Turntable“ ironing board in many of the japanese craft magazines and thougth it would be quite handy. As Clover does not sell it in Germany and I remembered the “lazy susan tray” at IKEA I made one myself.


IKEA Hack - Turntable Ironing Board


Material needed: SNUDDA (lazy suzan tray 39 cm) from IKEA 5,99 €.




Cotton fabric, and heat resistant batting (mine is from an ironing board cover). The batting needs to be cut exactly the size of SNUDDA, the fabric appox. 10 cm bigger than SNUDDA.


Make a giant yoyo with a rather strong thread, put the batting on top of SNUDDA and cover both with the yoyo. Pull the thread tight and voila…

02 April, 2007

Nursery Rhyme Pattern in Jayne's Quilt...

I kind of love the nusery rhyme pattern most as all of them have the little text line in it.

Little Miss Muffet

Little Miss Muffet

Sat on a tuffet,
Eating of curds and whey;
There came a spider,
And sat down beside her,
And frightened Miss Muffet away.

On Project Gutenberg I found the book The Little Mother Goose published in 1912 by "Good Housekeeping Magazine" with the lovely illustration by Jessie Willcox Smith. All of the nursery rhyme pattern in Jayne's quilt are based on the original artwork of this female illustrator.


Apparently her work must have been quite popular in her time as those Mother Goose illustration where already available as Redwork pattern then according to Deborah Harding

Later on the pattern was also published by Butterick. A re-print of that vintage Butterick pattern is available from
Patternbee


Jessie Willcox Smith- Bio Links
http://www.ortakales.com/illustrators/Smith.html
http://www.bpib.com/illustrat/jwsmith.htm
http://www.library.pitt.edu/libraries/is/enroom/illustrators/smith.htm

and the wounderful Children Book Illustrator site www.nocloo.com with some of her artwork:
http://www.nocloo.com/gallery2/v/jessie-wilcox-smith-garden-verses/
http://www.nocloo.com/gallery2/v/jessie-wilcox-smith-north-wind/