Inspired by the enormously talented Morwenna Catt and her wonderful quirky stoles, I felt compelled to make something similar…
I have all this fabric and trimmings and whatnot, sitting around waiting to be purposed. And what better purpose than a mad turquoise friend.
I was aiming for a cat shaped face, but looks a little more doggish to me. Maybe some ear adjustment and whiskers will bring it round. Either way, I’m kinda fond of this new addition to the family.
Although I’m still painting and all – this quilt is obsession de jour. There’s a real autumnal feel in the air the last couple of days – so stitching away!
Having trimmed, washed, de-fluffed and thoroughly considered my stacks of velvet patches I deceid the best way forward would be to take the smallest length and cut all the other patches to this size.
(First use of the rotary cutter – it you use fabric a lot and don’t have one I highly recommend trying it out.) I’ve now got a good size pile of offcuts which I can see are just waiting for a project of their own…!
Experimental layouts, fluff induced sneezing. You’ll see there’s quite a bit of fluff and threads on the fabric – I battled with it a while, but it keeps coming back while there are unfinished edges!
The patches are 9cm (3 and a bit inches) square, in 5 x 5 squares. Each of these squares takes about 30 mins to machine together (inc time for fiddling about. The pile of 2 velvets together makes the patches ‘walk’ a bit. Some of them take a bit of battling with!)
I’ve machined 8 of these squares now, and begun hand embroidering over the machine stitching in places. Relieved to report the fluff levels are subsiding too!
See what I did there? *snigger*
September’s just round the corner and me and the Inner Kid are looking forward to some cosiness. We reeeeeally want a velvet quilt in which to snuggle.
Now, something like 15 years ago we made one. It was a patchwork of scavanged velvet from car boot sales and charity shops, excuses, impatience and scant attention to detail. I didn’t have such a balanced relationship with IK back then, so handed over almost all the decision making, which culminated in a lovely colorful quilt, full of hurried inaccuracies, apology and shonky stitching. It began to develop holes almost straight away.
Fast forward another 10 years or so: We decide to re-incarnate/up-cycle said quilt into covers for floor cushions. Some long while after this they ended up in that limbo of ‘waiting for next idea’ space. The ragbag. The months of scavanging fabric, sorting and choosing, cutting into squares, sneezing from the fluff were so long past, but still fresh enough that we couldn’t totally let go.
Fast forward again to yesterday: I left IK sleeping off the excitement of the previous day and snuck upstairs with scissors and freshly washed quilt/cushion cover remnants.
Sssssshhhhh…. don’t tell, but I actually began trimming down the pieces to the same size (yes, measured not guessed)…. layed them out on the (ironed) backing fabric and pinned them. Just like a proper grown up would do!!!
I’ll post up some picks as we go along – meanwhile IK is yelling in the background: I have to paint the dream I just woke from. QUICK before it escapes!
I’m always striving to find new directions of creativity to explore (given that I can’t settle on any preference, might as well try as much as I can find).
Last weekend I spent learning the art of machine embroidery from the very inspirational Gina Ferrari. I’d only ever dabbled with this sort of machining before but by the end of the weekend course I’d produced a few samples and things, including this.
Not to mention full-to-the-brim with new ideas! 😀
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