Annies Crazy World

As I have worked on this memory quilt I have had a running list of ideas in my visual journal crossing off ideas that I couldn’t make work, adding others as I thought of them or found something that prompted an idea…every so often writing an updated list of what I would still like to include.

I had wanted to have a tent because when we all go home for Christmas the backyard becomes a camping ground…This recent list does not include a tent because I had asigned it to the to hard basket…imagine my delight when I opened one of the packets of mixed buttons that I purchased the other day from the Crafty Frog to discover a little blue tent…The tent is a little more plasticy than I would normally use without painting it but I am running out of time to fiddle about with the paints and besides it is a good tent blue, tents are sort of plasticy and I had to find a place for it just because I had it…..I also found a place for the bicycle button.

And it wouldn’t be a crazy quilt without a Spiders Web for good luck…for a little fun I have stitched it on the book fabric.

This is the last join on mum’s quilt…going across the join are…

Portuguese Stem Stitch

Comination of single knot, Double knot and Oyster Stitch

Herringbone on the upper side and a knot combination, see illustration of what I did.

Double Knot Stitch

Elongated Oyster Stitch

And on the last section I have done a zig zag chain Stitch

With my deadline approaching (quilt hand in day for the exhibition is Sat week) it is time to decide which Ideas I really want to include and what can be left off…

I do really want a frog for mum’s pet frog that lived in her toilet and I do really want a cow because when we were kids my uncle had a cow and his family had the morning milking and we had the afternoon milking and every afternoon someone had to go around the corner with the billy can to collect the milk, which is how I learnt about centrafugal forces when I could swing the billy around above my head without the milk spilling.

As I do really want the frog and cow I did really need to go shopping so that is what I did this morning…and at the Crafty Frog I found A cow and a frog or 2 and an aeroplane that I think I will find a space for to represent mum’s overseas trips and several others that will go into the collection.

The section of the cow button that is covered with thread was half white and half black so I sewed it on with white thread and then painted half of it black.

and that is it for tonight because I have a cold in the head and just want to go to bed…I do beleive that if my deadline wasn’t looming I probably wouldn’t have got any stitching done today…as it is I have almost finished embroidering the last join but have lost concentration for taking and preparing the images which is going to have to wait untill tomorrow

In past posts I have explained about freezer paper and how to use it to size blocks when joining rows…When you come to joining multiple rows the pieceing becomes a little more tricky as you need to measure the width of the underside blocks as well as the upper row…I took photos today, as I joined the top and bottom sections of mum’s quilt, to illustrate how I go about joining the bigger units.

I start by ironing a strip of freezer paper to the back of both rows to be joined, I have the freezer paper strips cut longer than the join, the underside piece a little longer than the upper piece so that I can see both when I put the blocks together.

When I put the halves together I put a piece of fabric between them so that embellishments don’t rub together and after pinning the seam I put additional pins on the other side of the freezer paper to help hold the layers together and reduce drag and slippage.

I spear pin through each intersection taking care to put the pin through the seam right next to the paper on the top and the bottom.

I then pin between the blocks checking with every pin that it is right next to the paper on the underside, weraing glasses makes this a bit difficult, every time I lent forward to check the location of the pin on the back my glasses slipped off.

When I have The seam pinned I Tack the intersections, doing a backstitch around the point where the joins do intersect, before taking the spear pin out…It is also worth tacking any patches of velvet.

I set my sewing machine up on a small table that is slightly lower than my studio table and put a box behind the machine so that I have a level surface for the quilt to move over.

Umm…maybe it is worth tacking the whole seam…because even with all that care in pinning when I checked the back I had some slippage…I unpicked and realigned and restitched these in small sections.

Across the first intersection of last nights join I have done Coral Stitch with silk Ribbon.

Then going down the join I have done Feather Stitch.

Running Stitch which I have left unfinished with the needle still attached…for safty I have put a tiny drop of glue over the point of the needle and I have embedded a longer needle in the seam on the back to stiffen the fabric behind the needle so that the fabric can’t move back away from the needle on the front…with the needle I have put a scissors charm and a tiny cotton reel (available from craft shops) which I have wound with green thread.

The third section is Feather Stitch done in the opposite direction to the first section.

To add some variety to these narrow join seams I have mixed several knot stitches, alternating Single knot stitch, Double knot Stitch and Oyster Stitch which all make different sized knots.

For the 5th section, which is on an intersection of blocks I have used the net from the fishing line seam with a rock looking seed behind it and close together Coral Stitch done with a thin green thread to look like the sea weed that we called mermaids necklace because it looked like a string of beads, and when you used 2 fingers to put pressure between the beads the end one would pop off.

The last section is Double Knot Stitch.

With this join I have the top half of the quilt together and I have embroidered most of the seams but I forgot I was going out tonight and didn’t allow time for photographing and preparing the images and I am now to tired to think straight so they will have to wait untill tomorrow because I am going to bed.

The seams on the rest of yesturdays join are Coarl Stitch done with silk ribbon.

A Yo Yo…The string of the Yo Yo will carry on over to the next block.

I used the section in the middle, where 2 patches of the same fabric came together, to add a print of the Family Home. To make it look like it was framed I stretched the print over a piece of stiff interfaceing.

I have recycled a print I did for a college project 10 years ago…it is an image of the Family Home that I drew and then screen printed …I Framed one of the prints with photos of the family and pets that had been taken in the backyard…The cat at the bottom has on his back a tawny frogmouth that my brother had rescued when its mother had been killed, My brother tought Tawny to fly and we watched it grow from a fluffy chick to a sleek adult who also shared the cat’s food bowl and was a special bird.

With this join I have the bottom half of mum’s quilt together…I did only get the lower half of the join embroidered today .

The stitch on the left which I illustrated the other night is NOT Double knot stitch…When looking through the Anchor embroidery book tonight I realized that I had miss read the instructions and have been doing something different. maybe I can call it Single Knot Stitch?…The stitch on the right IS Double Knot Stitch.

between the 2 blocks on the bottom row I did a section of Spanish Knotted Feather Stitch between 2 short sections of Double knot Stitch which I will illustrate correctly in the near future.

In the first section of the the join from yesturday I did Portuguese Stem Stitch and then continued the French knots on the block above so that they trailed over the seam.

The second section is Double knot Stitch, I do really enjoy doing this stitch and I like the repition of one element when everything else is different.

The third section asked me for a wider seam, I think because the lace motif got cramped against the seam and needed more pink background at the top, whatever the reason it gave me a seam to do Arrowhead Stitch which is this weeks TAST stitch.

On the fourth section I have done Coral Stitch which you can’t really see in the photo because it can’t really be seen on the block.

TAST Week 27 was Bullion Stitch, I don’t much like doing Bullion knots but I did like the way Elizabeth used Bullion knots for the trunk of a tree…Ah thinks me that is how I can do a branch to hang the swing from…I left the last section of the previous join for the Swing.

Great Texture but my choice of threads didn’t work I used several shades of threads to get the colouring that I wanted but didn’t count how they would work in the Bullion knots and I ended up with a rather more specled branch than I wanted.

A little bit of grey paint was the easy solution…The swing is a couple of threads and a tiny bit of wood, I have left it hanging loose from the tree and hope that it doesn’t catch on things because I don’t want to stitch it down.

Today the postman delivered to me a complimentry copy of issue 5 of a new magazine, At Home with Needlework, It features a crazy quilted pillow by Pam Kellogg, the last line of which refers readers to my website piecing lessons for more information.

I did get the next seam stitched but didn’t get any embroidery done because tonight I had a date with my daughter to go to an Alice Cooper Concert…My daughter and I are very different and we don’t have a lot of interests in common so it is nice when things come along that we can do together and both enjoy…Jessie’s image is the bottom left corner block.