Gothic Pattern

The theme for March at Unlimited Textiles is Gothic Pattern.
I love arches and ceiling bosses in cathedrals and I remembered a visit we made to Fountains Abbey a few years ago. In particular the vaulted ceiling of the Cellarium.
The Cellarium is only inhabited by bats now. Another Gothic feature maybe but no bats here on this quiltie.


I used purple satin for the background and cut arch shapes from dark green velour.
I wanted to continue the arch theme on the background hence the shadow quilting between the arches.
A close zig zag stitch in gold outlines the arches and golden beads represent ceiling bosses.
OK, I know there aren't any ceiling bosses in the Cellarium but let's just call it artistic license.

Close zig zag stitching finishes the edges. The quiltie measures 5ins square and will be on its way to Sandy in USA very soon.

Peaceful Daydream Blues

I made this quiltie for a trade with my good Internet friend Val.
We both love vintage ladies and both love flowers so the perfect theme to choose was "Vintage Flower Ladies"

I knew straight away the image I wanted to use. I wanted to give the impression that she was daydreaming near a shady stream on a lovely summer afternoon.

The background is my favourite.
Layers of felt, organza and painted nappy liners all stitched together and zapped with the heat gun. This was then covered with a chiffon scarf and flowers, leaves and swirls were free machined over it all.
This is my favourite technique as the outcome is different every time. I never seem to get the colours I think I will get and the texture changes every time. I just love the surprise of it all.

The flowers have heavily beaded centres.
There is a little tassel like embellishment with a "peace" disc hanging from it.
I found one little acrylic flower in the right colour way to add as a falling blossom.
The lovely lady is printed on to iron on cotton (from Crafty Computer Paper) and fused to the background.
A Sari Ribbon edging finished it off nicely I thought.
I'm happy to report that Val liked it ;0)

Before I go I wanted to tell you that I have been working very hard on my website.
It has a fresh new look, new items in the Art Gallery (with a closer look at my Mesoamerican items) and a brand new For Sale page.
I mention this as it is the only place will be selling on line at the moment.

I hope you will take a look at my website and I hope you like it.

Abstract and Pink and Orange

The "lottery" challenge this month at Textile Challenges is for a Colour Combinations ATC. I drew Pink and Orange.
The quiltie theme at Unlimited Textiles is Abstract.
Hmm, I thought these would work so well together.

The result: Abstract in Pink and Orange ATC and Abstract in Pink and Orange Quiltie.
The background is a piece of cerise cotton with a pattern in the same colour but deeper shade. I stitched other fabrics to the base with zig zag stitch in orange thread. All the pieced fabrics are hand painted pieces from some of my favourite projects. One or two of my favourite commercial fabrics sneaked in too!

Wot no beads!!!
That is right. For once I think beads would have been overkill. Well I think so, hmm maybe just..... NO not this time ;0)

Mayan Sun

The theme for November on Unlimited Textiles was "The Latin American Way"
I really fancied doing something bright, colourful and based round carnival.

So what happened?
Well the thing is I have a fascination for Mesoamerican cultures and elements of this just slip into my work from time to time.
In fact I am working on a body of work on this subject with my good friend Jan.
So you see the Mayan vibes just took over ;0)

The background is made up from layers of cottons and organzas. I wanted the simple quilting to represent the stone blocks used in Mayan buildings.
The sun was an important symbol to these people and mine is made from some of my handmade silk paper attached to the background with seed beads.

This quilt is now on the way to Marga in Florida. Marga lives the "Latin American Way" so I hopes she enjoys my interpretation.

A Little Quiltie

There isn't any theme for our swap on Unlimited Textiles this month so I rummaged though my stash to see what would inspire me.

I found a piece of dress velvet. It has a gorgeous feel with little sequins on it. The print is in shades of pinks. From the lightest shell pink to deepest maroon. A very rich fabric indeed.

There in my images was this lovely lady with flowers the same colour as my fabric! I found some lace in the same colour ways and this little quilt was started.

I had some pink metal roses that seemed perfect and added some beading down the side of the image.

"Smell the Roses" journeyed off to Jill who liked her.
I have been doing a lot of abstract things just recently so it was a good exercise to go back to using images again.

Slash and Burn

For July (yes I was late - again!) on Unlimited Textiles our swap theme was Slash and Burn.
So OK, not a lot of slashing here but plenty of burn to make up for it.

The background of the first two pieces was made by free machining painted nappy liners to organza. This was zapped with my heat gun - I love my heat gun ;0)
Then placed it on wool felt and covered with a chiffon scarf. I free machined all over the fabric doing freehand flowers and swirls.

The finished background fabric was cut into the pieces I needed and I beaded the centre of the flowers and dotted sequins and beads here and there. I put a tiny silver dragonfly onto the Quiltie.


The third piece is based on stone walls again.
First, painted Bondaweb was ironed onto cotton velvet.
Next, I stitched painted Bondaweb to organza and played with my heat gun again ;0)
Pieces of this burnt fabric was stitched to the velvet. All of this was covered with dark red organza and stitched with a straight stitch.
I burnt away most of the organza. Little seed beads were added to look like raindrops.

A lot of the walls here are painted with Oxblood
Red paint. I love it when this starts to peel.
This is the look I have tried to get here.

Pat got the first ATC and Patsy gets the other and the quiltie.
I know Pat liked hers, I am keeping my fingers crossed about Patsy.



On a side note:
Unlimited Textiles is open again for sign ups. This is only for a short time so if you are into textiles, love to swap would like to join this talented group, go along and sign up, let me know where I can see your work (I'm just nosey) and I will approve you asap.

Nature

The theme for April at Unlimited Textiles was Nature inspired. We were swapping a 5" square quiltie and a bag.
I love nature and most of my work is inspired by it one way or another.

When I went to the Quilt Exhibition in March I took a mini class on needle felting so decided to use what I learnt on my little quilt.

I used clematis as my inspiration.
I roughly drew the flowers and leaves to the navy felt then used my Clover needles to felt the whispy wool to the design.
After some machine embroidery to give the flowers and leaves shape and definition I added little beads for the flower centres.


My bag was inspired by the sea and clouds. I layered strips of velvet, silk and organza then machined wavy lines all over the fabric. I added little beads to give a bit more movement and made a machine wrapped cord with some fancy wools.
The bag is just big enough to carry a moble phone on a walk.

Second Quiltie for Unlimited Textiles

There was a little mux up with the partner list on Unlimited Textiles.
Yes, I know I did the partner lists so it is all my fault.
Maybe I should be sacked!

But it did give me an excuse - as if I really needed one - to make another quiltie.

This is the result.
The background is hand painted fabric and the motif is a little needle felted leaf.
Not that you can tell it is a leaf as I have a lot of practicing to do with the needle felting. I still think it is great fun though.

This is now on its way to Patsy or Sandy or somebody ;0?

Getting to Know You Quiltie

This is my quiltie for the Getting to Know You Swap on Unlimited Textiles.

The background fabric is hand painted cotton with layers of sari fabrics and glittery braid. The image is printed on to cotton.

The cotton I use is ready to print on. I cut the photos to size, peel off the backing and iron in place.
I don't usually stitch round the image unless it is left as a photograph and then just for decoration.
I do think however, that if the article was to be worn you would have to stitch the edge.
I get it from Crafty Computer Paper

This quiltie is going to Sandy. I hope she likes it.