My quilt club, Rose City Quilters, Palmerston North, New Zealand holds an event called Tote & Gloat every year in May. There is always a challenge for members to enter and I try and enter it each year. This year members were each given a fat quarter of a Jason Yenter fabric from the Camelot range. You had to use a 'recognisable' piece of fabric in the quilt and you could buy more.
I was inspired by the graphics on a christmas advert of a tree consisting of lots of swirly designs to create this. I hope Jason would be impressed with how his fabric was used.
I used a lightish green batik whihc had a very subtle pattern for the background and then using just 3 fabrics I created this quilt. As well as the challenge fabric which is around the outside edge and is used for various big circular designs I also used a tone on tone green and a lovely red fabric that had green in it that I think was a very old Nancy Crow design. It just went so well with my challenge fabric. I started by fuisng the large 'flower' design in the upper middle and then added some swirls and loops and then small dots to fill the design in. I decided to quilt it using silk thread and wool batting after reading Diane Gaudynski's book Quilt Savvy Machine Quilting. I just loved using the silk thread and now recommend that everyone try it. My quilting just went so well on the designs and the feathers looked great. At this stage I did a faced binding rather than a standard binding and then added some 'bling' by using a BeJeweller to attac hot fix crystalsall over. I am really pleased with how this design turned out and was very happy to receive Best Machine Quilting.
I also made another piece to enter into the 'Anything Goes" category -
Oops sideways, not sure how to fix that here, will have to go back to the photos and rotate it then re-select it. This is a Lutradur vase using string sewn down over the Lutradur, then painted and then heat gunned with some fusible appliques from the challenge fabric. I filled it with a glass jar so I could place something in it without it falling over. The flowers were portions of the challenge fabric cut out and sewn with metal mesh between. This mesh is wonderful to sew over - you don't even notice that there is metal under your needle. I then attached them to wire wrapped with green fabric for stems. I decided the flowers then needed a little more body and cut a few more applique shapes out which I fused onto plain fabric and cut around. Then I gathered them and attached them to the metal based appliques. The leaves are fused pieces of hand dyed fabric with a wire through the centre. I decided to give them a little more body by sewing along either side of the wire. This was great until I got a little fast and managed to break 3 needles. Going slow is better!! I am pleased to say I won First Place with this entry.
Why not have fun and try some designs that are a little out of the box like I did.
Have fun playing
Dianne
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