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Wednesday 29 March 2017

Tiger Tiger Burning Bright

Cynthia's Ark is a small quilting business, mainly on line, but Cynthia does have a shop in Mallala here in South Australia.
I've known Cynthia for quite a few years now mainly though a mutual friend, but more recently I've attended one of Cynthia's uninterrupted project weekends, and later this year we are going on a 3 day retreat in the Adelaide hills for Project Uninterrupted. Here is a link to Cynthia's Ark should to wish to go visit her online shop.
Anyway, the reason I'm mentioning Cynthia, is because that is where I bought the kit for the quilt I'm sharing with you today. I did however slightly change it, I turned the image panels into picture windows because that is what I wanted.
Having reached a level of confidence in my quilting, I now like to make changes, to individualise my quilts, to make them 'mine'.
This lap quilt, as I said earlier came as a kit, I bought extra fabrics to do the looking through a window effect. I also, added the words which are appliqued in black fabric.




I did a lot of free motion sewing to give dimension and accent areas of the tigers.
This quilt was for my Daughter in Laws birthday, she has a passion for Tigers so was perfect for her.
Thank you for visiting today.

Happy crafting.
Live, Love, Laugh, life is too short to do anything else.
Hugs
Beth

Tuesday 21 March 2017

My Labyrinth Walk Quilt

It's been quite a while since I last posted on here, and for those of you who are actually waiting for something to happen, I'm sorry, life has a habit of getting in the way of all good intentions, and mine is no different. The ideas are there, the skills are continuing to grow, but my enthusiasm for putting out there via this blog has definitely been somewhat 'weak' shall we say and leave it at that.
That said, onward we go.
When I last posted I mentioned my Labyrinth quilt. Well, after quite a few months of cursing myself for deciding on doing pebbling, it's finally finished. AT LONG LAST.. It's really finished!

I took it along to my local quilting group last night and it was very well received. We are as I'm frequently being told, our own worst critics. I was so hesitant in displaying my work, but it's not a critic session, it's an appreciation of our achievements to have our work on display, I'll need to remind myself of this often in the future as I agonise over whether I should show, or not show my work.

As to the Quilt, here it is in all it's glory.
The pattern was designed by Christopher Florence, I purchased my pattern from 'The Guilty Quilter' you can find them at www.theguiltyquilters.blogspot.com
As per the pattern, I cut and labelled all my pieces before hand, There are only two blocks, Block A (5) Five of the  'Walls of Jericho' and Block B (4) four of the San Luigi. All 5 of the Block A were made at the same time, so by the time I'd finished one complete block A I had five of them. Same with Block B.
There are only White, Black, Medium Gray and Light Gray fabrics used in the construction of the quilt. Some people  I know have used different colours, but I LOVE this combination for this quilt.
Cutting and Piecing are not difficult, if you take time and care, I had no real issues. It only took a week to make the quilt top.
HOWEVER, it took me over 6 months to do the pebbling on all the light Gray pieces. I'm not fortunate enough to have a long arm quilter, but my domestic machine does have a decent sized throat, but this is a BIG quilt. Surprisingly, or not, it measures what the pattern says it should. which is 84" square.
One change I did make, and I make no apologies for this, it's my quilt, my preference. The pattern says to take the points off two opposite corners to continue the  squared off  'wall' look. I didn't do this. I left my pointed corners all 4 of them intact.

I found when I was doing the pebbling, that I could only sew for about 20 minutes at a time, the strain on my neck and shoulders was quite intense, manipulating this sized quilt through a domestic machine is not easy, but well, WELL worth the effort. I finished it off with stitch in the ditch and a geometric border design which refuses to show in a photo, as it's black on black.
Would I do another one? Not on your life, life is too short to deliberately repeat a trauma, Love it, but won't go there again.
Now if I had a long arm quilter, hell yes! I'd start another one right away. So it's all in the quilting.
Thank you for visiting my neglected blog, I'll try and do better in future.
Stay Happy,
Keep sewing, crafting whatever floats your boat, go for it.
Hugs
Beth