Crafty Goodness

"You wanna piece of me?" December Journal Quilt - 12" x 12"

A wet and dry felted constructed. layered over wool battting and quilted.

It was a bitterly cold and frosty day here today. Absolutely glorious to look but not one to be out in. So we donned winter woolies, turned the heating up and spent the day pottering round the house. I even played dominos with the kids (yes.. me play .. DH will be surprised!) and managed to take some photos I'd been meaning to take for ages too.

"Payne and Veinity" - November Journal Quilt 12" x 12"

Multiple threads and wool layered over wool and overlaid with organza.

Longarm quilted. Relayered over backing and batting and domestic machine quilted.

(This piece is dedicated to my surgeon "Mr Payne" who removed
my varicose vein in November .. never again!)

Forest Floor - October Journal Quilt 12" x 12"

Multi threads, layered over batting, longarm quilted multiple times.
Organza overlay , relayered, re-quilted and distressed

First up were the Oct - Dec Journal quilts. These are sooo difficult to photograph. I even set up the tripod but I didn't get the best of shots for any of them. I tried with and without flash, auto and program and micro settings but still not brilliant. The way I constructed three of them always meant photography would be difficult anyway but I didn't think they would be quite so hard!

I made these three working directly on my longarm - using batting as the working medium and layering threads and wool directly over the top. I keep all the threads in place with organza , quilt the threads in place - sometimes many times with different threads and designs. When I'm happy with this fantasy fabric I take it off the frame, re-layer with a backing and more batting and quilt again on my domestic. Finally distressing the whole piece to reveal some of the threads. Sound complex? Guess it does ... but its not really. I teach this method in a class called Expanding the Possibilites. Its a great de-stressing class where anything goes. You get to play with lots of "fru-fru" bits and pieces that we all like but have no idea what to do with!

Btw and just in case you are wondering the binding on these small quilts is very different to the way I do a traditional quilt. I'm not sure I like them much so I probably won't do this method again. But hey .. you have to try these things to know! 

I've been teaching myself to crochet too and I was very happy with this photograph of these crochet flowers I made. I made the pattern up and I love the way the flower edges wrinkle up. I think I might add some beads in the centre and make them into brooches.