Trade routes

This quilt was made for an exhibition organised by Irish, German and South African quilting societies. The theme was Interchange Threads Connect, and one of my first thoughts was about the Silk Route, after all, it has the interchange, it has the threads, and it has the connect, too. I was thinking of making an appliqué of camels and oriental patterns, but then opted for a more abstracted interpretation that played on the interconnection of land and sea trade routes.

The main thing here is the colour - the contrast between the teals and the golds and the nuances of the various shades. I machine-pieced the top and started playing with the textures.

As you can probably see, I had a great time playing - there's machine quilting, hand quilting, embroidery, beads...

Our International Rep Paula took the Irish part of the exhibition to South Africa and she has some photos in her instagram and the exhibition looks really great, I'm looking forward to seeing it when it's brought to Ireland.

Linking up to
Off the Wall Friday at Creations by Nina Marie
 Can I Get A Whoop Whoop at Confessions of a Fabric Addict

Three Ways I Used Freezer Paper in One Quilt

I mentioned before that, finishing the bubbles quilt (which I eventually named "Color of Lightness, Color of Joy"), I realized that I had used freezer paper in three different ways in the process of making it. That's a good illustration of its versatility and usefulness for the quilt-building industry! And that's by no means an exhaustive list, I personally use it in two different ways for hand appliqué and for curved piecing as well (but that's a different story). As I didn't plan to write about it when I started I don't have all of the process photos, but I made a mock-up to fill in the gaps))

1. Freezer Paper for English Paper Piecing

Unbearable Lightness

My first hand-quilted piece is finished!

It has been a fun journey that started with a piece of fabric with bubbles on it, which I bought just because I liked the colors and for a long time could'n figure out what to do with. I didn't want to cut it up into small pieces))

The next step was playing with triangle-graphed paper, sketching some possible designs for English paper piecing. When I drew a couple of intersecting circles, they reminded me of bubbles and I immediately thought of that fabric. After finalizing the design and choosing the rainbow fabrics, I started the EPP. It's interesting to consider that all in all in this project I used freezer paper in three different ways, and each time it made the process so much easier. I think I'll have to write a special post about it ;))

Anyway, the finished EPP shape was appliquéd to the pieces of background and then I thought (as I wrote previously) that it had so much handwork in it already that it would be a shame to machine quilt it. Thus, I embarked on my first hand quilting adventure. I decided to quilt circles in variegated thread - another way to represent bubbles (which makes it a triple bubble quilt - I first wanted to name it Double Bubble, but the quilting ruined the pun)))

This photo has more shadows and so the quilting relief is more visible

Even while I was quilting I started looking for a suitable binding - something that wouldn't "promote" just one of the colors, but would have some variation and some fun in it as well. I had no luck in several shops until I decided to visit a sale at Fabric Matters, a nice little shop in the opposite end of Dublin from where I live))) The trip was well worth it, as I not only found the perfect binding for this quilt, but also binding for another WIP and generally stocked up on beautiful fabrics for planned projects at a discount, which just warms my heart)))

Here is another view with more shadows, to make the quilting stand out. See how the binding picks up the colors from the background? It has almost all of the colors in the quilt, except orange. By the way, the stitch that attaches the binding on the right side is the only machine stitch in the quilt, in the back the binding is hand-stitched))

I think I'll call it "Unbearable Lightness", though it's not final yet.

So, now I'll link it up to Let's Bee Social and Fabric, Thread and Yarn and on to work at another near-finish.

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No-rules hand quilting

In the beginning of May I set myself a goal for this month - to try hand quilting for the first time and cope with at least 1/8 of this quilt. Although I still have a lot of doubts about what I am doing, I think the goal is achieved more than enough - in fact, I quilted about half of it:

My fingers hurt, but I'm proud of myself - I thought it would take me ages!

As I only wanted to try hand quilting and wasn't sure I would ever want to repeat the experience, I didn't want to buy a quilting hoop and used the technique I heard about before - when the needle slides along the table or another hard surface under the quilt. It results in longer stitches than classical hand-quilting. As far as I understand, something like this is called "big stitch quilting", but big stitches usually mean using thicker thread. I was only able to find a suitable variegated thread in machine quilting cottons, so my stitches are both long and thin:

For comparison: the hexagon side is 1 1/4' (And the big blue stitches are basting - yes, I baste my quilts the old-fashioned way)))

On the other hand, they have some of the ethereal quality that is characteristic for soap bubbles )))

I also broke the rules by not following a pattern or the pieced shapes in my quilting design, in fact I used several freezer paper circles that I ironed to the quilt here and there and just stitched around. The effect of this is that instead of enhancing the patchwork shapes, the quilting kind of dissolves them, makes them softer:

I'm sorry the light in the photos is different (and neither of them quite true, I'm afraid), but I hope you can see what I mean. I'm still not sure whether this is good or bad, but the quilt is about bubbles and bubbles are supposed to move at random, so any organized quilting seemed at odds with the main idea.

I'm also not sure if I have done enough quilting - in places it' quite dense, but there are also empty areas about two inches long and almost as wide. I desperately need advice from experienced hand quilters, I'm going to take it to the IPS meeting, but would also welcome any comments with quilting advice!

Another question open for discussion is what kind of binding to choose for it. I don't have anything suitable in my stash, so will have to look for something.

So, whith mixed feelings of pride and doubt I'm linking this to the blogs that motivated me to set and achieve this goal:

BraveQuilter at Pink Doxies

One Monthly Goal at Red letter Quilts

New to me in 2016 at Celtic Thistle Stitches

Fabric, Thread and Yarn at France Nadeau