Quirky Quilts

I am hosting the first Contemporary Quilt Group Studio Day on Wednesday.  The facilities allow you to try things that are a bit messy to do at home!  I am planning to use various methods to apply soy wax resist to cotton and silk fabrics and some rope bowls I have made. Fabrics and bowls have been washed and soaked in soda ash so that once I get around to dyeing, which I will do later at home, the dye should take. I wonder what it will all turn out like…. and I wonder what other members will be trying….

After the hard work associated with renovating a bathroom which is almost finished, I had fun this weekend making things to go in it.  I made a wall hanging and co-ordinating tissue holder.  I also made a basket for the toilet rolls from washing line – first time I’d done this and it worked very well.  The framed embroidery was made last year.

Renovated bathroom

Wall hanging

Co-ordinating tissue holder

Basket for toilet rolls

I am thrilled that my piece ‘Construction’ has got through the first stage of the juried challenge ‘Bridges and Borders’ at the 2018 Australian Quilting Convention.  I now have to send it to Melbourne so I need to add the very complicated hanging sleeve.  I am sure the instructions are incorrect as you end up with a whole lot of raw edges.  This is proving more difficult than the making of the actual wall hanging.  I can’t post the actual piece at the moment – that will have to wait until early April when they are judged.  Fingers crossed.

Hanging Sleeve – look at those raw edges!

I have just finished my third new baby quilt in a row!  This is a large, cot quilt or playmat.  It definitely has an Aussie feel to it with the feature fabric (which is on the back as well) showing kangaroos, koalas, kookaburras and crocs.  The row of 3-D triangles at the top of the ‘bedding’ gives something for the child to fiddle with.  Faces of bears are drawn on to avoid any hazard.  It is 100% cotton.

So I have restocked my supply of kids quilts, but if you want something different to what I have in stock, please contact me – I can always make a custom quilt to suit your requirements.

Now, I had better get back to some more creative work and complete some pieces for QuiltWest exhibition.

Three Bears (135cm x 86cm) $150

I am really enjoying making some new children’s quilts.  This is my latest offering.  A cute nursery quilt which is 100% cotton.  It has some 3D ‘prairie points’ or crocodile teeth which your baby can play with when it is having it’s ‘tummy’ time.  It has a plain off-white back and is quilted with hearts and swirls.

My little zoo (78cm x 85cm) $95

Happy Christmas to you all.  Have fun over the holiday – I intend to.  I seem to have spent the last few weeks making Kimekomi balls (must have done about 50-everyone loved them so much!) and watching cricket!  I am very pleased with the set that I made for my own Christmas tree.

Now it is time to have a relaxing time over Christmas and start some new projects.  I have dyed a batch of silk wedding dress scraps – what to do with them?

Got carried away doing craft stuff this weekend.  I made my Christmas cards (inspired by my friend Meg at https://ourhousequilts.wordpress.com)

I made Kimekomi balls (inspired by my friend Phil at http://pippaquilt.blogspot.com.au/?wref=bif )

Whilst away, I received numerous enquiries about T-shirt quilts and quilts made from clothes.  I think people believe that, because they are made from recycled materials, they will be cheap.  Unfortunately this is not the case.  The ‘free’ material is more than outweighed by man-hours required to make up the quilt.  The logo has to be ‘fussy cut’ (which often generates different sized pieces) and then since T-shirt material is stretchy, each patch has to be stabilised by backing it with interfacing.  Only then can the quilt be assembled, sandwiched, quilted and bound.  A T-shirt quilt, using 16 T-shirts from which 12″ patches can be cut, and measuring 125cm x 125cm would cost approximately $300 + P&P. Beware, T-shirt quilts end up quite heavy so big ones can become very unwieldy!  The example shown below was nearly 3 times that cost since it was big with different sized patches!

If you want a cost estimate for your T-shirt quilt, please contact me with required size and number of T-shirts to be included.

If you have a bag of sentimental pieces of washable clothing (excluding wooly jumpers which unravel!), an alternative approach is to include appliqué pieces into a ‘Tree of Life’ quilt. A small sample is shown below.  If such a quilt is of interest to you, please contact me for a cost estimate, again giving the required size and numbers of clothing pieces you wish to include.

Back home after a 10 week holiday and time to get back to sewing.  Thanks for all the enquiries that I have had for quilts whilst I have been away – please contact me again if you are interested in following things up.

Elizabeth Sutherland – I have been trying to contact you about your enquiry but my email bounces – please can you contact me again.

With Christmas coming up, I am going to make an effort to put all the quilts that I have for sale in my ‘Quilts for Sale’ gallery.  I have just uploaded a number of children’s quilts which would make ideal presents.  Remember, I can always appliqué a name onto a quilt that I have already made to personalise it.