More excitement

So my little quilt has been sent off to the Contemporary Quilt Group and I hope it will be included in the exhibit that is going off to the Quilt Museum and Gallery called "Celebrating Diversity". The European Quilt Association invited member countries to submit work celebrating the diverse lives and cultures of quilters across Europe. As we British are very fond of gardening, I chose a photo of my DH and me taken on our allotment dressed for the occasion and with tools in hand!

I'm not sure it will be good enough to include in the exhibit, but I was quite pleased with it. The photo isn't very clear, but the light was bad and I was rushing to get it sent off. Finger's crossed that it will impress. At least I got the size exactly right!!!

A steep learning curve involved here concerning printing on fabric through my computer printer. I now have an Epson SX425W because the ink used is more suited for printing on fabric than the ink used in my old Hewlett Packard. However, the way the paper/ fabric goes through the printer is not so good and is very liable to jams. I tried transfer paper, but this would not go through the printer at all. I tried sticking the fabric onto ordinary paper with pritstick, and then magic tape! No this failed too. Finally, I cut a sheet of freezer paper to A4 size and ironed the fabric onto it. Trimmed the fabric carefully so that there were no odd threads or bits sticking out and bingo. It worked! Well, it worked three out of four times, but that was enough!

The edging was done with rat-tail cord zig zagged on to the very edge and that seemed to work very well. We were working to a very precise size and I thought that adding a border would make it more difficult to get this exact.

Next up is my online class with the Quilt University. I've signed up for a class called "Goodbye to the Grid" with Dena Crain. It's also our local Contemporary quilter's Group meeting tomorrow and we're doing monoprinting, and on Sunday we're having a family Sunday lunch. We have received a request that we give the steamed pudding a miss this time!! No problem!

Off to put the hoover round now! Must at least show willing!

New year new challenges

So, Christmas is over. We have finished eating the chocolate, watched the DVDs and read most of the books! Now what?

A link on a blog introduced me to Craftsy and they run lots of interesting online classes so I decided to sign up to the Block of the Month class which is free and also for the Sumptious Stitches class which isn't. I'm not a great fan of all the chatter on the site, but at least it got me started. Then the Contemporary Quilt magazine arrived with details of the Journal Quilt Chllenge for 2012.

The challenge this year is based on colour. The first four quilts must be mainly red and it's shades and tints, although we are allowed to include up to 25% of other colours. The lack of much definition in the rules really inspired me to get going and ideas started coming thick and fast. I decided to use the course materials from the Sumptious Stitches class for the first quilt which was inspired by the strata in the rocks at Bude.


 Here is the result;

It's not as pink as it looks here, but I am quite pleased with the result. Here are some close ups of the stitching.

This has been just the thing to get my creative juices flowing and at last I feel I am starting to produce work that is worth showing off!

Next thing on the agenda is the quilt for the CQ10 challenge, more of which later!