Pieced Pockets

Quite a few years ago (early 1990s?) Jackie Robinson was on holiday in Australia with her family, and I was lucky enough to be able to share an afternoon with her, along with a few members of two quilt groups. This was before she wrote the book, but Jackie was kind enough to show us how she was piecing folded fabric into the seams of patchwork to create little pockets, and to use these pockets to create block designs.

I went home and made up some sample bits and pieces so I would remember what she had showed us. I used these bits and pieces when two of us shared what we had learned to other members of one of the groups. Robyn made her sample bits into a wallhanging, Until now mine were in a box with some scribbled notes..

I took the box and some cream fabric to the August 2009 Hi-Fibre Retreat at Pt Hughes, and pieced the samples into fabric pages, and sandwiched them ready to construct a book.

In the photos of the pages some magnets have be placed in the pockets so that you can see where the pocket opens in each of the samples. The photos of individual pages were taken before I added cutting details onto the pages with a pen, because I thought there was every chance I would make mistakes stuff up and have to cross out bits and pieces on the pages, just like my scribbles on bits of paper or in more conventional scrap books.

PIECED POCKETS

Each of these use a base square of fabric and a folded square of contrast folded either on the diagonal or straight.

Two folded squares placed over a rectangle.

SQUARE WITHIN A SQUARE

One large square with four folded squares placed on each corner.

Equal sized squares folded over the base, the first two on opposite sides of the base, the third one has the folded squares on adjacent corners.

WINDMILL, or DUTCH WINDMILL

Pinwheels constructed using the folded squares on adjacent corners of the base.

KEYHOLE

Four folded squares placed on a base square, with the bias folds folded back to reveal a small keyhole in the centre.

FOLDED GEESE

A square is folded in halves, then folded so that all raw edges are together, and placed over a rectangle.

PINWHEEL

Squares folded for inserts as the last example, inserted into the seams of a four patch.

PINWHEEL STAR

A double folded square is stitched into the seam between two squares, then pressed to one side of the seam, or flattened over teh seam.

STAR POINTS

Two rectangles are folded in half and then cought in the seams between two more rectangles. Ideal for the points of Ohio Star, as the two foundation rectangles can be contrast colours.

BOW TIES

To me this is the classic use for 3D patchwork.

A double page spread showing the 3 steps required to make the 3D Bow Ties

SQUARE WITHIN A SQUARE

Same construction as the knot of the bow tie, but with a bigger square for the inserted piece.

SQUARE WITHIN A SQUARE

Using four squares folded in half diagonally, one on each corner of teh foundation square. Because the fold is on the bias of teh fabric it can be easily folded back to make a slight curve.

FALSE CATHEDRAL WINDOW

Same construction as the Bow tie using a bigger square for the insert, then folding the bias edges back. The folds can be held in place with a few stitches in the centre.

The pages were joined toghther much as the Colouring book, except that this time I secured each page as I stitched it to the pile, and left a little room between the pages so the book would open flat.

I could have added beads to keep the spaces even, but it seemed to work without them.

Otherwise the book was constructed the same way as the Colouring Book, but with the threads secured and hidden instead of the bows on the front

So now all those scrappy samples are housed in my 3D piecing sampler book ……… and as a result of making this book I will be showing a group of girls at next years retreats how to do some of these bits and pieces …………..

………. or I will just give them the book and let them work it out for themselves!

 

Colouring Book

5th September, 2009

My colouring book is completed!

The cover is cut a little bigger than the pages, with extra added to allow for wrapping around the spine.

First up I made a cardboard template and punched holes with an awl so I could mark the stitching spaces on the inside of the book cover.

Ooops, I was in a hurry, so the photo is blurry! Should have used the setting for action photos!

I found a lot of needles and threaded them with upholstery thread, and took a stitch through the back cover with each thread ……… stitches about half an inch or a centimetre, with about double the space bewteen the stitches.

Each thrread was then taken through each of the pages, just a tiny distance from the folded edge.

Pulled all the threads firmly ……..

(I was still in a hurry to see how this would work!)

……….. then took them through the cover ……………..

……………….to the front ………………….

………………tied a little bow in the thread and trimmed the ends!

The pages open rather well, and are held close together in the spine.

Opened up towards the centre, it is not quite flat, but I can live with that.

I still like the blank cover …………..

……….. but may have to rethink that when I use more of this fabric for another book cover!

Now all I have to do is remember that this is where all the experiments I did with colour pencils on fabric are to be found!

PS

I have since bought three more sets of pencils, one generic set of 36 watercolour pencils, plus Pastel Pencils and Charcoal Pencils by Mont Marte. I will have to add a few scraps of fabric to the book with future experiments!

 

Stitching Circle

Completed September, 2009

This scrap book was put together using empty pages saved from a few old books which were almost full …………. by reomving the empty pages they suddenly became full! Just add a cover!

The new book was filled with pages and scraps of pages saved from several magazines from the 1980s and 90s including Ladies Circle Patchwork Quilts. Most of them feature quilts and quilters, including Lee Cleland (not shown) and Amy Emms (below).

 

Did anybody miss me?

We have been away for three weeks staying with friends and family ……… on holiday. I use the term holiday loosely, as Butch doesn’t like sitting around or being a tourist, so he did some cementing, tidied up some paving, did some welding ……. generally got his hands dirty. I went to a quilt meeting, checked out all the op shops, quilt shops and secondhand shops, visited a couple of art exhibitions, ate fish and chips at the beach and enjoyed the company of good friends.

If you heard about the dust storm which almost closed down Syndey, this is what it looked like two days earlier over Burra, South Australia, just before it rained mud for a sort time. Later in Spalding we found a house  without a roof and a severely damaged roadhouse, and in Cowell we saw golf ball size hail stones which fell that same day, and wind damage on farms. I managed to skirt around it somehow!

I broke the quilt hoop I took with me the first time I sat down to quilt, so bought materials for a new project I could start on the run without my usual sewing, drafting and cutting tools.

During the 3 days of the Paskeville Field Days Butch cooked breakfast for about 100 clients in one of the vendors sites, and the staff lunches, and found time to check out tools and tractors between the two meals. I went one day and became footsore wandering around the general interest sites, finding some fabric and some plants.

We also helped babysit grandies of friends, patted a standardbred horse or two, and watched as the ’scrappies’ loaded three generation of farm trucks onto a trailer to be recycled. One of the trucks was the biggest truck in thte world when my Dad brought it home when I was a preschooler. That was in the days before childacre centres, kindies etc, and I got to ride in the truck to deliver wheat to the silo. And even that was after we carried bagged wheat to the station.

I am back, with snuffles and sneezes which indicate spring, with a backlog of washing, and lots of ideas for future projects, and for finishing some of the UFOs.

 

Colouring Book …..

…… for quilters and embroiderers

The cover is rather blank. It is two layers of lined curtain fabric with a layer of wadding between them. I like the embossed design, so it’s staying blank!

This was one of my first experiments with coloured pencils on fabric. Lots of depth of colour, but way too much medium and it feels like slightly sticky plastic. Yuk!

REXEL CUMBERLAND

DERWENT STUDIO PENCILS

This is the first page of serious testing. the five rows of test squares on the left of the page are repeated with different pencils on later pages, always in the following sequence.

Row 1 Pencil applied dry

Row 2 Pencil applied dry, water added to blend it later.

Row 3 Pencil applied dry, medium added later.

Row 4 Pencil applied to wet fabric, water only

Row 5 Pencil applied to wet fabric with medium

Note that medium (Jo Sonya Textile Medium) was mixed with water,

just two or three drops in a tablespoon of water.

All the sample pages were allowed to dry naturally or given a hurry up with a dry iron when I couldn’t wait, then washed gently in warm water with detergent, and ironed dry.

The text was just to see what it would look like as a background pattern, because I had drawn the tree and realised it was a bit too fine to to colour in with wet pencils!

The pencils used on this page were some cheap pencils with no markings. The rows are treated as the first sample page. The blended areas on the right were done dry at the top, applied dry then water added to the centre patch, and the bottom patch was blended on wet fabric with medium added.

Outline was printed direct onto untreated fabric using an Epson printer with Durabrite ink., but it was washed before it was ironed! The pot is fused fabric with shading added by pen. (Pens will be the subject of another textile sample book.)

Colour was added with wet watercolour pencils, and recoated when medium was added.

This page was coloured in dry using Staedler Mars-Lumochrome with a little bit of Dats Kids metallic pencils. The top part of the design was coloured dry, the bottom was coloured on fabric wet with plain water. Medium was added to the right side only before page was dried, washed and ironed dry.

On this page I was just filling in time and playing with the pencils, in particular white coloured pencil for shading, and used a HB lead pencil as a colouring pencil. Ironed it beofre washing and ironing.

DERWENT INKTENSE

I have two of these pencils, but that’s enough to play with. The top left patches were applied to wet medium. Derwent make a pencil, I think it is called an outline pencil, which would stop the bleeding, but I didn’t have one to try.

Bottom two patches were applied dry, then wet it with an almost dry brush, and there was much more control.The blob top right was applied with a wet pencil ….. diped the pencil in water before applying.

The light patches were applied dry, no moisture added before ironing, then washed and ironed the whole page.

Another page where the picture was too fine for real colouring in! The birds are coloured with HB lead pencil, and used the same to add texture to the ‘border’ by writing some text arounf there.

BEROL SANFORD PRISMACOLOR

Another test page with the added blended patches on the right. Top one blended dry, middle blended water added, bottom blended medium added. The medium tetnded to make thse pencils run a bit, so the outline pencil would be a handy addition to the pencil case.

Coloured with Derwent Artist pencils, medium added, extra colour added with wet pencil to get that bright orange, then embroidered the outlines.

STAEDTLER AQUARELLE

Watercolour pencils.

These were not as easy to apply dry as Prismacolor, and you definitely need a blender pencil to help control the flow. This set of pencils faded more without any moisture added before the ironing,washing, ironing routine.

Stems done with Unipin Fineline, leaves colured with Derwent Artist pencil, and the patch on the right was the same pencil applied dry, water and medium added.

Fabric urn was fused on, with shading added with pens.

DATS KIDS

Metallic Coloured Pencils

The smudges down the left hand side were the sample patches I did before colouring the picture with dry pencils, washing and ironing. Oooops! Everything faded quite a bit.

Added the second lot of samples and a little extra colour to the picture dry, then added medium to them, the originals and the picture. The smudges on the right were added wet with medium.

The metallic look is very, very subtle, and rather nice. I found these pencils in Cheap as Chips quite some time before I tried them, and haven’t seen them since.

Derwent Artists Pencils, applied dry, embroidered outlines, added medium, and a little bit more colour while it was wet. Reminder that I use tow or three drops of medium in a tablespoon of water.

Now it’s starting to come together!

This is the effect I wanted all the time. Just like my favourite pages in long gone school books. Subtle colour, easy to apply dry,

Outline with Pigma pen, coloured with

DERWENT ARTIST

pencils, ironed, washed and ironed again. No change in the amount of colour. No mess. I like it! I forgot to do a sample page with these pencils but they were used in quite a few of the picture pages with and without moisture and medium.

I found that the easiest method was applying the pencils dry, and applying wet is harder to control. If I want stronger colours I will continue to use Fabrico pens rather than fuss with pencils and the wet stuff!

Making the book itself will be another post soon.

 

Christmas Tree with Tied Yarn

May 30 2008The idea for this tree has been

running around in the brain for a long time.

I didn’t have any idea how much yarn might be used,

so when I found green yarns in Spotlight I bought up big,

and started making the tree with about 48 balls of assorted yarns

in the stash.

The trunk is a broomstick, there is the usual wire and beads, held sort of upright with a pile of five books.

It took three very long days to tie on just 22 of the 48 balls of yarn.

This is about the most boring task I have ever set myself.

However, I knew after half a day the tree was going to look OK.

The only problem I have with the result is that I don’t want to add too many decorations because the tree itself looks so good.

5 ft 6 in (66 inches 0r 170 cm)

 

Lay-a-bouts

I have started covering all the old scrap books in the filing cabinet, and filling up any empty pages. This one just needed the cover.

I got my first computer in 1992 and I suspect this book was full a long time before that. Wish I had thought to date all those books which still fill a drawer in the filing cabinet after me rescuing quite a few earlier this year to fill and/or cover.

It contains 82 quilt layouts to use with various assortments of blocks, and I started out with a piece of wrapping paper to show where the blocks would go in each layout.

The wrapping paper ran out a long time before the ideas stopped flowing. A long term plan now that I have found them again is to add these layouts to Electric Quilt. I am sure the Virtual Quilter will like that!

 

Scrap Books

As I went through magazines and pulled out pages I wanted to keep, I pulled out pattern pages, but not because I wanted to keep them. The patterns piled up, and noone seemed to want them without instruction pages, and I had mutilated some of those because I wanted the picture or the article on the other side of the page, and I design all my projects myself so I didn’t want them …………… but there was a big pile of them!

So what to do with them? Make them into scrap books of course! These three are now waiting to be filled by scraps of paper I do want to keep!

I have used pieces of fabric I just had to have (to dress dolls) on the covers, because unless I change my style of quilts completely, they are not going to be used in quilts, and so this is one way of destashing, while still keeping some of those conversation prints I needed so much!.

To make the books I fused two covers and the spine to fabric, leaving a tiny gap between covers and spine to allow room for folding to close the book. I have stitched signatures of 6 or 8 pages to the fabric covered cardboard spine, leaving a little space between the signatures so there is room for expansion when the pages are filled with scraps of paper, fabric etc.

 

Black Velvet Lillies

Cannot remember what is is called. Cannot remember when I planted it.

Do know it has grown each year for at least four years, but has never flowered before.

There is another flower about to come out as well.

I didn’t exactly make these black lillies, but I am the only gardener in our household so I am willing to take some of the credit!

 

Scrapbooking with Scraps

I think I have pretty much cleared the sewing room of loose pieces of paper and old magazines. Though every time I think I have finished I find another scrap of paper or pile of magazines!

(I do still have Quilters Newsletters in bulk ……. over twenty years worth.)

I have learned a few things along the way, so I am going to put them here so I remember! (Though writing on a piece of paper usually works even if I hide the paper.) If I do forget perhaps someone who has read this might remind me!

About scrap booking …..

Cheap glue sticks don’t stick as well as UHU or Bostick glue sticks. And certainly don’t save money when you have to restick everything you glue into a sketch book.

Scrap books cost $1.20 when my kids were going to school and I used the same scrapbooks as they did. Fifteen to twenty years later I bought better quality scrapbooks (Prestick) with better paper and with an extra staple for $2! The cheaper one in the same shop was $1.50, so inflation hasn’t really effected the price of scrapbooks.

They look much better with a fabric or paper cover hiding the fairies and super heroes they usually come home with, though the best ones had dolphins.

You cannot heavily embellish covers of books if you want to put them on shelves or in a filing cabinet…..

….but you can embellish the spine, though I have to admit some of the threads I have left hanging would look much better on a shelf than they do in the filing cabinet.

Altered books make interesting scrap books.

Hard covers from old books make great covers for scrap books with new pages.

I can make books using paper (pattern sheets from mutilated magazines) I would otherwise have thrown out.

The last two things can be combined.

Sometimes I threw out three quarters of a page because there was only a small picture or sketch I liked in the first place.

If I had sorted and scrapbooked the keepers every few months I could have spent more time playing and embellishing as I went.

If I do it regularly I can call it journalling!

If I get into scrapbooking the family photos I will not cram twenty photos to a page and fill in the spaces with other stuff! (Some of the pages in these scrap books have so much crammed onto them they are likely to cause headaches as soon as you turn the page!)

About things I like.

My favourite colour is green.

I like monochromatic colour schemes with a splash of a bright contrast.

I like restful colour combinations with one colour being about 70% of the whole, with one other colour.

Multiple shades or tints of each colour is good.

My least favourite colours are blue and orange.

Early sketches of long completed projects now suggest new and different projects.

I like all the variations of country style, from formal, Victorian country to naive and rustic country, and I like primitive much more than I thought I did.

Most of what I liked thirty years ago I still like, but have found more things to like.

I do not follow trends and fashion closely, but pick out any bits I like and do my own thing with it.

Things I remember without the pieces of paper.

(But the pieces of paper reminded me anyway!)

I have met some wonderful people since I became a quilter, and knew some of them before they were featured in magazines. A lot of the profiles I have kept are about real people!

The people I read about first turned out to be real people when I met them.

 

Charms of Christmas

The book is new, the contents newish, the cover new, but the title is recycled from a wallhanging.

Some adverts, and some pictures of things I like.

A pattern for an elf I might use one day. He is sooo cute!

Some trees and one of the reindeers I just might need in the future.

Yahoo! The last of the Christmas scraps, and from now on  the plan is from here on all the Christmas and all the toys will go together.

 

Archived July 2009

Old and new contents in a new book with new cover.

Quilt photos which have been floating around looking for a home for quite some time.

The strippy quilt was put together by a friend from donated quilt blocks and strips. The sampler quilt was made by another friend from blocks made in a friendship group in the Golden Harvest Quilters, which went on the be judged best of show at an exhibition in the group quilt section. The other two quilts were at an exhibitionby the Woodpatch Quilters.

The scribbles at the top left were done recently when I was blog browsing and were inspired by Feathered Fibres.

A copy of my workshop notes for Monet’s Garden in Closeup, and how to add the centre.

Other contents include an article about Yvonne Rein who was one of the founders of Down Under Quilts, Heather Ridley who is a fellow South Aussie,  Eileen Campbell, an article by Marian Russell who is another South Aussie, article by Jan T Urquart, and stories about South Australian quilt shops The Patchwork Apple, Riverlea, Quilts and Threads.

This book is the last of the books filled with the backlog of paper scraps I have found in the cupboards, drawers and boxes in the sewing room, but wouldn’t you know it, as I was writing this up I found two double page spreads which are blank!

 

Friendship and Fabric

New book,, new cover, and bits and pieces from the past and the present. (1985-2009)

Spiral bound sketch book, fabric cover with hand made cord, printed label. Title came from a friendship calendar.

A mixture of subjects because It was reserved for pictures which fitted the landscape orientation of the book.

 

Teddies and Toys

New book, newish scraps, new cover.

Way more dolls than teddies in this one,with more primitive styles, cute, and funky well represented amongst the country style.

 

Stitched Up

Old book, old contents, new cover.

The scrap book was half full of pattern sheets for some of my pieced designs with curved seams. Some have never been used, or even seen by anyone but me, and a few were used in a quilt for one of my sisters.

The block on the right I named Woodpatch Star, and it was adopted as part of the logo for the Woodpatch Quilters. Looks much better in colour as it is on their badge and banner.

I think the birthday in question was the groups 21st!

The empty pages were filled with articles about quilt shops and personalities of similar vintage to the patterns, with Riverlea Cottage Quilts, Barossa Quilt and Craft Cottage, Quilt Basket and Bankhouse Quilts all getting a mention.

 

The Great Outdoors

New book, newish scraps and new cover. (The last cover out of that fabric, though trhere are enough scraps to add a few bits to a couple more.)

The contents include maps (a couple of them of my garden at Kadina), birds, animals, a leafy sea dragon, …….and the front end of a platypus.

 

Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells

A new scrap book, homspun cover, and some slightly twisted snomen freehand cut from scraps of fabric and fused in place.

I really wanted to use the snowman theme in the title of the book, but in the finish went with the three bells which help hold the book together!

As with the other Christmas scrapbooks this one is filled with scraps of magazines, these from 1990 to 2005. (All the scraps from this period ended up in a rather large pile, which slipped, and became rather a large paper slide, so they are all mixed up.)

The overall theme is Christmas, but ranges from primitive through country style to Victorian.

The page on the right has a six page article about Ol’ Saint Nick.

 

Christmas in July

This is an old book which was partly filled with designs started soon after I started quilting with the intention of making a Christmas Quilt. The quilt was made, the book was never filled or covered. It now holds a small part of the scraps saved from a pile of magazines.

An article about Christmas cards, with a few secrets hidden under the loose leaf on the right hand side.

These two designs were not used, and I am so glad I didn’t use that snowman! He would give me the creeps there as well as here! Note to self …… change the eyes before using this fellow in the future!

The pattern pages have been given a touch of colour with a few small pictures added.

I don’t know that these two are much better, but they were used. What was I thinking with the back view of the angel? (I was trying to avoid doing a face, as this was before I was designing my own dolls.)

 

Starry Starry Night

Tone on tone, with three stars cut from scraps of fabric fused onto a seeded homespun cover. The book has been stiched with gold thread and a bell added to the top of the spine.

Everytime you turn the pages bells ring!

Inside are bits and pieces saved from more magazines from 1990 – 2005, and sometimes I slowed down gluing stuff onto the pages to do a sort of collage instead of fitting in as much as possible.

And sometimes I still crammed them in loosely but with an eye for colours which didn’t actually scream at each other.

 

Oh Christmas Tree

Now I can have fun! New book, new cover, and I found some seeded homespun for covers!

A scap of fusible webbing, fabric scraps, iron, cut out some tall skinny, crooked triangles, iron again, cover done!

Contents have been culled from magazines from 1990 – 2005, including Country Sampler and Marketplace Treasures, and are pretty much all for those who love country and primitive decorations. With a touch of Victorian.

The piles of paper has diminished and I am taking a little time to play with layouts a little more instead of just cramming in a smuch as possible. I have used a pattern page which I will never use to fill  in some white space instead of adding more colour pictures.

Feather tree, black and white illustrations, and a snow scene to cool down our usually hot Christmas weather. I have a growing collection of fabric and resin snowmen, as the real thing is hard to get in Australia at Christmas time.