15/10/2009 by Erica.

At the beginning of the year I took a one day workshop with Jan Hassard to learn her technique for curved log cabin and below you can see (I hope) the quilt that I made.  It is nice if you like that sort of thing but I really know no that I don’t!  This was a last try to see if I could not just learn to love log cabin - but I can’t.  But the really important lesson with this was that I no longer have any desire to follow someone else’s pattern.  I finished this quite quickly because it was very easy to do - if tedious stitching all those blocks - but I didn’t have to think about it.  But lack of brain engagement resulted in a lack of much pride in the finished piece, other than the technical aspects ie accurate piecing and reasonably good quilting.  So now its definitely the design-from-scratch route for me, and workshops are strictly technique based rather than projects.

PS This quilt has been made some months and not stored properly before the photo was taken (see how much I love it?) but I have only just got to grips with publishing photos.

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15/10/2009 by Erica.

This was an idea from Liz.  She made a bowl and sent it to the rest of the group (she is still living abroad) with patterns to make smaller ones decreasing in size.   Each bowl represents a freedom of some kind - Liz started with hers expressing Freedom of Expression in Cambodia.  A group project actually finished!

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17/07/2009 by Erica.

I went to Quilts UK at Sandown a couple of weeks ago, lovely show, I like having quilts and traders all together and being able to get outside for some fresh air with lunch.  But I saw more evidence of a trend that I do not like very much at all: pieced quilt tops quilted with an all-over pattern on a long-arm machine.

I have nothing against long-arm quilters, only these awful overall patterns that bear no relation to the piecing.  Why spend all that time carefully choosing fabrics and colours and making perfect points for a perfect pattern and then completely ignore the lot by having a random pattern superimposed?  Quilting should enhance the piecing and even really bad quilting does that far better than these patterns, however good the stitching is. Is it a lack of time for the piecers?  Well by all means have the piece long-arm quilted but put in a little extra thought (and money I suppose) and have a quilting pattern that uses the piecing design and really suits the top.  But better still quilt it yourself, by hand or machine.  Practice really does make perfect and besides hand quilting is the best therapy ever for calming down after a stressful day.  (If itdoesn’t feel that way you, try taking a class or two to hone your technique.)

We all call ourselves quilters - please can we all justify that title by more care with the actual quilting?

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06/06/2009 by Erica.

I have been quiet lately because I have not done much sewing - family life takes over sometimes as does the admin of sewing - I seem to have spent a lot of time at committee meetings for quilting groups!  I have done some spending though, including a new (to me) kind of wadding - half cotton, half wool.  I got it from the Cotton Patch, who brand it, but not sure where it is produced ie which country.  I love wool wadding for all kinds of quilting but it is expensive, especially with the current exchange rate.  With raw wool prices so low in this country I have never quite understood why we cannot produce it here, although there may be an issue with the breeds farmer use here.  Anyway, I hope to layer up a curved log cabin quilt in the next few days so I will report back on how it performs.

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24/04/2009 by Erica.

Barbara Weeks came to Hexagon Quilters last week and gave a talk on colouring fabric, followed by a workshop on her mosaic technique the next day.  I nearly didn’t go to the workshop as it was school holidays and I was not sure that it would be for me anyway.  Well sometimes when you try something that you are ambivalent about it does just click, and this is one technique that I will definitely be developing in my own way.  Barbara is an excellent teacher giving wise advice on choice of image and teechnique to suit each individual student.  I have finished the piece that I started that day - almost the only sewing I have done this week (picture will be on the site soon).  And I am brimming over with new ideas.  Usual story though - so many ideas, so little time.

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09/04/2009 by Erica.

I am just back from a few days with my Mum who lives in Wales.  It is always a lovely break for me and my boys and when I look back I find that a lot of my quilts have a welsh connection of some kind.  One of my City & Guilds pieces was inspired by a windy day at Aberaeron, another wallhanging used stone walls from a welsh castle as a starting point.  At other times I have simply been able to plan a quilt in my mind or solve a textile problem, I think because I am away from home and the everyday cares of running a household.  Not that I don’t help out at my Mum’s - I wouldn’t get away with that! - and I still have the children to look after.  But the lack of responsibilities definitely helps my creativity and I am back with several ideas and keen to get started on new projects.  Is this me or is it a female problem?  I don’t really know.

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28/03/2009 by Erica.

It has just been announced at the Quilters Guild AGM that Anna is joint winner of the 2009 Sue Belton Award. This is a fantastic achievement although no surprise to those of us who know her and her wonderful standard of work. I am absolutely thrilled for her and for Loose Threads. We shall all have to go next year’s AGM to see her work on display.

The timing is good too as Anna had her op yesterday and is now recovering at the Royal Marsden - where she has been sewing a wallhanging to be hung at the hospital. Keving reports that she is doing well, I am sure she will feel even better when she finds out about this!

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28/03/2009 by Erica.

I haven’t blogged in a week or two and it is because I always talk about sewing and I haven’t done a awful lot - though I certainly have wanted to! For me sewing is both a challenge - creating a new design - and the best way I know of relaxing when it comes to the actual stitching. The trouble is, the second aspect relies on the first, which in turn relies on a certain amount of uninterrupted time and I haven’t had much of this. I am now very aware that term ends next Friday, so I must make some time this week to get a new project underway.

And I have another problem. I have got a quilt that is half quilted but I realised last week that I had not picked it up in the evening for nearly a fortnight. I thought about this and realised that I was not enjoying the quilting method and pattern that I had chosen and then I came up with a much better one! So what do I do now? I have quilted nearly half of the twenty-five blocks, and I do love the rayon thread that I am using - do I unpick it and start again? Or do I finish the perfectly adequate existing pattern? There is a Loose Threads meeting next week and this is a warning to all my friends there - you will be asked your opinion.

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09/03/2009 by Erica.

No more finished pieces but this seems to be a time for inpiration. Is it because it is spring? Maybe this is when the ideas flow, summer and autumn I develop them and in winter I actually finish. Spring is my favourite season.

Loose Threads had a meeting on Friday, everyone could make it this time (no snow!) except Liz who is still out in Pakistan and there was a lot to discuss. Mary had been putting together our Ice challenges, and everyone brought their tree pieces. We talked through a lot of ideas and I came away feeling so inspired it was difficult to sleep. The next morning the sun came out and for me the sun always inspire a need to dye for some reason. Of course life is getting in the way and I won’t be doing any this week - family visits, other projects, other work. This morning I need to finish a row for a Row Robin quilt I am making with my other group but maybe this afternoon I can get a couple of ideas down in my sketchbook. I might also make a few more leaves - an idea I have for the Nature in Art exhibition in 2011 that will require a few hundred of them. Watch this space.

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26/02/2009 by Erica.

The evenings are noticeably lighter now, and although its not exactly warm it is a lot warmer than a couple of weeks ago when we had all that snow! Which means that it is finally starting to feel like spring. Does everyone feel inspired to sew by the mere sight of the spring bulbs coming into flower? I certainly do, and not just to use bright colours. I have been working in browns and greys, trying to represent tree rings and bark - mostly I just feel the need to create something. Just like the birds I suppose!I have finished a wall hanging that has been waiting about two years, mainly for my skills to improve I think! It is taken from a David Hockney print ‘Above and Beyond’, I found the image on the web, cut it into six pieces and each member of Loose Threads made one section. I sewed them together, added a border and quilted. I am thrilled with it and would like to enter it into competition but I need to check out the legal position - it is a copy and not simply ‘inspired by’ Hockney’s original picture - although obviously very different. Any information on this would be gratefully received! I hope to get a picture of it on the site soon.

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