What I’ve been upto!

Oh My! How I have neglected my blog over these last few weeks, particularly in the run up to QuiltWest. Now the show is over, I’m getting back on my feet again and playing catch up. Before the exhibition I was busy working on my quilts for the show along with many QuiltWest duties. One of my entries was a medallion which should have gone in the 2011 exhibition but never did get finished on time. The other started out as a sample for my Feathers and Fillers Workshop, but as I worked on it I thought I might as well enter it in the exhibition.This quilt is a wholecloth using black fabric

Below I have outlined the steps taken to get this quilt completed.

1. The quilt design is firstly chalked on the black fabric. I love Mariners’ Compass so drew the design up first in EQ7.

2. The quilt was then layered and pinned ready for quilting. The backing fabric was the same as the top. I used black cotton poly wadding.

3. I then quilted around all the chalked areas in black thread as I knew that the chalk was likely to rub off while quilting with all the handling.

4. I started stitching from the centre outward. The first thing I did was outline the sections and then filled them. I had so much fun stitching this quilt. The thread I used was Mettler Polysheen both through the needle and in the bobbin. I used a Superior size 70 titanium topstitch needle with excellent results.

The filler I used in the centre is pebbling for the blue threads. I used alternating designs for the lemons thread, I called these fillers pathway and mini circles.

Here is the finished quilt, I’m rather pleased with my new workshop sampler. At the moment I’m putting finishing touches to some new samples for the workshop I’m teaching in Esperance later this month. Hopefully I have a post showing some of these works in progress in the next day or so!