Patches of Destruxion

 Hello everybody! It was my brother's 40th birthday last month, and I made him this little mini quilt in celebration. This post is about the construction of the mini quilt, for my quilty friends and readers. For anyone who knows, or would like to know about Alex as a person and the meaning behind all the embroidery symbols can read my previous post here . The central panel is needleturn appliqué. I chose blue and yellow as they reminded me of the colour scheme my mother used when making quilts for my brother as a child. needleturn appliqué letter A I made 40 2-inch square hand embroideries representing things about Alex.  embroidery in progress Half are on black and half on white, and I arranged them in a chequerboard effect, as a tribute to his skills at chess (also represented by one of the embroideries). I traced some off computer screens (which is actually quite tricky, and others were copied in a more freehand style, or following online tutorials, with several practice go...

Hello everybody! Yesterday we got the news that the woman who taught Sing and Sign classes to my three little ones is having to close down her franchise due to the pandemic making the business no longer financially viable. I am very sad about this, Helen is an amazing teacher, so full of enthusiasm and love. All 3 of my kids loved her classes and they have had a lasting impact on them They still watch the DVDs. My eldest made friends at school with a Hearing Impaired kid partly because he already loved signing and found it easy to learn more signs to communicate with his new friend. And I met so many lovely other Mums at the classes - they really helped me keep what little remained of my sanity during my maternity leaves. So I thought today would be a good day to tell the story of a cushion I made for Helen.  I made it to give to her in 2016, when I was going back to work and assuming I wouldn't be coming back to her classes (I was wrong, my daughter appeared in November 2017, so I...

Hello everyone! Rachel at Stitched in Color is holding another mosaic contest. This time her chosen colour theme is 'Evening Ember' and she has invited us to make a mosaic with blue and orange fabrics pulled from the selection at Sojo Fabric . Here is my first one. I am calling it 'Earth and Sky' I have chosen Earth motifs, including hedgehogs and trees in the lower squares, and Sky motifs - birds and angels - in the upper ones. With a bright firy orange right in the middle. My second entry is called Sunset. Bright oranges and yellows fill the sky over a blue landscape. The way this works, Rachel looks at all the entries and draws up a shortlist. We then vote for our faves from the list and the winner gets a bundle of the fabrics in their mosaic. I quite like blue and orange together. Maybe I will win a bundle that will lrt me make this design I drew in 2018. It's created by alternating two traditional blocks - 54-40 or Fight and Churn Dash...

Hello Everybody! I actually finished a quilt! Only a miniature quilt. But it's finished, nonetheless. This is Sunflower Field. This is my entry into the Near To Nature mini quilt challenge organised by The Little House of Patchwork  in aid of the RSPB . For the challenge we were all sent a pin badge of a British bird or countryside animal, and we had to make a mini quilt inspired by and including the pin. I was sent this little greenfinch. A bit of Googling and image searching revealed greenfinches to be fond of eating sunflower seeds. I had also seen som lovely EPP sunflowers by Anne at Three Goobers . I did some sketches and decided to do a little field with sunflowers in three different sizes to create an illusion of depth. The maximum size for the challenge was 9x12 inches, so it was clear from the outset I was going to need some very small sunflowers indeed. I started with the largest size, based on a 0.75 inch hexie centre. I created templates for the petals...

Hello everybody! When I posted recently about my orphan block box , I came across this block and mused it could make a good Valentine's cushion. I realised I had everything in my stash that I needed to do this, including a cushion insert. It only needed a one-inch border to fit the insert. So, while watching the Great British Sewing Bee, I added the border and backing, and here it is! One finished appliqué heart cushion in time for Valentine's Day! This is actually my second finish for the year. The first, which I also finished yesterday, was the mini quilt I made for the log cabin swap. I will post about that after it has been received by its intended recipient. I thought this would be a good place to tell the tale of another Valentine's cushion. It was 2004, and I was living up a Pyrenean mountain in Navarre, Spain. Which was very pretty, but isolated. Me being me, I had still located my nearest Local Quilt Shop (next to the tourist inf...

This is what is in my quilting hoop at the moment. This is going to be a 3 block, rectangular wall hanging. I am quilting one block at a time. This started as part of a sketch I did for the IG challenge #30quiltdesigns2018. It was just a quick sketch for Valentine's Day. Later that day, I unexpectedly had some free time, so I started stitching. I then came up with the wall hanging concept, and made 2 more hearts, aiming for a rainbow colour effect. I appliquéd them onto 14 inch plain white squares and used some heart fabric from an Aldi bundle for the sashing. I thought I wouldn't be able to manage all the sashing from a single fat quarter, but then realised it was doable if I added cornerstones of the white fabric. I used some spotty pastel fabric that I don't particularly like for the backing, and started quilting. I made up the quilting as I went along. I started with the green colour on the applique, and a single line around the h...