Thursday 26 December 2013

Details


Hi
Thanks for the comments
The embroidery on my piece is done using a thick thread - often a gutterman 12wt thread, but I also use Wonderfil spagetti or even any thick thread that i have bought in a charity shop.
It is just free machine "embroidery" or do you in the States call it free motion quilting - to me they are the same.


Tuesday 24 December 2013

Finished

Mine is finished!
When Ita annouced the challenge I thought "How awful" I never work in grey! So I thought about it carefully and thought of Iceland. we had a fabulous week there in May - amazing country but the weather was terrible - lots of rain and grey cloud.
I am always in looking at the ethnic textiles and enjoyed doing a bit of research in the museum in Reykjavik
Here are some of the photos I took whilst in iceland

So here is the finished quilt!
I can't remember if you were were supposed to use only one other colour, but I just had a use a few!
Thanks Ita for pushing me out of my comfort zone and forcing me to make a quilt in colours I don't usually use.
I just love it! and want to make some more using the same idea, but this time using my photos from other parts of the world.

Gillian


Monday 23 December 2013

Almost finished - but wrong size...

When Ita announced her color scheme for the second assignment I immediately had an idea that fit nicely into what I am working on for my exhibition in October 2014, "Inspiration Bauhaus". However, it does not fit into the 40 by 80 cms scheme.
Nevertheless, I worked it all out and have now started quilting it. And although it doesn't fit in, it is the only thing I can show right now, and will. Here are a few stages of development:

A plan to give me an indication of how things will be arranged.


Free-cut squares

the squares were surrounded by 1/2-inch-wide lines
and another free-cut round - note the reflector fabric!

all sewn together

had a helper putting the sandwich together

And now it is in the process of being quilted.
But I have a sufficient amount of leftovers, which have already triggered a few more ideas for a quilt abiding by the rules, and in the right size. It won't be finished in time, but I promise to try to get it done soon.



Saturday 21 December 2013

Quilt #2 finished!!


So I was the last one to finish my quilt assignment #1, and now I am proud to be the first to finish #2.

I have been using commercial striped fabrics for some time as the fine lines in my piecing, and have several boxes worth.  For this quilt I used the stripes in very skinny lines, as usual, but instead of using them as spacers between larger pieces of fabric, I decided to just have the skinny lines by themselves.

Here's a view in progress showing how thin the lines are -- the grid lines on the design wall are one inch apart.



















Here's the finished quilt.  No name yet.


Tuesday 5 November 2013

Hello to all
I think all the quilts should be the same size as the first project we decided. 40 cm / 80 cm.
I hope it will not be a problem in the future.
Best regards
Ita Ziv

Monday 4 November 2013

Conditions, Size, and news items...

It seems that we have not been entirely clear on some aspects of conditions, size, posting, etc. Which is why Gillian redid her red piece, and Kathy has sent me a mail asking about the size for Ita's conditions. Which I could answer only partially...

So I suggest the following:

  • Conditions for new assignments should be posted on the blog, and not sent by e-mail (or sent by e-mail only in addition to the post on the blog) so everybody can still find them even after they have cleared out their mail boxes.
  • Sizes should be included in the requirement if you want us to work in the same size. As I had understood it, for the red piece, we had sort of agreed on 40 x 80 cm, but I did not understand that as a definite given (and my own is 90 cm long).
  • For Ita's conditions, no size has been indicated yet - Ita, do you want to give a size? Or did you understand us as all working on a 40 x 80 again? I am working on something right now which is big (approx. 150 cm wide and high), as I wanted to use it for my exhibition next year and need to fill walls...

Have fun working from back to white with a little bit of color...


Saturday 2 November 2013

Eti David



When I found out that I take part in the "International Treads" group and the first mission
is – "Red" I took out my stash of red fabrics.
I choose about 25 five different pieces, cut triangles and built a composition that gave place to almost  all the "reds" that I have.
I have to give credit to Sue Benner, that gave me the idea of using this technique.




Friday 1 November 2013

Better than nothing

I've been swamped for the last couple of months and am shamefully behind in my project, but here it is the last day of the month (the deadline) and I have finished piecing the top -- so at least you can see that I'm alive.

I have used this style of piecing before, such as in my quilt "Big Ice" that is traveling in the SAQA Seasonal Palette exhibit.  I'm also partway through a large project using this style of piecing with commercial stripe fabrics.  But here I'm experimenting with commercial prints other than stripes, the first time I've tried that approach.  I was happy to have this assignment to push me into the experiment.

Big Ice






















So here's the new one, still without a name:

Not sure I have handled the transitions between fabrics as well as I would like, but that's something to work on in subsequent projects. Right now I'm enjoying the reds and am pleased with the way this one is turning out.  I particularly like the way the large polka dot print in the center has gotten distorted through the fracturing and re-piecing, an effect you don't get with smaller-scale prints.

I'll post again when I finish the quilting, which may not get done until after the holidays.

Wednesday 30 October 2013

Red Finished

 I don't normally hestitate, re do pieces, get the size wrong ete but finally, after a couple of attemps, here is my finished Red piece. 
Paint on to calico, applique using recycled sari silk with screen printed patterns and shisha glass made using sweet papers.
Gillian

Sunday 20 October 2013

Meeting

This week Eti Ita and I met up in Ramat HaSharon in Israel.
We went out for a meal and look how much food Eti ordered!
We discussed our latest quilts and it seems that I have made my quilt the wrong size. It's not a problem - it just means that i need to make another.
The whole point of the group was to encourage us to make more quilts so I'll just have to make one more. I have a busy time ahead of me so I may be a little late with my piece.
I have started...
Gillian

Tuesday 8 October 2013

Indian ladies (Red)

I have a really busy October and November with lots of teaching so I wanted to get my quilt finished. I have just been on a few days Quilting retreat which is a great way to get on with finishing a piece.
I had great plans to really push myself to continue with my ideas for a quilt based on my recent Horizon piece which was long and thin (and due to go to Prague in 2014), but I knew I would need to do lots more sampling.
So I decided to continue with my Indian ladies theme and do a much larger piece. I made a sample which was all painted, I liked it, so started on the bigger piece
This one is about 35cm square

 For the bigger one I added applique using recycled sari silk that I bought in India.I printed and stencilled the background and then screen printed on both edges using a thermofax. I made the shisha glass using sweet papers applied with bondaweb.


Gillian

Saturday 5 October 2013




The inspiration for this quilt was my father's letters written in Yiddish to my sister who lived in a Kibbutz in 1953. I wanted to perpetuate it by printing it on red fabrics.
Red….first I need to choose the fabrics to use for creating the quilts I want.



The fabric was chosen. What will be the pattern? maybe this?




Start cutting.


Fuse and correct, see if composition and colors are fit.
All is done and ready. Now need to quilt it.


Everything is finished, the quilting, the binding and the sleeve.
Latter 1
 Latter 1 - Detail
 Latter 2

Latter 2 - Detail