Autumn Gear Wheels

Autumn Colors - Yippee! My favorite color scheme - NOT!
Ok, what do I do now - I already skipped the Afghan Square. No way I'm going to ditch this one.
So now what?

Why do I not like autumn colors? Probably the promise of cold, wet and dark days looming ahead is what really turns me off.

On the other side, autumn has beautiful sides to offer - Chinese lanterns, ripe berries, red maple leaves, asters and pumpkins. So I decided to focus on this color palette - even though it is not the typical autumn color palette you would expect.
After making the spirals, the quilt seemed to be empty in a way so I took to my harshest critique - my daughter. She suggested a green bug. But the only ones I could find which related to autumn were ladybugs and stink bugs. Ladybugs were out of the question - way to cute for my liking. Stink bugs are edgy enough - but most of them are brown. BROWN! Ugh.

So - Gear Wheels! Just because I like them. Yay!

"Thinking of Nasrin" - Afghan Square, finally finished!

After taking forever, I finally finished my Afghan Square quilt a couple of days ago.

It went through a number of planning stages.
This was my original square:

Although the background suggested it, I did not want to 'turn traditional', and at first thought I could stretch, turn, mirror and replicate the shape of the orginal motif. Planning by photoshop and sketching looked like this.

Of course, eight of the blocks - i.e. all the ones that would have been not the original size - would have been pieced. But somehow this didn't really talk to me.
Then we had a left-over square anyway, and Barbara offered to give me hers, too, so I figured I could use three instead of only one. I also had a piece of a real Afghan tchador (if that's what it's called there), which I had dyed blue, and started figuring out how to include that.

The embroidered squares were inset into
circles, and a couple of other circles added

A lot of handstitching, some quilting on the the longarm, and quite a bit more handstitching followed.

Extra stitching added to alter character of pre-stitched cloth

green stitches on the yellow cloth were done by my son,
when he was trying out a bit of embroidery

And with all the refugee crisis, my involvement in and exhaustion from volunteer work the title simply suggested itself, because while I was stitching, I kept thinking about the woman who had made the squares, hoping that this work is enough to keep her well supplied for where she is, without having to think about possible leaving her country via a dangerous and unpromising migration to countries where things would be so different, difficult...

"Thinking of Nasrin", 60 x 120 cm

Signs and Symbols

This is my "Signs and Symbols" quilt

This is my first time to add photo to the blog and the quilt is text challenge

Bella

Autumn
Making quilts is better than filling in my tax return form - due at the end of this month, so I have made my Autumn quilt.
When I was in Geneva in September visiting Chantal, and teaching her group, I took a load of photos of the pumpkins in a yard.

I made a small Journal Quilt for the UK Contemporary Quilt Group 6' x 12"

I was pleased with my small JQ so have made a bigger International threads Quilt

I used Photoshop elements and made some drawings, I used Split Print to make the photograph bigger

Here it is in progress

and then finished

The colours look different as the second pictures are taken in electric lighting

Gillian

Afghan Square Quilt

Here is my finished Afghan Square Quilt
The
Gillian

Signs and Symbols - Gillian

I find working to a smaller size much better - not particularly because of the size but there is less pressure - at 40cm x 80cm, if it is not a great quilt, it doesn't matter, I feel I could easily do another.
I felt inspired to get going with the long overdue challenge
Signs and Symbols
I couple of years ago, whilst in the carpet museum in Istanbul I photographed some carpets with the information next to it, explaining what the symbols mean.
I made some drawings of the symbols and used my Interchange Applique technique.

You may have heard that, in Yorkshire, on Boxing Day we had some devastating floods. It has caused chaos and has been so sad to see so many homes ruined. My quilts were hanging in our local quilt shop, as part of a small exhibition. The water came into the shop to waist high and several of my quilts got very wet. They were in very dirty muddy water for 24 hours! They have surprisingly  washed well.

We spent the next few days helping to clear the shop etc. Elaine from the Quilt Cabin gave me some fabric ( the type and colours she knows I like) for helping so I wanted to use this fabric to make my next quilt.

So, although it is a signs and symbols quilt it is also a Hebden Bridge Flood Quilt, at least that's what it will remind me of.






Gillian

Signs and symbols -- Kathy

For some reason I've been having a hard time deciding what to make for the "signs and symbols" prompt.  When the answer finally came to me I felt really stupid -- it is so obvious!!  why didn't I think of this sooner??

For many years I have been making quilts in a format I call "postage stamps" because I make a bunch of tiny "quilts" and then sew them together in a grid, and each little quilt is not much bigger than a postage stamp.  I love this technique and return to it every now and then, and what could be better than to use the alphabet for the theme?



You can read about my other postage stamp quilts HERE, on my other blog.

Revision of schedule, again

This is the current state of the schedule for assignments: 

(we are supposed to be working on Eti's assignment "Signs and Symbols", and have left off the October assignment 'florals')

Bella (give new guidelines SOON) 
Uta (give new guidelines by end of February 2016), Barbara (give new guidelines by end of June 2016), Gillian (give new guidelines by end of October 2016), Margaret (give new guidelines by end of February 2017)Kathy (give new guidelines by end of June 2017)Eti


... unless something changes with regard to membership of group!

International Threads on youtube

Gillian was interviewed during the Maastricht show and now has an appearance on youtube, speaking on behalf of International Threads:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFMgYZ8q6lA

Take a look!