100 metres of thread

Yesterday I posted my entry for CQ Horizons exhibition at Festival of Quilts. I was stitching the facing and sleeve on late of Tuesday night - I'd taken time off work on Monday and Tuesday to do that but couldn't resist adding extra stitching -it's addictive!! I reckon I've used  over 100 metres of thread, estimated from  counting the lines on the back (above).

 I did the majority of the stitching (thanks Hilary for the photo of me in action!)  while on  Summer school retreat at Farncombe , a joy to be among supportive company in a peaceful, beautiful landscape, well fed and watered.

Re-purposing old textiles combined with painting with acrylics and hand stitch  brought together what I love best . I've  still got some of this old red and white strippy quilt left  and am pondering how best to use it in a similar fashion

I know where I'm going but....

 In between pulling buttercups and ivy out of the  strawberry patch I've been stitching samples for the 2 quilts I'm working on  and come to some decisions  - whether I'll have enough time to bring them to fruition is a another matter! On my test sample for 'horizons' piece (below) I tried out machine stitching working from the back  with perle threads in the bobbin. That didn't work - too dense and pulled the cloth up badly. Hand stitching  worked better, especially with my favourite Gutterman silk buttonhole  thread and some gorgeous hand dyed cotton purchased from Laura Wasilowski at Nottingham AGM

 The time spent wasn't wasted thought - the dense line from perle in the bobbin combined with twin needle stitching  will work very well I think on the 'mudflats' piece. I had to quickly assemble a sample to test it out but with a bit more stitching it will become one of my indigo journal quilts - I like how this theme is working for me.

 Hand stitching will not be neglected - I like the effect particularly on the shibori .  But if  when time is short I can work accordingly. I also like having both a machine and hand project on the go.

Indigo Mudflats

 With so  much going on at work, a bank holiday weekend in the cellar sorting through boxes and boxes of junk and some serious hacking in the garden, I had to give up on the idea of completing a SAQA auction donation this year. I'd pieced it from the scraps left over from my FoQ entry ( at least I got the forms filled out a week before the deadline). I did manage to squeeze some time in on Sunday to start machine quilting.

With some serious concentration of stitching required, blogging may be sporadic - I'll sort  out some photos from  our Weymouth break in April to share, starting with these mudflats which influenced  my current project.