Bugs and quilts

It's been a bit of a busy old week and pretty eventful, not least because my very dear friend of over 20 years has moved across the Pennines to the very lovely county of Cheshire.  She has moved into what is known as the Textile Triangle so we are both very excited by the prospect of lots of expeditions and lots of inspiration in the coming months and hopefully years.  I'm looking forward to visiting her new home which has far reaching views across the hills around Macclesfield and a beautiful woodland garden.

A week or two ago, before her move, my friend had a surprise package from her daughter who I have mentioned on the blog before.  This time the package contained the latest designs that her daughter had made for Makower fabrics.

Isn't it lovely?  There are lots more designs on the Makower site here. Not surprisingly it is called 'Bugs'.  I made a baby quilt with M's original Farm Corner design for our grand-nephew and I think I will make a quilt for the new baby due in April with this fabric.  It's so bright and colourful and agian has so much detail in it.  There is a free quilt pattern on the Makower site and I was delighted to discover it is designed by Hilary Gooding (the quilt as opposed to the fabric) who is a very lovely lady who I know from the Contemporary Quilt Group. 

Yesterday I spent a very busy day making a quilt to go on my Mum's bed at her care home.  I bought a fleece at Sainsbury's a couple of weeks ago with the thought that I could use it as a backing and do away with the wadding.  I had a sudden flash of memory that I had bought a panel a year or two ago and put it away for when inspiration dawned and yesterday was the day.  After a bit of measuring and improvisation I have pieced the top and only have to attachit to the fleece.  Sadly I have not photographed it yet but I am keen to get it finished this week so I'll share it soon.

Meanwhile, something I can show you.  As part of the Journal Quilt challenge for 2011 I started a close toned piece a few months ago with the thought of stitching it as a slow cloth in the manner of Jude Hill

I tore strips of various fabrics including fabrics I had printed at Summer School, my hand dyes, silk dupion, vintage broderie anglaise, embroidered curtain fabric, vintage cotton and ribbon and also a piece of laminated fabric ( fabric made by adhering pieces of newsprint).  The fabrics were woven together and then I added various hand stitches.  You will notice that I couldn't resist using some of Jude's feather designs and for some of them I have used the rayon threads that I won from Dale. The rayon has a lovely sheen but is a bit tricky to stitch with.  I added the yarn at the bottom (for some unknown reason) and then added buttons as this was going to be my January JQ but I've since used the Barcelona one instead.  I plan to trim the wadding on this and back it onto a piece of black felt.

Tomorrow will be another busy day.  DH put some shelves up in my studio and I am going to be knee deep in sorting out the chaos in there so that I can move out some of the chaos from the house that should be in the studio.  Wish me luck!