The original multi Bits-A-Quilt

This is the first quilt I made out of bits.  Not pre-cut, no pattern, just bits.  Bits from my mothers scrap bag, so there are scraps here from dresses she made me and I wore as a child. Bits from the quilts I had made up to that time, bits cut from the legs of trousers that were too long for me.  So all the bits hold memories and some times I amuse myself by trying to remember the origin of each.

I did not wait to have enough fabric to make the whole quilt top before I started sewing.  Each time I had the sewing machine out for a project I would check the bag of bits, see if any fitted together and sew them.  Each time I had a piece left from a project or from clothing alteration I put it in the bag.  Slowly over years it grew till it was big enough for a backing. Bits left over, well they stayed in the bag and became the starting point for the next quilt of bits. 

The green fabric for the backing and the boarder I bought in a discount shop that sold what ever they had found cheap and could sell for a reasonable profit, from door mats to toilet brushes and fabric. It has been a good find and hard wearing.

I finished it in 1997 having quilted in the furrow (mainly) randomly round the blocks.  I find that I remember things I was watching on TV whilst I was working on a particular project.  That is not a hard stretch of the memory for the quilting on this project.  I was watching the procession to her final resting place from the funeral service of Diana, Princess of Wales.  I did not sew during the actual service as that would have felt disrespectful.
   

This is a picture of the quilt I took after it was finished...or perhaps that should be after it was started!

Bits-A-Quilt start

I say started because the fabric is all ages and all weights and the quilt has been in use most days since the boarder went on.  So seams have pulled apart or fabric has worn out.  Each time that has happened I have fixed it.  Adding new patches over the worn spots and covering the weak seams.

So I guess this quilt is not so much finished as it is ongoing, perhaps at some point the original quilt top will be totally covered in fixings.  I quite like that idea even if it is covering up old memories with new ones.  So far there are over twenty new pieces on this quilt and it is still getting used on a daily basis.

This is how it currently looks (hooray for digital cameras) who knows how it will look in a few more years time.  

Bits-A-Quilt current

If I am still blogging I guess we will find out.

OK I am adding this picture as an update on 16.03.2021, the current status of the quilt after its next set of fixes.

January 2025 and it is again repair time so adding the current  look of the quilt after more patching.

I have put the picture in the same orientation  to make it easier to play spot the difference.

IHSW progress

 This is my progress on my chosen project for the IHSW (at least) and any other times I can add to it.

Does it look a bit like a stocky deer to you?  Looks a bit like one to me at this stage.

Guardian Angel , quilt from cross stitch

My friend, for whom I made the dragon gate embroidery (blog entry "Any one with ability.." 13.01.2014) came home from his mission in America, went to University, met a wonderful lady and got married.  I don't appear to have taken a picture of the embroidery I did for their wedding for some reason. 

My friends wife to my delight was also a cross stitcher, a hobby she already shared with her mother (hence an embroidery for the wedding not a cross stitch). So when they shared the happy news of an expected expansion to their family I wondered what to do.  A birth announcement/ sampler would be my normal reaction but in this instance with two cross stitchers already in the family I thought it would not be appropriate.

On a visit with them I was shown the pattern for the cross stitch project she had chosen for the nursery. A Lavender and Lace design titled Guardian Angel.  I said oh I could make a version of that for you, not do her project as was, oh no make a quilt to go with it.  That offer was accepted and a copy was made of the main lines of the image directly from the pattern.  The Lavender and Lace Patterns are of a size big enough to be used directly without any enlargement being required.  

As the gender of the baby was not yet known, the angel image feminine enough for a girl I started looking for blue, a sky effect I thought and a nod to convention if the baby was a boy.

A discount shop which sold material, often seconds of some sort had a roll of marbled blue shot with gold.  I asked for the amount I would need for front and back and the assistant happily rolled it out then paused as the material had a huge printing fault in the middle.  The blue dye had not taken and there was a large area of white (still shot with gold) down the middle of the material.  She apologised that they had no more of the blue and was surprised when I said with some enthusiasm that I wanted the material with the fault.  It could not have been better had I had it especially dyed for the project, now I had a cloud of light in the middle of the sky into which the angel would sit.  

There were other shades of the gold shot which echoed the colours of the original design so I added them to my purchase and set to.

I had earlier made my friend an appliquéd version of the dragon gate (no picture available for that either, pre digital age) and learned a few lessons there.  So every exposed edge was first lightly hemmed, then sewn to the quilt and then satin stitched with embroidery thread / floss.  Some sections were a bit harder than others to get the needle through (lots of layers)  but it came together. Oh and to give it a bit extra impact I padded it and quilted some sections, like the wings.

I had not finished it before the baby arrived, I had the back and quilting still to do.  With the baby's name to hand I included her initials on the back.  This changed the quilt from a nursery quilt to her quilt, later I was to understand that in my mind that decision was more than just for that quilt and an unspoken commitment that would last many more years and stitches into the future.

Back of quilt.

So here she is Guardian Angel, I took these pictures on my old camera so sadly they are not great, I sew a lot better I think than take pictures.  The recipient is herself now at University, were does the time go? Sewn into quilts I guess.

Guardian Angel

How the white fault looked

Quilting, split rail fence..almost

I started a split rail quilt (in blue, lilac and white the colours are not to easy to see in this picture). I got all muddled up with it and could not figure out what I was doing.

I decided not to keep going with the rail fence and to make it the middle for a quilt instead.

A mix of eight rail block not used for the middle, bits patches, some big bits to make it up to size and there was a top made.

I hand quilted it with stylised tulips round  the edge and in the furrow for the middle.

It made a nice house warming gift for an acquaintance who had a tendency to fall asleep in front of the TV. She said that with her new quilt she did not wake up freezing.

Although it was not what I envisioned when I started it was pleasant enough when finished and utterly unique!

One of theses days I may have another go at a split rail and get it right.

Bowls season open...fire!

This is an embroidery I first did for my Dad.  Again its inspiration was a card with a humorous depiction of "firing" a technique used in the lawn bowls game.  My Dad likes this sport and has been club champion at the local club more than once.
                                                                 

I made a second one for my mother's uncle Tom.  Uncle Tom lived in Australia and was also keen on the game.  Although the prizes he won were a bit more usable than the medals and trophies here.  He often wrote about winning "chucks" chickens that is, ready to be cooked, not the breathing laying kind. He played into his nineties, when his vision deteriorated he played with verbal instructions  and still enjoyed an end or two.  The embroidery made him chuckle, he knew, he said people who played that way.  He was looking forward to getting a telegram from the Queen for his 100th birthday (I did tell him it would have been a card, telegrams were phased out before he was 98) sadly he did not quite manage to stay with us long enough to get his card.

Anyway the local season opened today so a good day to share this.

The square stretch frame was a bit more difficult on the back and I had to lace this one.

Psalms 46:10, painted egg

                                                                       Happy Easter.

Easter themed painted eggs

Golden fish Easter Egg

This golden fish on a blue background is another of my mother's designs.  It was painted for an Easter celebration at Church which included a decorated egg competition.

Mark !:17

back of the egg has the scriptural reference which makes the fish image  very appropriate.

My own entry had a similar style, image on the front and a scriptural reference relating to it on the reverse.

Painted egg Lamb

John 1:29

I can't recall the results of the Church competition, but they had a competition at work the same year and my lamb did do well in that and won me a chocolate version.  That is long gone, but the painted one is still there.

Dragon egg

well an egg with a dragon painted on it at any rate.  Sorry if you were hoping, like Hagrid, for a real dragons egg.

Dragon egg

If you have visited my blog before you will have seen a version of this design on an embroidery, the acknowledgements for the origin of the design are on that blog (Any one with ability..) and so I won't repeat them here.

The excerpt written on the back is in a book by Kathleen Woodiwiss (so I think it is by her) and is one of many dragon poems and quotes I like very much.

Back of dragon egg

Painting Easter Eggs part two

I made a start after my mother did a class on painting eggs at church.  She did  a painted example for the evening and a scratch egg .

Here they are:

Painted egg

Scratch egg

On the night I had a go at a scratch egg, with my attempt at snowdrops on one side and of an oriental landscape on the other.

Snowdrop scratched egg

bridge and pagoda scratch egg

Painting Easter Eggs..the inspiration

My mother started me off on painting eggs.  Here are some of hers:

Farm cottage

Barn, tractor and haystack

Rabbit's burrow

Haystack and rabbits

The rabbits on this one were my favourite as a child.  However the egg that followed remains my overall favourite.

Mary Magdalene

The stone rolled away

Jesus Christ