"Rage" - the making of a quilt

I have been procrastinating again - both with my blog and my life.

I am a very lucky girl, I have a lovely studio and lots of time of my own (no children, no job and a husband who cooks), so really I should produce a lot, right?  Wrong!  I have a butterfly mind and very often I can’t decide what to do, so many choices………  Because I want to do a bit of this, or maybe I could finish that or perhaps …? In the end it is so much easier to sit down with the latest quilting magazine and guess what? Get even more ideas………. Perhaps I should ban comfy chairs and reading matter from my studio?

Anyway, that means that I don’t have any new [finished] work to post, but as many people has asked about the construction of my quilt “Rage” exhibited at the Festival of Quilts in August, I shall share the pictures I took as I went along and a sample of a ‘hole’ block I made today.

This was the start of the quilt - I auditioned some fabrics I had dyed in a class with Committed to Cloth and made a set of blocks with holes. This is my workspace in Denmark, the design wall is a Quilter’s Block Butler - I am afraid that I can’t recommend it and it will soon be replaced.

I decided against most of the orange colours.

And in came my favorite fabric in my pt. favorite colour from Heide Stoll-Weber. 

Nearly there - just need something at the right side. You see, it had to be 140 X 140 cm in size - because I had entered it into The Festival of Quilt at that size, and the whole layout of the hanging of quilts for the show is based on quilt sizes. A change can mean that the quilt is not going to hang after all…………

Back in Guernsey, my design-board is full of stuff that I can’t be bothered to take down. It is easier to see the holes with the bookcase behind the quilt top.

With the wadding (batting) I placed the quilt top carefully on top of wadding and backing fabric that had already been 505’ed (spray glue) together, then drew inside the holes and cut away wadding and backing in one go.

Here you see the front of the quilt with the back of the hole block still on top. I have ironed on some fusing at the sides.

Three hole block having not been pushed through the quilt yet - fusing visible.

Back of the quilt with the same three blocks pushed through and ironed down. Sorry for not taking those two pictures at the same angle.

Back of the quilt before quilting.

Not only is DH a marvelous cook, his first profession was photography and he still practice it, see more here. However he does not have a big studio any more, so the garage doubles for that when he takes pictures of some of my bigger quilts.

And now how to make a hole block - it is not my invention, but I have forgotten who did, perhaps I blocked (no pun intended) it out, because what I do remember is, that it was a very, very boring class and at the time the hole block didn’t excite me either…………….. That only came to me, when I took an even more boring class. Lesson learned: Boring class + boring class = exciting quilt called  “Rage”.

Two pieces of fabrics right sides together. For clarification I have used black and white.

Sew a few circles in free-motion with very short stitches. Mark first if it feels better. I have used a contrasting thread for clarification. Normally I favor the YLI #100 silk thread in neutral colour for any piecework.

Cut very close to the sewing.

Turned inside out. I like to let the back fabric show, also I like irregular circles, so I don’t mark first.

Note to self: Blog more often, with fewer pictures. Today I have spent 3hours 45 minutes on blogging, some would say “I would rather sew”, but when living on a small island blogging is a good lifeline, together with Margaret Cooters blog keeping me updated on London culture, something I miss, having lived there for nine years. 

But frankly, I love blogging………...