Another thread sketch

Just found this lurking under a pile of forgotten projects. Another thread sketch practice session.


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Bloggers Quilt Festival

Amy over at Amy's Creative Side  is hosting a bloggers quilt festival for us poor folk that haven't been able to get to Houston this year.  I have been to Quilt Market but that was a decade ago and no doubt the event looks somewhat different to when I was there last but I did get to MQX in April this year so I can't feel to hard done by.  

For Amy's festival I have decided to show something a little different. Its a small postcard I made for my cousin Emma back in Feb 2010. 

Now first up I need to explain something ... I am a longarm quilter and without being too "up myself"  I'm an OK longarmer.   BUT I brought a longarm because I could't machine quilt on a domestic machine.  I tried and failed miserably time and time again. But as soon as I had my hands on my LA it was a different matter. It was like coming home and I felt very very comfortable.  So I left domestic machine quilting well alone  ...for over 10 years in fact. But you see  I am also a Scorpio and I don't accept defeat well, so last year I decided to put things right and teach myself to machine quilt on a domestic machine.  

This small postcard was a small exercise I did to help me practice. It's NOT good but its not too shabby either and I was very happy enough  to make it into a postcard AND pop it in the post for all the world to see.

. More importantly though, this tiny 4" x 6" quilt  gave me the confidence to know that with practice you can achieve anything you want to.  It took me years to build up the courage to tackle domestic machine quilting again but I did tackle it !  

 With a  little determination, perseverance AND most important of all ...an ability to laugh off some pretty awful attempts ....I came out feeling a huge sense of accomplishment. 

 I haven't done too much quilting on my domestic machine since but at least I know I can if I have too!

It's my birthday!

How happy am I ... Birthday ATCs from around the world. Thankyou girls!

The world in your pocket!

At the beginning of October I quoted for a job to make a Map Quilt for a marketing agency.

 I won the job and got some very late nights in return as

 I made a 1m x 1.5m map of 6 of the 7 continents. 

The quilt is scheduled for use in around 20 exhibition venues starting in Glasgow this weekend.  I've no idea where it goes after that but I hope it get well used and 

enjoyed by many visitors.

Each of the continents has a concealed pocket in it for visitors to place notes and messages. This was quite a challenge for the smaller continents but I think they have worked out ok. 

All of the continents were machine buttonhole appliqued to a single background fabric and then lightly quilted around each shape with a simple medium sized  background meander. The concealed pockets were made using a concealed zipper pocket technique ..minus zipper of course before I layered up and quilted.   

To hang the quilt I added a sleeve and ties to give more than one method of fixing 

depending on the venue. 

All in all I really enjoyed making this quilt and asides from the practical challenge

 of making it I learnt a few things about our world too.  

So do you know what the continents are and which is which?  

I was quite surprised looking at the relative size of them. 

I knew Asia was big but it's vast by comparison to Europe and Australia. 

And I didn't know North America had quite so many islands ( and no I didn't include them all, although I did try to include as many of the larger land masses as I could.)   

The buttonhole applique took ages and gave me 'googly' eyes from concentrating so much but I did have a  laugh with my husband who phoned regularly to ask which country I was now in and recommended I give up for the day when I had a thread break in the Urals !

Here are some pics of the quilt in progress

More Photos from the Kuwait Friday Market

More photos of the Kuwait Friday market!

....the carpet aisle

I've never seen such huge carpets!  

I see a quilting design in the purple one too.

(These were my hosts LeAnn and Cecilia btw)

....kettles!

....hairdryers

....shoes

.. a fire extinguisher?

...and a few bikes!




and ooh .....a trio of disc drives - bet they dont work!

Orphan Sewing Machines

Look what I found while I was tidying up my photo library. 

I took these pictures earlier this year in Kuwait at the outdoor Friday market. 

A market that must hold the record for the largest and hottest car boot sale ever! 

 40deg plus and no wind didn't stop me meandering around all the pitches though.  

You could get anything and everything from a Rolex to a half-used tube of toothpaste! 

One of the best places I've ever been!

Is it cheating?

Detail: When Maybugs Fly by Pam Carter: Quilted by Tracey Pereira

You may have noticed that I haven't blogged in quite some while. Well I've not been idle .. in fact I have been busy ... very busy.  This weekend was my first weekend off in around 12 weeks  and even then that wasn't strictly true because I ended up packing some orders and getting them into the post office before midday.

I love being busy but I really enjoyed not having a schedule to work to this weekend. It was on my terms .. if you know what I mean.  So on Saturday afternoon I took myself off to a local quilt show ... as a visitor!

 Aldwick Quilters over in West Sussex is a very talented group and their show was just wonderful. Of course I forgot my camera so I can't show you any photos but trust me when I say the exhibition was worth visiting.  Whilst I was there though I overheard one of the ladies talking about longarm quilting

... "it's cheating really though isn't it? "  she said to her friend.

 I didn't get involved in the conversation ... as much as anything because I had quilted the raffle quilt, but it did get me thinking about a couple of other comments I have heard recently.

 A couple of my newbie patchwork students visited a show a couple of weeks back and told me about a local Hampshire quilt shop owner who questioned "why would you not finish your own quilts?"  when they mentioned longarm quilting to her,  and another lady at the Friday afternoon group I go to who told me her applique doll quilt wasn't suitable for longarm quilting.

 Uhm ... am I wrong or do we need to start educating the UK quilters about the benefits of longarm quilting again?