Journals - Weeks 19, 20 and 21

Here we go. Week 19 is Red Squares, made using a technique from Pam Watts in "A Beginners Guide to Machine Embroidery".

Week 20, Anyone for Tea, uses the same piece of embroidery as Red Squares to make a tea cup and I appliqued this on a lush piece of blue velvet for contrast, then mounted it on some pretty blue batik.

Week 21, is some very simple fabric weaving with sari silk strips (I had originally planned to knit these, at the encouragement of an enthusiastic vendor, but that turned out to be very hard)

Christmas Preparations

The year is racing by and May is nearly gone so it is already time to share the month's Christmas gift preparations.

I made this tissue box cover using the tutorial from Pink Penguin. It's an easy tutorial to follow, and I wouldn't mind one of these for myself. The lining is neatly finished so that it is reversible.


My favourite Christmas project so far has been to make a stocking for an exchange I am taking part in. I was assigned a partner, and we each made a stocking for each other. The really fun thing is that we have already swapped stockings, in fact we did this at the end of March, and now every month we make or buy a small gift, wrap it and mail it, to be placed in the stocking and not opened until Christmas.

This is the stocking I made for my partner Lorraine

And this is the stocking she made for me. Isn't it beautiful?


I especially love the piece of tatting that is stitched onto this and the way that Lorraine has used some pretty gold buttons and charms as embellishments because I said I liked metallic buttons. This stocking has such a feels of an old fashioned Christmas. I'm so lucky.

Week 18 Journal - Conduit

This is one journal quilt which I love. It was made using the gentle curves technique that Jeannette DeNicolis Meyer taught in her recent class... I think I might wear out Jeannette's name soon because I use it so often, usually along with the superlatives "fabulous" or "fantastic".

I'm beginning feel the pinch of time with these journals as they seem to take all my available quilting time, but leave me wanting to do more. Often they seem unfinished to me, but I have to make the decision to stop working on one and move on in order keep meeting the challenge of creating something weekly. It's an interesting conflict.

Journal Quilts - Weeks 15, 16 and 17

Catch up time.

Week 15 - Paper Bag Face

A recent visit to the local embroiders group inspired me to try this technique of stitching on a crumpled bag with old wool/yarn. The stitched piece is then painted, and I stamped mine and edged it with gold pen, and gold machine stitching. The other two layers of the "quilt" are iron on stabilizer.

Week 16 - Screen Printed #

This is my first ever piece of screen printing! At Symposium I did a three day class with Jeannette DeNicolis Meyer to learn screen printing using thickened dyes, fabric paints and thiox to discharge the colour from dark fabrics. I had so much fun. In preparation for the class I had been to a fabric dyeing class locally, so that I would have some coloured fabrics as a base for printing on.

Jeannette was an incredible tutor, very knowledgeable and great at communicating her knowledge to complete beginners. You can see her amazing work at her website www.jdmeyer.com/

Week 17 - Origami Squares

I was lucky enough to spend another two days learning from Jeannette when I returned from Symposium. Our quilt guild just had a class where she taught art quilt construction techniques for 2 days. I loved learning to fold these origami squares.