Love is..... is coming along - sometimes all the problems in the world are sorted out when I have done bit of redwork.  I forget the peace that settles.

Today I gave myself a treat and went and traced the first block of Rosalie Quinlan's 'Love is.......' stitchery quilt.  I have had this for quite a while and as I'm without any redwork to stitch, that I should start.  This is my first of Rosalie's design that I have done, unfortunatley it is not the only pattern of hers that I have bought.  There are many others, and I'll leave that topic there.

On another note pertaining to redwork, I have tried to stitch in many colours. You know what I mean, where the petals are pink and the leaves are green and the sky is blue and I have difficulty finishing the blocks.  Yeah it's called embroidery.  The simplicity of one colour stitchery is hypnotic for me and very meditative.  I am almost salivating thinking of just sewing with one colour.  Another threadwork that I love and haven't done since my Mum died, as there is no place in my house for it (YET), is hardanger.  Different weights of thread, all the same colour though.

I hope they fix the spell check in Bugger Blogger soon.  All my mistakes are coming through.  Like the score through - knew that would come in handy. 

My friend the Librarian loves blue work and made a beautiful top. Some of the stitchery blocks were designed by one of her lovely children, others come from Bronwyn Hayes of Red Brolly as well as an old favourite from Jean Jensen that she designed many years ago for candlewicking. These were combined so well with a variety of pieced blocks, all surrounded by timeless ticking. So I was lucky enough to be allowed to quilt it - all freehanded with some rule work in the crosshatching and baptist fans in the outer border.

Here is another from a long time ago. The words are gentleness, love, peace, goodness, patience, self-caring, joy, faithfulness, kindness, however I think that it needs the word humour stitched into it somewhere. All the words are very admirable, however humour would be the thing that gives it the spark and make all okay.

The door is between the front lounge and the kitchen and is our old front door that the four of us sanded back and oiled one afternoon. The builders of the house made it from the leftover Jarrah floorboards, from when they built our house in the 1930s. The toilet door was also of the same construction and made at the same time. It is one of the features of this style of house that the dunny (toilet) door would be made from the leftover boards. The hairiest Sweetie built the door frame, side light and hung the door to block off the rest of the house as I used to quilt in the front lounge and had people dropping and picking up quilts. They were quite nosy at times and would take off for a tour of the house! So a door was the best option and then I knew that the youngest Sweeties could be vegged out on the couch without complete strangers walking through and conversing with them. Remember humour - it's always important. As are the other things on the stitchery.

This is the redwork quilt that I have been talking about and another of those projects that I started when everything was a lot younger. This was probably started sometime in 2003/2004 when I fell in love with Bronwyn Hayes' work. The original quilt was smaller, however we have the technology to make things bigger so I did, and I remember stuffing up with one of the blocks and it wasn't increased at the same rate as the others, but hey what the heck I'm a big girl now so I just fudged the piecing when I came to put it all together.The later quilting is freehand. All the earlier stuff was done on the Compuquilter, and that includes the crosshatching over the embroidery. If I was to do it again I would freehand everything, except for the crosshatching on the embroidery. The crosshatching on the 'patch' border I would freehand. I have had my Compuquilter now for almost three years and I have worked out what it is good at and what I am good at and enjoy doing.

The blocks were completed quite quickly, over a few months, as they were very transportable as all I needed was the fabric, a pair of scissors, the thread and a needle.

The machine piecing of the bits around the blocks took the time and then I couldn't find what I wanted for the outer border and then there had to be the extra outer corner blocks.

The chooks on the original quilt both faced the same way so I changed that.

This is the only cat that I will ever own.




I love ticking so when I saw a piece on special I bought it and thought that it was serendipity. Ticking was used for mattress covers, however in my many and varied readings I have read that it was used for the firing of cannons. The spacing of the stripes had to do with the rate of burning or something like that. I should really find out more. The curved quilting on the stripes is different and a bit on the wild side. It works to a degree and breaks up the lines.


I just love the freehand feathered swags in the borders. This time I had the feathers alternating direction and that worked really well too. Previously, on other quilts, I have had the feathers going the same way all around the quilt.

All the thread on this quilt is Aurifil and that includes the redwork. Lovely thread for every occasion.

There was from another project that Bronwyn did and I think it was for a pillow case if I remember rightly. I just thought that it suited this quilt so I made one as an afterthought. As you can see I was very enthusiastic in 2006, and thankfully my enthusiasm carried through until now and I now have this beautiful quilt.

The reason that there is no quilting on this piece is that there is no label on the quilt (yet). It will go behind this label on the back of the quilt and then I will quilt over this piece. Well that's the plan - hopefully before the end of the year.

The weekend before last the Floreat Fairies and their siblings/spouses went away for the annual get together. This time it was at Siesta Park in between Bussleton and Dunsborough on the west coast of West Australia. I was desperate to finish this quilt and used the opportunity when the others were swimming/snorkeling/crabbing/sleeping to apply the binding. As you can see I had some strange companions, however they didn't impede my sewing. And I must admit it was rather nice sewing outside with such a nice vista. There will be more photos of the quilt after next weekend as it is entered in the local show.
The things that we do to get things done. Thinking about it though, not one of the Sweeties made a comment or complained about the presnece of the sewing machine in the back of the car. I've trained them well.

Too many years ago to remember I came across a redwork quilt by Australian Bronwyn Hayes and decided that I JUST had to do it. Anyway as with most quilts, I decided that it was too small and resized it all and it was bigger.
It is only partially quilted, someones quilt was urgent and this gem hasn't been back on the machine yet.
2006 ......... hmmmmm not that long ago in the scheme of things, just a heartbeat in the evolution of time.
The photos aren't that flash as the Sweeties and I were working against time and the sun was going behind the trees and also I was standing on the edge of an ants nest. I did what is called 'the meat ant dance' and lost all reason. Again.

Redwork

One of my loves is redwork - this is for a quilt made from Bronwyn Hayes's Red Brolly designs. I admire her designs so much and I always make them bigger so that I can use stem stitch instead of the normal back stitch and I can make them into a quilt that is bigger.