The Crazy Quilt Journal Project 2012 (CQJP) is up and
running.
The rules were that you had to register before December 2011.
You must make a block every month during 2012 that must measure at least 6".
You are supposed to try and improve your skills by trying something new as
well.
I have chosen a theme of Christmas and my colour scheme will
be red, green and blue.
I have decided to use mainly silk fabrics because of their
shine that lends itself to the Christmas theme. To stretch myself I am going to
try a stitch that I don’t regularly use and I will have to look up my Crazy
Quilt books to check on how to do them.
Here is my January block.
The blocks in my quilt are going to be three different
sizes. This first one is a 6" block. As you can see I put three candles in
the middle and embroidered the seams with cotton and silk embroidery threads. I embroidered the candles using stem stitch.
This is what the block looked like before I had added the
embroidery. I drew up the pattern on some calico and then foundation pieced it.
It looks so plain doesn’t it?
The floral fabric in the top and just under the centre is a
new fabric that I had purchased at the Quilt Convention last year. To my horror
it started to shred just like the silk on those antique Crazy Quilts.
I had to remove it and I lined it with a product called
Dream Weave Fusible by Floriani. This product is made to protect delicate
fabrics from shredding and distortion. It doesn’t change the hand of the fabric
and is supposed to be good for lining silk before applique. I haven’t tried it
for that yet though.
It seems to be working well and I have had no more
shredding.
The stitch that I used to stretch myself was the Half
Chevron.
One block down, eleven to go!
Bye for now,
Linda