CQJP July

We are over the halfway mark for our blocks in the Crazy Quilt Journal Project (CQJP 2012). People from all over the world are participating in this exciting event and posting their progress on the CQJP2012 blog for everyone to see.

My theme for the year is Christmas and I have featured a yummy looking Christmas pudding in my July block.

This is one of the smaller blocks in my quilt and it only measures 6" square.

Here's what the block looked like before I added the embroidery.

I think that my pudding turned out well. I used stem stitch for the pudding for some texture and used satin stitch for the icing for a smooth look. I added a few straight stitches in black to look like dried fruit.

Pudding © 2012 Linda Steele

In the bottom right hand corner, I did a scallop with back stitch and covered it with some detached blanket stitches. It gives a thicker garland band that I think looks really effective.

Detached blanket stitch

I am glad that I chose to join the project this year, it has been a nice  focus in a very busy year so far. It also means that I always have some hand stitching ready to do when I am sitting in front of the television.

Bye for now,
Linda

Stumpwork Butterfly

I have a little surprise for you today. I belong to the Southern Cross Crazy Quilters Group who are all very talented ladies with some serious embroidery skills.
One of the members is Arlene White and she has kindly put a tutorial on her blog showing how she makes her stumpwork butterfly. You can download the tutorial onto your computer for free until the end of July. Please respect her copyright by using it for your own use only.

I have only done a small amount of stumpwork because I am more of a quilter than an embroiderer and I can just imagine posting off a quilt to an exhibition and my poor stumpworked butterfly would be a crumpled mess. I do want one of Arlene's butterflies though.

I have to have a photo on the post though, so here is a photo of some butterflies from my quilt, Naturally Crazy.

These butterflies are from the North America block.

Click on the following link to see the tutorial Arlene Whites Butterfly Tutorial

Bye for now,
Linda

Embroidered Books

I received a wonderful present from a good friend that I just have to share with you. My friend sent me two novels, Little Women and Emma. I have read these books before and the stories are certainly not new but the presentations of these books are.

The covers have been embroidered and then sculpt embossed so you can feel the texture of the embroidery as you hold the book.

The books feel solid and the pages feel thick and almost hand made.

This is what the books look like on the back.

Even the inside  flaps on the covers are embroidered.

When you open the book you can even inspect the back of the embroidery.

These books have been published by Penguin Threads and are a series of Penguin Classics Deluxe Editions.

The embroidery on Emma was done by Jillian Tamaki and the embroidery on Little Women was done by Rachell Sumpter

They have other books in the series, The Secret Garden, Black Beauty, The Wizard of Oz and Wind in the Willows.

In our age of digital books maybe there will still be a place for special books.

Bye for now,
Linda

Thread Painting

I had a make a cushion sample with a piped edge for a class sample. It was a crazy quilt class but I didn't have time to do a crazy block. I found a beautiful piece of floral fabric to use instead but it looked a bit plain for a crazy quilt class.

I wondered what the fabric would look like it I enhanced the fabric with a bit of machine thread painting.

I liked the look of it but I embellished it more heavily than I had originally intended. I had only backed the fabric with calico and that wasn't enough to stabilise the heavy thread painting and it puckered a bit.

I backed the fabric with tear away and thread painted the large red and blue flowers. Put the piping on and made a quick cushion sample.

I like the effect, but of course I could have gone much further with this and thread painted all the flowers and leaves but that would have taken hours and I didn't have time for that.

I have done a lot of free machine thread painting in the past and just one butterfly can take me 4 hours. These grapes took all afternoon.

Bye for now,
Linda

Top 10 reasons to belong to a Group

Last week I had to give a talk at the Waverley Patchworkers meeting about the Waverley Art Quilters group that I belong to. I started to think of all the groups that I belong to and I belong to many more than I first thought.

Why do we choose to belong to certain groups when we are all time starved anyway?
At a quick count I realise that I belong to 9 different Guilds and organisations, 5 on-line groups and 1 friendship sewing group. Of course the most important group of all is the family group and our personal friend groups. Often we can see our quilting friends more often than some family and friends and those quilting friends become our personal friends as well.

Afternoon Tea © 2011 Linda Steele

Here is my list of the top 10 reasons to belong to a Group.

1. Inspiration.
Who cannot help but be inspired by other peoples quilts.

2. Information
In our busy world it is impossible to keep up with everything going on.

3. Camaraderie
Sewing and quilting can be a solitary activity. Of course we all need time alone to prepare, design and achieve but it's good to show others what we are doing as well.

4. Critique
Honest feedback is hard to find in the quilting world. Family and friends are too close and often don't have the expertise. This is where a  group with the skill to articulate and use the principles of Art and Design as their base is invaluable.

5. Insight
Everyone's work is different and it is very interesting to see how other people  approach a theme or idea.

6. Competition
Nothing spurs you on like a little bit of friendly competition.

7. Support
Designing your own quilts and entering competitions can be tough and  rejection is common. This is where groups can offer understanding, commiseration and encouragement.

8. Purpose
 Self - esteem is often built on achievement and finishing a quilt or helping organise an activity is very rewarding.

9. Confidence
Advising, listening, supporting and sharing with others have the advantage of boosting our own confidence.

10. Friendship
I have met so many wonderful people including online friends through my quilting groups.

I have tried to be succinct in my descriptions of each reason so this is a blog post and not an essay. I realise the benefits of belonging to a group and while groups often help the community they are also helping us.

Can you add any more reasons to my list?

Bye for now,
Linda

Napoleon Exhibiton

Over the weekend I attended the latest exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria titled Napoleon: Revolution to Empire.
I didn't know what to expect from this exhibition and had even considered not going. What a mistake it would have been to have missed this wonderful display.

I realised that I hardly knew anything about Napoleon and can now understand why he is such a famous figure in history. As the title of the exhibition suggests the display begins with the French Revolution and documents his rise to power.

I found the beginning of the exhibition very interesting but was so surprised by the second half of the exhibition that shows the opulence of Napoleon's life when he became Emperor. I was especially surprised at how soon after the French Revolution that this occurred.

As well as the glorious paintings of the time there is a huge display of the decorative arts. Clocks, swords, dinner sets, jewellery, crowns, vases, furniture and clothing are all on display and they are jaw-droppingly ornate and beautiful.

I always find ornate decoration to be very inspiring and see inspiration for quilts and quilting designs everywhere I look.

I was surprised to see gold embroidered bees all over Napoleons red velvet cloak. He had adopted the bee as his emblem of immortality because golden bees were discovered in a tomb in 1653 and were considered to be the oldest emblem of the sovereigns of France.

This made me think of bees in a new light. I have included some bees in my quilts.

Bee in Crazy about Spring

Many bees in Crazy about Spring

Bees in Quilting all over the World

But I couldn't find as many bees as I thought in my work. I usually add bee charms instead of embroidering them.

Bee charm in Naturally Crazy

I think I will embroider a bee this week in honour of Napoleon and how much I enjoyed the exhibition.

The exhibition is on at the National Gallery of Victoria in St. Kilda Road, Melbourne until the 7th October 2012. So there is still plenty of time to see this wonderful display.

Bye for now,
Linda

Sydney Quilt Show 2012

Last week I travelled up to Sydney to visit the Quilters Guild of NSW Quilt Show. People from all over Australia made the same trip because the Guild was celebrating its 30th birthday.
The Sydney show is very big with plenty of quilts on display and plenty of shops to tempt you to spend your money.

In honour of their 30th birthday the guild invited 30 well known, award winning quilters to participate in two "one-off" Master Quilter Categories. One category was for the Traditional quilts and the other category was for the Contemporary or Art Quilts. I was honoured to be asked to participate.

I entered my quilt Holiday Waltz and was so thrilled to receive 2nd prize.

Holiday Waltz ©2012 Linda Steele

Rachelle Denneny won 1st prize with her beautiful wholecloth quilt named Golden Ivory. I am friends with Rachelle and I watched her quilt this quilt, step by step as she posted the photos on her Facebook page. It was wonderful to see the finished quilt.

Here is a detail shot to get an idea of the beautiful quilting.

Golden Ivory detail © 2012 Rachelle Denneny

Jenny Bowker made a stunning quilt as a tribute to quilt maker Margaret Rolfe. I was lucky enough to be there when Margaret Rolfe saw the finished quilt for the first time. Here is a photo of Margaret in front of the quilt.

The Quiltmaker © 2012 Jenny Bowker

Best of Show went to Ming Hsu for her quilt named Long Fong(Chinese Dragon and Phoenix).
On one of my white glove duties I was in charge of minding the Best of Show quilt and I got to study this wonderful quilt in detail.

Long Fong detail © 2012 Ming Hsu

Here are a couple of other quilts that were in the Masters section.

The Unicorn's Garden © Eileen Campbell

The Forever Journey:eat, pray, stay © 2012 Julie Haddrick

Here is the link to see all the winners at the Sydney Quilt Show 2012. There are links at the top of the page to see the winning quilts in each section

By the way, I also won another prize in the show. My quilt Naturally Crazy won 4th in Mixed Techniques.

Naturally Crazy © 2012 Linda Steele

 I had a wonderful time at the show and met up with many friends and made some new friends as well.

Bye for now,
Linda