Fragments Journal Quilt

After the dog walk this morning I was only too pleased to be able to retire to my studio! Even the dog didn't enjoy it much. My finger even hovered over the On switch of the heater, but thus far I have been able to resist that temptation. Instead it's going to be a day of more or less solid stitching. The new month (is it really June?) brings with it a new 6 x 12" journal quilt for the Contemporary Quilt Group. They set the size for all the journal quilts this year and I choose my own theme of words.

The background of this piece was made using the selvedges of fabrics, where you usually find the name of the producer of the fabric, as well as the individual designer. Also the name of the fabric itself and a representation of the colour scheme. The small strips were all laid on a background fabric, topped with Mistyfuse, ironed down and machine quilted.

I used a very impressionistic looking fabric for the letters of the word FRAGMENTS, and they were cut out with a Brother Scan'nCut machine, Bondawebbed (WonderUnder in US speak)down and machine stitched. As per usual I added seed beads on the letters and around the binding (made from the same fabric as the letters. Finally I sewed on some vintage buttons as shown.

 

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Ethereal Journal Quilt

The new month brought with it a word search for the next Journal Quilt I'm making as part of the challenge on the Contemporary Quilt Group. The group set the size for this year at 6 x 12" and the choice of which orientation was up to us. Mine will be horizontal (or landscape) as you can see. It was my choice to dedicate each monthly journal quilt this year to one word and for February I choose the word: ETHEREAL.

Ethereal: extremely delicate and light in a way that seems not to be of this world.

For the background I used transparent fabrics (some sparkling), cut into rough squares and laid onto calico (muslin in the US), then covered with a cream piece of netting and machine quilted down with a grid using a mix of different machine threads. The letters were cut from a batik fabric using the Brother Scan'nCut machine. In order to use the machine the fabrics have to be Bondawebbed so that was used to adhere them in place and I then machine stitched them down.

Silver size 15 seed beads were stitched onto the letters and I added some hand embroidery in the shape of crosses using the stitched grid as my base.

Finally I stitched size 11 seed beads around the edges of the binding for which I used the same fabric as for the letters.

Courage Journal Quilt

As I mentioned some days ago I wasn't sure if  I would make any journal quilts this year but I would leave the final decision till I knew what the Contemporary Quilt Group would announce for their journal quilt challenge and I had considered how to fit that in with my already existing plans for future work. Well I now know that the Group is running the JQ challenge again this year and the only requirement is that the journal quilts have to be sized 6 x 12". It was up to the participants to choose either a portrait or landscape orientation but that choice, once made, had to apply to all 12 of the JQs we make this year.

That fitted in beautifully with my  plan to make word quilts so I signed up and choose to use the horizontal (landscape) orientation. For the very first one (January) I used my word for the year Courage and here is the result. I'm going to use these small journal quilts as stepping stones for larger work based on words.

The quilt is made from commercially available batik fabric. The background was strip pieced and machine quilted.The letters were cut using the Brother Scan'nCut machine and machine appliqued using Bondaweb (WonderUnder if you are in the US).Size 15 seed beads were sewn on the letters and I sewed on buttons as shown. The final step was to bead along the binding using size 11 seed beads. This has become my signature for all my journal quilts.

Polka Dots Journal Quilt

The April theme on the Sketchbook Challenge site is: Polka Dots. Hurrah! I have a huge collection of polka dot themed fabrics (used to make a very large quilt from years back) so I grabbed them for starters. I then simply put Polka Dots into my search engine and the quotation: " Polka Dots are a way to Infinity" rolled out. It comes from the Japanese artist and writer Yayoi Kusama who shares my love for all things circular and dotty. It was the words themselves I wanted to use and I have recently acquired the perfect tool to do so, the Brother Scan'nCut. This machine cuts Bondawebbed fabric perfectly and I used the in-built alphabets to produce the letters from all my different polka dot fabrics.

A black dotty fabric was used for the background and machine quilted in a grid patterns which was then used to position the letters where I wanted them.

The final dotty addition were the size 11 seed beads sewn along the yellow dotted binding fabric and the flower buttons sprinkled over the piece. I'm quite taken with my ode to dottiness.