Joyce’s Quilting Quandary

I said that I would write some thoughts about the Journal Quilt project when I had time to reflect on the process. I think that this reflection/evaluation part of the design process is really important.

I have decided that it is a wonderful thing to because of a number of reasons. It extended my skills and encouraged me to be creative. The small size of the blocks also helped this aspect. My free-hand machine embroidery, which I have always loved doing, was vastly improved.  

The project encouraged ( should I say forced me? ) to be aware and thinking of the project at all times. Due to the pressure of one block a week, I could not afford to get too far behind so there was a constant deadline which encouraged me to be quilting, and I needed to think about what would be the inspiration for my block that week.  Now that it is finished and hanging on the wall, the quilt is a great record of the year and the experiences which were contained within the year.  But,  I can show friends and relatives where they were involved in the story of the quilt. My friend , Gertrud, who is included in Week 42, went to the blog and read all the stories after being shown her block! 

Would I do it again?  That is the big question!! Yes I would! But, I am glad I am having a rest in 2009!

 When I look at   Elizabet Perry’s   WoolGathering website,  http://www.elizabethperry.com/woolgathering  I admire greatly her creativity and dedication to do a drawing per day!  It is not only ALWAYS doing the drawing ( no excuses, no putting it off until tomorrow), but also scanning it and writing about it EVERY DAY for  seven years! 

I certainly  relate to her statement at the top of the web page ”  looking-thinking-drawing-being “.       

I think the Journal Quilt would be a great group activity. For instance, members of a quilting group could be allocated or volunteer for a number of weeks throughout the year. Imagine the discussions!

However, I don’t think that my stash of black and white fabrics has diminished!!!!

Well, here it it! The photographs are not perfect, but they give a reasonable impression. I will have another go at a later date! 

As always, the joining up took  a number of hours. I straightened the edges as far as possible, then added the edging strip on the right side, using the cat fabric that I had been using as spacers between the blocks.  I then joined on the red and black spotted edging strips onto the back. I cut narrow strips of wadding and slipped them into inbetween the edging strips. Then I put  lines of quilting to hold the wadding in place.  I did the sides first and then the top. I then cut the fabric for the binding and bound the edges. The fabric which I used for the binding was the wrong side of the cat fabric which I had used for the spacers. Sometimes when you look at the wrong side of a fabric it is a slightly different tone, but in this case it was an exact match!  Probably beause the cats appear to be screen printed . I chose not to quilt the spacers except a minimal amount on the edging because the blocks had been heavily quilted and I felt that this was sufficient.  I put a hanging sleeve across the top.

I will add some  comments on my reactions to the project and the process later on.

Number 54! What a journey!  I wanted the last block to include a group of the wonderful black and white fabrics which I have used throughout the year. The strips with the dividing strip represent the distance between Ballarat and Boston. The dividing strips are made from my favourite background fabric, with the top and bottom ones in a wonderful zebra print which I only have minute pieces remaining. (I would like to think that this project has reduced my stash of black and white fabrics, but I really don’t think that this is the case!) I machine embroidered our names and the years onto four of the strips. And then had a great time quilting the strips!

Now I only have to join the last six blocks onto the other 48 and put the edging on and I will be finished!!!!!

Christmas this week so I have included the Star in the East as a symbol of the hope and joy of Christmas. Imagine the three wise men using the star as their guiding light to show them the way to the birth place of Jesus. May Christmas be a starting point for a year of hope and joy for the world.  This week was also the time for Geraldine, her husband Mal and daughter Stacey to visit on their brief holiday in Melbourne from Boston. Geraldine is the other half of this diary quilt project! So after 12 months of work we had a chance to see each others block in the real rather than via the Internet. An exciting occasion for two quilters!

The background reminded me of a starry night.  The star is made of two sheer Christmas fabrics overlaid to form the centre of the star and then the rays of the star machine embroidered, with some extra details added with stranded cotton stitched by hand.  I have included a photo of the five of us taken in our front garden under the pin oak and in front of the rhodendrons. I machine embroidered the 52.

This week we went to see the musical “Wicked” with our Probus club. A group of approximately 60 people went down to Melbourne on the train, had a quick bite of lunch when we got there and then caught the tram up to the Regent Theatre. We enjoyed the musical very much! We had great seats thanks to Molly, our organiser. The very tall man in front of Loris and me even swapped seats at interval so we could see centre stage.  The set and costumes were wonderful! Wonderful colours and wonderful shapes.  Lots of asymmetrical costumes with fitted tops and layered bottoms with many frills, flounces and pleats. There was a green scene in Oz, a black and white scene and the last scene was filled with reds, russets and dark greens. The set was also wonderful with lots of clock wheels which reminded me of the Musee d’Orsay in Paris.  We had time for a wander around the city after the show, then had a quick bite of dinner and caught the train home. I have used the set as the basis of my block for this week. I have used the wonderful clock face which was the basis of the set design. I planned to use my favourite background fabric, which I did but the wrong side!  I machine embroidered the various shapes in grey and black. Then added some red and green in the bottom corners, red for the red corner and green for Oz. The background fabric was light so I overlaid it with tulle and organza and then quilted over the top

I had an all day training session at Sovereign Hill this week.  I have become a FOSH, which is a Friend of Sovereign Hill. They are a group of costumed volunteers who help make Sovereign Hill more alive by being in the cottages, the street-scape, and the diggings.  While being volunteers, they are required to have the same training as the paid members of staff. The training certainly gave plenty of information about the Park, its history, its mission and its operations. It aims to be the best outdoor history museum in the world.  The background fabric is a variation on a Japanese shell fabric. The poppet head, one of the dominating features if Sovereign Hill, is made of bias strips. The 1852 refers to the era of history that the park depicts and the 50 is for Week 50.  The quilting is done in pale grey variegated thread.

The skies in Ballarat are wonderful because we are out in the country. This week the three-day-old crescent Moon plus Venus and Jupiter formed a smiley face in the night sky at around 9pm. It is an unusual astronomical event which won’t occur for another 5 years. I used my night sky fabric for the background, a cream mottled fabric for the moon and I machine embroidered the planets. I satin stitched the moon on. The quilting followed the lines of the clouds in the background fabric.

I have been avoiding the “Economic Downturn” for weeks. Perhaps I thought that if I didn’t acknowledge it then it may go away. But as it hasn’t, it would be wrong to have a journal quilt of 2008 without doing a block about it. I think the block is self explanatory, with a question mark to symbolise the uncertainty of 2009.  I have used one of my favourite black and brown fabrics for part of the background. It has a George Eliot quote printed on it. I machine embroidered the downward trend and then trimmed the fabric back. The question mark was outlined and then filled in with grey variegated thread.  48 was covered with black tulle, outlined and then trimmed back.

I decided that I would do some assessing for the VCE Design and Technology exam. I received an e-mail about some vacancies and decided I would have a go. So I spent ten days filling in the squares on the mark sheets with a 2B pencil.  I decided that this would be the basis of my block for this week. I did the background using PrintMaster and then printed on fabric using the computer ,then added some tulle and organza for the 2B pencil blocks and enhanced them with some hand quilting.

Michael’s birthday this week, so I had to do the final cup cake! They have been fun to do! This had to be a “boy” type cup cake which was a bit of a challenge! This time I used Camouflage fabric for the top, because Michael is in the Army Reserve. The bottom of the cup cake was a black fabric with brown writing on it and I pin tucked the alternate rows. The buttons were included because I like buttons and because I thought that they were a slightly military trim. He is also interested ( passionate ! ) about photography so I included the camera, a bit small to write NiKON on it. The cup cake was particularly appropriate for michael because he and his wife Natalie have made hundreds of mud-cake cupcakes to be wedding cakes for friends and relatives. The base fabric was a recent purchase from Clegs and I added the red corner and machine embroidered the lips across it. I confined the quilting mainly to the top sections.