History of my quilting life in the 80's

Recently I have been searching for all my quilt photos that I had taken over the years. I found many and just wanted to add them here so that I can share them with you.
As I stated in "about me" it has been a long path of creative expression making each quilt.
I have been struggling with depression for a number of years and am trying to return to my creative side once more. I do hope that writing this entry may set me off onto another direction of art, colour, design and what ever comes along.


I constantly read about other artist who's work I admire and how they came to their current point of creativeness in their life.


Quilt number 1.

Aarons House quilt. Well as you can see I didn't have a quilting hoop and didn't know how to use one when I made this quilt. The thickness of the wadding was terrible and that was all that was available way back then in Hobart Tasmania. I just stitched the three layers together with much effort and begin quilting. Maybe I should have started from the middle and worked out. I just didn't have a clue!
The quilt still is in use when my granddaughters come and stay. A lot of the hand stitching has broken in places. It was ALL hand pieced.
Well one has to begin somewhere I guess.


Quilt Number 2

Ewan's Boat quilt. A little more refined than the first quilt I must say. I would have purchased a lovely quilting hoop on a stand which made quilting a whole lot easier. I had also received instructions from my teacher on how to use it. The batting had improved then and was much thinner than the first quilt, My quilting friends passed on to me all their blue and white scraps which provided me with a wonderful challenge of sorting them into light and dark. I used red headcloth for the boat and white cotton for the sails. All the other fabrics were 100% cotton, however I did use dark blue polyester on the borders.

This quilt is still with me today and is also enjoyed by my grandkids. I hand pieced each square and machined assembled the whole quilt together.

Next quilt.....

Log Cabin. This was my first ever attempt at Log Cabin. I sewed strips onto pre cut squares of calico that had been marked with pencil lines to guide me. When it came to put all the squares together none of them correctly aligned with each other. I was very disappointed as I always strive for "perfection". My quilting friends said go ahead and just sew it all together which I did and was quite surprised at the final result. I learnt that perfection does not always need to be in many areas of quilting.



Return to Quilting after 25 years

After a break of over 25 years and a move back to Victoria I had always wanted to make quilts again, or so I thought. Its interesting to observe your own creative path and making quilts again was not one of those I chose to perse. However I have made 4 quilts and these were simple triangles all machine pieced and professionally machine quilted. Debs and Jan's quilts were made for very close friends.


In the meantime I have become a grandmother to beautiful little girls. How could I not make them a quilt each? These also were just plain triangles, light and colourful.


I have such a stash of plain coloured fabrics and can't bear to part with them. I look at the contemporary art quilts that are being made world wide today and just cant seem to get my head around being that creative. I guess I may "play" with my fabrics and combine them with my new love of painting.


The creative process is amazing and its just that - creative.


Watch this space................................


Well its August 2018 and I have managed another quilt. Simple plain triangles as before. This one is for my son and his fiance. Hope you like it.

Jan and Debs quilts 2016

Eva and Amelia's quilts

Log Cabin

I attended a great workshop back n the 80's conducted by Barbara Macey. Many new approaches were completed in the workshop using the various techniques. The one I most favoured was where you fold the strips in half ( iron them) and sew down the middle and fold back and iron in place. These strips were sewn on a pre drawn grid on calico fabric (pre washed and shrunk). It made a solid foundation for the quilt blocks which were then sewn meticulously together in the true Barbara Macey style.

What impressed me most was the fact that the sewing of each block did not let you take the needle out and you sewed, twisted and turned until the block was complete!

What a time saver, however ALL strips needed to be pre measured and cut to length and placed in the respective order.

The best part was if you made a mistake you discovered a new layout or design you may not have thought f in the first place!

This is the best part of making quilts. The unknown and the surprises that happen along the way!

detail:

I used red and green 100% head cloth/cotton and red polyester to get 2 different shades in the design. I don't think this photo does the full justice of the colour combination.

Detail of same:

Note the different fabric textures used.

This is a scanned copy of a print which is the only record I have of this log cabin wall hanging in the same series. It was sold to someone in Sydney and I only discovered this photo recentyl. It is so important to photograph all your work. With digital cameras today this makes the process so much easier.

This is a detail of the above.

In the design process I played around with strips of colour and placed them together on a piece of black fabric (background) and stood back to view the order. After I was satisfied with the order I stitched them down roughly, pinned the template to the pin board and began to cut and sew to my hearts content. Here is the sample.

Another quilt I used a piece of fabric I was going to make a skirt from. I decided to use all the skirt fabric together with black headcloth until it was all gone. This determined the number of blocks and the way in which I placed the blocks together. Quite plain really but it hangs proudly at the entrance to my home and many peole have asked how this quilt was made and why so much black fabric. Each if us have our own appreciation of art and design so I dont really answer - just smile.



Long Triangles

This was the first quilt I made in the solid colour series using plain fabrics sourced by post from a shop in Sydney as there were no patchwork shops in Hobart at the time. I eventually bought a meter of each of the solid colours and have built a huge collection that I still have today (2011).

The Long Triangles quilt was machine pieced and hand quilted. I used one of my standard triangle templates as the quilting design. Not sure how this came about but I think one of my sons placed it on there during the course of the making! ( He went on to become a Graphic Artist !)

Detail of same quilt:



Japanese Inspiration

Some  years I went to see an exhibition of a woman who made amazing jackets using Japanese ikat fabric. After the exhibition I asked her what she did with the off cuts.  We agreed on a price for me to purchase her offcuts and every month for about 6 months a supermarket plastic bag of offcuts would arrive! What joy that was and I was so thrilled as each bag was a complete surprise. I cut the pieces into triangles where I could and long strips for log cabin where possible and began cutting and shaping more quilts.

The first quilt I made was using the strips in this hexagonal pattern combined with a metallic grey fabric. While making the quilt a small red piece of fabrics appeared on the quilt by mistake so I decided to use this in the quilt as well.

Here are a couple of details of the same quilt:

Then I made a jacket based on the kimono shape. I had no idea of how to make this jacket but here it is.

Then another quilt using the scraps cut into triangles. I enjoyed the challenge of using mixed fabrics and texture.



Details of that quilt: