Revisiting my Journal Quilt Project, Week 24

This week's journal quilt was a sort of a combination of the two sets of ATCs I worked on this week, with a few other bits and pieces thrown in. In the photo, it hasn't yet been edged, but that was done after. There was no further description in with the original blog post about this, and it's been so long I can't possibly remember what the postcards were about, though you can sense a sort of theme!

ATC Friday

Here's a set of ATCs I worked on, where I was the final player to add some details

And with this one as well. I found this one quite tricky as I wanted something to bring together the different elements. 

ATC Tuesday

These cards are from a Pick-a-theme swap, where I was in a group making Altered Playing Cards with various themes.  An Alice in Wonderland theme, 

German shepherds, 

Birds starting with P,

vintage ladies.

Revisiting my Journal Quilt Project, week 23

 

This week I worked on both my journal quilt and an arch shaped mini on the same day. I haven't been showing other things I worked on as I've been revisiting my project, but I think I might make an exception this week, as the two seem very closely tied. So I've included commentary and description of both the arch and the journal quilt.

I was inspired to do both of them with a blue silk background, which was salvaged from a top which I bought for 20p in a jumble sale, but never wear (it's too short at the waist). I could have sent it to the charity shop, but decided instead to use the fabric for backgrounds. As I suspected, although I was having trouble with inspiration for the arch, once I started working on it, it all fell together. This one is for Cathy, who said she liked Victorian things, architecture, interesting views, rainbows, whimsy and flowers (I think it's the whimsy that was throwing me - I'm never entirely sure where whimsy ends and stupid begins) and blues, greens, golden yellows and some other colours I can't remember off the top of my head, but not neon (as if I'd do anything neon, anyway - though this blue is fairly bright, I admit).

The background views are from an Artchix image sheet of some sort; the Victorian family (or perhaps they are Edwardian, not sure) are from an image sheet I've had for a while - think I might have got it on ebay, but honestly I can't remember - however, on the same sheet (it's lightweight card) was a small ad for knitted corsets, which I took as a sign vis a vis my journal quilt, as I'd been to see a corset exhibit last week... (At Snibston Discovery Centre in Leicestershire when visiting my mother-in-law). The wings are German scrap, the sequins are from Simply Sequins and the rainbow fabric is swatches of hand-dyes. The ruffle around the outside is from the bottom hem of the same shirt - reduse, reuse, recycle, right?

On the journal quilt, I have used the corset ad I mentioned above, one of the corset postcards I bought at Snibston, more bits of the hand-dye swatches, some eyelash yarn, green plastic fruit netting, and a big lace flower. I have only put the ruffle edge around two sides of the quilt because I ran out, but actually, I think it looks better that way anyway. It will certainly fit in the box better that way!

ATC Friday

As with last Friday's bunch of ATCs, these are round robins where I was the finishing player to add something. I went pretty basic with the coffee cards - they didn't need much. 

The sunflower people got some sun statements (words are my go-to).

And this Christmassy set, with moving tags, got a bit of washi tape and a heart to finish them off. 

ATC Tuesday

This was a "Fairy Butterfly Wings" swap - I have a small collection of people and objects which have wings (which don't usually), so this was a good chance to add to that collection. Mine all had people this time around, because that's what I found when I went searching through my bits and pieces, but it could have gone either way. I've gone with butterfly wings because that's what I had. And words, because I like words. 

Revisiting my Journal Quilt Project week 22

The background of this journal quilt is linen, and is from a pair of much loved trousers that have simply worn so much they aren't really, well, wearable any more. So rather than throw them out, I harvested them for backgrounds (for this and for a load of ATCs and fabric postcards made at the same time). Then added some strips of brown velvet from a square I received in a treasure hunt, some brown silk I bought in San Diego about 12 years ago, some scrim, brown mulberry bark, and brown yarn which I was given by my friend Barbara (who doesn't blog) who inherited it from an artist friend on her death and passed it along to me (with a number of other treasures) to use in my work. Sheila had done a lot of interesting multi-media work with fabric, lace, yarn, and so on, so you can imagine there were lots of lovely goodies I took away with me. And some clay faces and words. I think it's interesting - though I didn't notice until just now - that on the postcards, the brown velvet wanted to be at the top, but on the JQ, it wanted to be at the bottom. Whatever.

Baby quilt, quilted

This is one I've been meaning to quilt up for a while, but now that the baby in question has actually made an appearance, I thought I'd really better get to it. 

I just used a wavy design which echoes the fabric itself a bit. 

And the binding is attached, waiting to be stitched down tomorrow evening at my monthly quilt group. Another photo once it's completely completed.

ATC Friday

Another batch of round robin cards; this time I was the final player (third) to add to each of these. I really like all three of these cards. Sometimes I find it harder to add to a card which I really like because the pressure to add something "right" to it is higher.  

The dragonfly card had a lot of space on it, but I wanted to leave a lot of that background showing, as I really like it. 

This mermaid card was fairly full already, so I just added a little found poetry.

Same with the moon card - it didn't need much, so I just found some nice quotes about the moon. 

ATC Tuesday

These cards were for a "Pick a Theme" swap - each person nominates a theme on which they want to receive cards, so you end up making 4 different cards (sometimes 5, if you make a gift for the hostess). This PAT had a limitation of being a "pop culture" PAT and I joined a film group, so all of my cards were based on films, except the Buffy card, which was for the hostess (hostess cards are always optional and up to the discretion of the maker - you can check out a swapper's profile to see what they like; Buffy seemed a good choice here as it was a Pop Culture swap).

Sometimes a card in a PAT is a bit harder to make because if the recipient chooses a subject you aren't familiar with, it's hard to know if your card is a good representation of the chosen theme. (Another reason I chose Buffy as a theme above; having seen it myself I know what makes a good card.)  Luckily, in this group, I was familiar with all the chose themes. 

There was a Hobbit/LOTR theme,

a Labyrinth theme,

A Wizard of Oz theme

And a Pirates of the Caribbean theme. 

Revisiting my Journal Quilt Project, week 21

Apparently, ten years ago was the year it snowed in London in April - I knew there was one, but had forgotten just when it was. My journal quilt has reminded me it was 2008!

"Consequently, I  decided to do my journal quilt for the week with a snow theme - a heavy (for London) snowfall in April is too bizarre not to mark in some way... The photo doesn't really snow this mini quilt to good effect - I started with a piece of white-on-white fabric, and sprinkled some "snow glitter" which I bought in a kids' craft section on it - looks like small pieces of white cellophane chopped up - then covered that with some white organza and free motion quilted it with loops and some snowflakes, of course. Then I added some melted tyvek and a piece of white sheer fabric with stars on it and topped it off with silver snowflake sequins. The back is a piece of paper which says "let it snow" all over it. As I said, too good an opportunity to miss..."

ATC Friday

Another bunch of round robin cards - these are ones where I've only started them - made the background or first step as the case may be, and then two other people have worked on them. I don't know how it breaks down between the two players as to who added what, but it's always fun to see what direction cards take when you send them off into the wide world on their own.

ATC Tuesday

These cards were from a swap calling for flowers, but not hand-drawn or hand-painted. This appealed to me as I am bad at hand drawing and there are lots of swaps for hand-drawn things, which I can never take part in.  So I raided my stash for various instances of flowers which were good for collaging and came up with these.

Block Lotto - or not

I originally made these blocks to go to this month's Block Lotto, but they are actually a little small - probably didn't make the scant seams scant enough.  I think I'll probably just chuck them in my orphans bag instead. I'm not crazy about the composition anyway (even though they are supposed to be scrappy).

Revisiting my Journal Quilt Project, Week 20

Week 20 was apparently a very minimalist week for my journal quilt project originally. Here's what I said at the time:

"I did manage to get my journal quilt done today, just. I decided that as this was a kind of scrappy, unfinished sort of week in the end, I would let my journal quilt reflect that. So I've cut coin pieces from my scrap basket, stitched them together and just run a few lines of quilting over it. I've finished neither the back nor the edges, and I think I will leave it like that, except that I will just do a quick running stitch around the edge to keep it from fraying and pulling away from the vilene stabiliser, which is what I use as a base. Anyway. In some ways I am very tempted to finish this piece more, but I'm going to resist, because it is a much better representation of my week if it's not finished, as a lot of my week hasn't been finished!"

Sneak peak

A little actual sewing - rare these days - I added a round to the centre block I received for the current Cotton Robin. I can't show the centre block, or really, anything much of what I did, so I've taken this very small, greyscale, completely unhelpful little snippet to share, just to say I've done something. I do have pictures to show once the whole thing is completed, of course. You'll just have to be patient.