WELL IT CAME

Lovely sticky soft stuff, makes great snowballs, about 2 inches and a bit of a back door drift.  Is thawing now and the sun has been out.  What a huge fuss the weather people have made of this

So I have photographed a few of my patchwork pieces

Lonni Rossi Geisha panels.  This hangs in my dining room and I love it.  The ladies come just in a creamy white colour and I painted them, this was a few years ago now.  Painting onto patchwork fabric has been around for eons.  I fussy cut the fabric to give the halo around their heads and also used the gold sweeping streaks to ground the panels, would have looked disembodied otherwise
The panels have been framed with attic windows style pieces, the corners are mitred but by the quick technique of half square triangles - I guess if you are not a patchworker then I have left you hanging with these terms.  I have added a signature piece that I call Shelaghs sparkle.  I try to add it into each piece of patchwork that I make.  Not original just a folded strip but adds a strong graphic mark.  The darker of the attic window strips is Japanese text and had to be carefully fussy cut for the words to run round the squares logically.  I do love a challenge
It is heavily machine quilted using Japanese inspired patterns in gold thread using the machine quilting stitch, which is a complete pig of a stitch & one that I think Bernina could have made so much better.  I rarely use it nowadays, hmmm maybe its time to resurrect it!
Around the same time I made this

These ladies hang in my hall
They are Lonni Rossi as well.  The shop that I work for Bee Inspired had just started selling patchwork material and bought some of this range
I spent a long time with the restricted pallet designing where each of the fabric would go
These were very popular a few years ago.  The patterns are like the heads from the previous picture, creamy white with black lines.
All of the magazines ran a how to do and Lonni Rossi produced a pattern as well
I got the fabrics right at the beginning, before any of the patterns arrived.
All the patterns used bonding and zigzag edges
Oh no not me, these are all REVERSE APPLIQUE
I produced a pattern piece for each of the myriad of pieces, including placement lines to maximise the potential of the fabric.  Look at the lines in the purple skirt
I made folded flowers for their hair, the sticks were painted
They took a very long time to make, every piece was stitched from the reverse and cut away and satin stitched, building up layers from the back, complicated, but they are soft and not stiff like the bonded ones.
They are surrounded by a sparkle and the only downside is that they are backed in white fabric - because thats what I was given
I love them, daily I look at them and daily my favourite changes, they have names on them
She did produce another range of these but I didnt succumb
Finally for today

If you followed the creative brain edges blog HERE you will remember this chair.  Dale & I challenged each other to draw a chair, I very much enjoyed doing this.  Well this is my chair, my sitting room chair and it usually looks like this

The pieces of patchwork are MY adaptation of what is commonly called Stack and Whack, really just a pile of fussy cutting

There is this quilt, with various sizes of machine vermechelli as the quilting, a cushion & a coffee table piece that is outline quilted (not shown)

This was one of the fabrics produced by Makower that I made two quilts from

In those days the pattern had to go onto 2 sides of A4, as they were not yet downloadable.  Very hard to design actually onto 1 and a half pages.  The designers have it easy now as they can be as long a pattern as they want.  Typed up in Adobe and uploaded.  However, when I worked for them I was commissioned to design two quilts in differing colourways & the pattern. I was provided with swatches of the fabric range and chose from that alongside their basics range.  Another difficulty, especially with the novelty fabrics
Now a designer has to compete with other designers, design the quilt and submit it for approval.   So all that hard work and sampling and you may not even get the job.  I dont work for them now, I prefer to do my own patterns
If anyone would like to purchase a pattern, please email me and I will sort out a link etc.
Actually maybe a good idea.....wow thats two today, must be feeling better lol
Here is the alternative colourway close up

Must get back to my piece I am making for our SofA exhibition in August.
Hope you have enjoyed seeing a different side of me
More to come
Dont forget that the SPECIAL OFFERS on the workshop courses run out on the 14th February 2012
Thanks for reading x