T4T6 – May template is on target, but the design was a bit testing.

I’ve done a lot of rework on the Time for Tea project in the last couple of weeks, and I’ve now got my clock design going. But never fear – I’ve still made my teapot template, so if you need another teapot, you’ll find it on the website at http://sites.google.com/site/bertcollections/templates/teapots.

The redesign has taken me a couple of weeks, some fun drawing and research, and some painstaking work to do. As I mentioned in the previous post, I decided to redesign the centre of the quilt to be a clock face. This means its gone from being a table scene like this…

..to a clock face like this…

I was getting a bit frustrated with the whole design earlier in May, and I seemed to have the best ideas when I got into bed to go to sleep at night. So I’ve now resorted to keeping my sketch book and a pencil beside my bed so I can jot down these ideas when I think of them. I’m not sure it’s the most romantic idea but it seems to work and got me over the quilter’s block. The other thing I did, which scared me a bit, was scanned a sample of each piece of fabric. This helped me refamiliarise myself with the fabrics when I realized I’d forgotten what was in my blue and white collection, and now it means I can also trial different fabrics with the templates on my computer. But, this does seem like something my mum would do, so it did scare me a bit :-)

So, having put in several more hours of work and plenty of random thinking between other things, I’m now more comfortable to proceed with the general design and more templates. Halelujah!

I hope the quilters block stays away for a while now and I (and you) can have some more fun with it.

Happy stitching,
Bert

T4T5 – Gone potty with appliqué – April was a success

Today was fun. Having got myself a new glue stick during the week, I’ve been playing with freezer paper appliqué to further test my Modern Twist appliqué teapot template (try to say that five times quickly!). Here’s what I ended up with...
While I’ve decided I like the result I’ve got, I’m still deciding if this is worth the extra work to use the freezer paper method. I like the rounded edge, the extra layers, the ability to use less stark stitching and the general texture of the freezer paper method. The down side is, it is more fiddly, and I’m not sure it’s worth it yet…So the results we have for the different colours and styles of the Modern Twist teapot are shown in the photo below.

I’ve been thinking some more while I’ve done these three, and I think the design of the quilt is going to change a bit – to now more obviously include a clock face as part of the centre panel, so I think what I might do is use a combination of the different appliqué methods, with the ‘stick and stitch’ method for the appliqué in the background (as its not worth the bother if it will be covered by other layers anyway) and the freezer-paper or similar for the foreground teapots. So what all this means is also that I need some more teapot templates to experiment with to test this view – and probably to explain the general layout of the quilt so you can all picture what it might be like as well.
Happy stitching,
Bert

PS: I drafted this post on 26 April and then neglected to load it - that's why we've got April in the May section - Doh! Bert.

A Mother's Day Diversion - Cards

There’s so much to write about today, I’ve been up to all sorts of things. But first a quick diversion. In preparation for Mother’s Day I decided to experiment with patchwork cards for my collection of mothers. I found some instructions that were a useful starting point at http://craftapple.wordpress.com/2006/08/23/quilted-cards-tutorial/. I made three and they took from about 15minutes to an hour to make depending on how complex I made the design. I varied my approach to craftapples' in that I did use fusible interfacing as the backing for the fabric instead of paper – I like the soft look this has, and it’s easier to work with on my sewing machine. This was a great project and easy to do – I felt very satisfied having played around in the sewing room for a couple of hours, finished more than one thing, and made something that someone else will enjoy. Here’s what the result looked like.


The card size is about 4”x6”, which is within the standard card size limit and so it only cost me 55 cents to post each one as well. I was curious to find out from my mothers how these survived the interstate trip with the postman, and I’ve advised that they are in excellent condition. So, I think we can call this a success, and I’ve found another use for the little scrappy bits of fabric that are too small for most things, but too precious to be thrown away.

Happy crafting for another week.
Bert