Am I bored yet?

Wil asked me this when she heard I’d finished C&G – but I have been so busy responding to a challenge she set I haven’t had time to be bored!

Last year I signed up for the challenge, on an internet group which Wil moderates, to make a quilt using a variety of embellishment techniques and materials. Of course after that I did nothing – I had other things on my mind!

Last week I started thinking about it, vaguely. My first idea was to make a series of panels of trees and leaves, using a different tecnique on each panel – as I’ve been into trees and leaves recently.

However when I went to look for green fabric in my stash, I didn’t really have enough toning pieces for what I was planning. Plenty of green you understand – just not the sort of green I wanted. [I know leaves don’t have to be green but I was feeling literal.]

Then, while browsing back issues of ‘Quilting Arts’ in bed, I came across an article by Mary Hettmansperger on her ‘collaged fabric panels’, and was inspired. All the elements I like – a wall hanging, strong verticals, repeated units, abstract design, lots of opportunities to add the necessary embellishments. As a bonus, her technique was reminiscent of Gwen Marston’s ‘Liberated Quilting’ – perhaps the quilting book I turn to most often.

So I accumulated some fabric, discharged some of it [the first of the challenge techniques] and liberated it – this is the finished piece. The glitzy bits are Angelina, another of the techniques.

Then I cut the piece into three. I hope the challenge to make ‘a’ quilt will encompass three quilts!

And then I began to play with the tecniques. This is how it looked this morning [nothing is sewn on yet]. It has been modified a bit because when I sewed the first strip to its backing this afternoon I had to make some adjustments because I had forgotten to allow for the seams …

This isn’t ‘designed’ in a C&G sense – no preliminary design work, no full scale mock up – and probably more enjoyable for that! It has also prompted me to use all sorts of things I had bought and never used – a chunk of metal and some patinating fluid for example.

As Friday is one of the few nights there is anything to watch on the telly I shall spend a relaxing evening hand sewing and listening to Alexei Sayle talking about Liverpool – where I am going for part of my summer holiday. Anyone care to guess why we chose Liverpool this year? There is a bit of a clue in my C&G work, although if you don’t live in the UK you can be forgiven for not knowing.