Graffiti Stories

Graffiti Stories is my most recent quilt finish. This quilt was started as a freeform round robin project.

Completed Quilt Top

This was the quilt top after it had been passed around to the other two round robin group members for their additions. The starter piece was the section in the right hand side of the photo. I also put some rusted, hand dyed, screen printed and stenciled fabric in the piece.

Quilt top after the addition by round robin group members

I spent a lot of time wondering what to do with the quilt top, eventually I decided that more paint was needed. I needed to tone down the red fabric used in the top left hand side, as I thought it was too prominent, so added applique and stamping. 

The stamping with blue paint tied the quilt top together a bit more, so I then added stencils of an aerosol can, headphones and radio. After that, I added two borders using rusted fabrics and a hand dyed fabric in a dark rusty brown colour which seemed to work with the quilt top. 

Work in progress

I've entered this quilt in the International Quilt Festival of Ireland in the Graffiti and Tattoo section. I just got it finished in time, completed it the day before it was due up in Galway.

Pastel Memories Quilt

I finally finished this quilt on 1st April 2013. I say finally because this quilt was 10 years in the finishing!

My dad brought me back the flannel fabrics from New Orleans over 10 years ago. The colours were never really my choice, so after cutting out some blocks I lost interest in the project and put it away. The project ended up in the loft where it's been for the last 10 years. 

I've been trying to finish off some of my UFO projects this year so decided to get this project out again. Was inspired by the UFO busting tips on Pat Sloan's  blog. Luckily I had the pattern and fabrics all kept together in a plastic sealed bag, so was able to finish it off fairly quickly. The quilt top and back are made from all flannel fabrics so it feels lovely and soft.

Now that it's made I actually quite like the colours, but think I'll give it to my niece. 

Whimsy

I got two quilts finished over the weekend (yay for bank holiday weekends)

The 1st finish was Whimsy, the quilt pattern was On A Whim. Fabrics used were Fleamarket Fancy, a variety of white fabrics and some lime green.

The day was a bit windy so this was the best photo that was taken. 

Th quilt was constructed using the quilt-as-you-go method. Just thought it was easier to put the quilt together this way as I didn't feel like lugging a big quilt through my machine. Especially in the dark winter months it was a lot easier just to work on quilting the individual blocks.

Indigo Dyeing workshop

I spent the weekend down in Cork at the Cork Textile Network's 2013 Conference - which was great fun. The lectures were really interesting; there was lectures from Freddy Robins, Liz Nilsson and Debbie Symth.

As part of the conference I did an Indigo Dyeing workshop with Liz Nilsson. Always wanted to do indigo dyeing, even have a kit for it (but have never got around to using it). So this was the perfect opportunity to try out indigo dyeing.

Some of Liz' lovely indigo dyed fabrics

The first part of the workshop dealt with setting up the indigo baths, measuring how chemicals and how to fold, clamp fabrics etc.

Indigo vats

 You could try out endless ways of folding material and clamping. Different pegs also gave different resist effects.

Add a clamped piece of fabric into the indigo vat

  
On the 2nd day we got to dye fabric and add printing and stamping if you wanted. I didn't bother doing any printing at this stage, just kept on with the fabric dyeing.

Some of the dyed fabrics from the workshop

 I got loads of fabrics dyed at the workshop, so now need to get cracking on making an indigo quilt. Think an indigo and rusted fabric quilt could be quite nice!

Some of my dyed fabrics from the workshop

Edwina Mackinnon Workshop

Last month I did a "Cut and Come Again" workshop with Edwina Mackinnon. Edwina was the guest speaker at the February Mid-West Branch meeting.

The workshop was good fun and a great way to use up scraps. For my piece I decided to use creams,whites and gold with a few red accent pieces. 

My piece is still in progress (only have about 60 squares made so far), have to make a good few more squares to bring it up to quilt-size. I'm trying to get a few UFO's finished first, so it will be a few months before this quilt is done.

Cut and Come Again squares

Rusting Fabric

I'm currently working on a Graffiti quilt for a free-form round robin project I'm doing with two friends. I needed some distressed-type fabric for my initial/starter block and decided that some rusted fabric would be ideal.



So got myself a few pieces of cotton fabric and made up a simple solution of water and vinegar. I had bought a small roll of fine steel wool in a local hardware store last week, so was all set to go.

You could see the steel wool start to rust a few minutes after the vinegar solution was added.


I took the fabric out after a day in the water/vinegar solution, as most of the fabric was nicely rusted and I didn't want it to go to far.

I'm going to be doing a bit more fabric rusting this weekend. I'm going doing an indigo dyeing course next month, and want to have some rusted fabric ready for it. Just curious to see what effect indigo will have on rusted fabric.

Baby Quilt

I finished this baby quilt last month. The quilt had be sent off promptly to France, as my brother and his wife were expecting a baby in late December. 

The quilt pattern was from the book Scandinavian Stitches by Kajsa Wikman, and it was a very fast quilt to put together. 

Baby Owen made his arrival last Saturday.