Thursday 24 September 2009

Small world

I've just received some mini-cards that I made on moo.com. They're brilliant! (or the concept is anyway - some of my pictures could be improved.) They are mini-business cards 1" x 2" approx, and you can upload as many as 100 pictures to the site, so each one can be different - perfect for creative people. The format suits me as I like narrow designs.

They also do regular business cards and loads of other stuff which you can customise with your own photos or designs - or pick from theirs.

The quilt is nearly finished - just the binding to do - and maybe a bit of hand stitch - we'll see. Am now looking for suitable pictures to illustrate the interaction of shape and space for tomorrow's teaching - have most of them in place - just need a couple more.

So what am I doing writing my blog and wasting time? Well I've just been chatting on facebook (didn't know you could do that - was only checking my emails honest!) to someone I was at uni with 28 (!) years ago and haven't seen since - weird or what? And - he has been living in my home town for the past 23 years! It's definitely a small world.

Wednesday 23 September 2009

Procrastinating

Supposed to be quilting a Stitch Witch piece, but decided to look at emails, then facebook and then my blog, and now 90 minutes have disappeared! The piece is for our exhibition in November, the theme is Transitions (and there is a colour thing going on too). All pieces are 12" wide by 60" long, and mine is made up of triangle units, in red, orange and pink saturated colours, both commercial and hand dyes. There are 80 units, so 320 triangles in the piece, and the majority of them have all their points! Iit has to be said - I do like piecing, despite being a non-traditional quilter. Has to be finished by Friday! It's called Order to Chaos  because the units start off organised into blocks, with good contrast and a defiinite plan, but as the piece progresses it descends into chaos (the story of my life!?) Here are a couple of detail pics:


I'm machine quilting it but am having trouble with the rayon thread - keeps breaking - probably because I was lazy (and pushed for time) and used polyester in the bobbin instead of going out to find some red cotton. Have also tried bamboo wadding and am finding that the fibres migrate through the top fabric, which is a pain - perhaps if I'd washed it before use this would have helped reduce this.




I found a great blog via a link from Contemporary Quilt: in 2005 the owner of the blog decided to teach herself to draw by doing a sketch each day in a small book she'd been given for Christmas. She's posted them all on her blog. It's called woolgathering and is well worth a look if you have a free moment - interesting frames, and such discipline!

Anyway now two hours have gone - so I'd better go too . . .