Free machine quilting of leaves with thermofax

Silver Birch leaf, on a background of free machined sari strips

Free machine quilting seems to intimidate many quilters.  It has taken on mythical proportions of difficulty and some quilters would do anything to avoid it.  I remember when I first started quilting doing everything by hand because every time I looked at the machine something seemed to go wrong.  Now, after years of practice, I don't even notice that I am free machining, it is as easy as straight stitching.
Free machining is where you lower the feed-dogs on your machine and then you control the size and direction of the stitch rather than the machine.  Like most worthwhile things in life, it just takes practice.  The more you do, the better you become.  
I'm currently making a quilt with some leaves on it and this is how I've recreated the leaves.

Silver birch leaves on the scanner

First I went into the garden and picked some silver birch leaves.  I discovered that our tree is a bit diseased and I need to look up why most of the leaves have funny spots on them.

I scanned in the leaves on the computer and then printed them off and traced the outline and some of the veins of the more interesting ones on tracing paper.  I then scanned the tracing in, printed it off on a laser printer and turned it into a thermofax screen.

Stitch'n'tear leaf, machined over

Using some textile paint, I then printed a number of leaves onto stitch and tear, which after the paint had dried I pinned onto the back of the quilt and stitched round the lines.

From the front, stitched and trimming back the excess fabric from the applique

I tried this in a number of different ways - adding fabric on the front, so it was appliqued on with the stitching as well as just the stitched outline.  

Finished leaf - stitched round once in very thick thread

The fabric was then turned over to the front and more machining added.
I'm really pleased with the effect of these and am now piecing together the quilt top to add the leaves too as the samples worked so well.

Only the outline of the leaves were stitched, then the central veins filled in with more machine stitching in different colours and types of thread

A different silver birch leaf, totally stitched in in three colours.

SpongeBob's friend meets the Minions - a new work

Elements of Our Past by Gillian Cooper 2015

This is my latest piece.  I’m calling it ‘Elements of Our Past’, but the kids are referring to it as ‘Patrick from SpongeBob meets the Minions’.  It is based on an Ancient Greek sculpture – I really liked the shape, so I drew it out a couple of times, then redrew it to full size on lining paper.  

The original drawing

As soon as the kids saw it on my wall, rather than complimenting me on the lovely shape, they all said ‘It’s Patrick, SpongeBob's friend’.  TV has a lot to answer for.

Screen printing the fabric

All the fabric was hand dyed and then screen printed with thickened dyes using shredded paper as a mask (thanks Catherine!).  I ironed fusible webbing on to back of the fabric and cut it into patches and ironed them in place. 

All ready for the final stitching

Using mainly thicker than normal thread (a Wonderfil speciality that Mags Ramsay put me onto at last year’s Festival of Quilts – thanks Mags), I free machined over the figure to give it more definition.  I really like the ‘sketch-like’ effect of these lines. 

Stitching in progress

Once it was finished and up on the wall, one of the kids came in and admired it.  Great, I thought, finally appreciation for my art.  He said: ‘You know Mum, it doesn’t look like Patrick any more, it’s much better.  It looks like a Minion too...’

I hope that you will see my ‘Unsung Muse’ in this piece, the ancient eternal goddess and not just a mixture of kids’ cartoon figures!

Detail of 'Elements of Our Past'

Starting the C&G Certificate Course

The City & Guilds courses have finally started.  Over the past four days, there have been six very enthusiastic and occasionally bewildered students in my studio starting on their C&G Patchwork and Quilting Certificate.

Chrystine's cake, which was followed by an equally delicious one made by Isobel.  What great students!

The first day started well when Chrystine arrived with freshly baked cake.  Always a good start!  Everyone seemed remarkably relaxed and keen, even when faced with poster paints and hand printing to practice colour mixing.  I would like to report that our activities then became more grown-up, but really, the beauty of this course is having permission to play and experiment and try new things.  Perhaps at a more adult level too, it gives you the structure to make you do things you should do, but never quite get round to, such as trying out different stitches on your sewing machine.  Even reading your sewing machine manual to see how it should work.  I know I am very guilty of this myself – you get a new toy/sewing machine/ camera so you dive straight in, not wanting to waste time.  However I know that both my sewing machine and camera have so much more potential that I still haven’t bothered to find out about.  Even with our new car which has wonderful new gadgets integrated into it, I still haven’t read how to use them beyond the music system.  Perhaps understanding the parallel parking function would have been more useful?

Concentration whilst trying free machine quilting

Anyway, back to the C&G.  The students are lovely and I was really impressed with their attitude and their first results, especially since some of them have little patchwork experience.  After playing with poster paint and colour wheels, we did some basic quilting and piecing and tried out different ways of adding colour to fabric.

Some of the colour onto fabric samples

Our next meeting isn’t until September and I can’t wait to see what they come up with from their homework challenges.

Trying out different ways of adding colour

My next challenge is the C&G Diploma class which starts this Thursday.  I’ve got lots of interesting activities planned out and I’m really excited to get all the students together and to see how their research into their different topics is developing.

Some of my notes, which were embellished by oldest son

In the meantime, less than 24 hours since the students finished, I’ve already managed to turn my studio back into a Gillian bombsite, with tables and fabric all over the place.  Better start tidying again! 

The now not-so-tidy studio - back to normal!