Another finish!

I've been on a roll recently, and have finished my log cabin quilt. It's a scrappy light/dark quilt, and I'm really pleased at how well it's turned out.

It's in quite an unusual arrangement, called 'Streak of Lightning (variation)' taken from an 1850 quilt pictured in Laura Fisher's book 'Quilts of Illusion'. I think it's a good one.

I quilted the darks with a meander in variegated thread,

and the lights with a feathered wreath motif. This was done freehand. I drew three concentric circles and used them as guidelines. I quilted a circle over the middle ring, and then did feathers above and below, using the pencilled lines as edge guides. Looks good to me.

And I finally decided to give away my 'Roll, roll, cotton boll'. I was sad to see it go, but the look on Stephanie's face made me certain that I'd made the right decision!

Sewing, Jim, but not as we know it.

I'm still sewing, but this last 10 days or so has been filled with teaching, planning, driving around the country delivering quilts for Project Linus and my new project, as costume maker for 'Midsummer Night's Dream'. Our local group is taking another production to the Edinburgh Festival in August, and yet again, I've got myself roped into doing the costumes!

Much time has been spent by me making the costume for Oberon.

I know it looks like a wedding dress, but it's made from lightweight calico to be drapey, flowy and organic in feel, and will be spray-dyed to either light brown or green to represent the fairies' position as creatures of the wood. (That's the idea, anyway!) I need to get Russ to try it on, then I can finish it off.

Then I dyed some of the calico (I bought a whole 25 metre bolt) for the leaves which will be made into creepers to decorate the set. That was fun, and even more fun when I got people at the rehearsal to cut out some leaf shapes when they were waiting to go on! Crafty!

There has been sewing too. My teaching was a log cabin class, and I had to make some blocks up for samples. I had forgotten what such a versatile block this is, and have decided to make a quilt in this unusual pattern, which is in 'Quilts of Illusion' by Laura Fisher. She says it is a streak of lightening variation, and I suppose it is, when you focus on the dark zig-zags. I have just used darks and lights, and really like how it is coming along.

On Saturday, at Rocheberie Schoolhouse Quilters, we are having a competition to make a Morsbag on the theme of 'Celebration'. Here is my effort. I'm not thinking about winning the prize, just taking part. Now back to the log cabins!

Welcome back!

DS is coming to the end of his time at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds, and is moving back to London. He's a bit concerned at the amount of stuff he has accumulated in his flat, and how many car-loads it will take to move him, so has made a small start at getting rid of things he doesn't need for a while. Several boxes of books and files were the first things to come home, and this quilt. (He has others, and even in Leeds, I don't think he'll need them over the next month or so!)

It's obviously a log cabin, and one of the first quilts I made. It's faded a little, but has benefited from a wash (it was quite grubby!) and airing in the garden. I'm happy to welcome it back, as although it's a very basic attempt, and the quilting is very rudimentary, blue and yellow always look so fresh, and this one is still very pleasing.

Even at this early stage in my quiltmaking, I knew that quilts had to be labelled, so here is my attempt.

In case you can't read it, it says 'LMH 1994'. Not very informative, but at least it's there!