Stages one and two

I've been sewing the binding on Becky's Roses, and felt the need for something a bit easier to manage. I decided to have a go at the task I need to complete for a challenge group I belong to. This year's theme for the group is 'curves' and we have already made Drunkard's Path, Free-cut curves and New York Beauty. Since I have been so busy with the play, Chris agreed to take the last meeting, and has decided on something quite interesting.


The first stage was to contruct a piece of fabric by making lots of free-cut curves joined together. I could choose any colour combination, and decided to continue to work with pinks and greens, as I felt they were quite summery.

The next stage was to embellish the piece with ribbons, couched threads and machine embroidery in metallic and variegated threads. Lots of fun, especially since Ruth told me how to

stop the metallic thread from continually breaking or splitting by investing in a metallics needle! Pretty obvious, you'd have thought, but it didn't occur to me!

The next stage is ........... (to be continued).

Deadline

The household has recovered from the excesses of panto (partly the hectic crowds but mainly the after-show party!) and I've been furiously sewing to try and get the curves quilt finished for DD to take back to uni in Brighton this weekend. It's partly quilted, and I think I might be in with a chance.
I decided to enhance the shapes by just quilting about a quarter of an inch away from all the seams. So far, it's looking really good. I can't decide whether to stipple quilt the border or just quilt straight lines to frame it. I think DD will have to decide that.

(Here's a close up of the quilting. The wierd lime green lines are tacking thread!)

I was quite excited the other day to receive a squishy! It was from Loulee on the Isle of Man. She had promised to send me some orphan blocks which she wanted to donate to Projetc Linus. There were some lovely applique ones of birds and butterflies,

and some pretty log cabin and other blocks.

Thankyou very much Loulee, and watch out on my Linus blog for them appearing in a quilt!

Seductive curves

First an explanation why I haven't been blogging, or more important, looking at anyone else's blog for the last week. The computer decided that it didn't want to find the server! It was very frustrating, because the wireless connection was fine, but we had no joy connecting to the internet at all. Luckily our friend Richard is a computer whiz (apart from being an acting pro and all-round great bloke) and he came round yesterday and sorted the problem out. Thanks Richard!

Now don't worry; the curves in the blog title don't involve me stripping off at all. They're fabric curves in sumptuous colours destined for a quilt for DD. I'd hoped to have it ready for Father Christmas to bring on Thursday, but it's not going to happen.

Here are some of the strips ready to be played with and made into a top. It's quite an easy technique, where you place two strips on top of each other, and then just push the rotary cutter up the middle to make a curve, and then join the fabrics together. Well, it's easy if you don't drop the fabrics and forget how they go together. If that happens you end up with something like this,

and have to get your seam ripper out!