Thursday 29 August 2013

The count down begins!

 The count down has begun to my project

101 Free Motion Quilted Cameos


The idea of this project is to produce 101 6" squares, each a sample of free motion quilting.
Many of the designs will be my own original patterns. Some will be well known and well loved patterns but perhaps done in a different way. And some will be just for the fun of it because I love them! I will be posting them twice weekly - I hope!

I want the finished project to hang together and also work as an exhibition piece, so I have decided to use one colour only. I was never a fan of indigo until I had a commission to make chair covers to go with the colours of an oriental rug in reds and dark blues. The white quilting I did sang on the dark colours and gave me the inspiration to use indigo quilted in white for this project - and converted me to indigo in the process! So, out with the dyes. I tend to dye small quantities of cloth in a wide range of colours and shades - which means that plastic pint beakers serve my purpose well. Enough fabric for 101 7" (to include seam allowance) squares required something a bit larger - like a big bucket - or two.
Stacks of squares - 2 shades of indigo and wadding reading for sewing
Fabric dyed, dark for the front and a lighter shade of indigo for the back, I set to work with a rotary cutter. A lot of cutting later and I had 3 neat stacks of squares ready to be assembled.

Yards and yards of neatened ribbon
 I spent some time experimenting with ways of making loops to hang the squares. Any kind of folded strip was just too thick, so I ended up making a  looong 1" ribbon. Zig-zag neatening all that edge went on forever.
The ribbon cut up into 4" lengths ready to form the loops

Two loops per square - 202 4" pieces.
Now all I have to do is sew them all together.

Thanks for dropping by.