Thursday, August 9, 2007

Challenge completed (almost)

Get yourself a cup of coffee 'cos this is a long one.
Back on July 21st I showed a piece of fabric that I made for the Artist Muse challenge and said that I would also use it for a challenge at the Embroiderers Guild with the Machine Embroidery group.
Here are the pieces that I received(inc. mine) and the challenge was to make something from them.
We were allowed to add 2 other fabrics to complete the task.




I decided to use black as one fabric because nothing else seemed to be able to blend them all together.
I joined them together with black strips--



Then I added more strips of black between the 3 strips I had made---



I then cut the piece into 4 sections vertically---


Re-arranged them---



Joined them together again---

But I had 2 pieces that I hadn't included it the strip piecing because they didn't seem to want to go anywhere.
I had thought of putting them in the backing piece of fabric but that wouldn't have been very nice to the people who had contributed them.

I discovered in my "stash of stuff" a roll of quarter inch black bias tape that I had used when I made a stained glass wall quilt --so I used that to add the "odd" fabrics to my little quilts.
Here are the "almost" finished quilts-I say almost because I only have to do the hand stitching around the binding--and I will leave that until my thumb gets better.
I have made them so that the stitching goes horizontal on one and vertical on the other.
Both quilts has a piece of all of the 11 fabrics in them.
They measure approx. 34cm square.
The fabric I used for the binding is one that I had hand dyed about 7 years ago and the muted colours seemed to combine well with all the other colours.
Ah-hah I just had a thought-- that the binding fabric could well fit into the challenge that Carol set us on the 3rd of July-- to use something we had in our "stash" for a long time.


This is a close up of the stitching and how I added the "odd" fabrics




Another challenge to mark off the list.


7 comments:

Val said...

Well done you - they look absolutely brilliant, and very inventive the way you worked all the pieces in together, especially the two 'left over'. Hope your thumb gets better soon - overworked that's what it is - poor thumb! Val

Magpie's Mumblings said...

Very nice! Admirable job of combining several challenges into one piece too.
Hope your thumb is soon feeling better too (meant to mention that in my last comment).

Sandy said...

You certainly met the challenge. I like them. Sandy

Penny said...

Well done I like the way they are all integrated. Hope the thumb is getting better.

Susan D said...

I like the way the black sets of the colours in the other pieces. Hope your thumb is better soon. I have to stop sewing for a while sometimes, if I've done too much the skin splits.

BTW I nominated you for a Nice Matters Award. I emailed but just been informed it's not getting through to you so check out my blog.

Dianne said...

They turned out really well!! I like the black, which really puts the other colours into focus!!

SeamRippstress said...

What a great challenge to have accomplished. The black is a perfect choice!