Finishing Some UFO´s

On PPM 2019 I presented jeans collages, which were (and still are) in fact panels of quite large bags. 

They were created by coincidence when last spring my dearest sewing machine went to service to stay there unexpectedly long, all six months. What I didn’t have time until then, filled my free time in the summer. I got inspiration from Japanese quilting techniques and I also tried functional connection of individual parts of the collage in a way that they would sustain everyday use of a big bag without any problem even when they are filled with books from the library, potatoes from a farm market or even run through a washing machine.

 

More than a year later I finally began finishing the bags.  I actually don’t like this finishing work which explain the long pause. But now seems to be the right time to finish some UFO’s. The four of them lay on my sewing table, more are to come. 

The interior of the bags will be made from traditional Czech canvas, a very sturdy material and very fine to work with. There will be one big zippered pocket, one open pocket and one jeans pocket inside. Plus a key holder, of course.  

Raven

The Raven quilt is a combination of machine sewing and hand quilting on natural linen. For the tree I chose the reverse appliqué with machine quilted raw edges. The raven himself is fusible appliqué, machine and hand quilted.

 

The first version was not very sufficient and over some days I decided to unstitch the blossoms.

The second version without blossoms I found the right one. 

In January I ordered wonderful silk and cotton thread from Oliver Twists and in this quilt I could fully use it. It´s hand dyed, beautiful colored, a luxuriousness!

 

I really love the hand quilted outline of the bird and the "mendings".

Wood Pidgeon I.

The Wood Pidgeon was also made for The Prague Patchwork Meeting 2020. This bird was the second one I made (the first was the Yellow Bird of Bengal) and in the very beginning I was somehow unhappy with it. After the last stitches were done, I hanged it on the door of our bedroom. That way, I could watch it every morning an every evening for several days. As the time went, I started to like it, step by step,  and now I can say, I just love it! The basic material is linen again, my new fabric love.

The small blue log cabins are made by my friend Jana, they are leftovers from a baby quilt. The hexagons come from an ancient EPP project I made years ago.

Please see the creations in the middle of the wine-colored hexagons. I learned the technique from Sue Spargo´s Creative Stitching. Thank you so much, Sue!

Rust dyeing

Four days of Easter holiday without meeting friends and family due to corona virus means extra time for experimenting... 

For the very first time I tried rust dying. Together with my husband we had much fun searching for old rusty objects and using them for dyeing of some pieces of light fabric. 

After two days the plastic bag could be opened:

 

After washing: