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This quilt was made for The National Quilt Championships at Sandown Park 2007 and entered into the Art Quilt section where it won a first and a judge’s choice. The title of the piece relates to the hundreds of beads and sequins sewn on by hand with invisible thread, and reminded me of the ball gowns worn by the ladies on the television programme “Strictly Come Dancing.”
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The quilt was made using the “Revelation Burning” technique and a batik panel as the starting point. It has a background comprising of thousands of shreds of organza, trapped under a larger piece of rainbow shaded organza which gives it the jewel like shaded look and it is free motion quilted to secure the scraps.
“Strictly Come Dancing Dragon” was made in 2007
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First prize in The Art Quilt section at The National Quilt Championships, Sandown Park 2007
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First in the Art Quilt Section at “The Great Northern Quilt Show” Harrogate 2007.
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Crazy Horses is made from a printed panel designed by Laurel Burch and uses the “Revelation Burning” method to reveal the parts of the panel that I want to feature in my piece of work. The background uses shaded scraps of organza, which are densely machine quilted and heavily embellished with free machine embroidery. The free hanging panel of three dimensional horses down the right hand side is made from the same companion fabric and the embellishments hanging around the horses are very influenced by things I saw in India. The colours are “pure India.”
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This close up of one of the panels shows the free motion stitching. Each horse and figure are individually stitched in the correct colour to give texture, relief, and form. This quilt won me a second judge’s choice at Sandown Park 2007, and a third at The Great Northern Quilt show, Harrogate 2007.
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Having a bad hair day!
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This photograph shows a couple of the padded horses with their clothes peg manes. There are 6 horses running down the free standing panel and each one is different but just as “wacky!”
“Crazy Horses” was made in 2007.
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This quilt was entered into The Great Northern Quilt Show,Harrogate 2006 in the theme category of “African Dreams”My dream for Africa would be the gift of constant running water,which could be irrigated in channels throughout the land and would solve a number of problems instantly.I have used as the base, a collection of Manchester Wax Prints which have been printed for export to the African market for over a hundred years. I was born in Bolton which is quite close to Manchester and have always had an affiliation with textiles and in particular cotton which was a prominent industry in Lancashire while I was growing up.
The colours of the Wax Prints create a distinctive African feel and signify the land in my quilt, while the blue areas which wind their way through the quilt are indicative of the water channels in my dream…..if only dreams could come true.
Inspiration came from work by the American quilter Michael James.
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We all have projects which when finished fall short of our expectations and this is one of mine.The backing fabric I chose was too thick and the sheer density of the free motion stitching and machine embroidery caused the quilt to warp and not hang as flat as I would have liked.This has to be accepted as a learning curve and believe me there were a few challenging curves in the piece!
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This quilt was entered into Quilts UK Malvern 2006, in the miniature category. It measures 20″ by 23″ and won me a judge’s merit.It was made using some new fabric to co-ordinate with a bag of Liberty scraps,sold as 1930’s and bought for £2 at an antique textile fair.I used traditional paper piecing for the Dresden Plate, hand stitching,machine applique and free motion machine quilting. The pattern originally came from Val Thomas.
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A close up shot showing free motion quilting on a small scale,hand applique and a little Broderie Perse thrown in for good measure!
The challenge theme for 2006 and giving me the third successive win at Westpoint was “Art Deco Revisited” and the ensuing quilt “Erte in the sky with diamonds” gave me the hat-trick.The starting point for this quilt was a diamond Art Deco necklace made by the American jeweller Charlton and Co, which displays a donut-shape crystal as the central feature. This gave the perfect frame for one of the most famous Art Deco images by Erte called Woman in Black. The impression of diamonds was the most difficult item to replicate and was made by trapping hundreds of scraps of fabric under bridal tulle and then machine embroidering into the pieces.
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The starting point was to get a working size image of the piece of jewellery. This was done in sections and then pieced and stuck together to make full size templates.
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The crystal donut-shape ring was the first section to translate into fabric and this sizing gave the frame for the Erte drawing.
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The diamonds forming the piece were made in sections. Each piece was prepared and stitched separately and then assembled when everything was completed.
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This photograph shows the bottom section of the necklace completed and the top section under construction. The diamond sections were made from hundreds of tiny shards of fabric ranging from white and silver through the spectrum to try and replicate the colours that bounce off a faceted diamond.
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The central ring is filled with sky shaded fabric and free motion quilted before the black fabric images of the woman and her dog are appliqued.
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The background fabric is free motion quilted and then the finished necklace and central image are hand stitched in place.
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Here I am with the winning quilt at Westpoint, Exeter!
