Last year I made a quilt about my depression called Silent Scream, and started working on a second. It was a cathartic exercise and made me feel happy whilst I was making them. Fast forward 6 months or so and I'm feeling good. The depression is in remission. My mental health is the best it's been for years. I'm happy. Time to make a quilt to express that.
It is now my belief, and that of my family and friends who can't believe the change in me, that my marriage was making a huge contribution to the depression. Now I'm free. Now the future is mine.
This is a lyric from She Bangs The Drums by The Stone Roses (if you don't know them, go and have a listen on Spotify, you won't regret it!) and sums up how I feel perfectly. It is improved pieced using various shades of blue for the words and a low volume scrappy background.
I've also been sewing together scraps of low volume to help make the background around the words. It's now time to start putting it all together. I really enjoy this method of patchwork.
This rather blurry photo shows the tools of my trade. To the left of my sewing machine (I'm left-handed) is my cutting mat with my rotary cutter and my mini iron, essential for flattening all those seams, I'm pressing them open to reduce bulk. If you haven't tried this technique, I'd urge you to give it a go!
We did a Secret Santa in July cushion swap at the East Midlands Modern Quilt Guild. We were each given a person to make for and a list of their likes and dislikes. When I discovered I'd got quilting professional extraordinaire Trudi, I begged our swap mama Moira to make a new rule that the cushion couldn't have any quilting on it.... she refused.
I went from not having an idea, to having a pretty much fully formed idea overnight and I got started, this was back in June, or maybe even May... I think it was before I became ill again this time.
I didn't follow a pattern, I just made it all up. I drew the outline of a sewing machine, improv pieced some aqua scraps, then traced the shape onto Bondaweb which I fixed on the back. Not until I'd actually quilted it did I realise the sewing machine is back to front! I sewed round the edges and added the details in free-motion thread painting.
Trudi loves Aurifil, so, despite my ambiguity towards the brand, I made Aurifil spools in her listed preferred colours. Each area is quilted differently. Some are geometric square designs and some are curvy. I did four and then struggled for ages to think of other designs to use!
The middle section had loops and hearts and the borders were matchstick quilted. I did a simple ribbon pattern in the spools. The aqua borders are left unquilted.
One of these pictures should show the segment I did in pebbles. It took FOREVER. It can't be a very big area, the overall cushion cover is 22", so we're talking 6-7", but I was quilting those pebbles for hours - so it felt. Never again.
A quick shot of the back where you can see the quilting pretty well.
I used a tutorial by Ms Midge to do the lapped zip which I've never done before. It was really easy so I'll be doing that again.
See, there really is a zip under there!
And my cushion? I knew it would be a bunny! This is by the very talented Gillian.
My apologies that all the links (except for Ms Midge's tutorial) are to Instagram, my intrepid fellow guild members have all abandoned blogging for the instant gratification that is Instagram. I go on Instagram every now and then, but I find after about 2 minutes I'm just flicking and the images are flying past. Much like how I felt about Flickr in its day, there's not enough depth to Instagram, it's just photos and no real stories.
I've posted about this mini quilt a couple of times, you can see it here and here. It's only a mini so you would have thought one post would be enough without me harping on about it for months!
I was stumped by the quilting. I took me ages to think of a design, then when I started quilting it, my new machine had a hissy fit and I had to give up. I got it done in the end though. It shows up really nicely on the back which is a non-branded blue with white polka dots.
Here's a close up of those swirls and pointy bits, it was a bit annoying having to do inside the letters.
Then came time to bind it - I made a length of scrappy binding using some of the Kona reds I'd used for the text.
And low and behold, it was finished!
The lyrics are from Broken Strings by James Morrison. It's a love song, but it screams depression at me. Silently of course.
I did credit him - I used one of the fancy alphabet fonts on my Janome.
I also remembered the hanging corners!
At July's Guild meeting I took the letters for Silent Scream #2 and pieced them into words, then into the lyrics. I haven't quite finished here as there's a bit of a gap top right and I think I need to bring it out a little so I don't end up with the binding sitting right next to those bottom words.
The lyrics are from Pray by Take That, written by Gary Barlow. Again, it says depression to me.
Is it depressing to make a series of quilts about depression? The actual making of the quilt makes me feel quite happy, so I suppose not.
Following on from the bad news in my last post, I've also been having trouble with Colin and Kate. Kate is the new rabbit we adopted after we lost Ellis. I can't get a photo of her as she hides in dark corners. She's half-wild and is terrified of me. They were living together for a few weeks when they started to fight. Fur everywhere. I've separated them and the plan was to bond them back together. Poor Colin has been temporarily exiled to the old hutch:
(that's only part of the hutch and when Tiff and Harry lived in it, it had a run permanently attached. Colin is only going to be in there for a week or so, so it's not so bad. I would never lodge a rabbit in a hutch with a run for long periods)
We put them in the bath (small space, neutral territory) for a few hours to try to bond them.
After that, whilst giving Colin a quick health check before returning him to his hutch, I found strange patches on his back. There are bold patches with what look like black scabs. There are red raw spots around this and strange black tube with hair growing out of them sticking an inch or so out of his skin. I have no idea if this is injuries from his tussle with Kate or something worse... Colin is living apart and I'm keeping them separate until his vets appointment so I can find out what's going on. Wish him luck.
On to the quilting. I just went back to find the last post on this quilt and it was July of last year! You can see it here. I've since made some more of the medium star blocks.
I've arranged and rearranged them on the floor.
I've added solids to the mix to try to find an arrangement I like. It became clear I needed more stars.
I tried out a few more layouts.
Not liking any of these much.
So I made the stars to help see how it would look.
So I cut out the pieces.
I chain pieced and I chain trimmed.
I chain pressed.
And I chain pieced some more. I started with 9 stars, I finished with 7...
Because I am just such an idiot!!
See how much of an idiot I am??
These new small stars, the old stars and the solid fabrics came with me to the East Midlands Quilt Guild April meeting for some help from my quilt buddies. I'm pretty much out of fabric, though I do have some FQs and a half metre piece - all grey prints though. There was much disagreeing with my choice of yellow, much bossiness from certain (lovely) friends but I still haven't completely decided. I sewed up the top left corner, but then I was stumped so packed it away. Apparently I didn't bother taking a photo of that. You'll have to wait for the next gripping installment in, oh, around 10 months time probably!
I've been working on another quilt, a mini this time. I didn't show you any progress photos as it just kind of happened one day! I used the book Word Play Quilts by Tonya Ricucci which gives the basic technique of making improv letters. I thought this would take a long time and thought that I'd try to make a word a week.
I made all the words in 2 hours and took another 2 hours to put them together into a finished 30 x 30" quilt top.
I have just realised, looking at this picture, that this isn't a picture of the full quilt top! There is a scrappy aqua border all round it and the name of the songwriter embroidered on a scrap of aqua. Ah well, never mind!
The song is Broken Strings by James Morrison featuring Nelly Futardo. I know it's a love song, but to me, this line is about depression. This is what depression feels like to me. I've called it silent scream as that phrase also sums up this horrible illness as far as I'm concerned. Maybe those who have experienced the pain of depression understand what I mean, maybe not as everyone is different.
The background is a mixture of aqua scraps, which didn't start their lives as scraps, I had to hack into FQs as I found a grand total of 10 aqua scraps in my scraps bin! The words are in various Kona cottons, one colour for each word.
I have since started the quilting by echoing just outside each letter in a variegated aqua/blue thread. I plan to FMQ the rest, though I'm not sure how, I'm wondering about small spirals.
The backing fabric is a cheap cotton from Fabric land. I intend this to be hung on the wall. I may wash it when it's done, but I don't intend to wash it regularly so didn't mind using an inexpensive backing.
I have finished the shoe mat that I was making a few weeks ago. A lot of you expressed horror that I would put muddy shoes on such pretty fabric, but hey, it's better than putting shoes on ugly fabric!
I made a panel from HSTs in a chevron design. I used a charm pack of Fancy by Lily Ashbury and some Kona Coal. The finished mat measures about 40" x 16" so it's long and skinny and it fits perfectly underneath the radiator.
Here is a picture of the back. I have no idea why I've taken a picture of the back or why I might have thought you would be interested to see it!
I layered it right sides together with an old towel, sewed all round leaving a gap, then turned through. Anything to avoid binding!
I quilted it with my walking foot, just echoing the chevron. I was hoping to avoid quilting the outer edge as it would be lots of stopping and starting, but it just doesn't look right without quilting.
I chose to only do two lines of quilting in the triangles though.
I think it looks pretty cool from the back.
And here it is complete with muddy shoes!
I know this is a crafting blog, but my bunnies do sometimes make an appearance here, so I wanted to give you the sad news. On Sunday morning we lost our beautiful little Ellis.
She had lived with us for 7 years, she was a rescue rabbit. Needless to say me and Mr CA are so very sad, but poor Colin (her companion) is devastated, I have never seen a more lonely or depressed bunny. Although it's a bit soon for me to have a new rabbit, I think we'll have to find Colin a new friend this weekend as I don't want to lose him from a broken heart.
On with the crafting...
On New Year's Day I started a new project. We leave our shoes in the dining room as our hall is very narrow. They're just plonked under the radiator and this includes Mr CA's boots when he's been out doing archery on muddy fields. I get tired of sweeping up the dried mud, and the hay from my shoes (I always have bits of hay sticking out of my hair, sawdust clinging to my jumper, straw stuck to my jeans...) so decided a mat was in order. Something I can throw in the wash.
I picked out a charm pack - Fancy by Lily Ashbury for Moda which was a present from the lovely Kerry. I'd roughed up a quick sketch on graph paper and worked out some sizes and I knew I wanted fabric with 2 distinct colours. In the end I went for 2, but colours that could be paired - green and blue and yellow and orange.
I added some Kona Coal that I'd bought for another project and made some HSTs. They were cut down to 4" squares, so there was plenty of room for error!
Even so, I managed to make some mistakes... I think I had my ruler upside down. I replaced them and made another 8 as I'd managed to completely miscount!
This is the final layout, it just needs sewing up. And quilting of course! I know it's not the most original of designs, but I've pinned a lot of chevron quilts so I was bound to make some chevrons at some point! Hopefully I'll be able to show you this all finished soon. It may be the guinea pig for FMQ on my new machine.
It has been a a long time since this WIP saw the light of day. I just went back to try to find the previous post about it, but I can't find it. I don't even know when I began this quilt, but basically, I have a charm pack and some fat quarters of Bluebird Park. So far I've made eight 8" star blocks. I have no plan for this quilt, no pattern, I'm making it up as I go along.
Even though it's been packed away out of sight, it's been on my mind lately so one Sunday, a couple of weeks ago, I got it out and started sewing. That's when my machine broke down, so I drove to my parents' house, picked up mum's machine and started sewing, again.
I started with some sorting, looking to see what I'd got and which fabrics I should use.
Then I made a half size block, a little 4" (finished). You see, I had a plan. I didn't have a pattern but I thought I could make it work.
I encased that little star in another star, now it's 8" (finished). See where I'm going here?
Bunnies!!
