…… white thread is used all over this piece, regardless of colour change, and the beautifully even stitching in the back seam was what really caught my eye only today for some reason – I mean, I have seen this object many times and love it’s almost- alive presence whenever I go to our friends’ house. 
In this section of approx 4″ x 6″, some of the quilting progress can be seen. I am very happy with this fine polyester thread which looks like rayon but is stronger, and a joy to sew with.
I do not normally mark out quilting lines in advance – then of course I can’t go ‘wrong’ , but it also gives me freedom to wander with my needle, which is how I like to quilt.
I start with a general directional line that I decide is an overlay to the whole. As I go run the blunt end of a needle along the fabric to either lay a foundation line or connect one part of a quilting section to another, and here an example is the line that comes down from the upper left side to join the edge of the applied waxed silver leather piece. It will follow the edge of that shape until it heads out into plain open free fabric again, where its shape will again be influenced bythe next shape. Upper right segment is how the infill quilting looks, and in time all the infill will re-state the shapes and lines of the whole design.
The two straight grey machine stitched lines intersecting over near the right hand side are guidelines only, for the placement of shapes and some of the quilting development, and will eventually be pulled out. The thread I use for this is Gutermann’s Skala, a multi polyester filament( many in the free machine quilting world refer to this and several similar threads as bobbinfill or bobbinfiller ) which I find wonderfully useful BECAUSE it is so easily removed, and because when piecing it gives a very fine, strong line of stitching.
A little diversion from the hackwork of the current work was a bit of snipping and punching this small piece of leather today – the cutout piece is about 1″ square and the larger piece barely 3″ a side.
I can envisage a whole…..
But back to what I am working on, with reference to the previous photo the application of shapes is going well and should be finished today.
What is really helping to keep the mind interested while the repetitive work is proceeding is the recorded book “Collapse” by Jared Diamond. DH is currently reading th this fascinating book, we are both enthralled. He draws from current examples and on archeological records of disappeared civilisations in various parts of the world, examining the known or suspected reasons, (generally multiple) for their collapses. These provide us all with real food for thought when pondering the current dreadful state of the world; current fighting, the environmental degradation, soil erosion, air pollution, the uneven allocation and distribution of food, fuel and other resources among people and nations, and so on. Wealthy (greedy and unthinking) nations have most to fear as pressure builds behind the aspirations of consumers in rapidly developing nations, such as China. And yet, there is ground for much hope if only everyone understood what is going on, and if our leaders just led wisely. That seems too much to hope for, but I sitll have 2 more discs to listen to….
A portion of the initial process – attaching leather shapes to the dull mustard background fabric. Somewhere this past week I referred to these colours as a ‘commonwealth bank of aus’ or ‘lufthansa’ colour scheme. These colours have been on my mind since I saw the leather in a Perth leather place way back in feb/march – and simply had to buy it…. jumped off the shelf into my hands.
This textured leather, shows as I bought it, in the lower right corner. It is medium grey with darker recessed but glossy blobs. Towards the upper left that piece is the same leather but has been waxed over with silver treasure wax – I am so happy I have discovered this stuff. Other pieces I am using include other different leathers silvered over, some heavily others not so, some silver-pewter leather I found here and some black left black.
I’m planning a lot of large hand-stitched quilting in greys, since I gathered up plenty of suitable thread when I was in Perth, so sure I was going to do this. It’s taken a while to get round to it, but since ths week I sent off my quilt to the SAQA Creative Force show organisers (Houston, IQF, October) and my entries for Fiberarts International and Quilt National 07 are also on their way, too, in effect that is all out of the way, (most likely all I have to do now is wait for the slides and polite but encouraging rejection letters) and I can focus on the next things which include several family bed and picnic quilts I have promised for some time. Grandson #2 now sleeps in his own bed all night so he needs one, his mum has lately decided she would like one after all, and I think we all need picnic quilts – and I have heaps of fabric I have collected for those! They will all be machine pieced, production line fashion, probably all much alike, and I plan to have them going at the same time as this next work, and the one to follow .
Detail of my latest quilt, finished just before I headed off up to the US to help DD move house. and while there in colorado I had the latest quilts photographed by Deidre Adams, who I am happy to say did a great job for me.
Now that I am back with two weeks of family working/visiting and absolutely nothing textile related behind me, I am raring to go with the next ideas I have to continue this body of work. I spent today preparing the fabric background for the next one – I stitch in guide lines which later come out – I use gutermans’ Skala in grey – a multi filament polyester thread that is very easy to just pull out later) and I also did a fair bit of silver waxing various pieces of black leather ( in the pic here, the leathers directly above and to the left of the bright gold have been waxed over with metallic gold – and I just love the subdued effect counterfoiling the more brassy golds) I have found some black leathers with different textures, and they produce nice varied textures to be included along with the lovely grey suede which has wet-looking blobs scattered on it – it begged me to take it off the shelf last time I was in Australia and I have been thinking about it, over under round and through, these past 6 months. Today was the day to cut and start doing something with it. There will be silvery grey thread quilting as far as I can tell from this end of the project, and the back ground fabric I was thrilled to find in the US last week, a kind of mustardy-pistachio greeny-yellow – perhaps greyed-down canola kind of colour. Sort of lufthansa/commonwealth bank of australia colour scheme…. but totally different shapes for the repeat pattern this time. Photos eventually – my policy being to never show an entire quilt until it has been either sold or successfully juried in to an exhibition of major importance somewhere.
English