S.I.X. Challenge - Reveal - Last Blocks

Here are Dianne's blocks - the last to be shown. Dianne had used black and white fabrics with a little bit of bright.

Dianne's quilt - bright fabrics slashed through and more circles added

my quilt - I kept to black, white and black & white backgrounds - it's 'organic'!

Sue's quilt - she has added more black and white fabric and a little bit of colour in the opposite block

Cheryl cut up her block and re-made it into a garden on a hand painted silk background - lovely embellishments here!

Rhonda added more circles and the negative fabric, with just a little bit more colour

Barb's is really jazzed up with lots of bright colours to give the black and white zing!

That's all from our 10 inch block S.I.X. challenge - we are thinking of having a play day next time, but haven't organised anything as yet!

S.I.X. Challenge - Reveal - Sue's Block

Today I will show you what we all did with the gorgeous blocks Sue made for us. Each of us got a different 'animal' which was layered, stamped, drawn and painted as Judy Coates Perez did in the class she took after Tote & Gloat 2010.

my quilt with cave art, Incan art and Indonesian art

Dianne's fish with old designs burnt-out Yvonne Brown style

Rhonda's frog with dyed background and stamping

Cheryl's walls - woven, stamping and other art

Barb's bird on a great painted and stitched background

Sue has centered her block and made other animals in the corners and designs on the borders

All so very different!

S.I.X. Challenge - Reveal - Rhonda's

Today it's Rhonda's block. Here is the original.

Dianne's quilt - steampunk, clocks, cogs, stamping and keys.

Barb's quilt - she saw steering wheels, so has maps and quotes from old atlases

Cheryl's quilt - her cogs are cut out and placed on a wallpaper compass

Rhonda's quilt - actual keys, stamping, old-time photos printed on fabric

Sue's quilt - like old sepia photos on an old wallpaper

my quilt - steampunk time machine with a vortex

 Sure hope you are enjoying seeing the variety of finished quilts from the one block!

S.I.X. Challenge - Reveal - Still More Blocks

This time I will show you what was done with my block.
Dianne hadn't finished her quilt with it, but here are the others:

This is mine

Sue's quilt - using her photos of the people from around Palestine - crossing borders

Cheryl's quilt - fences, walls, barbed wire and olives

Rhonda's red background making a 'bloody' impression

Barb's quilt - using the flag and faces

We don't usually make political quilts - so this one had them all thinking. For me, it was about the media 'feeding' us information that is politically motivated. I don't particularly have a view about the situation in Palestine or Israel, as I have not been there. But the stuff that is printed in our daily newspapers - one would hope that both sides of the story are given equal airing!

S.I.X. Challenge - Reveal - More Blocks

Today I will show you Barb's blocks.
Barbara was the only one not to have finished her blocks, but here are the others:

Dianne's quilt - block cut up and reused on a painted background

My quilt - bright shapes on the other 1/4s

Sue's dotty quilt - Barb's block cut up

Cheryl's quilt - brights added to the cut up block

Rhonda's quilt - block cut up, background stamped and painted

S.I.X. Challenge - Reveal

WooHoo! today the six of us got together for the reveal on our 10 inch challenge. Now I can post photos of what the others in the group have made.
We'll start with Cheryl's block.
So here we are:

Cheryl's quilt - curtaining between gauze

my quilt

Dianne's quilt

Sue's quilt - felted background

Rhonda's quilt - cuttlebug shapes using thermal curtaining

Barbara's quilt - stamped and painted

The Last S.I.X. Challenge Completed

Oh yes! Over a week later than planned, but done!

Here we are:

 I cut the original block then inserted the block with the newspaper headings, which was also cut and splattered with red paint.
I really wanted to print PEACE on the ribbon, but my glue stick is drying out, so I painted the word instead.
Anyway, there are lots of subliminal messages in this quiltlet - including the quilting in the teal/batik strip.
I am so pleased to have finished these challenges. I can get on to something else now :)

Your Creative January

So, have you had a creative January?
It doesn't need to be a lot every day, because just like a journey - it starts with a small step!
My creative colleague Lynette has a great piece about Finding Time. So read it here. What Lynette says about using time creatively is so true - it's like having your sewing machine threaded up. You can sew lots in 5 minutes (this is another of Lynette's gems, which I now abide by).
Here is my first piece to add to my S.I.X. challenge. The headlines are Mod Podged just like the postage stamps, onto the fabric.

I collected the words from headlines out of a week's worth of newspapers. I'm not sure yet how I will quilt it - either simply or symbolically - will probably add some paint too!

February - still the shortest month even though we have an extra day - starts tomorrow.
What have you got planned to be creative?

Final S.I.X. Challenge to Start

This is my block which I gave to the others - we all got the exact same.
Mine is a protest - about the situation in Palestine and about how the media manipulates the information (the media being politically driven).
So here it is:

The map is printed onto fabric, I pieced the flag and used puff paint to make the wall.

Fifth S.I.X Challenge Completed

Finally put the finishing touches to Barb's challenge block.

I still don't like the diamond block - I should have left out the quilting lines - but it's all about play and learning :)
I have written a poem around the pieces (well actually it's not my poem, but I have hand-written it - if you get what I mean). It is Quilt Teacher's Ten Commandments by Cindy Thury Smith, you will find it here, along with some other quilt related poems. Barb is a school teacher and also takes quilting classes with her own designs, so I figured it was appropriate to include it.
Yay! one more challenge to complete!

The Fourth Bright Block

This one I have kept really simple! Used metallic threads for some of the stitching and it's simple-ness helps to balance the postage stamp blocks.

I need to sort some suitable fabric for the sashing, then I have an idea, just to make it all look a bit more finished than I think it is now - BUT, I have to work on a sample :( first! Hopefully that will be finished tomorrow.

How Not To Do It!

OK, so I made the decision not to stitch around the diamond shaped postage stamp fabric. I started stitching a couple of rows around the outside with glitter thread, then stitched across the shapes and 'quilted' it by linking points etc.
Nope - didn't like it :(
The problem is that the 'stamp fabric' shows up the holes if you unpick - a bit like sewing leather.
Ah well! It's not great, I don't like, but I'll just suck it up and perhaps when all the blocks are completed it won't look so bad (but I doubt it!).
Here it is - warts and all:

The third block has triangles of different shapes - you know those mathematical ones like isosceles and equilateral. But we are not going to to have a trigonometry lesson here and I have ignored Pythagorus' theory and hypotenuse didn't even come into it when I was cutting them out! (If you do want a lesson, here is a quick reference).

This time I appli-quilted the pieces with a small blanket stitch using a Madeira gold/black thread so the edges would stand out more. I have considered using the same blanket stitch in wavy lines as a quilting line, but it probably doesn't need it, and to be honest - I find that quite boring!

Hope your day was creative in some way!

Number Four Is Completed

I finished the edging late last night - it's just overlocked around the outside and it probably needs something else to finish it really nicely, but I have a blank as to what to do - and no, I don't want to do traditional binding!
Anyway the wool as the sashing has been handstitched down - it's so bumpy, this was the best option.
Here we have the leaves (Cheryl's) of the S.I.X. challenge:

Now back to Barb's work!

Using the Postage Stamp Fabric

As promised in the previous post, here is one of the blocks using the postage stamp 'fabric':

I'm not going to stitch around the pieces - that will get done as part of the quilting - these pieces have been lightly glued in place with Gem Bond (it is my glue of choice when stitching as it is very flexible, dries clear and if you don't like what you have glued down, you have a little time before it sets).
Got to go and buy some batting now! That is one thing which gets whittled down out of the stash - even using all my smaller pieces :(

Have a creative day!

Barb's Block for the S.I.X. Challenge

I have just about finished the edging for S.I.X. challenge number four - Cheryl's block - just having to do a bit of hand stitching.
This is Barb's block, which I picked up a couple of weeks ago. I was quite down (lack of creativity and commitment) and I think it was the white background.

Now, Barb loves the brights, so I thought that I would honour that, even if I have to really hunt for something suitable in my stash. That being the case, changing the background colour was probably not an option.

I thought about cutting it up.

But one day, I spied the wonderful collection of bright colours in a box lid of used (cleaned) stamps.

An aha! moment!

I have 'made' some fabric for 2 blocks, which leaves only a small search for suitable fabric for one block!

One a white background I stuck, using matte Mod Podge a whole range of New Zealand stamps - old ones and new ones, some collections are together, but mostly I arranged them by size - not colour. If you brush the Mod Podge over the stamps, the paper is quite flexible and can be easily stitched without tearing.
Check back here tomorrow to see one of the blocks I have made with my stamp fabric.

Cheryl's Block

Cheryl stitched this block - she didn't quilt it which has given me more options (like cutting it up if I wish), instead I stamped over it with real leaves - I forgot to take an unadulterated photo first though:

I am going to have fun with leaf blocks with different backgrounds - may have to colour this background, but I'll make up the others first before deciding.
Have a creative day!

Halfway Through the S.I.X Challenges

Yay! Here is number 3 finished - this one I have bound the outside edges instead of overlocking.

So, halfway finished!

Creativity and Commitment

I'm struggling with these two words today - perhaps it's because I'm physically tired after 2 days at work and physical exercise (yes, I'm not used to the P.E.!). Sunday evening we had quite a gale in the region and we lost large branches off several trees plus 2 of the poplars were rent almost in half (thank goodness they will grow again). That was 3 hours of assisting the man-about-the-house after work yesterday, and today I decided to rent the carpet cleaner to clean the carpet at work - well, the kiddies play area and around the Issues Desk at least - phew! I had quite a sweat worked up doing that! Just want to sleep now :)
I picked up Barb's block for the S.I.X. challenge this evening, and nothing comes to mind immediately on what to do with it.
I know that perfection is not the answer in making these challenges - I'm trying to do something different, if not entirely new, with my blocks. We should have them finished by the end of this month, although I know that some have not started theirs! Oh, my! am I doing too much on mine?
Commitment is waning, as I so want to get them finished and work on something else - I have several quilts waiting to be quilted and need to work on another military banner.
At least I can show you the finished Cave Art block of the third challenge. I decided to do a medium stipple around the outside. I very rarely do stipple as it is so boring to sew, but in this case, there wasn't a lot to do and the hand-stitching catches down most areas. It is still 'puffy' in the middle, but then the cave walls were not necessarily flat and smooth either!

I hope you are not suffering from lack of creativity or commitment - I think the focus on achieving even a small amount is very important.
Enjoy!

Number Two Is Finished

Once at my sewing machine, it was head down and get quilting! When the block was finished I started the old habit of procrastinating - playing with something else, you know, anything to put off finishing something - why IS that?
Stern words were said to myself (no flaying of the back with a whip though) and I set to to square off all 4 blocks to the same size, triple zig-zagged them together, then cut the sashing for both front and back - these have been put together just like a quilt-as-you-go.
Number 2 of the S.I.X. challenges finished - even overlocked around the outside edges:

Here is a close-up of the last block - I tried really hard not to think too much about it, but have to admit to changing the colours to suit the other blocks more. It is supposed to be organic, so you can read whatever you wish into it (if you must). It doesn't really have any meaning to me, because I just wanted to put something down randomly on the white, then have fun with some hand-stitching.

I used some of the threads from the Oliver Twists range by Jean Oliver (U.K.). I really love Jean's selections, but the hanks have to be carefully unwound, then each of the threads re-wound onto spools, otherwise you end up with huge big tangles, tears of frustration and wishing you could just cut out the knots.