Making My Final Piece

With only two days left in the workshop I needed to start preparing my quilt. I dyed fabric and began printing my designs on it. With my top layer of fabric ready I stitched the patches together and tore into it on the felt machine, while also printing my text layers. With my two top fabric layers ready all that was left was to stitch them together into a quilt with wadding and a backing fabric. I also chose a special thread for quilting that gradiates in tones of green that I thought would look better than just a plain colour.

Plan for Quilt

After sampling all my elements I have finally come to the point where I need to be making decisions for what it is going to look like. Playing with some different combinations I have been able to look at what possibilities I have. I've already chosen to have a top layer of quilt to be mixed coloured with a yellow print so I was looking for my text layer to go with that. I come to the conclusion to have a yellow background to match the print on the top layer and two prints of text in brown, keeping to my colour scheme. Also the black was too bold. I will be adding scrim in places in my quilt as well adding an extra layers to the quilt.

Hand Tie Quilting samples

Another quilting type, Hand Tied Quilting, that I can do at home as you pull threads through the fabric layers and tie them tight. I tried three different types of threads with different thicknesses to show the differences. I used cotton sewing thread, embroidery thread and yarn. I looked at a few different types mostly involving a bit of embroidery to stitch the layers together.

Types of Quiltiing Samples

My last day in the workshop before my 3DSP deadline and I was in the textile workshop sampling the different types of quilt that I have been meaning to do for weeks now. I thought it was to be an important range of samples for my quilting section of 3DSP. I tried Channel, Stitch-in-Ditch, Motif and free-hand quilting to show a range and understanding of the different types available.

Quilt Ideas

After screen printing it's really allowed me to think about what ideas I might have for what I want for my finished piece. At first I wanted a big quilt, then it changed to three mini quilts and then just one mini quilt. But now after considerations of all my ideas I think I return to the idea of three as I have too many ideas for just one mini quilt that I believe it's going to look over crowded. So to separate my ideas into 3 quilt pieces might work out better. My ideas for the three quilts are:

• A torn quilt with layers of my screen printed design
• A quilt with a laser cut of my leaf pattern on the first layer revealing text or screen print design
• A formation of my fabric leaves in a quilt

For this to work it's going to be a lot of work to organize all the together. It may happen that I only make one of the quilts.

Machine Stitch Quilt Samples

Carrying on with my 3DSP samples I explored the difference in the effect of quilting with the change in the distance between the stitching. I sewn lines of stitching across fabric sandwiched wadding. Each sample's stitched lines got further and further apart to give a variety from little to big spaces between the lines. I also tried another range of samples where I had stitched another set of lines over the first lot creating stitched squares. As the space between the stitching got smaller the piece became less malleable and stiffer. The smaller spaced samples were flatter and more controlled. The larger spaced samples were very loose and flexible. The extra layer of crossed stitching in a different direction became more fixed and stiffed the fabrics and wadding quite strong to the one way single layer of stitching. When crossing over stitching I'm creating pockets and with pockets you need to be careful to keep the fabric flat out when making so not to get lumpy fabric.

Patchwork Samples

Later today I carried on with my 3DSP quilting by looking at patchwork. Using The Singer Quilting Bible I was able to look an assortment of different patchwork patterns. I wanted to try the range of shapes, Square, rectangle, triangle and curves. I started with square and rectangle patchwork which was relatively easy with straight lines to sew. Following the books instructions and previous patchwork projects for cushions has taught me that it helps to iron down the seems of the pieces after each stitching. It takes a lot of planning and measuring before actually putting together a patchwork piece, even small ones. Planning for the triangle patchwork was not as easy to prepare the patches as I had to use the  Pythagoras theorem I used in maths lessons many years ago to work out the lengths of the some sides of the triangle patches. The curved patches were the most difficult to pin and sew together and they still didn't match up properly and had ripples in the fabric at the seems. Like the others it was supposed to be square but pinning and stitching the pieces together was so difficult that it became misshapen. I really do not want to do curves ever again, they really don't work out very well at all.

Stitch Quilt Samples

With my 3DSP formative assessment tomorrow it has kicked me in the arse to get focused on my quilting samples. Alongside getting my tech file ready I have been exploring the different stitches on the Bernina sewing machine. This was a a great first step for my quilting looking at the many different stitches I can quilt with and see how the stitches react quilted. The different stitches from the Bernina show a range of different patterns. The great thing about the Bernina sewing machine is that it has a display of how to set up the machine for each stitch pattern.

Quilting

Carrying on from my dyed fabrics I had decided to cut them up into hexagons and stitch them together on a fabric backing giving a quilted effect. I really like this but I feel like this needs adding to but it's certainly my favorite sample yet. I could use a different shape to hexagon and try segments of leaves

My First Samples

After my tutorial with Kate I had so many ideas I needed to start making something so as a start I went to the textile workshop and looked at sandwiching wadding between fabric to make little hexagon quilt samples. I did two different thicknesses to see the difference as the first one seemed a tad flat. Next I'd like to add colour or different materials.