New Work Sept - Nov 2015

Its been a while since I posted. That's because I have had knee replacement surgery in October with major physio following. For my hospital stay I took lots of handsewing sewing to do and managed to complete some applique that has been hanging around for a couple of years.

I finished four of these blocks begun for a reproduction quilt begun several years ago. Now I have no excuse not to complete the whole quilt as the other blocks have already been pieced. The pink check on the background fabric was tea-dyed to damp down the colour a bit so that it toned in with the  civil war reproduction prints in the rest of the quilt.

One of the members of my craft group (Yarnspinners) kindly gave me a beautiful scrap of vintage Japanese silk.I decided it couldn't be cut up or it would be ruined so I quilted the beautiful flower print in large stitches (a pretty inept sort of sashiko) using two strands of embroidery thread. I'm pleased with the result but undecided about quilting all the pale green background. I completed the binding by hand in hospital. It's a table topper I think. I was concerned to highlight the beautiful flower print which looked like a watercolour.

I have joined an international online group called "Global Piecers" and am having a lot of enjoyment being involved in swaps etc. The group comes from countries all over the world.It's a great deal of fun hearing from everyone and preparing small pieces to send to swap partners. The prayer flag above was supposed to be a Christmas one but with all that going on as I was making it, I couldn't conceive of doing anything as jolly as Christmas. I hope my swap partner likes it! It's made of silk, cotton and linen, uses doilies and embroidery in a collage. I haven't done a prayer flag before and really enjoyed doing this one.