Lost Connections

 The start of a new month and it's time for another Endeavourers  reveal and the theme for this quarter is Memories. As ever the problem is pinning down a project for the theme from the multitude of ideas floating around in my head :)

 

 During my deliberations I kept coming back to Alzheimer's devastating effect on my Dad's memory in the last couple of years of his life. Lost Connections above is my attempt at representing some of the confusion and frustration that he, and we, felt as the disease took an ever stronger grip on him.

 

 I started by creating a collage of family photos which were then printed on to fabric by Print me Pretty 

 

Then I pulled fabrics from my stash to represent the layers of confusion behind which my Dad's memories were hidden.

 

I decided to use the same technique for this quilt that I had used for my Tucked Away Treehouse for the Endeavourers Improv Challenge, so these fabrics were layered up over the background photo squares for 6 of the 9 blocks. 

Then using the techiques from Ann Small's Layered Cloth, the fabrics were stitched together and the layers then slashed. As you can see I used a mixture of parallel lines, squares and concentric circles for the stitching and slashing. 

Two of the remaining 3 blocks, my parents' wedding photo and a photo of my Mum, were backed and outline quilted.

 The final block, a photo of my Dad, was also backed and outline quilted but it was covered with two layers of organza before being edged with a zig-zag stitch. 

These three blocks portray the strongest recollections my Dad had during this time. I suspect that if he had lived longer it may not have remained the case, but throughout his illness he did not lose the knowledge of who and what my Mum was to him. 

The strength of that connection is also portrayed in the thick, multi-coloured thread joining the two photo blocks.

I used this Newspaper Yarn (from Oliver Twist) to connect the blocks vertically and when one of the lengths snapped as I was stitching I decided to leave it in place as an apt accompaniment for the fraying blocks. 

Once again this Endeavourers Challenge has been a really interesting and thought provoking project to work on. Each step of the process makes me question and ultimately justify my choices of technique and materials to best represent my chosen theme. Needless to say there are always things that I might do differently were I to repeat the project. Unusually though, this Lost Connections quilt is pretty close to the idea I had in my head at the start of the process so I can't ask for better than that! 

As always my thanks go to Catherine and Janine for hosting the Endeavourers Group and organising these challenges so well. Head on over to the Endeavourers blog to find out how my fellow Endeavourers responded to this theme.

 

Tucked Away Treehouse

Today is the day for the next reveal in the Endeavourers Quilt group, this quarter the theme was Improv. I must confess that my heart sank when I read the post announcing the theme. I have made Improv blocks in the past for Bee mates but I cannot honestly say that I enjoyed the process.

As usual I dithered over how to approach this challenge for (too many!) weeks and finally decided that I would take a slightly different approach to the theme from the Improv blocks that I had attempted before. Rather than stitching up wonky blocks for a wonky quilt I decided that I would try a new technique and then switch it up and see where it went.

Here is what I ended up with - I am calling it Tucked Away.

The piece, which is comprised of three 6" Chenille blocks, was inspired by this tree seen on a recent woodland walk.

Each block consists of 6 x 6.5" squares of fabric layered on top of each other and then stitched together with random lines of stitching.

 In the first block that I made, which I blogged about here, I stitched the wavy lines a bit too close together as the Chenille cutter wouldn't fit through so I had to resort to scissors in places.

So on the next attempt I left a larger gap between the stitched lines and had no trouble fitting the Chenille cutter in between them. I also switched up the order that the fabrics were used in between the blocks.

For the third block I opted to give the circular Chenille blade a go and so drew out a rough spiral to stitch around. I ended up ignoring the drawn outline though, as I had the block in the machine the wrong way round for the drawing so just had to wing it!

The blade guard on the circular cutter is much shorter than the regular cutter so it went round between the spiral lines without any problems.

Once the blocks were washed they looked like this.

In regular patchwork loose and frayed ends are not a good thing but in this type of quilting they are a positive bonus, it is quite a freeing mindset!

Now for the fun part, embellishing the blocks

with beads, you can just see them peeping out between the frayed edges in the bottom right and middle top,

with stuffed silk Suffolk puffs

and with a padded felt door and machine wrapped creeper cords!

Here is my Tucked Away Treehouse in its' natural setting :)

I am not 100% sure that this hanging fits the Improv theme but I really enjoyed making it and there was a fair bit of improvisation involved in creating the end result so, hopefully, it will pass muster!

Head on over to the Endeavourers blog to read more about the improvised aspects of this piece and find out how my fellow Endeavourers have risen to the Improv challenge.

Stitching and slashing

Welcome to September's New to Me link party, your chance to share your experiences good or bad when trying something for the first time this month.

This month I attended my first ever Quilt Retreat and took part in my first (and maybe only!) Drum Workshop!

I have also been trying out a New to Me tool.

 A Slash Cutter, as I have been having a go at some Chenille squares.

Some of my stitching on this square was so close together that the cutter wouldn't fit through so I had to resort to using scissors, but I am really pleased with the effect that was achieved, so will definitely be having another go.

By the time you read this I will have chalked up another New to Me, a New to Me city - San Sebastian in Northern Spain. I am really looking forward to visiting such an amazing region.

So, that's my New to Me's for September now it is your turn to link up and share the trials and tribulations of trying out something or somewhere for the first time. We keep it real here so whether it works out or not we want to read about it :)

As ever the Link Party will remain open until the end of the month so if you have been procrastinating over trying that new technique, consider this a nudge to jump off that fence and give it a go!

An InLinkz Link-up