This is my wall quilt called "Sleepless Doodle". It measures 27" x 34".
Sometimes my head is so full of stuff that's happened during the day I just can't unwind and get to sleep. Usually it's annoying and I'm thinking about conversations I've had, and things I should have said or done, but occasionally it's actually a good thing because I'm excited about artwork I've seen and I'm feeling inspired. After reading Di Wells's blog one evening I felt I had to do some sketching (doodling). I always keep pen and paper handy by the bed - usually for writing lists etc. I really liked one of the collages that Di had done and put on this blog post. Lots of the shapes and marks appealed to me and helped me to begin drawing.
Come the morning I had a look at what I'd drawn and liked almost all of it except for a mess in the middle. A bit of tracing and altering and I was happy with the result so I scanned my little drawing and enlarged it to fit on some A4 sheets which I printed out and sellotaped together.
After that it was pretty simple to do the applique - most by machine and some by hand. I had traced and cut out the shapes in freezer paper then ironed them onto the various fabrics. I either cut around the edge of the freezer paper to get the exact shape and sewed this on with a machine blanket stitch, or cut around leaving a small hem for needle-turned hand applique. I did change a few things as I went but not a lot.
The lattice lines in the two corners are embroidery thread machine stitched in place with zigzag. The green thread is sewn down with a similar stitch, but it has a solid line of stitching along each side. I really ought to explore all the stiches on my machine more!
With all the fabrics in place I did a little hand embroidery,
hand quilting and machine quilting.
This hangs on the wall in my sitting room and I've made it so that it can hang any way up with half square triangles on each back corner.
It's certainly not like anything I've sewn before - that has to be good! :)
Happy Sewing - Anita
