27/04/2013: Almost May already! This year is going so fast!
02/04/2013: Happy Easter. I hope everyone had a fantastic weekend.
01/01/2013: Happy New Year!!
24/12/2012: Merry Christmas!!
13/11/2012: Getting hand-made presents ready for Christmas!!

Saturday, August 7, 2010

Cogs and Gears

Steampunk Quilt Teaser
Gears in Progress

This is a little bit of a teaser and reinvention of what I'm doing at the moment. I realised recently while reading all the usual blogs I visit that so many things we make are a recreation of the same straight lines and defined patterns. I'm throwing all that out the window!!

What this means is that the raid your stash quilt-a-long is probably dead and buried for a while. I have no desire to work on complex straight line piecing at the moment. I want curves, dynamic ideas, pictures, a story... perhaps this is Leah Day's fault with her phenominal quilts and inspiring free-motion quilting, but I also think I am finally on track to what attracted me to quilting in the first place.

This week I've been working on using my cog or gear design which I showed you how to make by folding paper. This is the first of a series of designs that are rattling around in my head and I plan on turning them all into printable patterns for you too!

I'm not sure whether this counts as reverse applique or not, but I have been reading through Applique in Reverse by Teri Henderson Tope and there is so much potential from this technique.

Yesterday I discovered a problem... I'd been using a black polyester thread to do my applique and while pressing under a hot iron it melted! Of course I should have known better... and I have just finished re-sewing my edges with a 100% cotton thread. It is extremely important to use a 100% cotton or silk thread which won't melt when you iron!!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love this! Please show more!

Metanoia said...

I'll definately show more soon. I'm half way through my planned blocks and trying to do one a week to get this done as quick as I can :) I'm loving how it is all looking so far