Happy New Years Day All.
How I enjoyed typing 2020 just now. I’m so so sure it’s going to be a great year for most people it has such a great ring to it.
Yesterday while cleaning in dark places I don’t usually look!!! I pulled out a box and after dusting of a pile of dust found memories from the sewing past?! So my first post is about when I started quilting ? And where I was at back then 26 years ago?
I was living in Papua New Guinea behind barb-wire with a lot of time on my hands after work 3 jobs and then not able to do any work or even do volunteering work? So I joined a sewing quilting group! This turned my life around for the next 25 years till now LOL. I’d been doing candle-wicking for several years and so started to teach others in PNG. Above is some of my sample pieces I used?
These 4 blocks were how I taught but gave them a pre pack to start with using silks for the back ground!
These were the packs I made up so they had a choice of colours. I must finish the yellow silk one! LOL
Teaching them to free hand draw a simple design from the centre flower and learn to make new shapes!
These were tiny broaches I taught back then 25 years ago using brass rings and a 1/2 circle of felt .
- Green piece ended up a small bag for sewing bits and pieces, it was just so they could have a choice of what to make?
A great wee bag to carry with bits and piece to sew while out waiting or just driving some where?
Working an O in colonial knots and French knots!
You could keep on adding knots to make the O wider but for me this is enough?
Close up of those knots? It’s not difficult i5 just takes lots of time?
Then one meeting I asked if some one would show me how they made those lovely wee fabric flowers??? Some were made of fabric hearts some with something like petals to me back then LOL.
My petal flowers from 25 years ago!!! I still like making them but use washaway freezer paper now not cardboard as you see here, but still small flowers?
Then some one showed me how to make easy Drunkards path blocks with a circle and a square background?! and I had fun with those? But my love kept going back to applqiue work? How to make a perfect heart for appliquéing on to a top or a dress?
Cut out your hearts in a perfect shape of your liking. After cutting out your heart shape stitch around the edge leaving only around a little more than 1/8th
Backside of the hearts. Slit a hole in the back area of the heart and turn the heart inside out, work the edges in a rolling fashion to get the seam to lye flat and press. Add some wadding through the back slit if you want a puffy look to your heart .
Then I decided to teach my self to make clam shells!!! Yes they were only 2inchs across and down?
Yes I made these tiny tiny double sided shells and even added padding to them till some one one showed me a very simple and fast way to make clam shells LLLOL.
So I then made the below?! my first challenge with several other quilters which was called From The Rainforest To The Reef. We could only use a piece of fabric once, and had to use the same shape through out? so there was a lot of swapping of fabrics LOL My stash then would not even have filled a small draw so i started cutting up clothes!!!!! There were no fabric shops in PNG> I ended up attaching my shell shapes to a black satin fabric and called it the “Unfinished Symphony” and added circles around the edge as I did not know how to finish the raw edges on the clamshells!!!!! I sure jumped in the deep end back then?
Where ever you are enjoying New Year’s Day or just waking up to it over the next 7 or 8 hrs. I wish you a great 2020 year. CHeers Glenda
Happy New Year Glenda and I hope you have no health problems this year and will be completely back to normal! All your work is so pretty as always
Good day and Happy New Year to you, Glenda!!! I am in the United States (Oregon) and it is almost 9:00 a.m. Jan 1st and I was sitting here with my cup of coffee reading your first post of the year. My goodness, you have had a colorful life! All of those beautiful hand made little, wee pieces….. no wonder you do such beautiful work with your sewing and applique! Here’s to a super great new year, good health and lots of sewing!!
Unfinished symphony is lovely! How much fun to find a box and go back 25 years ago. Have a great 2020!
Wow — what treasures you’ve unearthed! Your candlewicking is absolutely gorgeous, and feels so fresh and current all these years later. That one floral design, white on white, especially reminds me of a modern quilting motif. Very interesting to see the origins of this creative journey of yours!
Dear Glenda,
First quilts, we were fearless, rules, we did not even follow those. We did create unique original designs and we can even appreciate that after all these years. Happy New Year to you. It is definitely a year with a start to work on things hiding in boxes and Rubbermaid tubs in the sewing room. December saw me open one Pandora’s box and prepping what was inside ready for the January to work on. Candlewicking brings back memories and in one of those boxes is a quilt started, some French knots done in colourful embroidery, it takes hours to do, yet the end result looks so beautiful.