Monday, August 11, 2008

European Quilt design

Now you have seen the fabric - here is the plan.

In Haarlem we went to visit the Corrie Ten Boom House. Corrie was one of the righteous gentiles from World War Two - the site has the story if you don't know it, of how she hid Jews and resistance workers behind a false wall in her bedroom but got caught and ended up in Ravensbruck concentration camp. In the drawing room was a table runner embroidered by Corrie herself. We were not allowed to photo in there but I took a quick scribbled 'reminder' sketch and stuck it in my journal later.

Later, on this sofa on our moored houseboat, I played around with the design figuring out what I could do with the amount of fabric I had and came up with this design.

Deciding a souvenir should be made as near the holiday as possible I took the fabric to Morceau on Saturday for class and just got on with things. This is the stage it is at so far. It is not exactly innovative but somehow it didn't want to be - it wanted to fit in with the house!

Little leaves might well get fused on tonight ,although the stitching will have to await purchase of a suitable thread at Festival of Quilts on Thursday (Friday Saturday and Sunday -I can't wait!!) . I'll keep posting as the quilt progresses.

Corries most famous book was called The Hiding Place and I am trying to work out how I can make a hiding place in the quilt itself as a tribute to her bravery,

By the way, it is possible, but by no means certain that I will be acquiring an embellisher machine (best known as a faffing machine) sometime soon. Does anyone have any comments that might help me - as in do I need one at all or are they just a fad? If so what brand? What cool stuff have you done on yours? - you know the stuff.

3 comments:

Gerrie said...

I am not keen on embellishers so I won't comment on that. But, I love the colors of your quilt - really beautiful. The design is wonderful, too. I just got a bunch of new thread and hand-dyed perle cotton at the APNQ show. I love new thread that inspires me.

Laura Jane said...

MMMmmmm punchy quilt. I like. The leaves will be delicious on it too.

How about making a quillow from it? Then it could have a secret hiding place within itself.

Embellishers, hmm. I have only just seen one a few weeks ago. Unless one were doing HEAPS of fibre-arts projects involving felting and the like I'm not sure I'd bother, but then again until 10 days ago I had never felted anything so maybe I'm not the best to ask.

I have just attended a workshop by Sarah Lawrence of craftynotions.com to make her Wild Women brooches, and have made 3 in the last 3 days. See my blog for details (among the midwifery posts - sorry Helen I know you're squeamish) The brooches are on a hand needle felted base that I have enjoyed creating, even though they are then frequently covered by other bits. www.lovingthequestion.blogspot.com

Anonymous said...

Hi
I purchased an embellisher machine a few months ago - bought the Pfaff 350P.
The main problem with the Pfaff machine is the needles - they are fairly expensive, very fragile and snap very easily.
One of my friends has the Babylock model and she didnt have any problems with needles breaking like mine.
I solved the problem though - just use the Babylock needles in the Pfaff embellisher.

Other than that minor problem the embellisher machines are great fun to use!

Have you read Sara Lechner's blog "the Fabric of Meditation" - she makes beautiful items using an embellisher.