The Accidental Embroiderer

Fragments of Summer - the quilt version

I’ve missed a week’s posting because we’ve been in Edinburgh for several days, enjoying some of the brilliant events that the city has to offer – theatre, exhibitions and a lot more. So, as I haven’t done much design work recently, here’s a project that Cherri Kincaid and I worked out some time ago

It’s based on a painting by my mother, called “Fragments of Summer”. Cherri thought it could be translated into a beautiful quilt, and asked me to digitise the squares.

The original painting of Fragments of Summer

 

This was a quick and uncomplicated job, and Cherri then assembled the squares into a quilt that was slightly different from the original in arrangement and colours, but still had the same delicate, evanescent charm

Cherri's quilt version

I think it works beautifully both as a painting and as quilted art

The Fantasy Forest

Some time ago Cherri asked me to draw and digitise a series of owls for a quilt idea she’d had. I had my doubts about being able to do nine different owls but they turned out to be a lot of fun to do and in the end I was very pleased with the results. Then she asked for some trees to go with them, and here’s the result – her beautiful Fantasy Forest quilt with her distinctive feeling for colour

 

The Fantasy Forest quilt

...and back again with Cherri's turtle and fish quilt

I’m still recovering a bit from the events of last week. The dealer rang to tell me that he was returning my repaired Innovis machine, but when it arrived it seemed to be in a different box from the one I'd sent it in. No problem, I thought – he’s just re-packed it. But when I opened the immense box I found, not my old Innovis 4000, but a new Innovis-I. Within minutes I was on the phone to the dealer to complain, but he assured me that it was the right machine. Eventually I figured out that my totally fantastic husband had arranged for the Innovis-I to be sent to me as a birthday surprise. Well, it certainly was that!

 The magnificent new machine

 

Anyway, although I haven’t been able to do any stitching for several weeks, Cherri has been busy and has produced one of her most successful quilts. She put it together from some old designs of fish and turtles that I did a long time ago, and although the wonderful colours give it terrific vitality and energy, the patterns and colours remain subtle and intriguing

 

Cherri's turtle and fish quilt

 

Cherri’s quail quilt

Several weeks ago I posted some designs for a couple of little appliquéd quail that I did to Cherri’s specifications, and she’s now assembled these into a quilt. She told me that she had liked a design on the website of Connecting Threads but that the birds weren’t to her taste, hence the request for the quails. (see the connecting threads website at  http://www.connectingthreads.com/Quilting.cfm)

The original quilt design from Connecting Threads

 

Cherri used a similar simple layout of horizontal panels for her quilt, but she adapted some designs from Chantell’s Creations (http://www.chantells-creations.com/index.htm) which (she says) makes the quilting process much easier.

 

Cherri's quilt

 

The layout and the colours of the two quilts are similar, but personally I find Cherri's interpretation much more interesting

Appliqueed quail for a quilt

I couldn’t resist putting these up. Cherri asked me for some birds to put on a quilt and I couldn’t come up with anything very original, so she suggested trying some quail and this is the result, stitched by Cherri in warm browns and yellows. I think the idea is to place them in a line with the large bird in front, followed by a line of the small ones. Quail are very appealing birds so it would be difficult to make them unattractive, but I do like them and am looking forward to seeing the final quilt

 

Preliminary stitch-outs of quail to put on an embroidered quilt

Talking of Cherri, I should have mentioned last week that the Audubon bellpull on the blog was done to an idea and a sketch of Cherri’s – also that the final stitchout was by her. My apologies for the oversight

 

 

Cherri's quilts part 2

Work here has pretty much come to a standstill, because my machine has been suffering from a major thread jam for some weeks, and it's not been possible to take it in to the dealer in Edinburgh. So in the absence of any new projects, here's another of Cherri Kincaid's beautiful quilts from last year. She made it for the 2010 Hoffman Challenge, and it's based on a design by quilt designer Amelie Scott. As I've mentioned before, to enter the Hoffman Challenge you must construct a quilt that includes the fabric they've chosen for that year's challenge. In 2010 the fabric was a blue green print, which was pleasant enough but not particularly strong. To liven it up a bit I digitised extensions of the main pattern which emphasized scrolls, curves and more dramatic elements.

The Hoffman Challenge fabric with embroidered embellishments

 

Cherri incorporated these embellished fabric squares into the quilt design and overstitched them with designs of birds and flowers she'd found somewhere in my back catalogue, and which echoed the shapes and colours of the quilt pieces. The result is original, exciting, intricate and very attention-grabbing

 Cherri's finished Hoffman Challenge quilt

Cherri's quilts, part 1

Continuing with some of my older designs and projects that were done some time ago, here’s a quilt that Cherri Kincaid made for the Hoffman Challenge of 2005. If you’re not familiar with the Hoffman Challenge, it’s a yearly competition in which designers are asked to make a quilt using a specific Hoffman fabric. (http://www.hoffmanchallenge.com/) In this case Cherri made use of some of my old designs based on the ceramic designs of Clarice Cliff, and the exuberant Hoffman print combined beautifully with the 1930’s style of the embroideries. The colours of the fabrics and the designs combine to give a retro feel to the quilt, which at the same time has a very modern energy

 
 Cherri's quilt combines a Hoffmann Challenge fabric with Clarice Cliff inspired embroideries