Four in Art- Microscopic Colour

There's nothing like a deadline for getting going on a project! I'm lucky enough to be part of an online group called Four in Art where we challenge ourselves to come up with a quilted something to fit a given theme four times a year. This year's theme is Colour and this quarter it's Microscopic Colour. I found it a pretty inspiring theme and had several ideas which I could have followed up on. Whether they would have worked is another thing, but nice to feel inspired to begin with!

I remembered seeing these brightly coloured images of microscopic algae, but I didn't remember they were called Diatoms. An image web search of "microscopic colour" quickly located and named them for me. Apparently the Victorians had a thing for photographing them and arranging them in patterns, often in circular forms.

Diatoms are widely varying in form, but almost always show bilateral symmetry so I thought I could use patterned features of fabric from my scraps and cut them out and fuse them onto a background.
I have done almost no appliqué and have always shied away from fiddly edges, so wasn't sure how this would go. I decided to raw edge appliqué them, hoping that the stitching would represent the silica cell wall that is a defining feature of diatoms. I think I could have made more of this perhaps with a denser stitch. To be honest I was a bit scared of ruining it. If I'd had more time I could have experimented with that step a bit more.

I decided to do free motion echo quilting around the shapes in black thread. I thought about using monofilament for a bit of shine, but ended up deciding on the plain black.

To finish I used a facing (tutorial here) rather than a binding as I though the binding would provide a too dominant defined edge on such a small piece. It finishes as 12" square.

One slight issue which I hadn't anticipated, is that I used cotton bamboo batting which I had on hand, but it has bearded very slightly. I was trying to remove the dust/lint and on close inspection realised that the quilting process has actually pulled very tiny threads of batting up to the top of the piece. I haven't struck this before, perhaps I'm just noticing this because of the dark background. I'd be interested to know if others have had this issue before and what to do about it?

Can't wait to see how others have been inspired by the theme. You can check them all out here on the Four in Art blog from 6am Monday 1st Feb US EST. Being in NZ I think I have a slight head-start.

Resurrecting Inspiration

I have been playing with these recently.

I only dared to cut an inch or an inch and a half off each...

Not entirely to good effect! 

Gum trees and bark have long inspired me and I had an idea which I fear is doomed (aren't I brave showing you my failures)!

I've worked out what's wrong I think- colours too close and scale of strips is wrong, but I am confident something new will emerge.- so thinking again...

And trying to tell myself that this is how I learn to be creative...

Trouble is... I don't think I'll be able to find it without cutting into that lovely stack a bit more daringly...!

Linking up with Fresh Sewing Day and Small Blog Meet at Lily's Quilts

Blog Tag

Thanks to Carla for tagging me!

A great to chance to get to know some new bloggers. It's been great to find lots of new people via the Bloggers Quilt Festival recently.

Here are the rules:

• every tagged person has to tell 11 things about themselves

• the person who tagged you asked 11 questions, answer them

• ask 11 questions for the 11 blogs you're going to tag (the people you tag should have less than 200 followers)  

• mention the blog that tagged you, but don't tag them back.

11 Things about me:

1. I'm not too good at these things about me! I don't know if others struggle a bit with how to be really be themselves in a public forum?

2. I'm sometimes indecisive- I think?...

3. I'm exactly between E and I on Myers Briggs

4. I lived in England until I was 10

5. I consider myself a NZer

6. This is my second stint living in Australia

7. I love my work as a counsellor- helping people to make sense of their lives and find better ways to live and grow.

8. I used to be a high school English teacher, now I prefer to save my teenage energy for my own 3 teenagers

9. I love the great outdoors-Beautiful wild and desolate places refresh me

 10. I once had to urgently kick a goat out of a toilet on an Indian train in order to make use of the facilities-such as they were! (No time for photos!)

11. I do better with deadlines

I've been asked:

1. My favourite city to visit- Well there are so many the world over that I'd like to explore and so many I've loved, but an easy place for me to get to, and one I do enjoy for a break and to spend time with friends there is Melbourne.

2. My music taste is pretty eclectic! My kids always roll their eyes when I answer these type of questions with "it depends on my mood" -but that could mean Ella Fitzgerald or Chet Baker on a Friday night chill out time through Reggae/Dub like UB40 or Fat Freddy's Drop, Alternative Rock that my son's introducing us to, or the whole spectrum of Classical. When no-one's home I'll often put on Liszt or Chopin

3 My favourite place to link up is hard to say since I'm fairly new to all this, but I do often link to My Creative Space which I enjoy.

4. I think time and money aren't really the issue with stopping my crafting-not that they're limitless in any way-! But in fact being creative isn't ever easy and even if those things were limitless I'm sure I'd somehow find another procrastinatory excuse. I need to make time and choose to spend it (and $) in ways that are significant, because otherwise it's frittered or squandered.

5. Tools/toys/machines- I have no idea what I'd buy-well actually lately since making a triangle quilt, I've thought that a die cutter like Go Cutter or Sissix might be handy!

6. I don't really watch TV- the occasional doco on SBS

7. My best bargain find is the one I'm going to trip over next week!

8. In NZ my favourite season in my hometown down South is winter which is quite cold but generally clear and crisp.

This is from a particularly snowy year

Here in Australia my favourite season's probably early Autumn which is lovely and warm and sunny.

9. I can't say I've ever succeeded with gardening- I never seem to get past the weeding stage and plant my veges too late, but I'm tending tomatoes and courgettes lovingly this year and hoping for the best..! So I don't really like to garden, but I'd like to like to...!

10. I was inspired to start blogging to be a bit accountable (mainly to myself) to being more creatively active. I'd been reading so many inspiring sewing blogs and was starting to feel that I was living vicariously on other people's creativity. I wrote a bit more about why I started blogging here.

Reading back over these answers I see that I haven't really been definitive about any of them, so you see that's something else about me!

My questions for you are:

1. What is one of the best places you've been to?
2. Where would you like to travel to, even if not possible at the moment?
3. What's the best thing you've made?
4. What do your family/friends think about your blogging?
5. What else do you like to do in your spare time other than make stuff?
6. What's the last good book you read?
7. What's on your "to read" list?
8. What's your real job?
9. Would you choose it again? Why or why not?
10. How many places (different towns) have you lived in since you were born?
11. If you weren't living where you are, where would you live?

I'm tagging:

Knotted Cotton
Bespoke Bites
Cynthia
Garden Glut
Fabric Engineer
Blackbird has Spoken
Jegs Pieces
Quilting at Square One
Anne
Julie
Sunshine and Paradise