2015 Journal Quilts

Finally after several years of talking and thinking about it, I finally got round to doing them!!

That is the Journal Quilts set by the Quilters Guild of the British Isles. The size is different each year but the theme is up to yourself, which suits me. Only thing I had to decide on war the orientation and as you can see I chose portrait.

Flowers are my theme. I picked a different one for each month and wanted to represent them as a female figure. I also wanted to have the backgrounds continuing from one to the next.

To start with I drew up the finished size on paper and pencils in a background throughout the four panels. Oh yeah decided to work on four at a time as the first deadline to post online was april!! Next the background fabrics were fused in place, fabrics are all hand dyed scraps. Next the ladies were fused, the fabrics used being photo transfers and hand dyed cotton for the head and bodies. Finally the individual flowers were fused in place.

And then the quilting began. I started with the backgrounds, putting separate patterns within  the different sections and outlined the figures with black, then finally the hair and faces were stitched, all by machine. That was the first four completed, once the edges were sealed with satin stitch.

This is a view of the backs showing the quilting.

And the four together

This is the January quilt "Snowdrop" one of my favourites, so fragile and delicate yet strong enough to survive the harsh weather. Simple and beautiful.

February is "Crocus" a sign that Spring is on the way!

March is "Daffodil", spring is here and there is a roundabout bursting with them on my route home from work everyday, always makes me smile.

Finally April is "Tulip", don't have much success growing them but absolutely love the colour variations available, from delicate pastels to rich violets and purples.

The next four May to August

With this next set of four I wanted to make the figures a little more abstract and so used print fabric and stylised hair.

May's flower is "Bluebell", these always seemed magical to me as a child, the beautiful bell shape, may the fairy realm seem real!

June is "Daisy" my absolute favourite flower. So simple and beautiful and no matter what the time of year I can always find one. 

July is "Lupil" a flower that always seems old fashioned or of another time. I love the richness and variety of colours available. Bugs attacked and destroyed mine the last two seasons but the frost got the bugs this year and the flowers are recovering, even gave one babies to a friend!

August is "Sweet William" a flower that reminds me of my Granny.

That's all that are made to date. Four more to go. September to December and have the flowers chosen and the background penciled in but won't get back to them fro a couple of weeks but will have them all completed by the end of September.

I'm trying to came up with some sort of book of way that I can connect them when completed to make a work of display book, ideas still developing and looking forward to work on that one. I want a special way of storing them.