Colourful fabric

Picked out this colourful, fun fabric covered with fish, crabs, starfish and jellyfish as my birthday fat quarter from Sunnybank Quilters. Luckily I have the brights in my stash and will probably make something for the Melbourne grandchildren.
 

The solution

Yes Rhonda P, a bit of fabric painting over the quilting to bring out the texture and distinguish the design from the background.

I was happy with the result but then found the transition zone between the trunk and canopy too stark.

Before

After

Lace offcuts I'd kept from a formal dress I made for daughter Rita, many years ago, have been put to good use.

 

 

The tree trunk

I free motion quilted the tree trunk and chose a different pattern from the background quilting, however the overall effect was still bland. The photo above is of the quilting in progress.

But I had a solution and this detail photo is the before. Tomorrow I'll have the after shot. 

Art gallery fun

The Gallery of Modern Art in Brisbane has a room for children's activities and the current Journey to Fantastic Lands is fabulous. The interactive animation is so much fun for young and old alike.

You get to choose your story and there are different outcomes for each decision along the way.

I couldn't resist having a turn.

And how appealing are these fantasy worlds?

Quilting

How do you mark circles for quilting? I assembled a number of plates and bowls, of varying sizes and they worked well. The green soap sliver was my marker. These circles are machine quilted.

I'm using some bridal silk that has been printed with rusty bits I inherited from Bob's Dad's collection. The theme of my quilt is 'recycle' and I'll be combining hand stitching and machining. 

Inspiration

It really is a matter of looking, when out and about, to see inspiration in our surroundings. Here at the Garden City shopping centre you wouldn't think there would be much inspiration apart from the interesting window displays in some shops, but this 'living' wall is wonderful, if a little hard to photograph!

And this cladding on some unopened retail space changed from the detail above to......

the eyes have it! Many more layers added, reminding me of clever artistic design.
 

Work on quilt number 7

As we welcome the final month of the year and for those of us with birthdays in this month- yeah!! finally, I am working on the seventh quilt in the Seduced by the Imperfect series. I printed varying intensities of black and grey leaves and began stitching around the edges to make them 'pop'.

I used black thread for all the outlining.

Straight and zigzag stitches in a lime green followed. It's not as visible as I'd like, but I'll consider further options later as the quilt evolves.