My good friend Hilary over at living to work had posted over the weekend about her struggle to photograph her submission, I thought 'oh yes, I have trouble too and my trusted technical photo guru is not in the country…..what will I do myself!?'
Then I remembered our new addition to the garden and it's rather useful door facing into the garden and light. So inspired by Hilary's Heath Robinson set up I got to work…..
Nothing as glamorous as a damask tablecloth, the only light thing I could fine was an Ikea cream fitted sheet complete with elastic around the corners. Some garden string, a short garden stick and some pegs held the thing up well and a stick stopped the door from closing with the weight of the contraption.
But surprisingly it worked a treat! the colours just popped and needed no enhancing, so hurray for sheds and pegs and elasticated sheets, I shall have to remember that trick for the future. Of course many of the quilts I make would not fit on the shed door, so I'll have to find a bigger shed.
I enjoyed working round the negative shapes of the letters and the printing I had done.
Community Learning MK
And then there was this creation finished for the 20th of June. I was kind of working undercover, literally it is 2m wide and I could not move once sat at the machine. But the renaming of Adult Education in Milton Keynes was not public at the time and the quilt was there for the celebration.
Working with two colleagues - Jane who did the batik very neatly thank you and Vicky who designed the leaf printing and worked on the letters - thank you too!
I took charge of the dyeing and construction of the tree, but it was loosely based upon the new logo for the new organisation.
Here are various Milton Keynes dignitaries with the cake on the day, you can just see the tree on the icing.
The panels were arranged roughly in the right place and worked with the appliqué and patches of images. I then had to accurately place the tree trunk over the panels so that everything fitted in the gaps. The batik images represent the subject taught at CLMK, some are a bit obscure….we put many of them down to healthy eating with family learning!
I stitched further leaves into the machine embroidery and padded the trunk trapunto style, which worked well.
The quilt will hang in the reception of Community Learning MK, in West Bletchely.
