Revisiting my Journal Quilt Project - the final Journal Quilt

Here's the last of the year of journal quilts - number 52. I did a very simple JQ this week, representing both the end of this project - my 40th birthday - and the beginning - my dad's shirts, which was what I used for the very first JQ I did. In this instance, I used a piece with the pocket still intact, and I intend to cut some bits from the cards I receive, to keep in the pocket. I enjoyed this project, but I was glad to have it finished!  Hard to believe that 10 years ago, I had time to sew nearly every day - what a luxury. Now the kids are growing up and I'm working full time again - I'm lucky to get time to do anything on the weekend, let alone in the week...And my big birthday looming isn't 40 but another one!

Revisiting my Journal Quilt Project, week 51

This week's journal quilt was obviously inspired by fireworks and Bonfire night. I think by this stage in the year, I was getting a little tired of the project and looking forward to it ending - one more week of the review to go!

Revisiting my Journal Quilt Project, week 50

This journal quilt his has a very straightforward Hallowe'en theme, and includes a few scraps of fabric from another project I had been working on during that week.

Revisiting my Journal Quilt Project, week 49

Here's another one of my favourite things - a dual purpose piece. This little journal quilt not only serves as a journal quilt (last week's) but also as a piece for the Challenge Quilts group, where the current theme is "Imagine". I realise the major word on the piece is "hope", but "imagine" is also up there, in the corner. And the quilt was inspired by the word imagine - I often think of imagination as a web - words and images weaving together in the mind, so the webs seemed natural. Not to mention, it's kind of that time of year. So the piece is done in autumnal, slightly Hallowe'eny colours with spider webs stitched in each square and some inspirational words and faces.

Revisiting my Journal Quilt Project, week 48

 

With this journal quilt, I wasn't really inspired until this lovely drawing which Olivia did for me years ago fell off the pinboard again - I decided to turn it into a journal quilt as it does fall off the pinboard on a fairly regular basis. Now I'll have it forever as a journal quilt. I love the way the leaves are all on the same side of the stems!

Revisiting my Journal Quilt Project, week 47

This week's journal quilt was made from a leftover page for a book that I made for a friend's 40th birthday. The pages for that were from an online course I did on fabric book pages, I think.  To have a look at the whole book, check out this post.

Revisiting my Journal Quilt Project, week 46

My journal quilt for this week, also fit the criteria for a challenge I was doing on Textile Arts - the challenge being to use a variety of recycled materials, which I have done - except for the thread and the vilene (stabiliser) it's all recycled. When I backed it, which I hadn't done yet in this photo, I also used some sort of recycled/reused paper. I started with a piece of linen from an old dress, and added some net with beading on it, which was actually a shirt I got in the sale rack of a charity shop for £1. I then added some stitching, and a variety of motifs - the gold circle is the wrapper from a chocolate coin, the blue heart is made from dryer lint, the rose is cut from an old postcard, the cream coloured paper strips are from one of the paint strips from a colour we have decided NOT to paint the hallway, the metal shape is from a belt purchased at a car boot sale for 50p (I got about 8 of them off the belt), the metal building is from an old mobile my parents used to have and finally, the blue lines are made by couching down strips of plastic vegetable netting bags (or, being as it's dark blue, it might have been mini cheeses or something, but you know what I mean).

Revisiting my Journal Quilt Project, week 45

This  journal quilt is  made with a piece of the complex cloth I made a few days before I made the JQ. When my mother and I were working on it (she helped me stamp it) we thought it looked like a seascape, so I went with that - added some seaweed and some fish.

Revisiting my Journal Quilt Project, week 44

Not much to say about this one - it was just a piece of fabric I screenprinted, which I had leftover, so I turned it into a Journal Quilt.

Revisiting my Journal Quilt Project, week 43

This week was another instance where my journal quilt was inspired by another swap I was taking part in - this one called Shades of Sunshine, and it was for four little quilties, which you can see below. Apparently I made a bookmark as well.




I didn't really say much about them at the time, but you get the general idea.

Revisiting my Journal Quilt Project, week 42

Back in the day, when I didn't work and had a lot of time for making art (when not inundated with small children), I used to experiment with more techniques and materials. This week's journal quilt was made using neocolour crayons - they can be used in lots of ways, but I decided to monoprint with mine.  I used the technique on some postcards for a swap, and then on the journal quilt as well. Because it's interesting, I think I'll share the method as well...

Here's a photo of the glass plate with the crayon on - I think you could probably draw your design with the crayons dry and then mist it with a spray bottle, but I've not done it that way - I just dipped the tip of the crayon in water and coloured as I went along. The secret is to make the plate pretty wet before you try to transfer the colours - if it's at all dry, they just stay on the plate and don't move to the fabric.

Because it's a monoprint and only works once by definition, I made all of mine fairly different, but I didn't bother to take photos of them all in construction.

Once the design was on the plate, I placed the fabric over and smoothed it out to come into contact with the glass (left below). Right below shows the fabric after the print has been made.

 

After printing, I added free motion stitching to emphasize the shapes and then a few embellishments - I think they work fairly well. The journal quilt was printed twice - not from the same print, but I did colour them similarly. It's not a technique I'd want to use on a huge area as it's a bit time consuming, but it works nicely for postcards.

Revisiting my Journal Quilt Project, week 41

 This week (ten years ago) I made an arch, for an arch swap, with a jellyfish theme, and then carried that theme over into my journal quilt. I'm sure I've done some fabric postcards in a similar vein as well - well, if you have a good idea, might as well make the most of it!

Revisiting my Journal Quilt Project, week 40

Apparently, when I originally was doing my Journal Quilt Project, I missed this week out - not sure why; perhaps we were on holiday. Anyway, what I did afterwards was simply print out a composite of photos from this summer onto fabric and quilt some words around the edges - Summer 2008, tennis, picnics, museums, days out, sleepovers, gardens, farms, friends, parties, bikes, cinemas, zoo, castles, shopping, fun. Makes me feel better to have that week covered, and although a lot of those events weren't from that actual week, it's representative of our summer!

Revisiting my Journal Quilt Project, week 39

Sometimes, looking back on a Journal Quilt, it's nice to see what else was going on in my sewing/creative life during a given week, as it often informs what the Journal quilt was like. This is one of those weeks, so I thought I'd show what inspired the journal quilt.  Apparently, there was a swap for little houses, which I made this week, hence the housey nature of the journal.

Here are the houses, and what I said about the at the time:



"Today, I worked on (and finished, hoorah!) the little row houses for the swap on Lenna's Creative Swaps site - I have photographed each of the little houses individually as well as in this group;  if you want to see them in more detail they are over here on flickr. They are all fairly small - can't remember the precise dimensions of all of them, but they range from about 1.5" to 3.5" wide and 2-5" tall.  I like all of them, but I think my favourites are the butterfly (top row centre), the door (bottom row, 2nd from left) and the rust coloured one (bottom row, second from right)."

Revisiting my Journal Quilt Project, week 38

This Journal Quilt block was made from a rejected block from another project - hence the colour choice, which is not something I'd normally go for myself.  I had made a multi-point star block for someone and didn't like it, so made a different one, then added to it to make the Journal Quilt. Serendipity, I guess.

Revisiting my Journal Quilt Project, week 37

For this week's journal quilt, I wanted try out making a landscape out of fabric - I wanted to use the technique on some fabric postcards, so I tried it out on a Journal Quilt piece first. I used batiks. It came out ok.

Revisiting my Journal Quilt Project, week 36

This week's journal quilt is a bit odd, as I was playing with folding fabric in various ways - some more successful than others. The fabric used was just pink and brown scraps I had to hand.

Revisiting my Journal Quilt Project, week 35

This week, my journal quilt bore no real relation to my week, it was just something created during the time period.  The background is a paper napkin from a pack I bought in Sainsbury's (but they are much too nice to be used as napkins), I then quilted it a bit, added a few feathers, and a load of sequins. Simple, but effective...

Revisiting my Journal Quilt Project, week 34

 

I had a bit of an African themed week the week I made this - was playing around with blocks from my African swap with Karol Ann, and making a couple of African fabric blocks, so I decided to do the journal quilt in African prints - an African snails trail. Not quite enough contrast in the block, I think. But it's ok.

Revisiting my Journal Quilt Project, week 33

Apparently I was making some New York Beauty blocks for something (can't imagine what I was thinking) this time, ten years ago. This one was rejected from whatever - not sure why, though I'd guess lack of contrast in the middle section, so it was used for a journal quilt, with some quilting in blue rayon thread.