Chatsworth Quilt by Fergus...

Hello there!

I hope you have all had a good weekend.  Hasn't the weather been glorious?   I hope it has been where you are and that you haven't been frazzled by the sun.

Now as you may know, I have been involved recently in my Quilting Group's Quilt Exhibition and I promised I would share some pics of my quilts with you all.  So here is no. 1 done by our very own Fergus...

He is so proud of this, I can tell you!  The Cow's head is taken from a photograph of a tomb at Chatsworth in Derbyshire.  I blew up the picture and converted it to black and white to get the shading and transferred it to paper, from which I made a stencil of the design with freezer paper.  The stencil was then cut up into the individual sections e.g. ears, three pieces for the horns etc, and then I attached the whole stencil to the fabric with only one section removed.  This section was then painted using Markal sticks.  Something I had never tried before and had to learn "on the job" using some instructions kindly sent to me by one of the Quilting group.  

Once applied I then left it 24 hours and reattached the piece of stencil back on the fabric and started another section.  Note, this is not a quick method of designing a quilt!

Once I was happy with all the shading I then removed all the stencil and then set about machine embroidering the quilt front.  After I had carried out some embroidery on the front I then I could let Fergus set about quilting it.  He had difficulty with the painting as Fergus could not paint the front without stepping in sections he had already painted!

See!  I told you Fergus quilted it, with me helping him manage the sewing machine as he could not reach the pedal!

Once all that was done we worked on binding the whole quilt with two colours, a new technique to both of us which we learnt whilst at the AGM in Portsmouth earlier this year.

And here is the Boy looking so proud of his new quilt...

Before I go, I wanted to share a photo which I took the other evening.  I have seen this owl fly over the patio several times recently but on this occasion I looked out to find him sitting on the bird table which is only a few feet from the bay window!  He sat there for some time whilst I watched, took photos and even ran to get my camera, as opposed to using my phone.  He knew I was watching as he turned his head several times.  Once he realised I was just gawking at him, as opposed to photographing him, he looked at me one more time and flew off into the night.  A beautiful bird and I felt very honoured that he sat there fore me.

Rightio then.  Time to sign off as I have work tomorrow and need to get some sleep!  Just to say thank you all for popping over.  I am entering this quilt into the Snippets Playground as the darker of the two binding fabrics is a Snippet and the back of the quilt was made using a fat quarter I won at a Raffle at Quilting.  Besides which Fergus is a mate of Parsnip so he can sneak in the back gate!

I am likewise entering it into my Mate's NBUS Challenge as the fabrics were new and also it the painting is a Never Before Used Skill!  Tee Hee! 

Have a great week y'all!

Hettie and Fergus!