More Journal Quilts

My intentions of posting once a fortnight have already gone slightly awry as I've just realised I am two days late! To make amends, here are another four Journal Quilts, for May to August (I know I have missed April, but I feel it needs more stitching and will show it later).

I started these with a session of monoprinting on green, blue and white fabric using acrylic paints. I rolled the paint onto a piece of glass (one of those kitchen worktop savers from the supermarket), drew shapes into it based on the photo and then placed fabric on top to pick up the design. From the results I picked out a few pieces that I particularly liked which formed the basis of the May and June JQs.

May: I started with the white piece with the clear gondola shapes, then tried different combinations until I found a set of four pieces that went well together. These were stitched together then layered with wadding and a backing before machine quilting to emphasise various shapes.



June: Similar approach to May, I started with the white piece with the green lines, but this time added appliqué gondolas. Details are again added with machine quilting.

July: I had the idea of using positive and negative versions of some of the spirals and cross shapes. After cutting out several pieces I arranged them on a backing piece and tried laminating them with cellulose paste (I had some left over from Summer School), but ended up peeling off most of the pieces and rearranging them. Some of the quilting echoes and some crosses over the underlying shapes. Note the daring addition of orange to my blue/green colour scheme!

August: Walking the Offa's Dyke path took up nearly three weeks of August, so this was done with the 31 August deadline fast approaching. I tried cutting up two pieces of white fabric that I'd printed earlier and rearranging them, drawing on the shapes in the photo. The reflections were made with a sheer fabric cut back to the stitching line and the rest of the stitching was then done from the back using a thick thread in the bobbin.

I was pleased with the effect I achieved with this last one, which looks more like a reflection.