Using the gifts from Norfolk

I am very behind with making my journal quilts for March and April.  Work has been a bit busy and, I have to confess, I've become a bit obsessed with following the general election on Twitter.  

As I am a Scot, but one who has  lived in London for longer than I lived in Scotland, I am fascinated by what is happening politically in Scotland, and how it is being portrayed in the, supposedly British, media.  Surprisingly to me, Twitter gives a more balanced picture of the reasons why there has been such a surge to the SNP, and the wit and humour of the supporters, in the face of political vitriol, really brighten the day.  It will be very intriguing to see how this carried through on 7th May.

Anyway to the journals.  April uses the rust-dyed cloth.  As this was small strips from a bag of shirt offcuts from Lorraine Pugh, I had to be judicious in deciding which pieces to use.  Too late in the process, I realised that some of the pieces were too imbued with the rust for my machine to be able to stitch through the cloth ( a lesson learned), so I had to re-make this.  The circles are bonded on, and then stitched with raw-edge appliqué.  It does have straight sides, just photographed on a curved bench.  I threw this together at the last moment, as the deadline for submitting journals for the first 4 months of the year is on 30th April.  Inevitably, it is the one I like best of the first four of the year.

March was a response to finally seeing some colour in the garden.  Experimenting with home-made bias binding of different widths, woven at random.  Blooms are raw edge strips of bias binding, folded and stitched, all n a background of tray-dyed cloth.   As I have been travelling for work, I had to revert to some hand-quilting.  I tried again with the plastic thimble from Thimblelady, and although i can feel that this is easier on the hand, I am still not sure that hand-quilting is for me.