EDITING AND MAKING A FEW SMALL ITEMS

Last Thursday was our first photography day for the quilts that will be displayed at Quilts Kingston 2018 in June.  DH and I set up 2 quilt stands in the sanctuary of St John's Portsmouth Anglican Church, one with a black backdrop fabric, and one to hang quilts.  We had a steady procession of quilters arriving with their quilts.  The Kingston Heiroom Quilters Guild was having a day-time meeting, and pot luck lunch in the church hall, so many of their members brought their quilts along, but as usual, there are many sewing madly to get things completed in time for the show!

I've spent most of the weekend, editing the 150 or so pictures that were taken, to show each quilt to its best advantage.  I also received the files with the quilt "artist statements" that will be displayed on, or next to each quilt in the show.  These all had to be re-formatted so that they could be loaded onto the CD. 

I was feeling stitching deprived, so I pulled out a bag with some cotton cord, wrapped with selvedge edges, and stitched a couple of baskets - I didn't want my machine to feel neglected!

This small basket was made with mostly black and gray fabric selvedges.  I added some buttons to hide the end of the join.  It is 8 inches across, and 4 inches high.

 I used a heavy "jeans" thread in the bobbin, to add a colourful surprise to the outside.

The second basket was made from blues to white selvedge edges.  I like taking advantage of the colour along a white edge to create stripes.  This basket also has a selvedge that had a fuzzy thread edge, making the final edge of the basket more interesting.

I decided to roll the top edge of this basket.  This one also finished at 8 inches across, but is only 3 inches tall.  I used Superior Twist thread, in a light turquoise colour in both the bobbin and needle.

 This basket is 9 1/2 inches across, and 4 1/2 inches tall.  Most of the selvedges used in this basket, came from a quilt that I made for my son and daughter-in-law.

When I was nearing the end of the stitching, I stopped and made a small disc from the remaining wrapped cord.  Then I returned and stitched the final row, reinforcing the stitching where the curl began.  It makes a neat finish (just visible on the picture above).

I don't keep track of how much fabric goes into these, as the selvedges would have ended up in the trash.  I sit and wrap the cords while watching TV with DH in the evenings, and then it only takes a few minutes to stitch each basket.