Stitches through Time

My friend Eileen and I were looking through a photo album and reminiscing about our Silsden Quilt Group that we used to attend when the children were small. Not an organised group - more a collection of friends with a love of sewing and a need to spend an evening away from the family! 


We were looking at the photographs of our only exhibition, Stitches Through Time, which was held at The Dales Countryside Museum, Hawes in the Yorkshire Dales in 2000. 

This was an idea that three of us had to show a history of quilting in Yorkshire and how quiltmaking has changed from a practical necessity to a past time and also how quiltmaking has had a revival in the past twenty years. 

We placed an advert in the Craven Herald requesting the loan of old quilts and we had a great response. We travelled around North Yorkshire collecting up quilts from farms, houses and an antiques dealer. Each quilt was loaned to us on trust so it was a huge responsibility.  and there were some beauties! One quilt from Settle still had the original backing papers attached -  which were the original hand written milk bills dating back to the 1920s.  Another quilt was a fine example of Victorian applique from Long Preston and a crazy patchwork of velvet, silk and embroidery came from Embsay.  We even had some adventures whilst collecting the quilts including, getting lost, entering the smelliest house on earth and being chased by a herd of cows! 

We had a great time setting up the exhibition with a lot of help from Fiona and Debbie at the Countryside Museum with the old quilts were hung from the walls of the gallery and our quilts displayed on the boards.  We had a table to sell small quilts and to demonstrate our sewing skills and Eileen researched the tradition of quilt making in Yorkshire. (There isn't much. Unlike Durham and Wales there isn't a particular style of quilting in Yorkshire - most quilts were made just for practicality rather than heritage). 

Although there were just three of us exhibiting at the museum (Eileen, Jane and myself) we each have a distinctive style and colour palette which made for an exciting and contrasting show. Eileen likes earthy tones, using yellows, russets and blues and her quilts explore and rework the American tradition of machine pieced and hand quilting.

Jane has a fascination for tribal and ethnic designs with a vibrant palette of blues, purples, sea greens and jades. She loves African applique and batik fabrics. 

I was taught American machine piecing from Eileen and my colour schemes are more "in-yer-face". I love Japanese indigo-dyed fabric and clashing colours.

Jane, Eileen and Jo

So here we all are at the preview evening of the exhibition. (This photo was taken 10 years ago!) The exhibition plus the daily 3 hour round trip to Hawes left us exhausted and we haven't repeated the  experience.  But we had a fantastic time - quiting, talking to people about quilting and selling our smaller quilts. Since then we have continued to sew separately (Eileen won an award at the Quilter's Guild the following year) and the skills we learned 10 years ago have stayed with us today. 

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Patchwork and Quilting

I'm seriously into this sewing thing at the moment. It's addictive! So far I have made a selection of bags and am about to embark on a patchwork quilt for my Mum. She needs one to throw over the back of her sofa and she asked for one of mine. But they are looking rather faded with washing so I am starting from scratch.

I have several quilts in my house - my favourite is this one that hangs in the bedroom. It is inspired by Japanese kimonos when they are spread out and I bought up lots of kimono fabric from quiting shows. I designed the quilt myself and pieced it with indigo cotton fabric. I then hand-quilted it with sashiko thread. It took hours to make!

So, back to my Mum's quilt. Her favourite colours are blues and greens so I have pulled out an assortment of these from my stash. This is my design, it looks like a mosaic tile
and should be fairly simple to make into blocks (I hope)! Once I had laid out the chosen fabric I decided that blues and greens would look too dull so I have added an ivory-white triangle and a red triangle (I love that shade of red). Here's the first block - only 14 more to go....

Sew and Sew

My Mum taught me to sew on an old Singer hand machine that was her Grandmother's (which makes it over 100 years old) and I still have the machine too! She taught me how to lay out a pattern so that it was economical with the fabric - much to annoyance of my needlecraft teacher, who made me unpin it all and follow the instructions. At school I spent a year making an apron but at home I made patchwork cushions, tea cosies and needle cases.

When my children were small I started making patchwork quilts in earnest and, tutored by my American neighbour Eileen, learned to piece on the sewng machine and hand quilt. We made a lot of quilts and we even had an exhibition of quilts old and new at the Dales Countryside Museum. It was so much fun - we travelled around North Yorkshire borrowing old quilts from local farms and houses to show alongside our "modern" quilts. There was one quilt that still had the backing papers inside, cut from old milk bills and a beautiful example of an applique chintz quilt. It was an exciting exhibition with Eileen, Jane and myself sitting there publicly quilting.
So I have the sewing bug again and have dusted off my old Frister Rossman electric sewing machine and dragged the basket of fabric pieces out of the attic cupboard. I'm making bags and have created prototypes for three designs - a tote/shopping bag, an evening bag and a messenger bag. I have so much scrap material that I had forgotten I had including chintz, brocade, cotton and silk. Enough to go into bag production!

Prototype evening bag showing chocolate silk lining.

Too unstructured, more like a bag for a bridesmaid.

Prototype Evening bags #2

They need a gusset to make them more 3 dimensional and a magnetic clasp. They have a small pocket inside.

Protoype Messenger bag.

The binding is too thick and bulky.

Prototype Messenger bag #2.

Has a wooden toggle and an inside pocket.

Prototype tote bag.

Fully lined. Needs an inside pocket.

Commissions & Collaborations

Working to some-one else's specifications on a commissioned piece of glass can be a either a joy or a nightmare. Fortunately for me, most commissioned glass has been a happy experience.

It helps immensely if the customer has an understanding of the versatility and the limitations of fused glass and that the customer can convey the idea so that I can visualise the glass. The perfect customer is also one who will come back and ask for alterations that are workable and not impossible.

Most of my designs start out with a doodle or a drawing in a sketchbook. If working with color is the main element of the design I use watercolors to translate colors onto the page. Although not a perfect match, the transluscency of watercolor paint is the closest I am going to get to transparent glass. These designs were for a commission for quiltmaker Carolinasquirrell who makes the most amazing strip quilts from the selvedge edge of bolts of cloth. She wanted two sun catchers in transparent colored glass based on the strip quilt design.

After emailing my initial designs and color schemes we finally came up with the design of colors in blocks of three with the metal hanging wires fused at a corner of the glass so that it hangs at a right angle.

Here is the finished design for both quilt sun catchers. They measure 4.5" and are made from transparent Bullseye glass. I really enjoyed the experience and look forward to working with Carolinasquirrell again in the future.

Glass Quilts

Two of my favorite patchwork books are Freddy's House by Freddy Moran and Kaleidoscopic Quilts by Kaffe Fassett. Both books are a feast of color and bold patterns. So patchwork quilt blocks are the source of my glass designs for fall/winter.



Here are some examples of my glass designs in dishes and jewelery. I have used traditional quilt patterns such as Flying Geese, Nine Patch and Pinwheel and combined these with Bullseye glass to create bright fused glass. I have mostly use transparent color glass on white or vanilla opal glass as the transparent colors retain their jewel-like quality when fused. The pendants and earrings are based on the solid quilt block colors of Amish quilts and I have used opaque glass stacked together to create mini-blocks.

Below is a large glass wall decoration depicting a patchwork star. I am making a series of suncatchers that can also be used as wall pieces or hung in the bathroom too.

All this glass can be purchased from Etsy, Shaw Galleries and Keighley Arts Factory.