We had a good workshop at Gresford, everyone getting along very well and making the centres in record time. Unfortunately I forgot to take the camera, so I will have to update the photos when I can. Debbie's traditional Christmas patchwork, in red, green, cream and lots of gold metallic, looked sumptuous, while Margaret's batik roll panel, using one of the Fabric Freedom roll cuts, was very fresh & summery. Hopefully, I will see both of them on Tuesday night and I can take photos then.
Margaret and Pat used the same roll cut. It was very interesting as their centre panels are quite different. I've seen this kind of effect before, with two tops made from the same roll at different workshops, but never side by side. There is so much variety in a roll, even if the same person used the same roll twice for this quilt it would probably come out very differently. Here are some photos from previous workshop tops made using a rainbow batik roll (I think these were Fabric Freedom too). The first one was made at the Jersey workshop in June 2009.
The second one was made at Gresford a month later. Yes, these really are the same rolls! The first quilter wanted a colourful effect and used cool colours for one set of strips and warm for the other, keeping darker and stronger colours for the outer sections. The second quilter decided to have lots of warm colours in the centre, with both light and dark tones included, and kept the cool colours for the outer parts.
Rosemary made her top using a "roll" very similar to the Bali Pop I used for my quilt centre (below) - mine is in Kiwiberry colourway while Rosemary's is in Mulberry, which is slightly more subtle. The Bali batik fabrics from Hoffman are lucious colours and the fabric is very high quality. It is a shame that these handcut rolls aren't as accurately cut as Moda Jelly Rolls, so a little fudging is required when sewing them together. Not what you would expect of Hoffman fabrics at all - they are usually noted for their product quality. With the high thread count of Bali Batiks, the odd scant seam allowance doesn't hurt.
I was persuaded to open up my new batik roll - this one I bought at the Malvern show in October. It is gorgeous and I can't wait to start making another workshop sample with it. The colours reminded me of the autumn foliage as I drove down to Malvern for the quilt show, but everyone else decided it had a very African feeling to it.
Four of the quilters today were using Fabric Freedom rolls and we noticed that the strips are slightly wider cut than the Moda Jelly Rolls. Luckily for this design, it doesn't matter if the strip cut isn't perfectly 21/2in, although it is easier if it is at least evenly cut. I'll see how my Fabric Freedom batik roll works out!
To compensate for the blurriness of the photo of me, I've given it a watercolour effect in Photoeditor. Oddly, that has changed the colour of the sashiko stitches to black. I autobalanced the colours first, which brought up the orange in "New Year's Eve..." to the max. It really is that bright in real life!
