Morris Hexathon Block 9

 For July 2 we have a  block named "Red Lion Square" to acknowledge the two times William Morris inhabited this London Square in Camden.

The beauty of this block pattern is it's 3D appearance. To highlight that I decided to make a feature of the front corner and to also use a "grainy" fabric to show change of plane. Now looking at it I'm not so sure about those four "eyes" staring out form the top side of the brown corner.

After leaving Oxford University William Morris and his friend Edward Burne-Jones rented rooms at #17 to use as a studio/residence from 1856 to 1859. Lacking the money for much in the way of furnishings they designed and built their own medieval style furniture. William Morris returned in 1861 and rented the entire premises at #8 for Morris, Marshall, Faulkner and Co for use as workshops, offices and a showroom. The Red Lion Square area suffered major damage as a result of German bombing in WWII but #17 remains and may be visited.

Morris Hexathon Block 8

 For June 25 we were given a block named "Greenwood".

This block used only the one shape so I used two different fabrics and fussy cut that one striped fabric.

Ms Brackman comments as follows: 

"I named this basic block Greenwood for a mythical place, a symbol of the English forest. Greenwood refers to the Anglo-Saxon culture before the invasion of the Norman French in 1066."

There were lots of great photos of quilts to be seen in the (Material Culture) post this week. One of them has been earmarked by me as a potential way to set my blocks.

Westering Women Block 6

For this month, June, in the Westering Women series we had the story of the trip beyond the Platte River and the necessity for the women to come up with a new style of apparel; the Bloomer Costume.

Named "Hill and Hollow" this month's block goes with the tales of having to navigate Windlass Hill, a very steep incline to get the wagons down. It required much effort by the men to inch the wagon's down the hill and they were assisted by some of the women who held on to a rope at the rear to act as an additional brake to prevent losing the wagon to the steep slope. The women adapted their usual dress by adding trousers underneath their long skirts to protect themselves on the descent.

Fortunately the reward for safely negotiating this hill was the arrival at Ash Hollow, a much needed source of fresh, clean spring water.

For this block, made while on a guild retreat, I focused on careful cutting of my fabrics. Thanks to the advice from my friend Ms Pink (who is also working on this project) my little wagon is in there almost halfway down the hill. Do you see it?

Morris Hexathon Block 7

Vacation trips in the last several weeks have really messed up my schedule to stitch and blog the Morris Hexathon blocks. Let me try and get caught up now...

The week seven block, published on June 18 was named "Avebury Stones" by Ms Brackman. To acknowledge the name of the block I sorted through my fabrics to find one with some stones on it to include in this block.

The Avebury Stone Circle (the largest one found in Europe) captivated the attention of 15 yr old William Morris. It is now a National Trust Site and a World Heritage Site.

Barbara is providing us with many interesting facts and stories as we make our way round England as seen through the eyes of William Morris

Morris Hexathon Block 6

In a desperate attempt to get caught up on the blog posts before block 7 comes out tomorrow, the star for this past week was a block titled "South Kensington Star".

Now if you are a quilter you will know that this block has a very challenging center wherein twelve points have to come together nicely. My strategy was to use a boldly patterned fabric for each of the star points so as to disguise any mishaps.

Both of those fabrics are from a Barbara Brackman fabric collection within her Morris designs. The brown is from the Best of Morris collection. The same design appears in different colorways in the Morris Jewels collection which is also where the brighter green and brown fabric is from. And, as previously, the outer background is from the Moda Grunge collection.

In just a few hours the block for week 7 will be revealed. Will this be the week I have to resort to english paper piecing?

Stay tuned because I need to get block 8 done smartly so I can go on vacation on Tuesday (and take my sewing machine in for service on Monday so it can be worked on while I'm away and not needing it).

Morris Hexathon Block 5

There has been a delay in getting my blog posts up but here I am with week 5 in the  Morris Hexathon, a block titled "Upton".

This was a relatively easy block to piece - altho I freely admit I attached the central hexagon at the end using hand applique. The block was done all in a hurry before I went out the door to day two of our quilt guild show. The center hexagon used a fabric I had found the day before but really what I hoped to find was a piece that had an image of an older English house to go with the story for the week. William Morris built his "Red House" from red brick, an unfashionable building material at the time and gave it a distinctive "half hip" roof line. The house was located very nearby the town of Upton.

We were also provided with an alternate way to put this block together; the suggestion was that we might want to use it in an upcoming week when we deem that weeks block too difficult to do.

Forewarned is forearmed.

Exhibiting at Art Shows

In addition to my regular quilt groups I also belong to an art group. In that group we have opportunities to exhibit our work a few times a year in all-member all-media shows. After a few years I have found that there is a difference to what I show when it is with the art group than the quiltworks I exhibit in a quilt show.

I had taken this photograph last year but it got held up in the framing process and I was too late to exhibit it. When the annual all-member show rolled round again I was ready with my entry. Since each member could submit a maximum of two entries I thought it might be fun to try making a fabric interpretation of this photo.

Working quickly I was able to make this...

You'll see I moved the bottle slightly to the right, added in many more viburnum flowers and somewhat rearranged the phlox flowers. Then I had some fun with my bead collection. Trying to keep the interpretation close in spirit I "double matted" it and gave it a brown binding to imitate the (wider) frame.

This is what the photo looks like framed:

(Do pardon my reflection in the glass!)

This was a fun project to try and maybe I will attempt it again sometime with a different photograph.