Bubble Fun

I always experience a mild sense of panic in the week before school holidays start, even though I only have one child still in school. I try to catch up on customer quilts and make sure FOQ preparations are well under way. I also had to fit in 3 days of supervised DIY quilters and school prize-giving.

Obviously I thought I had time to experiment with Ginger Beer, using glass spring top bottles. After just 48 hours it was lively - around half spurted out when I released the top which was not ideal inside the kitchen. I must make sure it all gets drunk quickly;) 

For my FOQ masterclasses I decided to print up six small quilts around the theme of a dream-catcher. I used thermofax screens, Indian wood blocks, circles of silver tissue lamé and various shades of blue fabric paint. Some of the motifs were later filled in with Pebeo suede effect paint to add texture and I will add dots of 3D paint later. I wondered whether I would be able to use a bubble-gun or party bubbles to drop delicate bubble shapes onto the quilts but the paint rendered the wands and bubble mix useless. I tried fountain pen ink instead which did allow me to blow bubbles but they simply burst in little blobs so I need to keep experimenting…

I quilted one of the quilts as the teaching sample, using a variety of threads, couching, freehand and ruler work, stitch-regulated and manual, making a note of the tension settings and speed for my pupils. My first attempt at the dream-catcher centre did not look good with thick, sparkly yarn so it took a while to pick it all out and redo it using a denim yarn. I did the background quilting with a twin needle so that pretty much covers most techniques! I could have added more stitching but it would never have been completed  this week and it has to be vaguely achievable for a half-day class. Of course, I remembered that the photo that I had originally submitted to FOQ for my class spec was of a mini version of Beezlezebub so I will also have to dye and print 4 pink mini quilts just in case my pupils would prefer to work on that version;)