FANTASTICAL FISH

 I also thought of a sea for our water theme, and without water there would be no fish.  I then got the idea of creating a bit of whimsy and having a bit of fun by creating the piece that I eventually only finished a day or so ago, so here she is.

 POSTED ON BEHALF OF ROSEMARY.

Beatrix Potter loved all animals.  The way she humanised them was remarkable, dressing them up as humans.  The images she created have been enjoyed by everyone who has seen them over many years.  She was an amazingly talented artist.

 Water, water everywhere

   

  At first I pulled out lots of blue fabrics, but in the end I decided to experiment with some of the paint covered cotton wet wipes that I use to clean up when I'm printing. I have some lovely coloured ones. Their edges curl when drying, which made me think that they would work for waves. I added a little bit of white paint to the curled edges to make the waves stand out more.

THE NEXT CHALLENGE 

Well I guess we are at the end of our first challenge for 2026 and we look forward to hearing what you have chosen for us this time around Bren.  I am sure we all are looking forward to hearing what we have next to get our creative juices flowing.

Waves

 I used a mixture of blue fabrics for the waves, I painted the background and then used free motion quilting and fancy machine stitches to quilt it.

 FOLIAGE

 I recently finished a long quilt roll, which I started two years ago, using some of my own leaf and bark printed fabrics. Earlier on I made a quilt for one of the challenges inspired by the printed acacia leaves on one end of the roll (12 By the Dozen) and I have used the same inspiration now. I I made a really stupid mistake at the beginning  and have had to put in a lot of extra work to hide it. It shouldn't have had the yellow couched lines originally, but when I attached the fabrics I didn't notice until I'd ironed them down, that it was possible to see the wadding in between. Some of the fabrics hadn't stuck down well, so I tried to remove them, but of course most of them wouldn't. Next time I will make sure I overlap them!

 The next challenge is:

WATER, WATER EVERYWHERE

The whole world relies on water - we, as humans,  are made up of 60% water.  Life would not exist on this planet without water, therefore there are so many subjects we can choose:  Beaches, Rivers, Ponds with vegetation and water birds, the list goes on and on.  Enjoy!

Bren as there are only 4 of us left on this group we decided to take turns on choosing the next subject therefore you will be choosing at the end of April, then Jinnie, Rosemary, myself and you.  This will give you a bit of time to choose next time around.

BOTANICAL

 FROM ROSEMARY:  

Rosemary is having trouble getting onto the blog on her computer so has asked me to post her piece on her behalf.

I really enjoyed this subject as I love flowers and anything botanical in particular, so this was a real treat for me to work on.  Here is my piece.

BOTANICAL

 When we got the title "Botanical"  I immediately thought of some beautiful little succulents we have in our garden which we call Desert Roses, which started me on a quilting journey using these little beauties in a totally abstract design.  My design is an abstract design which stemmed from these succulents, set out below:

Here is my final piece drawn, appliqued and quilted.

BOTANICALS

This is my interpretation of the theme.  I chose Holly, Ivy and Mistletoe as they’re all native to Britain and are winter plants.

I used Neocolour crayons and coloured pencils to draw and colour the plants.  The background colour is Procion dye.  I’ve then mounted on felt and free motion quilted.

I hope this is ok for my first submission!

Hello

 Thank you for allowing me to join your quilting group.  I’m really looking forward to the challenges!

A bit about myself!  I’m Brenda (usually called Bren) and I live in England with my husband, Frank and two cats.  We have two daughters - Katie lives in Glasgow with her husband John, son Jack (he’s 5) and daughter Robyn (3).  The other daughter, Lizzie, lives in Australia (near Perth) with her partner, Carrie and their son Benji, who is 18 months old.  I’m a retired Maths teacher who enjoys patchwork and quilting (obviously), painting and reading.

I hope to get to know you all better soon.

BARK

   There is an old robinia tree on our  housing estate, which I have used as the inspiration for my two small quilts. One has been printed with a styrofoam plate, into which I had incised the image, whilst for the other I used a home made stencil. This is the tree that inspired it: