Patchwork altar frontal: hexagons as linking patches?

Patchwork altar frontal: diamonds as linking patches?

The last meeting of the sewing bee was at the end of June – now almost a month ago – but there has been so much happening or needing attention that I never got round to blogging about it. This time 6 of us met at Hailey Compton and we were able to enjoy what we now realise was the beginning of a glorious month of good old fashioned summer weather. We spent an jolly couple of hours drinking tea and sewing in the sun flooded conservatory with the doors wide open and the air warm and still. Looking up while chatting and stitching, eyes – overdosed on too much grey weather of the first part of summer – felt rejuvenated as they soaked up the welcome sight of a green and luscious garden beyond which the sunbathing corn almost (well, very almost) grew before our eyes.

At this meeting, we decided to opt for diamonds to link the stars (how poetic) rather than hexagons (see above photos for comparison). We agreed that I would push on with this so that we would have something more substantial on view for the Art & Craft Exhibition to be put on during the last weekend in July (in fact, it is on now as I write and I shall spend most of the weekend in church, armed with more papers and patches to cut up while visitors wander round and enjoy what we have on display.)

Patchwork altar frontal: work in progress on central medallion

As well as advancing the main body of the frontal, I have been working on the central medallion, transferring shapes worked out with compass and protractor from paper to fabric – not quite as easy as I had thought it would be as shapes cut with even minute inaccuracy would throw everything else out of kilter. Eventually, I achieved a satisfactory, though far from perfect cross with underling star  and linking circle. The background stumped me for a while until I hit upon the idea of having a simple patchwork of light-coloured squares rather than a background of just one colour. I liked the way the different patterns of fabrics drew the eye in to explore the random squiggles and little flowers and in general made the area of more interest. I hope the others in the group will like it too. It is difficult to consult on everything and almost impossible not to forge ahead when I think I’ve solved a design problem that has been niggling away in between doing other things.

Patchwork altar frontal: component parts brought together

My next move was to cut out the curlicues surrounding the medallion. The first one I secured to the background using Bondaweb and I then appliquéd this with satin stitch to give the shape more definition and texture. In one way the yellow double curl seems intrusive on the patched cream squares with their subtle patterning, but I think the yellow will in the end work well to link with the main body of the rest of the frontal. (Well, I hope it will. At this stage you never really know. If in the end it all looks too much, too fussy and distracting, then I’ll ditch that idea – and piece of fabric – and make another background of simple patched squares). The picture above shows what the altar frontal looks like for this weekend’s Art & Craft Exhibition. 

Our next meeting is scheduled for  21 September. During the intervening time I’ll gather together packs for star making so if anyone wants to take some away to do at home, they will be able to.  Once the Art and Craft Exhibition is over, I shall continue to work my way through the appliquéd curlicues at a more leisurely pace.