Paper cutting

Recently, I have been commissioned to fill three matching box frames. The brief was extremely loose, as in I'm allowed to fill them with whatever I wanted. It doesn't matter whether it's a pop up, print, whatever.

For years now I have been in awe of all those amazing artists who do paper cutting. Obviously, Rob Ryan is right up there but some of my other faves are Su Blackwell (even though she destroys a lot of books in the process, sacrilege!), Heather Moore, Molly Jey and the rather excellent Peter Callesen. So I thought I'd have a go

Even though it's not as neat as I would have liked it to be, I'm still pleased with my first attempt. I vaguely remember using a swivel type scalpel in the first years of work, and wonder if I should get a new one and try it on pieces like this. I seem to remember them being much kinder to curves than my trusty normal solid scalpel type one.

Also, for this design, I knew that I'd need it to keep it's shape and not sag so I cut it out of card which is quite weighty (about 270gsm) so I'd also like to experiment with lighter weights/thicknesses of paper as they'd be easier to cut. We'll just have to wait and see,

Another sawtooth star quilt done

This one is my second sawtooth star quilt, this one is to be a baby quilt.

When I started this quilt I didn't know the sex of the baby it was going to be for, so I thought I'd go for none gender specific colours like lime green and chocolate browns. Now I know it's destined for a little boy I'm really pleased that I didn't use too many flowery fabrics.

As I quilted it altogether, as well as going in straight lines across the grid pattern I also went round the outer edge of each star shape. I'm really happy with the overall effect but thought it looked empty in the corners, so I decided to sew a little heart shape in each one.

I have to say, I think this one has worked out much nicer than the previous sawtooth star quilt. The stars of this one are on a 4inch block which is a lovely size, and I've arranged them in a kind of chequer board pattern, I just love it this way. I could be tempted to do it again in different colours. I can imagine it working well in oranges, yellows and pinks for a totally girly feel.

I'm also really pleased with the fabrics that I used on this one. Spots and stripes are more my thing, but none of the patterns are very big either which I think goes well with the small blocks. Shame I only had a fat quarter of each, so have run out of most of them. Typical.

Sawtooth Star finito!

Jess rightly pointed out that I hadn't posted any images of the final quilt, so here they are:

and then of course it's on to the next one: