A Jubilee June Journal Quilt!

This is my journal quilt for June, and I've called it 'Late Tulips'. We had that very warm weather in March, but April and May were so cold and wet, some of our garden plants seem to be later than usual. Our azalias and rhododendrons are only just beginning to flower. I coloured the cotton fabric with silk paint, outlined the tulips with couched down black knitting wool, free machine quilted the flower and leaf shapes, echo quilted the background and then finally added some extra colour with textile crayons.

I took the above photo of the Thames earlier in the year, but with the Jubilee River Pageant coming up this Sunday, I'm sure that London is going to be much filmed over the next few days. I've managed to get tickets for Battersea Park, and am hoping to get a glimpse of some of the flottilla as it sails down to Tower Bridge. The weather forecast looks dire though, so it may be a rather wet occasion for Her Majesty and the spectators! Such a shame  considering the glorious sunshine of the last week or so.

Thanks for reading, and wishing everyone a Happy Jubilee weekend!

Cards for Father's Day, and a totem tree!

The Corner Gallery asked me to make some Father's Day cards, the results are above. Hopefully they will fit the bill for any dads who enjoy sailing!

I just had to take the photos of the tree above whilst out walking with my grandson last week. It was a beautiful tree anyway, but apparently dangerous, so has to be taken down. It reminded me of a totem pole with a unique beauty of it's own. I expect even this will be gone when I next go walking there! Shame.

Just a small boast now. The two pieces above which I also had in an exhibition at The Corner Gallery have been sold! It's so thrilling when you find out that someone loves your work enough to purchase it!

Above is a piece that I've completed this week, using a technique inspired by textile artist Anne kelly. I visited five of the open houses in Hove at the beginning of May, and loved the textiles exhibited at, 'Polish and Pin' made by Anne. Some of her work has a heavily machine stitched background, which not only holds down smaller pieces of fabric and paper, but adds to the texture of the pieces. When I got home, I dug out two unfinished projects that I had been playing around with, inspired by leaves and foliage I had photographed in New Zealand two years ago. With the piece above,  I had started by bonding small bits of fabric to a background, all in different shades of green. It was all rather bright and lurid, so I covered it with some white net to knock it back a bit. The leaf shapes were placed on top, and heavily machine stitched over, and in between in different shades of thread. I also used some blue, to try and replicate the light shining on water that was glowing through the foliage. (See the photos underneath.) Finally, I have outlined the leaves by free machine couching knitting wool around them. I have to say that I now feel I've lost some of the freshness and glow of the greens, with the net and stitching, but it's a technique I think I will experiment with further. Funnily enough, the piece below I gave up on months ago because I wasn't happy with the stitching between the appliqued leaves. Now looking at it with a fresh eye, I think I need to continue working on it, and maybe add yet more stitching. I also think that the darker background is more successful, helping to throw the green of the leaves forward.

Anne Kelly is also involved in an ongoing collaboration, 'Resonant Textiles' with Cas Holmes, another textile artist whose work I really admire. I'm booked onto a days workshop with Cas at the end of June which I'm really looking forward to, so no doubt I will be sharing the experience on here in due course.

If you've managed to last this far, many thanks for reading, or at least taking a peek at the pics!!

......and a golden pear!

My Journal quilt for May. This next batch of four will be in shades of yellow. Quite a difficult colour in my opinion, but I decided that my 25% of another colour would be black. Here, I have used black knitting wool which I have free machine couched down to both outline, and to 'draw' the patterns inside. I have also free machine quilted with black thread, and then filled in two areas with a gold Markal stick, and four or five other areas with a lemon yellow wax crayon. The background is echo quilted in yellow thread. The fabric is the reverse of some hand printed and dyed cloth that I made a couple of years ago. It was a complete disaster, but has come in very useful for this months JQ.

On another note, I had some very exciting news this week. My challenge quilt for CQ@10, (Contemporary Quilt), has been juried in, and will be premiered at The Festival of Quilts at the NEC, Birmingham this August, before touring other venues. It will also be published along with 22 other quilts in a book produced by CQ. I'm really chuffed, because I found the inspiration for this challenge quite difficult. It is partly to celebrate the 10th anniversary of contemporary quilt, (a specialist branch of the Quilters' Guild of the British Isles), and we were provided with a black and white photograph of a Cornish tin mine. Anyway, in the end, I came up with my interpretation, which I will be able to show on here after August. I am also looking forward to seeing the other 22 quilts, so if you fancy a trip to Birmingham in August, I'll look forward to seeing you there too!!

Thanks for your time, and for reading.

Agonise and Accessorise

I've spent quite a few hours on a panel, part of which I'm showing here. I'm really agonising over it, and have decided to put it away for a time, because I just cannot seem to resolve what my next move should be. The inspiration for it is another one of those photos I took in my nephews barn, (shown below). I've used 100% rag paper for each of five sections, with a narrow strip of cotton mounted silk in between. I painted the rag paper with silk paints, then cut through for the reflections, with a strip of cotton mouted silk behind. I felt that the white was too stark, so also painted these strips with silk paint. Something still isn't right though, and I just can't seem to resolve it. Maybe in a few weeks a fresh eye will spot the problem......fingers crossed!

My husband has been decorating the smallest room, and the bathroom. I chose the colours for these two rooms, but the colour I picked for the loo, which I think is a rather lovely shade of teal, my husband thinks is too dark! I've had to convince him that once I've accessorised it, it will be an oasis of calm and beauty!! I decided to make some small textile art pieces to frame in white, and the first three are now finished and ready to hang. I made the mistake of framing them before taking photos, so you may be able to notice my reflection in a couple of them!

Finally, I've also been working on some ideas for journal quilts, and the next four are to be in shades of yellow. I think that yellow can be quite a difficult colour, so  my idea for May, may be based on the top sketch below! Watch this space, and happy stitching/art making, and thankyou for reading!

April Journal Quilt. Flavoured with a pinch of Picasso ll.

Again, I have used khadi paper for this portrait. I sprayed a combination of red, orange and pink silk paint onto the surface which I had previously scrunched up. The self portrait was drawn in front of a mirror, and I tried very hard not to look down at what my pencil was doing! I then stitched through the drawing from the back of the khadi paper, and then couched down black knitting wool with free motion zig zag stitch from the front. I quilted the remainder of the surfaces with orange thread, and used Markal sticks to colour the eyes, mouth and earings. I rubbed a Markal blender over the face and neck before finishing with a binding. I was rather dismayed however, when my husband saw it and recognised it straight away as being me, because after finishing it, I had thought, 'well thank goodness I don't really look like that!!!!!' What an April Fool I must be eh!?

Be Happy, until next time!

Flavoured with a pinch of Picasso

A couple of weeks ago I visited the Picasso exhibition at Tate Britain. I've always found Picasso's work intriguing, especially his portraits. I don't claim to fully understand where he's coming from, but as I say, there is something about his work that attracts me. Something about strength of line and colour seems to excite me, so maybe it's that aspect of his work that I find inspiring. This is not my JQ for next month, but it is something similar. I have ended up with two pieces, and had to make a choice, so I've decided to show this one on my blog first. It has been stitched on Khadi paper, which I painted first with silk paint. After heat fixing the colour, I soaked it in water, and scrundhed it up a few times to soften it. When I ironed it again, it seemed to give it a leathery quality which I really like. The black lines are black knitting wool couched down with a free motion zig zag stitch, and the remainder of the surface has been heavily quilted, again with free motion stitch. I've included a close-up photo to hopefully show this quilting. Oh! and the inspiration for this portrait is my beautiful daughter, I wonder what she will think of it!

Reflecting on reflections!

Two summers ago, whilst visiting my nephew's farm in Pembrokeshire, I took some photos from inside one of his barns. The plastic sheets that were covering part of an open, slatted wooden wall were reflecting some interesting gashes of light from outside. I am trying out some ideas for a challenge that is coming up later in the year with the title 'Reflections'.  This is just a small A4 mixed media piece, and most of what you see above is stitched onto handmade 100% cotton rag paper. I wetted the paper first, and then scrunched it up a few times to soften it before painting it with acrylic fabric paints. I like the way that the paint has left some interesting marks on the paper surface, probably where the paint has settled into the creases. I cut the pieces up and remounted them onto some white cotton fabric, because I wanted to stabilise the paper, and also leave the white fabric showing through for the reflected areas. I have used a combination of free motion machine stitch, and hand stitch.

Above is the original photo that has inspired this expermental piece, and below is a close-up of part of the same piece showing how the paint has 'patterned' on the paper surface. The last photo is a wider shot of the inside of the barn, showing how the light was reflected through the wooden slats.

That's all for now folks, and thanks for reading!

More, Mad March spots and spirals!

My JQ for March. Third month of shades of red, so this time I've gone back to my spots and spirals theme. I cut out the spirals and ovals and some flower motifs. These have been appliqued and free motion quilted onto the background, before finishing off with the spots in white, pink and metallic green. Just a lot of fun really! Hope you like it too.

Spots and Spirals or, A Walk through a Tropical Garden

Spots and Spirals seem to be bursting from my brain, into my right arm, through my hand and down onto whatever cloth I'm working on! It's happened before, (some examples further down), and is happening again! I've decided not to fight it, and my JQ for March has been afflicted with a dose of the same, so watch this space!

Not sure if the composition of the whole piece works, so I've been cropping in photoshop to see if I can find a more balanced view.

I think it's going to be a case of putting it to one side for a week or two, then looking at it with a fresh eye, but I'm going to call it  'A Walk through a Tropical Garden'.

The piece above is another Spots and Spirals that I made a few months ago. It sold in a local gallery just after Christmas.

This last photograph shows my first Spots and Spirals. It was also sold a couple of years ago in the same local gallery.

Digging out an old project, some experiments, and a snowman!

This is something I've shown before, but I seem to come back to it time and time again! It started out as a sketch, then a watercolour, then I photocopied it and used it in a paper lamination. This was in black and white, so I painted over the paper lamination with watercolour paint, and now I've decided to stitch into it. I have also added some old lace dyed with silk paint to add extra texture in a few places. Above are the results so far, but it's not finished yet! Below are the stages from the waterdcolour onwards, with another up to date close-up.

This is also an experiment. I crumpled up some old cotton sheet into a plastic bag, then poured over some slightly diluted silk paint. I massaged the cloth through the bag, left it in a warm place for a week, removed it and heat set it with the iron. Quite an interesting result.

This is the end result of that experiment with the flour paste. It has turned out better than I thought it would, but I think I will add some diluted silk or textile paint now, and hope that the black marks still show through.

Finally, this is the little snowman created by my six year old grandaughter Rebecca. I thought he was very cute, and was sad to see him melt away in the milder weather!

Thanks for reading, and happy creating in whatever way you choose!

Scrappy cards and some fabric fun!

A selection of cards that I've been making. They are all made from small scraps of fabric, bits of ribbon, and beads that I've mounted onto squares of brown paper that I used to protect my table while painting, spraying and printing onto some fabric. It seemed too good to throw away, as there were some interesting shapes and patterns on the surface. Having said that, I have covered a lot of it with the fabric scraps. Once I had machine stitched all the pieces onto the brown paper, I just stuck them onto some blank square cards that I bought in our local toy shop! I will take them along to our local gallery, and offer them for sale.

Above is a piece of old cotton sheet that I have sprayed, painted and printed  with a mixture of silk and acrylic paint. I may try to use it for my March or April 'shades of red' journal quilt.

Finally, this is a bit of an experiment really. I mixed up a flour and water paste, then spread it evenly over the surface of yet some more old cotton sheeting. I  drew some random patterns into it with a fork and a stick. When the paste had dried, I crackled the surface up a bit, before covering the  whole lot with some black fabric paint. I'm  now going to wait for about a week for the paint to 'cure', and then I;ll wash out the dried paste. I'm hoping for a sort of batik effect, but I'm certainly not holding my breath. Still unless you 'have a go', at these things, you won't get any results, good or bad, so anything is better than nothing. I promise I'll show the results, whatever they are!

Keep warm and cosy, see you next time.

Magic Red Carpet, February's JQ.

A Magic Red Carpet! If I could sit on it and ask it to carry me off to some far flung paradise, I think it would have to be somewhere in Whangarei, New Zealand.......which is where my daughter, her partner and my gorgeous little grandson live! It is also a very beautiful place, and it has the advantage of being summer there at the moment! Unfortunately though, it is just my A4 Journal quilt for February!