Flying

Here's a quick post as I take a break before putting the dinner on. Can't believe the weather has matched the forecast so I have been torn between the garden and sewing machine. 

But meanwhile here is the lovely Bobby Britnell, whose two day workshop I was on last week. She has just published her book, "Stitched Textiles: Flowers",  and launched it at Art Van Go, so all the examples from the book were on the walls. She is a super teacher and it was great to be surrounded by her work - totally inspiring.

We worked in our sketchbooks and on fabric using similar techniques in each. 

When I got home I had to continue playing and this was the state of my workspace, but I had to get on with that quilt.

So I cleared it up and got out the machine

You will be so relieved to know that I have actually started quilting - hurrah!!! The end is in sight.

Hope you are having glorious weather too.

Jill

Sunny Saturday

Signs that spring is truly here at last as we have a lovely batch of frogspawn in the pond. I took this photograph earlier in the week, today the little fullstops are looking more like little commas.

However I cannot go long without mentioning my quilt progress. I drew up each panel to scale on squared paper and used this to cut out the fabric.

Some of you will be familiar with these images by now.

Here is the first draft pinned up on my design wall.

Meanwhile I have had a lovely two days with Ruth Issett at Art Van Go. This time we were working on fabric.  Although it doesn't show, the example below is printed on pale blue fabric.

We used fabric paint. Day one was very busy and a bit messy!

On day two we used our printed fabric to put together some little samples.

We chose one piece to work on.

Day two was busy too, but not so messy.  Ruth is an excellent tutor and very encouraging.

Back to that quilt. I printed the border with a foam block I made of a pattern of branches.

Below are all the panels ready to be stitched together  - first I have to iron down the leaves.

I'm thinking of including some words in one of the panels. I came across a wonderful passage from Sylvia Plath's book The Bell Jar.  My copy dating from the early seventies holds many memories as it belongs to a friend who was suffering with mental illness. Under very difficult circumstances we lost touch and I have never been able to return the book to him. The passage in the book refers to a fig tree. Esther, the central character is imagining herself sitting in a large fig tree filled with luscious fruit. Each fig represents a wonderful future; something she may become. However she is starving to death, sitting amongst the bounty as she cannot decide which fruit to choose, and they turn purple and drop, rotten, from the tree before she can make up her mind. I'll let you know what I decide.

Annoyingly my back is really playing up at the moment so I'm not sure when I shall be back at the sewing machine. I really want to be doing some work in the garden or out and about, but I'm afraid I haven't been able to do either.

Meanwhile here's Marvin looking a little bored.

I hope you're able to enjoy the spring weather. Have a good week.

Jill

Still working on THAT quilt!

I'm nearly ready to start, honest. Here is my "design" back of the door where I have pinned up some samples. I've planned it all out, so just about to start cutting - gulp. It would have been quicker to build a new Olympic Stadium.

Meanwhile I tried a fabric painting experiment. Egyptian Cotton drawn on with a Sharpie pen and then coloured in with water soluble Derwent Inktense pencils. I painted over each section with as little water as possible to stop the colours bleeding. When it was dry I tested Derwent's claim the pencils become water proof by running the whole thing under the tap... and it worked. Lots of potential.

Next week I'm going on another workshop with Ruth Issett on fabric printing so I haved dyed a batch of mixed blues to work on.

I'll let you see what I've done with it next week.

I then realised I needed some more greens for my quilt, so rather than have another dyeing session I bought a lovely selection from  Maggi's hand dyed fabrics. They are greener than they look here.

I've also put together another set of little bird cards for my Etsy shop.

As I type I can hear the Midwife Toads bleeping in the garden. That must mean the evening temperature is warming up at last. Usually they are making a racket much earlier in the year. We were sort of hoping they wouldn't survive the long cold winter, but they are back!

Midwife toad, snapped a few years ago - noisy but cute, foreign invaders who've colonised my neighbourhood.

Hope all is right with you, and you are enjoying a bit of spring.

Jill

Catch up

First of all I would like to say hello to my new followers,  I seem to have gained some over the last month.  It would be lovely to hear what  you think. At this rate you will be bored to tears so I had better get on with it ... I haven't been idle, although I never seem to get anywhere. First of all I haven't given up writing my daily diary.

 Following an idea I picked up from a workshop I didn't attend at the NEC stitch show, I needle felted these moth brooches onto a pelmet vilene base, they're in my Etsy shop.

I have also stitched these needle cases for an Etsy customer, I hope she still wants them.

Meanwhile I am trying desperately to get to work on my final quilt for C&G which has to be based on appliqué work. I've been at it since the new year.  That is the good and bad point of working on-line, a flexible deadline means I have been able to accommodate family/health problems, but it also leaves me open to procrastination.  However I hope I am getting somewhere at last, thanks to lovely support from Linda Kemshall.  

I sent her this iPad drawing and the sketchbook pages exploring composition.

She liked this shape taken from a photograph of a gate at Luton Hoo Walled Garden. She and Laura also always say that anything you can draw in your sketchbook can be reproduced as a quilt...

I wasn't sure whether I had the skills to appliqué this shape. Lying in bed trying to sleep, thinking about quilting, as you do, it suddenly occurred to me to cut out the negative shapes, and appliqué them.

I made a double page spread in my sketchbook, using the cut outs and then made a larger version as a  quilted sampler.

I am hoping that my raw edge appliqué and sketchy free machine stitching will be an acceptable method for my final piece, as this reflects my style of drawing much more than beautifully sewn down pieces edged with satin stitch. I am really pleased with this little sample as I feel it is totally 'me'. I am aiming to use lots of rust stained fabric for the background.

There is still some planning and sampling to try out before I begin, so I really ought to get on with it, rather than writing this blog!!

April stretches ahead like a couple of blank pages, I wonder where I'll be when this is filled in.

Have a good week,

Jill

Great day out - rubbish photos

I went to the "Sewing for Pleasure/Fashion, Embroidery & Stitch/Hobby Crafts" show on Thursday. I have been up to Birmingham NEC by train a couple of times before with friends, but this time I went on my own. I was disproportionately anxious about catching the right train before I went, goodness know why, but of course everything went smoothy. I was at Milton Keynes station a good half an hour before my train was due, and it was blowing a freezing gale along the platform. 

I only gave the Hobby Craft section a quick walk through as I was more interested in the other areas. I did take my little camera, but of course didn't use it very much. What I was here for was supplies I couldn't easily get locally and of course an allowance for a few impulse purchases, no point in going unless you can indulge yourself a bit. 

It is always enlightening visiting the exhibitors' stands rather than the suppliers, and there is always a lot to learn, although I am not very good at taking it all in. I made a bee line for the Kemshalls' stand which was beautifully laid out. It was great to see so many of the quilts and cushions from their web site in real life. I also bought one of their packs of Madeira Lana thread, which I have never seen in a shop.

Bobby Britnell was busy demonstrating on the At Van Go stand. I gave than one a miss as I will be visiting the shop in a few weeks when I have a workshop with Ruth Issett, and a couple of weeks later another one with Bobby.

It is always great to bump into someone you know at these events and when I was photographing the Moor Threads stand, and this display of Bobby Britnell's work I realised that I had met Penny from the group at a AVG workshop.

I enjoyed all of this groups' work.

Other displays of interest were the Jane Austen costumes from a selection of TV and film adaptations of her books.  I couldn't resist a snap of Colin Firth's famous shirt.

Unfortunately he wasn't modelling it!

I then had to snap Jennifer Ehle's dress as she was Mr T's favourite. Can't believe it was 1995 when this  series of Pride and Prejudice was on TV.

So this is what I came home with...

some pretty space dyed fabrics, threads and felt...

...some printed tape, buttons and the Lana thread...

... and some stencils to use on my Gelli plate.

There were a few other bits and pieces - plain thread for dyeing and needles and so on. I know next week there will be something I wish I had got or a stand I had looked more closely at, but so it goes!

We woke to slushy snow this morning, so I am glad I chose to go to Birmingham on Thursday. Hope your weekend is not too bad and fingers crossed that spring will be here soon

Jill

Don't give a fig...

Those of you who follow my blog will know that I have been working on my City and Guilds Creative Quiltmaking course with Linda and Laura Kemshall.  I have now reached my last module and have to make another quilt, this time featuring appliqué work.  I'm not worried about that, but the overall design is my biggest challenge.
I am a figurative artist, I enjoy drawing details and know with perseverance I am a competent draughtswoman. However I want to use a more expressive language in my work, and I am often drawn to semi abstract pieces, so this is my challenge to myself. Part of my studies is to look at contemporary practitioners and here I have chosen two to look at. The first is Stephanie Redfern. She works in paper and fabric, and her pieces are more collage than appliqué. I find the way she treats her subject matter most appealing, especially her pieces based on the natural world. The elements, shapes of leaves, flowers, birds, insects are always recognisable, but she will break down their forms to the edge of abstraction, and her work reflects her energy and passion for her subject matter.

Sketchbook fig studies

The second artist I've looked at is Carol Taylor. She is an American quilt maker with a excellent reputation. You can read about her here on The Textile Blog. Her work is quilt different from Stephanie's as she works in a much more traditional way, but her work is also often abstract. Her Foliage Series uses beautiful leaf shapes and bright colours, always informed by nature, but abstracted.

So without going on any more,  this is what I have been doing. I am using photographs I took at Luton Hoo's Walled garden and glasshouses as my source material, and have been concentration on the fig tree. I have made a couple of collages, making use of the papers I printed with the Gelli plate and others from my stash.

"Three figs"

One of my many photographs.

My second collage, this time incorporating some tulle and organza.

I don't think either of these collages look like Stephanie's or Carol's work, but it has been a really excellent exercise for me, and hopefully a step on my creative path. It is a big step for me not to be too literal, and allow myself artistic license. It is always strange how you can turn a creative corner without even knowing you have got to a junction!