Who knows where the time goes?

Since my last post Autumn has arrived.  I suppose we can count ourselves lucky that it has taken so long to arrive, although it just seems too soon. I am hoping that I can fit some time in for creativity as since my last post I have been busy doing mostly other things. Firstly theres been more trouble wit' cat. Those of you who have followed my tales of Marvin will know that in August he had his remaining teeth out, and all seemed to be going well until I decided his bed needed a change and I realise that it was rather than damp! It was stuck to the floor! When we shut him in the kitchen at night he usually pops out, or sits on guard by the cat flap so we hadn't noticed him not sleeping on it. I thought perhaps we had had a spillage as it's by the bottle recycling box, so I threw the whole thing  and put down the spare. It didn't smell or I would have noticed, I promise. However I checked it the next morning and it was wet again! I'm not sure how long he had been using his bed as a 'convenience'.   He doesn't normally have a litter tray, we put one down after his op, but he stopped using it and went outside as usual. I took him along to the vet for a check up and she said he could have an infection, but it could be stress. We realised that our neighbourhood cat count has risen dramatically over the summer and our garden is now frequently visited by at least three different cats. (One neighbour has six) Although none of them has shown any signs of aggression, poor old Marvin is probably feeling totally defenceless as well as toothless and has opted for the indoor loo option. Of course we are now providing him with the proper facilities, but what a faff it is! I wish they could derive a cat litter that wouldn't stick to their feet!

"You talking about me?"

As all this was happening I was booked for a visit to the Isle of Wight to visit Dad.  As Mr T is not the best at improvisational clearing up, before I went I had to buy new rubber gloves, wet wipes, puppy training pads etc etc, as we weren't sure if Marv's problems would be solved with the provision of a litter tray at the time. It was good to see Dad, and when I asked him if there was anything I  could do while I was there he said he wanted help choosing a new laptop!

So off we went to PC World to see what they could offer.  After chatting up a pleasant young man and explaining that at 91 Dad need something easy to use, we chose a model and he explained that it Windows 8 could be set up to look like the version he had so he would be able to find everything. However the setting up service would take a couple of days and Dad would have to come in to pick it up. We were a bit disappointed as Dad wanted me to help him, but I knew I wasn't confident enough to set it up myself in the time available.  As we hummed and hah'd about how Dad would get back to pick it up, the assistant disappeared. He had a word with the techies who said they could set it up that evening and another assistant who lived near Dad said he would drop it off for him - unofficially, on his way home the next day.  I was leaving the next morning, but Dad said it arrived safely and he was having a play. How refreshing to find people who were really helpful.

So now it was October and I did manage to prepare my October calendar pages.

I tried to adapt the procedures I'd used at Angie Hughes' workshop, but it didn't quite work and ended up very moody and dark.  I hope thats not a premonition for the month's weather.

This month I am determined to re-stock my Etsy shop. Just before I set up a photo session of some new things I've made I though I'd re-list the little needle felt moth brooches I had on there. I no sooner than I had put up the first three than they sold to a lady in Berlin! Which was wonderful, but now my shop was empty again. Luckily I had one left, so that is there now. I have managed a long photo session so I am all ready to restock, hopefully over the weekend... here's a taster ....

If you're interested in anything you see here, please contact me and I'll let you know prices etc.

I had another lovely Saturday afternoon with the N.H. & Bs Embroiders' Guild and yesterday Maxine  and I went to the Stitching and Knitting show at the Ally Pally, my first visit to that venue.  Maxine is a colourful character and very talented textile artist and great company. I haven't been down to London for ages and ages and being with her boosted my confidence and we had a great time. The show is almost overwhelming. However I did see Bobby Britnell and Ruth Issett on their stand and both said hello. It was lovely to be remembered from all the students they have at their workshops. More beautiful work from both of them.

However I was most struck by Jan Beaney and Jean Littlejohn's work. I have seen pictures of their pieces, but not seen it in 'real life' before.  It was stunning.

 Below is a sketchbook page from a wonderful display of dozens of pages - it was under glass so the white dots are reflections from the lighting.

I also saw Gina on the Missenden Abbey stand, and later we bumped into each other while wandering round.  I was pleased to be able to thank her personally for an invitation to join the textile group, called Spectrum whose work I saw at Art Van Go last year.  I cannot express how delighted I am to be able to join this group as it was just what I was looking for.  So after trekking round Ally Pally yesterday I took the opportunity to put my feet up, not sure when I'll get another chance.

I cannot tell you how happy I am to be visiting London and joining groups with new friends as well as spending time with 'old' ones too of course. At the moment I'm counting my blessings, even with an inconvenient cat!

I do hope you've had a great week too.

Jill

Phew, and it's only Thursday!

Hello my dear fellow Bloggers.
Thank you for all the lovely comments. I do love to get them.  I now do a lot of my communicating on Facebook, but blogging does give the opportunity for a more considered post. A month or so back, you may remember that I was bemoaning my lack of motivation and get up and go after finishing my C&G Creative Quilting in June.  Well I have to say I'm certainly back up to speed and I will try to pass on what is happening.
I decided to treat myself to a set of lights and a light cube to picture my work for me Etsy shop which is still sadly empty. On eBay I saw a seller who had a set up for auction twice a week.  After chickening out on three auctions, a went for it and bought this set, for considerable cheaper than anywhere else I could see.

 I am impressed with the quality, but it did take me twenty minutes of trying to refold the light cube. I had almost given up, but resorted to youTube where I found a useful video and had it folded in moments! I'm not taking it out again until I'm ready to use it!

The other thing I decided to do was to have my three poppy paintings, which are now hanging in the Red Dot gallery, printed onto cotton poplin. I had them blown up to 45cm square by Laura Kemshall at Fingerprint   Think I will have a go at quilting them and may be making cushion covers. Here they are hanging up sideways on the back of my door.

I have also started a couple more small paintings of another favourite subject of mine.

On Tuesday and Wednesday I spent a couple of wonderful days at Art Van Go with Angie Hughes Exploring Velvet.  Everyone produced the most magical pieces of work.

Here they are (above) at the end of the first day ready for a layer or organza and machine embroidery.

And here they are at the end of day two.

 Here is mine, I have started snipping away at the organza.

So today I could have worked on my velvet, set up a photography session, started quilting poppies or finishing off a painting.

But instead Mr T and I have just prepared our second batch of apple and plum chutney.  Might manage a bit of something creative this afternoon, but I should really cut the grass as the sun is shining.

Catch up again soon, hope you're having a great week too.

Jill

Catch up

I've just spent ages updating my Artist Network Bedfordshire page and getting things ready for the Red Dot Exhibition.

We are really hard pushed for gallery space in Luton. The Red Dot is a great spot, but it is rather hidden away at a local High School, so no passing trade. If anyone can make the PV please contact me first, but I know not many of you are local.

Meanwhile this is what I have been doing:

I have started my 5th September in my journal.

 These totes were created from plain bags from Hobbycraft decorated with transfers painted on to  Transfer Artist Paper. 

Unlike T-shirt transfer paper you can colour the TAP with all sorts of media. Here I drew on it with a Sharpie pen and coloured it with watercolour paint. I then cut the shapes out and ironed them on. I have some T-shirt transfer paper so I may experiment with painting on that too. Of course you can put both through your ink jet printer. You can use the TAP on all sorts of surfaces too. I bought it on-line.

These papers were created with wax resist, paints and foils.

One I have used to make a felt box topped with a purple poppy and one I've used to make cards.

Finally last weekend I just had to get out of the house so I went and sat on a fallen log on Sharpenhoe Clappers, the local high spot of the Chilterns.  There is a beautiful stand of beech trees on the top and I sat undisturbed and did a bit of sketching. The breeze in the leaves is nearly as soothing as listening to waves gently breaking.  I left feeling thoroughly restored and added some colour to my sketch at home.

Wouldn't want to sit up there today, it is cold and damp. However I am sure summer isn't done with us yet.

Whatever you're up to, enjoy yourself,

Jill

Getting back in the saddle

You may wish to skip the pre-amble and go straight to the pictures...

As many of you may know I finished my City and Guilds way back at the end of May and it has taken me all this time to really get the creative juices flowing. I have been dabbling at all sorts of things, but nothing has really grabbed me. I felt empty and everything seemed like too much effort, mind you the heat wave didn't help. I filled my time reading a lot of books, something I haven't done for ages, many of them rather fast moving, best seller,  detective novels bought on the spur of the moment in charity shops. Not my usual genre. (I really enjoyed Philippa Gregory's "The White Queen" bought while  watching the TV series and I now have the rest of the series of books waiting to be read.  It was a period of history I know very little about, but found totally fascinating). But this wasn't helping with my lack of fulfilment on the create front. I had no energy.

One of my traits is that I am like a sponge always soaking up new ideas, techniques and styles. So over the last year having done several workshops, bought books, seen exhibitions and so on, I felt that I wanted to emulate all the work I admired, use colour like Ruth Issett, print like Bobby Britnell, use discharge techniques like Clive Barnett as well as quilt like the Kemshalls, but not being able to do it. All the while forgetting that the purpose of all of this study was to find my own voice and apply these techniques to my own purpose. Positive action was needed as I was beginning to feel seriously fed up and perhaps verging on not wanting to get up in the morning.

Firstly I joined the local branch of the Embroiders' Guild.  Gina Ferrari is a committee member and I have met  members Gill before, as well as Pam at an Art VAn Go workshop, so I shall be in very good company. This will give me regular contact with other like minded ladies.

Next, after feeling disappointed that I didn't get to this year FOQ, I took myself out and bought a new car - well not a new one, but a newer one, something I have promised myself for a couple of years.  My old faithful was beginning to need money spent on it regularly and like every single-motor household I wanted something I could rely on, so after a couple of weeks of self imposed stress, it is accomplished.  I now own a shiny black nearly new Vauxhall Meriva. I have also changed my energy supplier and managed to fit a new front door bell!!! Things are beginning to look up. You may ask, where is Mr T in all of this?  Well, he is right behind me, but being a stroke victim he finds it very difficult to be up front in the big household decisions. This is an endless source of frustration for him as he doesn't want to leave all the responsibilities in my hands, but it is something we have to accept. So with my self esteem feeling bolstered is was time to get back to the creative stuff.

Finally, to get me going I made a list.  These are always useful, although often I don't get beyond the first couple of items, especially if they are none essential. I thought back to what I had enjoyed making right at the beginning of my quest, what I had started selling and what had brought me confidence. So I thought if I went back to these things it would get me going again. So on my list went:

 A purse 

A book wrap

A bag

A brooch

A box

A wall hanging

Over the summer I had enjoyed drawing and painting in my sketchbook the poppy that had appeared in my garden so that was my starting point.

 I started with a couple of purses and a book wrap, so I raided the fabric stash for suitable colours and bonded them onto a couple of pieces of acrylic felt.

Meanwhile I had a created another sketchbook page. I had been looking at some work on line - although I cannot remember what or where and I had the idea of an image appearing out of an abstract arrangement of colour, or an imaged disintegrating into its component colours. I was rather excited by this and got out one of the three 8"x 8" ready stretched canvases that have been kocking around for months.

The sewing got pushed aside, meals were late and after a day and a bit intensive painting I ended up with this. I had some Golden acrylics which I have been using on fabric, but I hadn't actually painted with before. The colours are so beautifully intense only drop seems to go a long way and produced glowing colours.

Now I was on a roll so I had to paint the other two canvases as well.

 Here are the three of them on a radiator. I haven't really got a good spot to photograph them and I'm too busy (yippee) at the moment to set up a photography session.

The paintings got a lovely response on my FaceBook page and I can't tell you how delighted I am with the comments. 

I am taking part in the ANB Beds Art Trail in September and although I shall exhibit my C&G quilts I think these will fit in too. After that I may put them in my Etsy shop which is empty at the moment.

Back to the list...

Two purses finished and one book wrap on the way.

What next ... well I have several ideas!

Fingers crossed the momentum will keep me going. Whatever you're doing, have a great week.

Jill

August - just

Here you see a picture of Marvin with four teeth...

... and here he is Friday with no teeth. A runny nose and a visit to the vet confirmed he had an abscess on one tooth and the other three were pretty poor so rather than put him through another anaesthetic in the future, it was decided to take them all out.

He has recovered amazingly quickly and is just about back to normal, just sleeping a it more, which means about 22 out of 24 instead of 21!

The weather has been a lot more comfortable and the garden is bursting. There have been lots of bumble bees, couldn't resist snapping a few.

The poppy has finished blooming and the seed heads are drying upside down in a paper bag.

They are irrestistable as subject matter, but I wanted to try to put my own take on them.

I made a card rubbing plate and used candle wax as a resist. In the enable above I colour washed the paper first.

Of course I had to create a few sketchbook pages too.

I bought myself a packet of TAP Transfer Artists Paper, it is like Tee Shirt transfer but you can not only print on it with you ink jet, but you can paint and draw on it too and you can use it in fabric, paper, wood, metal and glass.

Here I have used a photo I took of an old door, it has transferred perfectly. However the fabric is stiffened by the transfer. I thought I'd try a small whole cloth journal quilt and made a start, but now I need a bigger range of threads. Not sure when I shall get to the shops. 

I still haven't made my mind up about visiting the Festival of Quilts this week. I shall regret it if I don't go, but my back has been giving me a bit of trouble so I'm dithering.

Whatever you're doing this week, have fun.

Jill