A stellar display

I mentioned a while ago that I had joined the group 'Around the World in 20 Quilts' [or ATWI20Q' for short]. We have been working on the theme 'stellar' and all the finished A4 quiltlets were revealed on Nov 30th. There is a link to the group blog in the sidebar [under all the pictures of Babybel] if you want lots of ideas and lots of inspiration.

I have finished [?] the second not-landscape. It has changed a bit since you last saw it - the brown has gone. I think the kantha-ish quilting works and I may add some to the first not-landscape. You will notice that some bead and French knot encrustation did creep in after all...

I spent the weekend working on an altered book for Maggie Grey's online class. This used to be a copy of an Enid Blyton story - I decided it was worthy of altering when I realised that the girls in the story had a governess and the threshing machine was run by a traction engine. As it wasn't a first edition I decided it was probably of limited interest to 21st century children and proceeded to attack it.

Here it is drying on the radiator. Some pages were removed, then I glued a variety of papers [newspaper, paper towels, tissue, pages from a completed crossword book and an old phone book, and paper doyleys from the pound shop] to some of the remaining ones. All were brushed with gesso and sprayed with black and grey Brusho. I think it looks wonderfully tatty. When it is dry I will have to decide what else to do to it. At the moment, still thinking about mark making, I am pondering on runes ...

Having taken the plunge with altering a book - I am tempted to do it again. I think, apart from my reluctance to deface books, i have always been put off by the style of the altered books I have seen. Maggie's, of course, are different, and much more to my taste.

The quilt is temporarily on hold as Wensleydale is administrating on the dining room table, which is where I layer my quilts. He has promised it will be clear by tomorrow, so I can get the three layers assembled and pinned - I hope to tackle the quilting on Thursday.

On a completely different topic - as this blog has been a bit doggy recently - here is Quality Control testing the printer. Notice that blank sheet of paper emerging? That is what happens if you tread on the buttons on your way up. She is looking alert because she has just heard the fridge door opening two rooms away ...

Am I coming out of my black and white period?

This is pretty brightly coloured. It is Babybel's Christmas present - do you think I'll finish it in time? I have been procrastinating about starting it because it is a loooong time since I made a full size quilt - and my friend with the long arm quilting machine has moved to the other end of the country. I am dreading quilting it and think I may do it in sections to make it easier to manoeuvre under the machine.

This is the centre of the quilt - the butterfly is the right way up, that's the way Eric Carle drew it. Some of you may have noticed that there is one more square down one side than the other, which is why the right hand side is curling - that will be corrected, I promise. I counted the squares twice and still got it wrong - it was only when I looked at the pattern the squares make that I realised what I'd done. And to think I have A-level maths ...

I have also been working in colour on some journal pages. I intend making contemporary textiles squiggles on top of all the crud - which in this case is glued down paper of different types, gesso, Koh-i-noor and my new favourite, Moon Shadow Mists - coloured walnut ink sprays for those that don't know. I think this is the silver one.

The MSM have also made an appearance on my monoprints which are NOT landscapes. [I was told not to make them look like landscapes.] The tutor suggested that I paint one of them so I did. The fact that it makes it look like a landscape is of course entirely accidental ... I do feel a bit more positive about the monoprints now, although whether I will get round to embroidering all of them I don't know.

And finally - Jolly Good Yarn Girl asked about the program I used to muck about with the pictures in my last post. Those were all done with Picasa, which is what I use when I'm feeling lazy. The new version offers several different ways of making collages with your photos - which, as you can see, I use a lot. When I am feeling more energetic I try to use Paint Shop Pro, with varying success - I swear it never does the same thing twice ...

I've been a lazy blogger

but nothing much creative has been happening - apart from starting [and frogging] a knitted scarf and starting [and restarting] a pair of mittens, to go with my new raincoat.

However, yesterday was the second day of the Creative Textiles workshop. We actually got to do some stitch in the afternoon. The topic is still markmaking, as it will be all year. We looked at the work of textile artists who use repeated marks - unfortunately their names have gone from what passes for my memory these days. [Reminder to self - collect some examples to go in the journal.]

Then we fastened three markmaking tools [in my case a Biro, soft pencil and Pitt pen] together with elastic bands and made various marks on paper - names, numbers, squiggles - which we over wrote in different directions. Some very interesting patterns emerged - if , like me, you don't like your own handwriting, this seems a good way to produce script-like marks. The writing was definitely the best, I felt, as it had more variety than just numerals. This lot has been scanned as a black and white image and as a negative, cropped in different ways and collaged.

Then we selected a simple mark from a source picture and developed it by making successive changes - on paper with charcoal and a putty rubber, and then with black and white paint on calico. This mark came from a collection of photos of circular objects I made for Sharon Boggon's course in the summer.

Finally, when our painted calico had dried [sort of] we worked into it with BIG stitches.

As usual, when I came home I wasn't happy with what I'd done but looking at it again this morning, I think there are some ideas I could develop. I can't see myself working as big and bold as this - but I would like to play around with some of the marks I made and develop ways of using them.

I love the quality of line in some of them - for example this one, based on my initials - where I had relatively little paint on the brush. I spent some time this afternoon playing around with it in Picasa and this is the result.

I also asked for an optional tutorial, because although I like most of what I did with the monoprints [and even the failures were learning experiences!] I felt I hadn't really used the monoprints to inspire stitch - I'd just developed ideas for using them as backgrounds.

The tutorial advice was:
a] to work bigger than I had been doing - well, the tutor is a quilter!

b] to look at what the print was telling me to do and do that - and
c] not to impose anything on the image itself apart from what was there.

Not sure if that is clear but writing it down helps me to clarify to myself what I am trying to do!

I felt the style of advice I got was very different from that I would have received from my previous tutor I wonder what A. thought as she also had a tutorial. It seemed more open ended and non-specific, when the C&G tutor would have made some very definite suggestions. To begin with I felt a bit disappointed, but on thinking about it - I decided it wasn't a bad thing. I'm a grown up now and open-ended is better than directive! I suppose it reflects the difference between an accredited course like C&G and a a workshop style course.

So I have spent half of this afternoon cutting up a monoprint as suggested and preparing it for embroidery.

One down and one to go.

Monoprint books, that is. I have finished the first one and here it is. I am very pleased with it.

The covers aren't as 3D as they appear in the photo, The black lines are couching and the circles are charms from a belly dancing anklet. No - I don't belly dance - I bought the anklet when I needed bells for the leaf hanging which was, I think, the first thing I ever blogged about.

The cognoscenti amongst you will have noticed that although I said I was going to bind it over tapes - I didn't. I decided Coptic stitch would go better with the design on the covers. This is a two needle Coptic stitch, which I have not tried before and which caused a fair amount of swearing, unpicking, stopping for tea breaks - you get the picture. It would have been easier if I had had four hands - or possibly five, one for each needle and one for the book. [Yes, I know I said it was 2 needle Coptic stitch. Some people call it multi-needle Coptic stitch which is more accurate, I suppose.]

The stitching is not perfect but I hope that the colour and the tightness of the loops will mean no-one notices. Apart from my readers of course.

To relax from the book binding I made this totally ridiculous object - which turned out to be quite unrelaxing. The pattern came from Quilting Arts 'Studio'. We don't use many tins here at Cheese Acres, and when we do our tin opener leaves a lethal edge - so when Babybel left an empty baby milk tin behind I grabbed it, and this is the result. As you can see the walls of my workroom are red - so I decided to make a red corset - and that led to red velvet. [What does it say about me that my thoughts run on red velvet corsets? I don't have one - and me wearing one would not be a pretty sight!]

Let me tell you that putting eyelets in velvet is not easy. Cue more swearing and stopping for tea breaks. However I like the end result, so if Babybel has any more tins she can spare they will be gratefully received and given corsets. They just won't be velvet ones!

Jude has kindly asked for updated photos of Babybel - but unfortunately I don't have any! We haven't seen her since our trip to the seaside last month. [Sniff.] However there will be lots of photo opportunities next weekend when she has her birthday party - the presents are already wrapped and we can't wait!

Bobs and bits

I haven't been posting much because I haven't had a lot to post about, I'm afraid - but a few things came together today, so here I am.

First - we had a Friday trip this week. [We had a Tuesday one as well but that was a routine trip to Bournemouth so doesn't really count.]

The Discovery Centre [that place again - if the cakes were as good as the coffee I'd probably move in] has an exhibition of Hockney etchings. They are illustrations to Grimms' fairy stories, which Hockney made in the 60s. It is a touring exhibition from the Hayward and seems to have been on the road for several years so you may have seen it elsewhere. [I picture someone at the Hayward saying 'Didn't we have some Hockney etchings? Whatever happened to them?']

But I digress. As usual. The etchings are well worth seeing. There is one of a rose which I would dearly love to own if I was rich enough - and I don't like pictures of flowers. If you want to learn from a master how to use line and make marks - get yourself to the Discovery Centre.

On a more mundane level, I have finished my 'Stellar' quiltet for the 'Round the World in 20 Quilts' group. Sort of. I cannot reveal it all until the end of the month but here is a rather bad photo of a corner of it. This is one of the Inkaid pieces which I thought would be too stiff to hand embroider, although as you can see I managed to do some. It is sort of finished because I think it needs more fly stitches.

i am also working on these from Maggie Grey's on-line class for owners of her book 'Textile Translations'. These will eventually become a book, although they look like witches hats' to me. They are made of Vilene, believe it or not. I don't want to give away Maggie's techniques - if you want to know you'll have to buy the book - but there is a lot of stuff on there. Not much stitch, but a lot of crud - er - artistically applied mixed media.

You may notice, although the photo isn't clear, that the pieces are edged with zig zag. I wanted to edge them with blanket stitch but for some reason my sewing machine did not want to do blanket stitch on the Vilene. I tried everything I could think of - I even cleaned it and changed the needle - but no go. It would do FME. It would do zig zag. It would do blanket stitch on other fabrics. but on the Vilene? No.

Books are also being made for the Contemporary Textiles Workshop. Yes, in the plural. To make a cover, I stuck some monoprinted brown paper on Vilene, foiled it, added some monoprinted Lutradur, stitched it, zapped it with a heat gun, hated it. Threw it in the bin - then fished it out because I thought I could make some more samples from it - samples of what not to do.

So I made another piece on felt - except I'd run out of foil. I called in at our local craft shop, 'Creative Crafts' today to get some more but they had every colour except gold. So they persuaded me to try a new line of paint they had just got in - 'Precious Metal Colour'. This is the result - and the photo doesn't do it justice. The paint ain't cheap. but it just glides on - and the manufacturer claims you can use it on all sorts of surfaces including glass and plastic.

This afternoon I sat down to work on the witches' hats - looked at the first monoprint piece - and thought - it's not so bad after all. That's why I am now making two books.

Some bits and bobs.

Inspiration seems to have returned - at least as far as the monoprints are concerned. Here are a few more of my little samples. The two top left and centre are tissue paper, right top is woven monoprint and magazine pages. Bottom left is the sample I have shown before but now it has its swirl. The final one is monoprinted brown paper again, with holes cut in it and blue fabric behind. There are curtain rings appliqued round the holes.

You may wonder why I have been so consistent with the size. When Cheese Minor went home after his birthday in the summer, he left behind the packaging from his prezzie. The tag has already gone on to my black/white book - and the box now looks like this.

And here are the samples inside it.

At first glance this may not look as if it has anything to do with monoprinting. I used the Gormley heads I produced with cereal box transfer painting, for the covers of a book made by sewing over tapes. The method came from 'Book Arts - Beautiful Bindings for Handmade Books' by Mary Kaye Seckler - except that it is a different size, I didn't make wooden covers, and the structure is slightly different because the cereal box card needed a backing to beef it up a bit.

It is connected to monoprinting because it is a dummy run for a book covered with monoprints. I was going to make a vessel - and I still might - but I saw an inspiring book with what looks like a tape binding in a Val Campbell-Harding book ...

I hadn't made a book like this before - it gives a good result but you could really do with several extra hands while sewing it. Real book makers have a frame for sewing over tapes so I may need to speak nicely to the resident carpentry expert.

And finally - this. If you read Maggie Grey's blog you will know exactly what it s - if not you will think - not for the first time - that I have flipped.

Maggie has instructed her readers to put an old catalogue out into the weather to mature. We don't know why yet but we are so trusting that lots of us have done it. Mmm - maybe I have flipped after all.

Inkaid, monoprints, security blankets and Christmas cake.

are what I've done today. [Sorry to mention the C word.]

These are closeups of the latest Inkaid experiments - the ones where I sponged the Inkaid on fabric. I am a little disappointed by the black one - it is the same image as the one here but has come out duller, but without the anticipated improvement in handle - hand stitch would still be difficult.

The orange one is better - the orange fabric compensates for the loss of colour in places. Orange isn't my favourite colour but there is some in the image and this piece of hand dye was sitting in my stash waiting for an opportunity to emerge into the spotlight. [That's the trouble with dyeing colour wheels - you get orange as one of the steps!]

I have also continued to obliterate my monoprints. One of these you have already seen [still waiting for a Klimtian swirl], but the other two I finished today. The one with the squashed spider [a.k.a. a tassel] has foil on the appliqued vase shape and sloppy beading around the edge. I used a little bag of very mixed beads - what my grandfather would have called 'factory sweepings' - and just sewed them on as they came. 'Could do better.'

The third one I am quite pleased with. There are actually three monoprints - the original black paint on brown paper, some blobby gold paint on Bondaweb, and a final layer of black paint on scrim. A will know where the idea came from - an oldie but goodie.

I also started work on IgglePiggle's blanket - thanks to those who gave me advice on using fleece. I decided to make a single hem, to give some bulk for the blanket stitching - and machined it first for security. If there is anything worth listening to on TV tonight I will get started on the blanket stitch - I want get it finished for a VIBP [very important birthday party] next month. If you don't know, IgglePiggle is a character in a children's TV programme which Babybel enjoyed while she was with us - although I think her granddad enjoyed it more. Mmmm - I do have another piece of fleece and he has a birthday coming up too ...

And we made our Christmas cake today.I used to make it in half-term week while I was working and the tradition has continued now I'm not - although Wensleydale did most of it while I supervised. It is a Dan Lepard recipe called 'Black Christmas Cake', although it doesn't look much darker than normal. It has Guinness in it. Contrary to rumour, I do not put Guinness in all my cakes - just most of them. I don't make many cakes, and this is my default birthday cake recipe.

What to do after C&G?

Yesterday was the first session of the 'Contemporary Textile Workshop' at Eastleigh College which I signed up for, post C&G. It is taught by Sue Chapman, who is the P&Q teacher and also taught my 'Creative Sketchbooks' course, and Terrie Hitchcock who is the new embroidery teacher. I wanted to sign up for it because I know Sue is a good teacher and I had been told Terrie is - and because the work exhibited by last year's students was amazing.

So A. and I toddled along yesterday, not really, in my case, knowing what to expect - but having a good idea that we wouldn't be doing any sewing. Good job, as although I had everything apart from the kitchen sink, I had forgotten my specs.

We were told that the course will focus on design -great, just what I need - and that while last year they had looked at colour, this year it was mark-making. Less great- despite a recent outbreak of black and white I like colour. Preferably lots of it and very bright. I feel much less confident about mark making - so it is probably a good thing really.

We were given trays with pieces of paper towel in them, on which Quink had been drizzled, and strips of B&Q heavy duty lining paper.

Take note of the exact specification - I am a lining paper fanatic, ever since the guy who decorated our living room 2 years ago left me a roll of the stuff he used. Believe me, that didn't come from B&Q and when I discovered how much it cost I decided to use it very, very, carefully.

The B&Q stuff is pretty good [I understand the non-heavy duty isn't] and has different textures on each side, one cream and smooth, the other white and grainy. Of course, asked to do pattern - some of us came over all representational... I realised again that when asked to do this sort of thing I don't do it BIG enough, so what I do can look mean and uninspiring.

The rest of the day was spent monoprinting. I am ambivalent about monoprinting - other people produce some wonderful stuff, but I am always disappointed by my own efforts. Which is why you are seeing only a limited sample here. We were initially restricted to black and white but allowed a little colour in the afternoon, so I got out the Koh-i-noor. I think if I was clever enough I could make monoprints that looked like linoprints - but then why not make linoprints?

We have the month until the next session to develop some ideas for stitch. I was feeling pretty disheartened about it all this morning [not helped by another insomniac night] - but when I returned to my book of the month, 'From image to Stitch' I realised that monoprints could replace ink jet prints. and almost anything looks better if you cut it up.

I had an outbreak of the 'What if's' - so I have spent much of today following some of them up. No pictures as they are still drying - I don't want too much sticky acrylic paint on the scanner.

Unfortunately it was only right at the end of today that:

• I realised it was best to put the paint in a paint tray and then transfer it to the print surface, rather than squeezing it straight on, and


• I found a design idea I really liked,so


• I began to produce prints that satisfied me.

Sue and Terrie encouraged us to print on tissue paper and Bondaweb it to fabric - but- what if I print directly on to Bondaweb? I thought it might not work, and the prints are pretty smeary, but that may just be my poor monoprinting technique.

I am thinking of making a vessel, [continuing with the Tamsin Van Essen theme] so what if I print directly onto craft Vilene? Again - a bit smeary - this was early on in the session, so I need to revisit it.

I tried several other fabrics - poly satin worked well but looks best from the reverse side so I have a good print on the matte side, or a darker, less subtle print on the shiny side. Scrim worked surprisingly well, and was good for squeezing out a second print. Curtain lace doesn't really show the pattern but looks good anyway. Some linen-look poly also worked well, as did the same black cotton I used for the Inkaid.

Speaking of which - I made two paper samples, one with Inkaid on a rubber stamp and one with a natural sponge. They are drying at present but I will try printing them tomorrow and see how they look. If the idea works I will try it on fabric. Another what if - what if i use Inkaid on some hand dyed fabric [not black]?