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 ...

There are not many advantages to insomnia

but one of the few benefits to waking at 4 am is the chance of 4 hours uninterrupted play! Before Wensleydale got up I managed to finish the ‘rag book’ which is part of my Tamsin van Essen/white study, and get started on some stitch samples for the compost heap [a.k.a. studio journal.]

The TvE study is increasingly becoming a black and white study. I have found that it encourages me to try out techniques and ideas - the pages are small [14cm square], I'm not sampling for anything in particular, and I don't get distracted by colour choices. And I can try to make one page look pretty and scribble all my notes on the opposite page - although the backs of pages onto which I have sewn/stapled/whatever samples are often quite interesting in theri own right.

These are some of the the rag book pages. They are not pretty and don't have the crispness of the paper book [I deliberately haven’t pressed them] but still an interesting exercise.

Machine stitch with a strip of bandage to span the gap.

Buttons

and insertion stitch.

Hand stitch - inspired by black work although you will be forgiven for not realising this in advance!

The punk page

more hand stitch.

and staples.

This is the spread I made the stitch samples for. It started as a Sharon Boggon colour exercise which went off track a bit when I found several space images in my stash. Then I made some thread wrappings and had decided to work a stitch sample but I hadn’t got round to it until yesterday morning.

I started with the square sample [top right on the left hand page], in crossed corners stitch, then played around with different layouts and finally got bored with sticking to the rules and did some liberated crossed corners [top left] – which I really like. This version doesn’t need an even weave fabric. I can imagine it worked en masse – perhaps even crossed corners over the crossed corners. I also like the more formal approach, although for anything but a tiny piece I would want to work on a larger scale. Interesting to try it on rug canvas with something really chunky - perhaps torn fabric or plastic strips. Perhaps in white?

I am less happy about the colours of the crossed corners samples– but that is all part of the learning experience, and I can't imagine ever wanting to work anything in blue, red and orange ...

The image above the sun on the right hand page is one I found on the net, showing crossed corners worked in a brick pattern – I’m afraid I can’t remember where I found it so if it is yours, please let me know so I can attribute it! The page looked prettier before I added it the idea but am trying to remember that this is a compost heap not a flower garden and compost heaps are not pretty - well, ours isn't.