My challenge quilt is finished - maybe ...

Here is the whole thing. It isn't really uneven, but my temporary quilt hangers are.

A Markal paintstick rubbing with a little stitch

Sheers, and Angelina, impressed with a stamp. The shells were not part of the challenge but seemed to fit in. I used the same colour of Angelina throughout although it doesn’t look like it.

FME on silk paper. This paper is more matt than silk paper usually is because I used silk noils [from a Texere pack, for those who know what that means] and matt gel medium. I also pressed it so it was pretty flat before I added my dodgy FME. This was not done with my new machine!


More sheers and a few sequins. The butterfly fell out a sample packet from Simply Sequins and insisted on joining in. Sorry about the reflection from the flash - this bit is pretty flashy.

Silk paper with added Angelina, fibres and buttons. The buttons were not part of the challenge but I inherited 3 women’s stashes of buttons in addition to my own. Got to use them somewhere.

You can just see the discharging on this section – the wavy lines bottom left. I could tell you that I worked for days producing the complex cloth for the background – but I’d be lying. When I dye I spread some calico [muslin in American] over the table to catch the inevitable drips and spills. I use the same piece until it has plenty of character and then stick it in a bucket with some soda solution and any dyes left over at the end of the session. If it looks too awful it goes back on the table for another circuit. This piece looks as if I practiced printing leaves on it too …

The silk paper was made with cocoon strippings and Angelina. The glue in the cocoon strippings meant I was able to add a little foil without adding any extra glue. And some more buttons. In layers.

None of this section was part of the challenge – apart from the Markal rubbing I didn’t like which is hidden underneath. I think this needs more stitch - possibly beads and French knots, in blue to add more colour.

I really enjoyed doing this hanging, and I have already started the next one, which at the moment is telling me it needs to be crazy quiltish – but who knows how it will end up …

Tuesday trips - resumed

We got back to our routine yesterday with a visit to ‘Art in the Garden’ at the Hillier Gardens near Romsey. We had been to a small indoor art exhibition there before which had been – how can I put this? – a bit flowery for my taste. But it was a lovely day, so we decided to go. And thoroughly enjoyed it. The art was mostly stunning and mostly beautifully sited.

There were a lot of flowers of course, not all real. This is by ‘Iron Vein' [?].

The gardens are lovely, even if you are not interested in the art, but a bit pricey to get in. There is a good tea shop, which you can get to without going into the gardens.

I took a hundred photos, although we only managed to get half way round before our elderly joints suggested we came home. However the event is on until the autumn, so we will go back at least once to see the rest.

I won’t show you all the photos, but here are some highlights.

As there are occasional references to textiles in this blog, I have to include this one by Susan Bowman, Yes, it is a crochet skirt, set with plaster/polymer.


And a cast glass hat and mittens by Miyuki Kasahara.

These, by Robinson and Wainwright, were perfectly complemented by the wonderful tree they were hanging in.

But my favourites were these by ‘Loco Glass’

and this and her companion by Patricia Volk. I love her contemplative expression.

We couldn't quite afford to buy anything because we had spent up on Sunday, at the Sandown Quilt Show, when Wensleydale bought me my belated birthday present. [You may remember I had a big birthday this year.] The prezzy arrived yesterday.

I used to have a Bernina but the motherboard died and wasn't replaceable. My little Elna is great but I missed the additional bells and whistles of the old Bernie. Well – this one has even more bells and whistles, including the stitch regulator, and I think it is going to take some getting used to. All I managed to d last night was to put the tools away in the tool box, which was a more complex procedure than you might expect as the tool box is like a miniature wardrobe with a place for everything.

I had forgotten how heavy Berninas are – almost as heavy as my third machine – which I don’t think I have shown you before.

This one has no bells or whistles at all – it doesn’t even sew in reverse – but after 100 years + it is still working … which is unlikely to be true of either the Elna or the Bernina!

1.33 FO's

First – the latest baby cardigan. At the moment these are fulfilling my need for more-or-less instant gratification. Yes – I could sew baby clothes – and before Babybel was born I fully intended to – but the local charity shops have beautiful children’s clothes for a lot less than it would cost to make them. [Baby sized Levi’s jacket for £1.99? Hand smocked dress, originally from M&S for £2.99?]

However they don’t seem to have cardigans and as Babybel’s mum finds them useful – cardies will be knitted until I get bored or someone tells me to stop. And the great thing about knitting for babies is that provided you don’t make them too small, they’ll fit sooner or later. I am making them a bit longer than usual though because she’s a looong baby.

The third of an FO [perhaps] is this bit of the hanging. This piece has 6 of the 9 techniques / materials we need to include:

A sheer, foil [which is actually multicoloured] and fibres.

Tyvek





Metal. This is one bit which may not be finished – I think it needs more stitch but I’m not sure what. Any suggestions gratefully received! [The beads are not really that dark.]

Paintsticks

And a silk rod which wasn’t one of the requirements but it wanted to join the party.

I have just spent a very enjoyable day

taking a Royal School of Needlework class with Owen Davies, who wrote ‘Embroidered Knot Gardens’ with Gill Holdsworth. Gill was also there as she organises the classes though ‘Embroidery Now’. Of course I forgot to take my copy of the book so I could get it signed.

Unfortunately I didn’t get to go up to Hampton Court to take the class – it was run locally. We were making [surprise, surprise] an embroidered knot garden – and I would be well on the way to finishing it if I hadn’t decided that I don’t like it. No reflection on Owen who is a great teacher and very entertaining. I chose the wrong colours - I am not going to show you what I did, because I dislike the colours so much. Sometimes moving out of your comfort zone is a BAD idea. Other students who used the colours I like produced much nicer pieces. It also confirmed my feeling that, despite the evidence of my box, I prefer more stylised work. Being me I wanted to paint the canvas, and add some beads, and use non-naturalistic colours.

I had been thinking about some embroidery to take with me when we go away next month, so I think I will assemble a kit to reproduce this piece in colours that are more to my taste. I also need to decide what knitting and books I am going to take. Does anyone else spend more time planning the craft supplies to take on holiday than clothes? Fortunately we’re going in the car – it would be much more difficult if we were flying!

Am I bored yet?

Wil asked me this when she heard I’d finished C&G – but I have been so busy responding to a challenge she set I haven’t had time to be bored!

Last year I signed up for the challenge, on an internet group which Wil moderates, to make a quilt using a variety of embellishment techniques and materials. Of course after that I did nothing – I had other things on my mind!

Last week I started thinking about it, vaguely. My first idea was to make a series of panels of trees and leaves, using a different tecnique on each panel – as I’ve been into trees and leaves recently.

However when I went to look for green fabric in my stash, I didn’t really have enough toning pieces for what I was planning. Plenty of green you understand – just not the sort of green I wanted. [I know leaves don’t have to be green but I was feeling literal.]

Then, while browsing back issues of ‘Quilting Arts’ in bed, I came across an article by Mary Hettmansperger on her ‘collaged fabric panels’, and was inspired. All the elements I like – a wall hanging, strong verticals, repeated units, abstract design, lots of opportunities to add the necessary embellishments. As a bonus, her technique was reminiscent of Gwen Marston’s ‘Liberated Quilting’ – perhaps the quilting book I turn to most often.

So I accumulated some fabric, discharged some of it [the first of the challenge techniques] and liberated it – this is the finished piece. The glitzy bits are Angelina, another of the techniques.

Then I cut the piece into three. I hope the challenge to make ‘a’ quilt will encompass three quilts!

And then I began to play with the tecniques. This is how it looked this morning [nothing is sewn on yet]. It has been modified a bit because when I sewed the first strip to its backing this afternoon I had to make some adjustments because I had forgotten to allow for the seams …

This isn’t ‘designed’ in a C&G sense – no preliminary design work, no full scale mock up – and probably more enjoyable for that! It has also prompted me to use all sorts of things I had bought and never used – a chunk of metal and some patinating fluid for example.

As Friday is one of the few nights there is anything to watch on the telly I shall spend a relaxing evening hand sewing and listening to Alexei Sayle talking about Liverpool – where I am going for part of my summer holiday. Anyone care to guess why we chose Liverpool this year? There is a bit of a clue in my C&G work, although if you don’t live in the UK you can be forgiven for not knowing.

I've found it!

You may remember that when I finished the box I said I couldn’t find the second leaf spray I had made to put inside it. This afternoon, when I was looking for something else – I found it. Sewing it into a completed box was harder than sewing it to the base alone would have been – but it is done.

Of course I didn’t find the silk paper I was really looking for …

I have been silent for a few days because on Saturday my computer died. Cheese Major [the techie] came round to leave us his keys for a bit of reverse cat sitting. He printed off the details of his next car [!] and went home to pack, because he and Mrs Cheese Major were going on holiday.

After he left the computer froze, and when I turned it off and turned it on again, as recommended by all the best techies – it wouldn’t boot up.

But the person who usually mends my computer [and who had broken it this time!] was on holiday. So – it turned out - was his substitute, his old mate Baz.

I suppose I could have waited till one or other of them came home but I was beginning to get withdrawal symptoms. So I had to pay someone to repair it. A corrupted something apparently. It seems to be OK now.

So what did I do while I was cut off from the world? Made some books of course, inspired by a couple of articles in an old issue of ‘Fibre and Stitch’. The blue one is made of Evolon, which is one of the many things I had bought and then couldn’t remember what I had bought it for. It is coloured with disperse dye. I tried using a feather as a mask for the front but didn’t like the contrast of the stark white against the blue. However the dye had discharged less where the feather had been than in the background so when I transferred it again I got a darker feather shape against a paler background.

The spine is made of sequin waste. The pages are held together with hinges of Indian paper but I think this would make a very good cover for a book on a concertina hinge.

The green one has a multilayer cover – brown paper, Markal paintsticks and glitter paint, painted Bondaweb, skeleton leaves, snippets of fabric and thread and a final layer of organza. I made it bigger than the instructions suggested as I couldn’t bear to cut the covers smaller.

But by then I had made the pages for a smaller book so the little one is a quick version made with more Indian paper.

And finally – a quick make for Babybel’s nursery. I spotted this panel in Hobbycraft and had to have it. Babybel already has a quilt and a cushion made with this range of fabrics, but as her co-grandparents have a Border collie [Skye, a.k.a. Ronaldo] I thought her mum needed another cushion to rest her back against.

It is nothing fancy, although in the spirit of C&G I did put some decoration on the back. Made it difficult to know where to put the buttons though!

Unfortunately I haven’t been able to find a panel with a cocker spaniel on it, so Babybel’s own dog may sulk …

it's official!

I have completed C&G!

I took the box and the book of the box in on Thursday night and everything was signed off.

To prove it here is the box:

And here is the book of the box. This time the book was going to be very simple – just a pamphlet – but you may be surprised to see that it got a bit more complex than that. I decided that a stick binding was appropriate for work inspired [a long time ago] by a forest

My sewing machine seems to like putting things in plastic pockets!

Just the exhibition at the start of next month and it will all be over.

I feel rather odd – not really celebratory. it’s the first time in four years I have not had a deadline hanging over me. To some extent I feel relieved – but I know I will miss the companionship and the discipline of the classes.

I suppose that now I can tackle all the things I have been postponing because I had college work to do – if I can only remember what they are!

I have done my usual post-piece completion tidy up so the floor of my work room is visible again, apart from the pile of magazines and books with pages marked. And I have an idea for a canvas work piece based on a carved wooden chest I photographed while we were away. And I am half way through another baby cardigan.

So I don’t think I will be sitting idly in the sunshine any time soon.