Papercuts and first swift

Time to make a new print screen at Morley. During this years's "creative journey" ( is that too pretentious?) I am coming to realise that I am more comfortable with collage, paper and scalpel than I am with pen,pencil and paint. Some random cuts on black paper this week led to a collection of shapes - plankton? jelly-fish? unicellular forms? krill? Pics will follow when I work out how to get them to the Mac from my phone.

Also stuck on my phone are some dyeing experiments: indigo strips from last week over dyed in the tray with blue / turquoise and brown Procion MX; indigo pre-dyed, then clamped with CDs and over dyed with blue / turquoise Procion MX; yellowish curtain lining over dyed with blue and bronx , with has copout looking ilk camouflage fabric.

In the meantime, I saw my first swift of the spring today, summer must be coming. Photo from the BBC nature blog site.

Positive blues

A course over two Sundays at Morley, on colour theory and dyeing. The plan is that at the end of the course we will understand cross-dyeing with two different colours, in light, medium and dark and will have a whole colour family from these two dyes. What is even bette,rid that the tutor wants everyone to dye enough fabric so that we can exchange samples and have a reference point of over 100 samples dyed with mixtures of yes.

I started with a 50:50 mix of turquoise : royal blue Procion MX in three different strengths, and will cross dye next week with brown. These glorious colours deserve better hangers.


Why is this ironing so much more fun than this type of ironing?



I also managed to throw a long piece into the indigo vat while mashing the blue fabric up and down in the dye baths.



Such a great day, especially as 3 former Morley class mates and one of my quilting friends were on the same course.

Nothing to do with dyeing now, but I've been trying to capture a photo of some robins in our garden, building a nest to raise their second brood of the season. This blur is the best I can manage.

Mind the Map

I love maps, so I am already looking forward to the exhibition at the London Transport Museum " Mind the Map".



What will make this exhibition even more worth waiting for is a new art work by Susan Stockwell, hopefully, one of her dresses. She is asking individuals to contribute old travel tickets to be combined in to the piece. As I seem to have obsessive ticket gatherers in our family, I am encouraging them to donate some of their collection. This artist had a very interesting piece in the exhibition " The Art of Mapping" in London in November.

From reading about this exhibition, have ended up here and here. I now need to see how much of this is feasible in fabric. So little time……..

Journals progress, red to yellow

I'm taking part in the Contemporary Quilt Group challenge again this year. The theme is to make an A4 piece once / month with 4 months focusing on shades of red, 4 months on shades of yellow and 4 months on shades of blue. Up to 25% of the piece can be other colours, as long as the predominant colour is as specified for that month.

I showed the January effort here, but I don't think I showed February, maybe as I wasn't too pleased with how it turned out. Fabric origami hearts appliquéd to a shibori dyed background.


March is now complete. Cotton sheeting, batik dyed with red procion P after marking with soya-wax,( washes out with hot water, so no tedious ironing it out) and then machine quilted. Binding is commercial fabric attached from the back, and stitched down with a decorative stitch from the machine.



April's is underway, and I've decided to include a transition from one colour to the next in the pieces that straddle a change of main colour. Commercial fabrics, the background is one of my all time favourites, " Milano villas" from Makower. Appliqued hexagons, with an attempt at machine trapunto, not very successfully so far, as the puffiness all seems to be on the back. Maybe a greater amount of background quilting will make it more prominent.


Due to a sick child ( not serious,now recovering), I've had a day at home, so have made a start on May, the first of the yellow-themed pieces. Hand-dyed fabrics from an exchange, which will have dense hand-embroidery on it.

Easter at the Gower

The Gower peninsula, a favourite place.


Stitching inspiration


Quilting in the sand


How come boys always make their presence felt?


Peaceful sunsets




There was some stitching done, but my camera has thrown a wobbly, so that will need to wait.

London quilters' exhibition

London Quilters are a very talented group and they have an exhibition every year in Swiss Cottage Library, which is a very lively space, with a very good cafe inside.

Alicia Merrett has photographs of the exhibition on her blog and there is an article here about a quilt made from Gordon Brown's ties.

My favourites are shown below. I didn't get all the makers' names as the show guide was on a laminated sheet, so apologies to those concerned.


Silk screened birch trees



London transport symbol



Joan Miro in quilting



Alicia Merrett



Marlene Cohen



Margaret Jarvie



Margaret Jarvie detail



Pieced from a father's shirts

The exhibition finished yesterday and I'm very glad I made the effort to go.