Quilt show, Teddington 5- 7 Oct

If you are in the Teddington area next weekend, do drop in to the Richmond and Kew Quilters' biennial show at the Landmark Centre. Easy transport from Waterloo ( no parking there, I'm afraid) , over 100 quilts on display, craft stall, quilters' bric-a-brac, raffles, traders, tea, coffee cakes - not much more needed for the perfect day out. See this quilt live and come and say hello. I'll be there on Saturday and Sunday.

Guddling

This Scottish word originally meant to catch fish with one's hands. It has another generally accepted use, which is to muck about making a complete mess. Definitely applied to this week's Morley activities. First up, preparation of a screen for breakdown printing with Procion P dye pastes.


Pastes are applied to the screen, like icing a cake, then objects are embedded in to it, and the screen is left to dry. As the paste is quite thick, this screen has been left to dry until next week. An added bonus are the drips that come through the screen, and I used this to make a quick mono print - no pic of this, as I also had to leave this to dry.

Before starting on this, I set up a tray dye,of cotton sheeting, with Procion MX in blues and brown.



Beautiful fabrics emerged. These are not technically perfect as they have specks of undissolved dye on them, but I rather like this effect.



The second piece was folded before pleating, leading to one half with sharp and the other half with more faded versions of the same marks.

Morley Moons

Back to Morley this week, and sanity is restored. The studio has been revamped to give more usable floor space, and a deep clean of all surfaces has been done wherever possible. The course this year has a majority of returners, so will be run as more of a workshop. First new technique discussed tis week has been breakdown, or deconstructed screen printing, so I am gathering interesting bits and pieces this week for embedding in dye paste next week.

I made some more indigo moons ( CDs clamped on a piece of concertina folded sheet, and dipped in indigo for 2 minutes) to add to a piece I have been constructing during the summer. This is about 40 x 50 inches.


Indigo moon, overprinted with Procion P dye paste, through a masked Thermofax screen


Indigo dyed moons with twist pleated inset border



This will probably take for ever to get quilted, but it is a good start to the term.

Paralympics knitting and Morley tomorrow

Too much watching again, but saved by more knitting. Also, a reason to make a roll for knitting needles, after discovering that I had bought sizes that I already had, but couldn't find at the time. Why in such cases, do you always find the item several days after you have bought the new ones? Is is a ploy to keep the economy going?


Needle roll, made of fabric dyed last year at Morley



Inside of needle roll and knitting, made with this lovely yarn although the pattern, adapted from The Knitter's Book of Socks was very challenging to do in the dark bits.



Morley tomorrow, continuing the fabric printing course with Marion, can't wait.

Completely finished and ….. I am in a book

Off to be presented, after a bit of a disaster with dye running. Salvaged by using Synthrapol in a machine wash. I forgot to mention before that this quilt is double-sided. Lots of learning in this one.







And, I received a copy of the CQ@10 book this week and one of my A4 pieces is in it. REAlly exciting to see it in print.

"Finished is better than perfect" weekend

A rare weekend with no family responsibilities gave lots of time to finish some WIPs that were eating into energy that is needed for other creative endeavours. First up, a ' Hawaiian quilting meets Scottish iconography" cushion.



Hand-appliqued with my own design, after a lesson several years ago from Maggie Davies.. Machine quilted.




This will be in the Richmond and Kew Quilters exhibition, on the craft stall or on the cushion raffle.

Next up, quilt as you go pinwheels, which featured here some time ago. Turned into a bit of a "shambles-as-you-go", as once again I launched into the sewing without a complete plan and had to adapt as I went. Hand and machine quilted. Machine quilted with Bottomline thread, which is incredibly fine, so much so that I had to use the Bernina bobbin case finger extension for the first time. Worth exploring if you are having a problem balancing top and bottom tension.


Details of machine quilting