Journal quilts, "There are places I remember….."

I want to use this theme to explore abstract interpretations of places I remember. I have focussed on significant addresses in my life and wanted to use colours and textures to invoke what those places meant to me at the time, and sometimes what they mean with the benefit of hindsight. Although I have visited several countries for pleasure and for work, and my family is fairly ar-flung ( East Coast US, West Coast US and Australia) , I have always lived in the UK, so there will be no glorious colours of wonderful destinations. It took me a long time to get started on this theme, perhaps because some of the memories are tricky to deal with. I'm planning to use postcodes as a unifying element across the series, but added with different techniques.

January, Dalmuir

My early life was spent with my brother, sister and parents in a two room flat on the first floor of a tenement, one of those that were just far enough away from Clydebank to survive the Clydebank blitz.  My cousins lived in the same street, and my memories are of endless days playing in the back court, in the huge park within walking distance, and in the rubble across the road.

I want to get away from pictorial representations of these memories, so I have focused instead on the colours that I recall: the rust red of the sandstone buildings; the green of the park; the blue of the stream in the park; the brown of the River Clyde.

 Breakdown printed cotton sheeting, using Procion P dyes with Manutex. Postcode stencilled with permanent felt pen. Machine trapunto under the section quilted in a brick pattern. Hopscotch ( “beds” or “peever” in the West of Scotland) chalk quilted with rayon thread. Stipple quilted with variegated blue thread, then microstippled with Bottomline thread in green, light rust and light blue.