Journal quilts continued, July 2019, Brexit, my hope is fading

Politics alert.
Painted newspaper backed with cotton woven interfacing: red, white and blue paint mixed to a drab purplish grey. Quilted with wave forms in black and white variegated thread, because the benefits of Brexit are patently apparent in the black and white arguments being put forward,  and of course, Britannia rules those waves.
Appliqued, foam, Brexit blue, unicorns disappearing up their own rhetoric and off to the far right. Note that the unicorns have no eyes to see.

Edged with black mourning ribbon.

Brexit, April SOS

SOS in Morse code, inspired by the recent projections on to the white cliffs of Dover by Led by Donkeys.

Dashes woven on to the background cloth through buttonholes. Dots hand appliqued. Union Jack fabric fading all the way down. Machine quilting in variegated black and white thread showing that between those extremes there are many shades of grey.

This was meant to have 12 yellow star buttons on it, but after keeping them stored safely for months, I now can't find them. Metaphorical?

Old friend..........

I needed some stitching time this weekend, so returned to the Ricky Tims Kaleidoscope quilt. One of my favourite threads, Superior threads, Rainbows

Freehand feathers

The corners of this quilt have been a conundrum for some time, but said butterfly wings to me this weekend. A lovely diversion in to images of wing patterns, led to 

Drawing and domesticity

The art tutor took us to see a free exhibition of work, mostly drawings, by Maggi Hambling at the British Museum, called ‘Touch’. Maggi Hambling divides opinion, but I like a lot of her work particularly the Scallop sculpture. The exhibition is on until 29 January 2017.
Photography is allowed.  The intent of the visit was for us to study Hambling’s mark making and to study, through copying, those marks. As some of the work was mono printing, that was difficult to do, however just looking at the range of marks on the print of this figure was inspiring.

There are some very touching drawings of her friends and family close to death.

My own attempt at that figure, head and hand. Nowhere near, but closer than I was 2 years ago.

The next week, a replacement tutor catapulted us in to portraiture -aaarrrggghhh!. After I calmed myself down, I’m pleased with this ( A2 size, charcoal and chalk on a coloured paper), as it is recognisable as the sitter, though he said I had made him look much younger.

Stitching for the past few weeks has been very domestic.
Replacement curtains and cushions for the bedroom to replace the “temporary” curtains and cushions that had been put in 22 years ago. After 21 years of family life, including the dog choosing one of the cushions as his favoured favoured window-viewing spot, they finally had to go.
The pattern matching along the front of the past of cushions took much measuring and swearing to get correct.



Inherited Ercol chairs have arrive in our house ( let’s say that ours have more of the patina of age about them). Their cushions were also in a sorry state, so while my piping skills were honed by the 30 degree corners on the bedroom cushions, I could tackle four replacements for these. Not in the original style, but a lot more comfortable.

The swan has also been finished. Faced rather than bound and waiting for the right wall space to show it to advantage.

April journal, in by the skin of my teeth - EH16

Finished on 30th April, about 4h before the deadline for submission.  Zooming off to university with the world at my feet.

Even although it was only 30 miles away, funding at that time meant I could leave home and live in.   Liberation.

Hand-embroidered panel ( Jenny Hart design), machine trapunto and machine quilting. Post code abstracted out to a decorative edge stitch on the panel. Hand-dyed commercial fabric from amazing supplier at FoQ whose name I have forgotten.

 This is how I felt,  off to my future. The dark side represents what I was leaving behind and the candlelight of dinners taken in the dining hall during the 3 day week. The brighter side was all that was to come.

Lots I would now change on this in terms of composition, but is was a useful and fun exercise to try to convey my memories in cloth.

Ledger, loving it, but I'm still on week one

I am absolutely loving this online course, but I am still fixated on the shapes generated during week one. I am applying some of the other techniques we are learning, but by now, I am supposed to she another design source, and a study of lace, with its derivatives. Still, Karen is a generous tutor, and is happy for us to develop our skills as we wish or need, and not to rigidly follow her curriculum. The week's explorations follow.


Overlay page and its inverse. The inverse is a photocopy, as I am using the inverse fabric piece for another ongoing project.


Shibori, indigo dyed polyester acetate, attached using Bondaweb, due to the narrowness of the stems / arms/ branches/ tentacles. FME, with rayon thread, using different patterns of stitching.


This was the page I really didn't like , so I've covered it up with an overlay, but still kept it so it can be seen.


The orange piece is screen printed paper, reinforced with lightweight Vilene, and machine stitched with wool thread. The marking on the magenta page was seeing if I could continue the "quilting" lines on to the overlay.


Top sheet is painted paper backed with very soft Vilene, with embroidered inserts. This overlays an inserted panel of the same paper, ( also reinforced with Vilene) . The background paper is coloured with Inktense blocks, and stamped with lettering from an acrylic blocks set found in a charity shop - some letters missing, so I had to improvise. The paper shapes are the left-overs from cutting the paper stencils for the screen-printing. I like their floppy characteristics, so I stitched them together and included them in the ledger.


Mounted with a piece of paper from an old music book, and lots of ideas spinning in my head from the two stitches added to the music.


Underneath - stitched paper, inserted in to the background paper.

Morley Moons

Last day of term, and I think I am overwhelmed by the number of techniques I have learned this year. I was therefore drawn again to the immediacy and simplicity of indigo resist shibori to make some more strips of moons by using CDs as resists. ! minute and 5 minutes in the indigo bath respectively, with the right hand one dyed with an overall resist before over dyeing with the CD resist.


Some embroidery on previously dyed linen helped with feeling that I was actually doing something constructive while watching the tennis ( Go Andy!).




Stitched with DeHaviland threads, who frustratingly, still don't seem to have a website.

I have brought home some dye pastes and some dyspere dyes to experiment with over the holidays, so there might still be some posting over the next few weeks.

Do visit the Morley Gallery if you ae in Lambeth, where there is a display of work by the Advanced Textiles Group, very inspiring.

Bike, brake, BQL and binding

An accident on my bike, led to me spending some time yesterday at our local minor injuries unit.  Nothing serious, just a cut on the eyebrow, but deep enough to elicit a “hhmmm” from my husband after it was cleaned.  Waiting to be glued ( superglue has many uses), I finished the binding on the first of a pair of A4 quilts for a BQL swap in July.

 

Feather motif from Anita Shackleford “ Infinite Feathers” , back stitch quilted using Jacquie Harvey method, using superior Rainbows thread, freehand extra hyperquilting in the motifs a la Patsy Thompson added after initial quilting, echo machine quilting with Bottomline thread.

Stamping - but not my foot

After the rant below, I'm now back on an even keel and ready to try some of Sally Kelly's ideas from our workshop with her.

I have stamped some gold acrylic paint on to black cotton and then stitched some tight and loose French knots with my current favourite Sulky variegated orange cotton thread.

The group below are stamped with biscuit cutters, but not stitched yet. the acrylic paint doesn't withstand washing, so is really only for decorative use.