I have just started a new job, so a lot of stitching has slowed down while I adjust to everything involved with that. A couple of postcards for the birthday swap, made with hand-dyed and commercial fabrics.
A 5inch Dear Jane block to complete a tilt started by one of our group members who was a great quilter and who died this year after a long life. Although I enjoyed making this in memory of her, this has fully convinced me that I will never make one of these quilts.
Then finally, quilting of a piece of screen printed cloth, potentially to protect my laptop if the piece is large enough. Inside is tray-dyed cloth overprinted with a photo screen that has two sections on one screen.
Outside is Procion P painted cloth then overprinted with two different screen stencils made from wide masking tape carved into curves with a scalpel.
Details of quilting, so far.
I am also taking part in this stitch-along, but there will be few photos as the final product will be a present to be revealed on the day of the 50th anniversary edition.
In the tradition of strippy quilts, (yes that is strippy, and not stripy spellchecker, no matter how many times you try to correct it), the most recent bookwrap was made from left-over strips of my hand-dyed fabrics, then hand embroidered with colours complementary to the colour of the cloth. The organisers of this project are so efficient, it is on their site already, so this is a picture of the back or the front, depending which way you put it on your book.
I seem to be reliving my musical history through my photos. In the week of the excesses of the Chelsea flower show, these are all from my garden, and show why " I don't want to go to Chelsea" ( with apologies to Elvis Costello).
The photo below, of peeling paint on an abandoned rowing boat, has continued to intrigue me, and I asked my elder son to help me extract a colour palette. He did extract the colour palette below, but in such a blur that I'll find it tricky to duplicate the process. He's definitely not a natural teacher.
These little projects are very addictive. I've decided to use a lot of my dyed samples from Morley to make these for the Bookwrap Gem tombola at the Festival of Quilts. All to fit A5 size sketchbooks, with a spine or up to 2cm width. Cotton sheeting, hand-dyed with Procion MX and Procion P, then machine quilted. The last one, has an overlay of silk chiffon from somewhere or other. These were also a chance to try out the Bernina edge stitch foot - well worth the money.
…….with apologies to " The Rezillos" ( still one of my all time favourite bands) but it is so appropriate for the sculptures I saw this week at the Cass Sculpture Foundation, by Ellis O"Connell. Fantastic work, really organic shapes. As they are made of carbon fibre and not steel or stone, they are warm to the touch, which is really surprising in work of this scale.
This was such a rewarding place to visit, and there were only about 6 other people there yesterday - admittedly, it was so cold that I couldn't eventually take any more photos as my hands were so stiff. About 1.5h drive from London, and I took about 2h to view all the sculptures. It was the culmination of a complete overload of art this week, that I will blog about later once I've absorbed it all. This visit was combined with a trip to Petworth - art of complete contrast and incredible to think it was all owned by one family.
