2020 or is it SOSO?

Blogging has taken a back seat in 2019, might it return to the front seat in 2020? Catch up on Nov - Dec activities

Costume exhibition at the National Theatre, free, on until June 2020, 

Panto making, production photos here

Birthday flowers

Contemporary drawing at The British Museum, very inspiring, free, finishes on 12 January

Floods in Oxfordshire

Last 4 Brexit journals, painted wadding background, decreasing influence

Repairing the Xmas wreath, from Gina Ferrari, I think 

Golden yellow winter jasmine, much needed colour

Starting work on a bookshelf quilt for a baby due in March, some of which had to be sewn on the Singer 201k

Will I take part in the Contemporary Quilt Group challenge for 2020, theme is Fragmentation? One metre by 60cm for 31st May? Gathering ideas

Just for fun, a pen holder, using scraps from the panto costumes, using this tutorial.

Trying to persuade my husband that even if we are trying to reduce, re-use and recycle, that a new nail brush might be needed, 

Coming up:

New exhibition at Two Temple Place, “Unbound, Visionary women Collecting Textiles” free, on until 19 April 2020.

Alexander McQueen, “New Roses” how some of those astonishing dresses were made, 27 Old Bond Stree, free, until mid 2020.

 

 

Journal quilts continued, June 2019, Brexit, another glimpse of hope

More use of painted newspaper.

Painted newspaper with a flash of black, red and yellow fabric to represent my husband and my sons gaining their German citizenship in June.

Paint is a mix of red, white, blue and yellow, giving a murky grey, quilted with £ to represent the financial speculation occurring around Brexit.

Edged with black mourning ribbon.

Quilt Art in London

I managed to see an interesting exhibition called Material Evidence this week at the Menier Gallery by the group of artists called Quilt Art. Many of these artists are well known in the quilt art world, and deserve to be better recognised in the more general art world.

Sara Impey’s work focused again on the historical value of stitch, rendered in stitched text

Karina Thompson had a beautiful digitally-stitched piece, apparently made with Japanese fabrics, titled, Let Go

It was only after thinking about this piece on the way home that I realised that this was the same Karina Thompson who made the long, long, long stitched piece showing ECG traces and Doppler ultrasound images at “Cloth and Memory 2"

 Christine Chester displayed an impressive paper-laminated piece based on a historical quilt.

The most moving piece for me was by Charlotte Yde,  titled “The Ones That Got Away”. This is a large scale triptych, stitched on transparent cloth

It brought back memories of the work of Issam Kourbaj and Ruth Padel seen at the Islamic Gallery at the British Museum a couple of years ago.

 

 

Glass and gourds

A morning spent at the Chihuly glass exhibition Kew Gardens culminated in the Lily House, with wonderful contrast between white glass and green gourds.

Journal quilt, March 2019, Brexit 3

Twenty seven different yellow fabrics in fourteen foundation-pieced triangles. Inserted, with curved piecing and appliqué,  in to a rather crumpled and tired looking background. Union Jack fabric at the bottom, tea-stained and of nondescript shape, dissolving into tattered threads at the far right. ( This is straight - unlike UK politics, just distorted by the medium - like UK politics).

Journal quilts 2019, January, Brexit 1

A new year, a new stitching challenge. A4 size, four quits to be made with a sewing technique, four to be made with fabrics other than just cotton, four to be made using a different technique to make a background. The first sewing technique was an opportunity to re-visit appliqué of bias strips, something I have not done for years.
Initial sketch

In development, tea-dyed Union Jack fabric, and very useful, very short appliqué pins. Bias strips ( 1/4 inch) made using a bias strip maker, not essential, but saves burnt fingers.

Sewing down the strips, background is a piece of blue satin from my recent pantomime costume-making. Strangely appropriate for this piece.


Finished and quilted with FMQ, bound with satin stitch.

Does this look like my initial sketch? Mostly yes, but I made these changes

• the twisted chain was too complex in a piece of this size and with this width of strips. It would work on a larger scale
• the strip representing the UK went off the piece to the left in the initial sketch. With everything that is happening in the UK, it was a better representation that it went off to the far right
• final piece of the UK strip is tattered and fractured, linked together by a thin thread
• FMQ on the left is swirling and co-operative, FMQ on the right, where the UK strip is heading,  is a maze of never connecting boxes
• FMQ in the centre is dense and closely connected

Dashing through the quilts.......not the snow

With the panto’ commitments over, I’ve returned to finishing off my journal quilts for this year.  Continuing on the theme of abstracted birds, the last four concentrate on beaks.

Crossbill.

Abstract birds, this series of four is about beaks.

 

Hand-dyed cotton fabrics. Experimenting in this series with increasing thickness of machine trapunto using water soluble thread. Very difficult to photograph the trapunto as a flat photo. One layer of trapunto wadding here.