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?

Abstraction

I have signed up again to take part in the Contemporary Quilt Group monthly challenge.  The size this year is 7" x 9", in landscape format.  I've been dithering about for weeks deciding on a theme, not helped by the fact that group members post their pieces for viewing on Yahoo, and the platform seems to be broken. There are therefore very few finished pieces to look at to spur me on.

However, the snow paralysis n the UK gave me time to think, and I've decided that my theme will be "abstracting nature".

Taking the gannet photos from the art class as inspiration, ( I love watching gannets), I have worked on abstracting what, for me, makes them distinctive: the sharp, streamlined shape as the enter the water; the blue highlight around their eyes; the yellow neck feathers.

Sketching out ideas, and trying to explore geometry in my sketchbook, leading to an almost finished piece.  I'm still deciding on whether this needs more quilting and will add a two colour binding to disguise the wonky geometry of the two  triangles at the side.

Other creative tasks were knitting a hat with beautiful yarn found in a charity shop. It's a lovely hat, but it is not a good look for me, so it is off to a local charity who are collecting warm clothing for homeless people.

July journal, seedhead

The journal July is the first of three on the theme of seeds.  Stencilled fabric, then experimenting with different weights of threads.

Finished

Seven year stitch?

UFO clearing is a good thing to do when creative energy is in short supply, but is going back to a project that was started 7 years ago a good idea in this situation?  The answer was yes, when it is this swan, started 7 years ago, in a workshop with Ferret.

I got stuck on this as I was going to appliqué some leaves into the corner, but couldn’t get the scale of the leaves to my liking.

A cycle along the river ( the only benefit of visiting my relative with the stroke) gave inspiration of just stitching on lines of stitch to suggest the winter threads of willow branches.

A greenish, variegated thread from the stand looked like a good mix of colours.

Trying to apply some of my new knowledge about tone, I also added some darker stitch down one side of the variegated thread and some lighter stitch down the other side. The Bernina edge-stitch foot is a great tool for precision stitching.

  

I need to stitch more lines and to decide whether to stitch in the thread ends or sew them in.

 

One million, nine hundred thousand machine stitches.....

….. in 28 months.  I know this fact due to having my sewing machine serviced by the charming Brett at Sewworks last week.  Much of that total is due to the denser machine quilting that I now find myself increasingly drawn to.  Some examples from the weekend, in more signs for our quilt show ( 23 - 25 October, Landmark Centre, Teddington).

Quilting patterns are wonky Greek key and big toe, as described by my family.

If I got down to 1,900,000 pencil lines my drawing would improve at the same rate as my stitching.

Dense

Thinking about the quilts that I was most drawn to at the exhibition last week, it seemed to be those with very dense machine quilting.  As the June journal challenge is due, I took the machine quilting inspiration in to this month’s piece.  Below is 6 x 12 inches, cotton, two layers of 80:20 wadding,  60 weight thread and a twisted yarn binding.  other inspiration came from the book, Graffiti Quilting, lent by Plum. I like very much the effect of the two layers of wadding, but I think it would be too heavy and cumbersome to manage the quilting in a large quilt.

Details

City adventures - sculpture, fashion, froth, textiles, wildlife large and small

The past few days have been full of art and more wildlife encounters.  First of all a walk around Sydney finding urban sculpture. 

"Youngster: by Caroline Rothwell on George Street.

Forgotten Songs by Michael Thomas Hill, which is a sculptural and aural installation that changes between night and day.

I loved the shapes of the bottom of the cages against the grid of the building.

Next to the Powerhouse Museum, to see the costumes from the film of Strictly Ballroom, and to whet my appetite for the musical that we are going to see in 10 days.  These costumes were even more over the top than I had expected.

At the same museum, there were examples of some of the work of the final year fashion students from Sydney colleges.  Instead of sketchbooks, they had inspiration boxes in front of their creations, which was a good way to demonstrate the breadth of their influences.  First Emma Macgregor's gorgeous, ethereal dresses

Then the wonderful sculptural creations of Yousef Akbar

Finally, on the way to an early dinner at Movida, ( smoked tomato sorbet, anyone?) an unexpected encounter with two young dancers in Kimber Lane, where there is another of the public art installations.

The next day started early with a train to Newcastle to visit a long-term friend.  When
I am in a culture wher eno English is spoken , I am less struck by the oddities of that culture than when I am in other English-speaking country.  One of these oddities was the train notceboard, showing that an empty train would be passing - blurry as I didn't have my camera set up correctly.

This was my first morning of rain during my visit, and the journey through the Hawkesbury river area was full of misty valleys and dark reflections on the water.

I did do some stitching on the 2h journey - as i was going up to see some textiles, I felt the need to to do.

The key visual experience of the trip was to visit an exhibition at Timeless Textiles, an intriguing textile gallery.  This was a beautiful space, and the key exhibition was of pieces by Omila Bir,  ( who doesn't seem to have a website) shibori fabrics, dyed using natural dyes.

I was particularly intrigued by the pieces with very regular squares and rectangles of resist.

A beautiful large piece had wonderful patterns

The owner of the gallery is a felter, and attracts teachers who are internationally famous, such as Kerr Grabowski, known for her work with deconstructed screen printing.  One of Kerr's scarves was for sale in the shop.

New to me was the name of Meredith Woolnough, whose machine stitched pictures / sculptures / installations were breathtaking.

Next to the Art Gallery of Newcastle, whose policy on photography is directly in opposition to that of all other galleries I have visited on this trip, in that no photography is allowed.  As this is a public collection, that seems very inconsistent to me.  Lots of native Australian artists, and some wonderful cut paper by Kylie Stillman.
 

Lastly, a walk along Bar Beach, to see where my sister did a triathlon, and thrill of thrills, two whales playing in the bay about 500m offshore.  Fins, backs and spouts, but no tails, still an incredible thing for a Brit to see.

Lots more to come, but I'm now probably out of blogging opportunities for 10 days, as we are off to here, and then to here.

PS the small wildlife encounter, was at a yoga class at a city gym, when in the middle of the warrior poses, and the supposedly calm breathing, a huge cockroach made its way down the length of the gym.  The instructor took a very non-yogic action to get rid of it.

Dislocation quilt has been submitted, fingers crossed

I have now submitted my entry to the Dislocation challenge after a weekend of finishing it off.  I am very pleased with it, even if it doesn't get juried in.  New techniques for me on this one were using Markal painstiks, machine appliqué of bias strips in two different widths, and finishing with a binding of approximately an eighth of an inch.

Details

The final piece, now called "Blite, whack and red all over"

Christmas is coming...

…..so of course it is time to add a project to the already long list of things to do.
Seriously, my Christmas preparations are much simplified this year, due to several positive changes in family commitments.  I have long admired the work and teaching of Gina Ferrari, but live too far away to take advantage of her classes.  So, in an attempt to make a "non-taught version" of her Xmas wreaths, shown on her great blog,  I splashed out on some 100% wool felt from Creative Quilting, found a bit of yellow silk, got stitching furiously ( a full 200m reel of thread), found a suitable ring ( about 25cm in diameter) and this is the result.

Thank you Gina from a distance.

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.