Exhibitions to lift the spirits

October Gallery, until 30th July, Eddy Kamauanga Ilunga.  Very thought-provoking use of circuit diagrams on the human body, and fantastic depiction of African fabrics.

Morley College, textiles foundation until 7th July, wonderful work by all students, beautifully staged, and with a chance to pore over sketchbooks.

 Debora Jedwab

Nikki Sims

Bridged Hall

Margaret Scott

Liz Clamp

Textile Alchemy, Waterloo Art Centre, until 02 July, where the influence of new Morley tutor with an interest in dyes form natural materials is very evident.

 

 

Found and finished

I find that some textile pieces  just languish, momentum is lost, inspiration fades and the object lies reproachfully somewhere, often out of sight.  I'm therefore trying a "finish, donate or bin" approach to these objects.  In this spirit, I had a finish last night.

This quilt made up from two different planned quilts, neither of which came out as I envisioned.  As it is so busy, I've used it to practice my machine quilting and a binding method applying the binding to the back, and then securing to the front with a three-stitch zigzag.   The wobbly edges are due to the hanging, I hope.  I had some pieces left over, so had made a pieced back.

I'm not sure about this now, as it could be interpreted as having a religious element, which was not intended at all.

Learning from this one - watercolour pencils will not necessarily wash out, particularly red ones!

London - signs and quilts

We have a German orchestral exchange student with us for a week, so my sewing room has to become a girl's bedroom for now.  As the sewing machine packs away in to a Horn cabinet, it was quite quick, but i needed a textile fix somehow.  The contemporary Quilt Group AGM  was at the right time.

On the way there, a selection of London signs, old and new, with some intriguing spelling of foreign food

Then, at the meeting,  a chance to see some of the journal quilts in the flesh.  These did not disappoint.  Ninety six of last year's journals will be on display at the Creative Stitches event at Excel next week, and I will be there stewarding on Saturday 5th April.

The speaker was an intriguing artist, Elizabeth Tarr, who was a new name to me.  Elizabeth works with indigo and stitch on brown paper, taking her inspiration from her travels and from favourite paintings, including a long series based on Las Meninas.

 

 

Buttons, beads and thread

Plum and I are doing a demonstration of making buttons at our quilt group tomorrow.  We both did an excellent online course with Karen Ruane two years ago.  

In between business travel, London travel disruption, lost purse and travel card and coordinating elder son getting off to a trip to France, I've been stitching up some examples.  I'll use these to demonstrate the mounting technique in to the button.

Beaded on hand-dyed velvet, about 29mm in diameter

Beaded and stitched on indigo - shibori cotton

Detail of beading, again about 29mm in diameter

Detail of "buttoned" button

and if you've ever wondered why you sometimes have difficulty threading a needle, could this be why?  Image from here.

Racing to the finish line

With 10 days to spare I have finished my final journal quilt of 2013, on the theme of " Places I Remember"  I've veered a bit off topic for the past couple of months, by including places that are still very current.  That has remained the same for this month.
A bit of bling for Christmas

Shibori indigi-dyed sheeting, machine quilted using circle tool, raw edge applique, hand-beading.  Applique attached with MistyFuse, continuing my exploration of different bonding agents.  MistyFuse seems like the best so far and well worth the cost.

 About 4 years ago, I went to my first course at Morley College, and my creative life has been transformed. I have met very many interesting people, been to many exhibitions, and worked with many different materials. There is so much to see,discover and learn and I hope this month's quilt conveys my enthusiasm for everything that Morley continues to give me.

Two finishes

Rain at the weekend gave time to finish a couple of ongoing projects.  First of all " Morley Moons" indigo dyeing using resists,  pole-wrapping shibori and some Procion p dyeing with a thermofax screen.  Details of dyeing in this post.

Quilted with stippling and a design learned at a Philippa Naylor workshop.

Then, using the offcuts of the cloth, an A5 book wrap for the Bookwrap Gems stall at the Festival of Quilts.

Interior

All very satisfying.

WEFT, it was fab

This exhibition has been blogged abut extensively and I managed to get there last thursday.  Due to much work  and family turbulence since then, I've only been able to post about it now.

Astonishing  embroidery by the Chinese Suzhou school was on display, taking a traditional skill in to a contemporary interpretation.  This lotus pond was one of my favourite pieces although I can see how some bloggers have stated that it looked too much like a digital image for their liking.

Astonishing embroidered tree trunk

Detail of embroidery

Beautiful stitched indigo shibori

Detail of indigo shibori

Blue series

At last, I got my momentum back to complete the blue series of the Contemporary quilt Group A4 challenge for 2102.  I expected this to be the easiest series, but it proved to be the most difficult to get down to. I have again focussed on using fre-purposed fabrics, dyed of printed at the Morley course.  I'm dashing about a bit today, so individual photos and notes on techniques will follow in another post.

A break in Devon

So many bloggers show photographs of their work placed in beautiful, natural surroundings, that I was inspired by our accommodation this week to photograph an ongoing project, " Morley Moons" outdoors.



The weather was predictably wet, but where we were staying, had glorious views which enabled me to watch how the sky changed as I was stitching.





Lots of muddy walks, practising map-reading


and finding some great colour studies along the way.


There was even a sunset, but the stars had disappeared by the time we had finished dinner with friends.

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

Back to Morley this week, and sanity is restored. The studio has been revamped to give more usable floor space, and a deep clean of all surfaces has been done wherever possible. The course this year has a majority of returners, so will be run as more of a workshop. First new technique discussed tis week has been breakdown, or deconstructed screen printing, so I am gathering interesting bits and pieces this week for embedding in dye paste next week.

I made some more indigo moons ( CDs clamped on a piece of concertina folded sheet, and dipped in indigo for 2 minutes) to add to a piece I have been constructing during the summer. This is about 40 x 50 inches.


Indigo moon, overprinted with Procion P dye paste, through a masked Thermofax screen


Indigo dyed moons with twist pleated inset border



This will probably take for ever to get quilted, but it is a good start to the term.