Quilts of lockdown 2

 At the start of all of the lockdowns, I needed mindless stitching. No complex piecing, just pulling scraps from a bag and sewing them together. Mindless meandering quilting, bit of hand applique, Quilt 2 is the result. 70cm x 97cm, not large, probably destined for Project Linus. I also had the perfect piece of fabric for the back, found in a charity shop more years ago than I can remember.

 

Glimpses of light in the gloom of January

I am hanging on to any glimpse of light to get through this gloomy January and was struck by the joyful shadows created by my little artists models.

Mental light was created by volunteering to join an Extinction Rebellion samba band, and to decorate a drum.

Spirits raised by the colours on this test layout for the bookshelf quilt

Thoughts on fragmentation have turned to leaves and the decay of leaves. Plum showed some little quilts she had made,  trapping fabric under tulle, and this coincided with seeing one of the last journal quilts for 2019, where a participant had trapped poinsettia bracts and leaves under tulle. Going to my large supply of dried leaves, I tried that technique.

My intent was to crumple the squares to make the leaves fragment, but they look so lovely,  don’t know  if I can bring myself to do that!

I forgot to photograph the lovely, stitched gingerbread man, sent to me by Benta, before I packed him with the Xmas decorations, so please see her post where she shows her fantastic creativity with machine embroidery.

Positive actions for January:

• providing sewing assistance at The Repair Cafe in Oxford, where we repaired 12 items of clothing and the other repairers fixed 37 of the other 62 items that were brought for repair. Look out for the day of The Big Fix in the UK on 15th February, and volunteer or take along something to be fixed.
• Tickets booked to hear the wonderful “Lost Words’” again, touring the UK this spring
• Buying an electric cargo bike to share with my husband - we live at the top of a l-o-n-g hill, buses re infrequent at the weekend and traffic is therefore very heavy. Two trips up the hill with laden  panniers have already proved the benefit of this decision.If you haven’t tried an electric bike - they are amazing!

 

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).

Too long a break, what have I achieved?

Too much going on with the building project to allow much time for art or sitting, but that should be no excuse for not blogging. What have I been doing?

Attended the anti-Trump demo, and broke my wooden spoon during the “Make the noise” part

Enjoyed more grids at the Manchester Art Gallery

Made journal quilts for May, June, July and August on the theme of abstracted birds: swan, heron, bittern, grebe. Hand-dyed, rust dyed and screen printed re-purposed sheet.

Went to the last art classes of the term, here we developed our drawings from here, with drawing, collage or paint

Learned to live with this

Baked sourdough bread

Made jewellery on a two day course with Penny Akester

Day 1, silver clay. A pendant cast from a conker case

Day 2, silver sheet. Earrings made to replace a loved and lost pair

Appreciated the beauty of our water lily, which did not flower last year

 

How long does it take to make one?

This question is asked often by non-stitchers. I wonder if painters and sculptors are asked the same question, or is it just understood that those art forms have their own timescale, and it may take years for a piece to be considered as finished.

I am asking myself this question as I will soon return to Eigg a year after my first visit, and realise that I am still piecing the “waves” inspired by the colours of the sea there.

Placed on a re-purposed linen sheet, I hope i will finish enough arcs of the waves to finish this quilt when I come back.

The human quilt stand

While quilting the blue splash, I applied some of the lessons from my drawing teacher and looked for areas on this quilt that look unrelated to the rest of it.  The borders need more relationship with the central blocks.  I added circles in three sizes into the borders and the human quilt stand helped me assess if this is a good idea or not.

 

I’m still pondering so have not stitched these down yet.

Journal quilts 2018, Abstraction

It has taken me a bit of time to get started with this year’s journal quilts,  ( all to be 7” x 9”) but the vernal equinox has spurred me on. My theme this year is “Abstraction”, stimulated by conversation with my drawing teacher.  The first three are about birds.

January, Gannets diving into the sea

Hand-dyed and commercial fabric, patchwork with proportions of colour to reflect the different colours in gannets.

February, Robins bob-bobbing along

Applique, commercial and hand-dyed fabric

March, Red kite soaring

Commercial and hand-dyed fabric appliqué  with some lipstick highlighting.

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.

For someone who doesn't do a lot of hand stitching..............

I seem to be doing a lot of it, 

Must be too much “Strictly”!

Off to Eigg - water

Eigg is a community-owned island, celebrating 20 years of community ownership this year. A yoga retreat beckoned, but the weather on the way over on the ferry did not. That great blur on the horizon is the island.

The dampness however does lead to beautiful mosses and lichens.

When the sun shines, the transformation is astonishing - Rhum from the north of Eigg

Singing sands beach with mist over the ridge

Galmisdale harbour

On the way to Kildonnan beach, with mainland in the background

These colours inspired some watery piecing

Kaleidoscope quilting continues

Glorious sunshine this weekend gave an opportunity to photograph the quilting on the Kaleidoscope quilt.  There is a lot of thread going in to this one.

Back, ‘'moths"

Back, corner feathers

Back, centre star

Front

Front, detail

The diagonal lines in the striped border are from an unpicked quilting design that I decided I didn’t like when it was next to the more dense quilting of the central medallion. Just as well it was sunny as i could do it outdoors and leave some threads for the birds’ nests.