Quilts of lockdown 1

 

I made this quilt during lockdown, loaded photos to Instagram, but did not blog about it. It was sewn completely from stash and is based on this pattern. Surprisingly straightforward to sew, and great fun choosing the placement of the tones of blue. It ended up at 102cm x 120cm, so not huge, but enough to cover a lap.

Machine quilted with straight line, walking foot quilting, in random geometric shapes.

Will I submit it to Festival of Quilts? It always seems like a bit of a cop out to submit a quilt made to someone else's pattern, but I suppose there have still been artistic decisions made in its construction.

Unexpected outings, part 1, Manchester

I am working intermittently in Manchester until September.  This week, I discovered that the Whitworth Gallery is 5 minutes walk from where I am working. What a lunchtime treat.  The curators may have known I was coming - steel sculpture, intricate drawing, two textile artists, tranquil space, wonderful gardens. As I did not expect to be taking photos, I had no camera, only my phone, hence some wonky horizontals and verticals.

Tranquil spaces, and amusingly, labels on the walls giving details of the Little and Green paint colours used on the gallery walls

Garden glimpses

Steel sculpture by Anya Gallacio

Fabulous drawing by Deanna Petherbridge

and then Lucien Day

Followed by huge lengths of the astonishing printed fabric by Barbara Brown

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Time after work, for a walk around Piccadilly Basin, along the canal. Great patterns in the ribs next to the lock gates to give grip while pushing

ribs of a different type.

Round the corner, some public murals - unexpected bluetit

and a calligram ( shape poem)  by the remarkable Lemn Sissay. ( Joyful things are found when looking up, rather than down at the phone or the map, when one is in an unfamiliar city)

sunset over the city rooftops

and so to bed.

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.

 

Last stitching of 2016 - and a diversion in to clothes making

A quilt to finish the year with. “ Proper” patchwork made from two worn out shirts,  a discarded calico curtain from a charity shop and backed with a fabric picked up at the bric a brac stall at a quilt show.

No photos of the full quilt as the light is too low today.

I have not made many quilts this year as I have been diverted back to clothes making. My younger son has difficulty finding shirts to fit his narrow shoulders and long, slender frame so I volunteered to make him some. Unlike women’s clothing, there is a little choice in patterns for men’s shirts, but several bloggers use Burda 7045, however I anticipated having to make many pattern adjustments, after reading an account of making it here.

Commercial patterns are not like quilt patterns. They are never perfect and always have to be adapted to an individual  because human bodies are too variable. The instruction sheets frequently do not take account of modern sewing methods and advise cumbersome techniques and outdated interfacings.  There is so much help on the internet to address these commissions and I followed tutorials about shirts from here and here.

The test shirt, with cotton lawn, digitally printed,  bought several years ago from M Rosenberg and Son, went down well. 

Version 2 is now cut out, with a longer armhole, removal of the darts on the front and a collar that extends further in to the open neck of the collar band. 2017 could be the year of the shirt.

Happy stitching everyone.

Serpentine squares ( and some rectangles)

In contrast to the curvaceous summer house, the pavilion this year is all square-faced, open, cuboid modules bolted together in to a soaring curve.

A performance artist is needed to set up some contrasting vignettes in those square openings.

Happy Pancake Day

Gorgeous colour, despite making me think that the packer was demonstrating some obsessive / compulsive traits.

"On the Border"

With a nod to Al Stewart, I'm continuing the song theme, and have added a border to "Old Friend".  It is now about 48" square.

This could be one of those projects that just grows and grows as I am now planning a 6 inch deep border of striped triangles round the whole thing.  True to form, those points in the middle did not meet up accurately enough, so there is a bit of appliqué slapped on top.

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.

 

 

Morley has started again, and I survived having to draw

So this term, I am back at Morley on Tuesdays, doing a course called " Design and Print".  The textile studio has been refurbished.  Gone are the startling yellow walls, the red metal roof beams, the encrusted sinks, the slightly dodgy and too small fume cupboard, and the water tanks that always  ran out of water by the end of the day.  It all seemed rather endearing at the time, but all is whisked away to be replaced with lots of white paint, and brand new fittings.

The tutor went straight in with a drawing and design exercise.  Three drawings of different objects from our bags, from three different angles, by three different individuals.   I did not let panic set in, but got on with it as best as I could.  As the tutor wanted drawings as loose and sketchy as possible, I could eventually relax into it.  We then photocopied the resulting drawings, , reduced them in size on the photocopier, and played with composition of the resulting shapes.  

First composition, can you identify the original items*?, just larger than A4 size

Second composition, with multiple copies.  too mch white space down the centre strip, but starting to look interesting.

* scissor case and scissors, pot full of tea bags with open lid, glasses case with a box of pins.