Seen From Above - 58 to 121

This time my piece of textile art in the Seen From Above series is a linear map that follows the route from my house to our caravan on the coast.   It's a journey I take many times and have come to know it very well.

The techniques I have used include hand stitching, painting, printing and applique.  The background was printed to resemble contour lines found on OS maps and then I illustrated various landmarks or features along the route.

 

 

The 'map' was stiffened with Vilene so that it fold up in four sections just like a real map.

Seen From Above - The Village

Last month I gave you a preview of my latest creation which is now finished so can be revealed.

 

 

Made from my own dyed fabric, this is a pieced quilted hanging with the centre of the panel reflecting the layout of the roads in the village which I live.   I had to make a few adjustments so I didn't have too many corners meeting.   This panel was then hand quilted with lines of running stitch in toning perle cotton.  I used the shape of each piece when deciding which direction to quilt.

 

The top and bottom borders were printed with a stencil made from freezer paper.  The two left hand shapes - an oak tree and an anvil - are the symbols on the village sign; the centre house is the outline of my own house; and the two right hand trees reflect the woods that border the village.   These two panels were then quilted with seed stitch using random dyed perle cotton.

 



 

 

 

 

 

 

Journal Quilts

I have yet again signed up for Contemporary Quilts Journal Quilt Challenge and for this year the only stipulation is that they have to be 12" x 6" and you have to decide at the beginning of the year whether you will work in portrait of landscape.   I decided to work in portrait and this year I am going to create mixed-media quilts.

I thought long and hard about a theme but as I was completely stumped on this, I will take something from the month to inspire my design.

For January, I went for the weather and although at the time we had not had any snow, I did have some photos I had taken a few years ago which I wanted to use.   I started with a grey background which I discharged snowflake designs with a thermofax screen. To this I added snowflakes printed on to fabric and paper using another thermofax screen and snowflakes cut from lacy paper, Angelina fibres and film together with one of my photos of snow and icicles in black and white.  I also wanted to add some text so I wrote 'let it snow' on some tissue paper and this became part of the design.  I edged the two long edges with some lace and after binding I stitched white beads in to the inner edge.

   

I used Valentines Day as the inspiration for February and created a design based on love and hearts.  The base fabric was started by printing a red design with a Thermofax screen but as it was rather too bright I placed some lacy paper over the top to tone it down.  The heart in the centre was made by bonding various red fabrics and threads with bondaweb and then bonding red organza over the top. This was then machine stitched to a piece of card which was in turn mounted to a piece of dyed fabric.  I again included some text which this time were the lyrics to "A Million Love Songs" which I printed on to hand made paper.   The tags at the bottom are painted price tags which I over printed and then wrote the words.  Finished with ric rac, buttons and beads which were again stitched around the edge after the binding was added.

 

 

 

    

Work in Progress

Remember the fabric I dyed a few weeks ago?

Here's a sneaky peek of how I'm using some of it.    It's a random patched panel with top and bottom borders which I am hand stitching/quilting each patch with running stitches using cotton perle.

How long is it going to take?

Seen From Above - City to Sea

Another creation finished in the Seen From Above series I am currently working on.  

Every now and then I love to return to pieced block patchwork, in particular log cabin.   In these blocks I have incorporated OS maps in the strips.  It just happened I had some old maps which have been replaced with newer versions and these maps included London and Mid Sussex to the coast.

The colours were chosen to reflect the landscape depicted in the maps.  Red for the city as there were so many red roads on the pieces I had selected as well as the red buses that can be found on the roads.  Green for the central block as it covers an area of Mid Sussex that is predominantly countryside.   And of course blue for the coastal area and the sea,   All the fabrics in the blocks were hand dyed and the green one was a piece I had overprinted with a Thermofax screen a few year ago for another project.

I quilted in the ditch on the blocks as I was worried about tearing the paper with too much stitching and then added some further lines of stitching inbetween the blocks and on the borders.

Productive Day Dyeing

I spend a morning this week dyeing - no particular reason, just fancied doing it!

I normally use the plastic bag method but decided to give low immersion/tray dyeing a go this time.  

The first batch started with lemon yellow and I then added red and turquoise.  I think I overdid the "pressing to make sure everything was covered" as it did end up looking more brown that I wanted.  Once washed it didn't look so bad.

I then dyed batches of turquoise with a splash of cobalt blue; magenta with a splash of purple; and finally orange with a splash of red.  Very happy with the results of these.

To finish off I used up all the left over dye with the result of a blue, red, purple mix.

At the same time I dyed some threads - soft cotton, perle and a skein of stranded.

I have a project in mind for these so keep watching!

Review of 2014 and looking ahead to 2015

I have a mixture of feelings about how 2014 was creatively for me so I thought I'd start by reviewing the targets I made for the year.

1.   Add regularly to my Folksy Shop - I suppose the definition of "regularly" is what is appropriate here!   I have added several times through the year but instead of a slow "drip feed" which was my intention, I tended to add in bulk.   I know this does not have the best effect of attracting customers but it was really a result of my lifestyle.

 2.   Set up an Etsy Shop - this didn't happen!   I spent a lot of time considering it but in the end I thought it was yet another thing that would take me away from the creating!

 3.   Submit my work to a local gallery for possible selling - this has been probably the most successful aspect of 2014.   I had an exhibition of my Rust collection at Green Tree Gallery, resulting in a sale of the largest piece which gave my confidence a big boost.  I also started selling smaller items in two shops near Chichester - Rose Green Art and Craft Gallery and Birdcage Barn Craft Emporium.  Both are going steadily, although a little slowly.  

 4.   Work in my sketchbooks at least 2 or 3 times each week - again not really achieved but I do use my sketchbook when I am working on a new piece of work.  Again it takes time away from the actual creating!

 5.    Post regularly on my blog - well I've posted 26 times through the year so an average of 2 a month is an achievement.  Unfortunately there were a few months when I didn't post anything.

 As I said before, my feelings about the year are mixed.   I am really pleased about selling my work in galleries and I hope this will continue and expand in 2015.

However, I spent much of the year making items to sell, particularly for a craft fair that was not successful, and the net result is I have not created the textile art that is my first love.    This is all the more significant when I think about the exhibition Thread and Shutter have booked for November 2015 and the fact that I have very little completed so far.

Some serious thinking has been done so my targets for 2015 are:

1.  Make smaller items alongside larger items - when making a quilt, prepare smaller similar pieces that can become smaller mounted textile art, postcards or cards.

2.  Use the smaller items to sale on Folksy and outlets currently used.  Also review all the pieces of textile art that I have and add them to the items for sale.

3.  Attend at least one workshop with an artist who inspires me.

4.  Meet with Thread and Shutter at least once a fortnight, as well as outings to exhibitions, shows etc.

5.  Continue with regular blog posts, at least two each month.

I'm excited about the coming year and have already begun to put some of these targets in place.  Organising an exhibition is always a good way of focussing the mind.  My problem is not letting myself getting side-tracked by other crafty things I see and want to try out!

Let's get going!