Wonderful workshop with Maggie Grey

Last Saturday Maggie Grey came to visit Context to give her talk entitled Stitches, Straps and Layers.   She also did a mini workshop for us in the afternoon.

The talk was very inspirational and I seemed to be making notes all the way through as I got ideas from what she had shown us.   As well as seeing all the work on the screen, Maggie had brought loads of samples and sketchbooks with her so we were able to see "in the flesh" much of the work included in the talk and in many of her books.   She was very generous with her knowledge and told us how she had put together her creations and where we could get the supplies for ourselves.

In the afternoon Maggie (and her 'willing' grand-daughter!) had put together for us some strips of silk rods which had been machined together on felt and were the basis for us to put together with insertion stitches.  We first buttonholed around each of the four strips, added any additional stitching we wanted and then, after stitching the pieces to soluble fabric, we joined the pieces together with stitching of our choice.  Mine were joined with a combination of faggoting stitch and herringbone stitch.

Maggie's husband Clive also came with her and he showed us how to make "twirlies" with wire which we used to decorate our strips.

Mine is all finished now but I want to mount it on a gold foiled background and as gold is the only colour I haven't got in my foil box, it will have to wait.   This is what it looks like for now and I will post a photo when it is finished and mounted.

 

 

As I said, I got lots of ideas so watch out in the coming months to see what I create!

South Downs National Park challenge - an update!

Following my last posting about "the boot" you may be surprised to hear that I did finish the boot and together with the quilt I came first in the Challenge.   There were only four entries but I felt rewarded for the time and effort that the two pieces took.

Thanks must go to my Thread and Shutter friends who were very positive about what I had done which spurred me on to get the boot finished and to add finishing touches to the quilt.

Around the front of the boot are the wild flowers that can be seen on the Downs but around the back is a reminder of the rubbish that can also be seen in some places along the many footpaths that cross the Downs.

On the quilt I added some stitches and buttons, again to represent the wild flowers often seen at the edges of fields.   I also used gesso to create a chalk path across part of the quilt, complete with foot prints.

The design for the quilted part of both pieces are based on the field patterns that can be seen all over the South Downs National Park and for these I used my own dyed fabric.

 

 

Front

Back



Challenge Update - and it's not good!

The South Downs National Park Challenge is due in on 8th March and I have to admit, I have not enjoyed this one.

Spurred on by my friend Jo (who's imagination needs a much tighter control!) I had the idea of making a walking boot, combining felt and patchwork.

As you've seen from previous posts, I made the felt by hand and dyed the fabric all ready.  At this point I even decided to make a quilt to go with the boot!   I needle felted some flowers around the to of the boot and shaped it on a wellie and thought everything was going fine.   I then patched together the green fabric I had dyed in a field-like design, getting my inspiration from aerial photos of the South Downs.

Then came the difficult bit - putting the two together!   I have now made several attempts which have only resulted in the felt having to be re-done as the thinner bits were not up to the manhandling it was having, plus a very disgruntled textile artist.

Having put the 'boot' to one side, I went on and made the small quilt to match and I'm very pleased with the result so it all else fails, that will be my entry.

In the meantime, Jo is coming to visit next week and guess what?  She will be given the task of putting the two elements together!



Toe of boot with needlefelted flowers and machine stitching

Section of quilt with hand stitching and machine quilting

 

 

More news, and hopefully photos later.

Challenge fabric ready

After an afternoon dyeing fabric, I now have the fabric ready to continue with my South Downs Challenge 'boot'.

I always use Helen Deighan's Dyeing in Plastic Bags method, mixing my own colours from primary coloured Procion dyes.  I use two different shades of each colour - turquiose/cobalt blue; golden yellow/lemon yellow; and magenta/scarlet - and although my mixing etc is not a precise as Helen's, I am usually pleased with the results.   If I want a particular colour I will use that colour dye.

My fabric is usually a bit mottled but I'm happy with that look as it really looks hand dyed.

Straight out of the dye solution

Washed and dried ready for use

I also dyed some cotton perle so I would have matching thread for any handstitching I may add.

Threads ready to dry and be untangled!

Now to plan the next stage.

South Downs Challenge

Just in case you think I'm taking part in anything energetic, don't!

The 2013 challenge from Context was entitled "South Downs National Park" with the challenge to create a quilt with measurements between 2 and 5 metres or a 3D item inspired by this fairly local Park  I know it's 2014 but it doesn't need to be finished until the AGM in March so there's still plenty of time!

My idea straight away was to create a 3D boot using a combination of felt and quilted fabric so with time ticking away, this morning I made the felt that will hopefully be the basis of the toe of the boot.  I've never been terrible keen on the actual making of handmade felt as it seems like too much hard work but decided it would be the best way of constructing it so gave it a go.   It is a lot of hard work and I have to confess that I didn't roll for as long as I should and I didn't turn as often as I should but it's turned out okay in the end.

The first photo shows the fibres layered ready for wetting.  I had already put the net over and had started to spray with the water when I took the photo.

I'm very please with the result and can't wait to get started on the next stage.



You may have noticed the lack of red, white and blue blobs on the finished piece compared with the first one.   These were put on to represent flowers which I plan to have around the edge of the toe but they just would not stay attached to the felt so I discarded them.   I had been worried about the scale of them as I find to difficult to allow for the amount of shrinkage.   The plan now is to needle felt the flowers on and possible add some machine stitching too.

My plan for this afternoon is to dye the fabric ready for the quilted part so more news of that later.

Workshop with Kim Thittichai

Spent a wonderful day yesterday with Kim Thittichai  at a workshop organised by  Context.  We were creating "Hot New Jewelled Surfaces for Stitch" by painting bondaweb and Vilene Spunbond, combing the two, adding foils, glitter, sequins (basically anything that sparkled!) and then cutting it with a soldering iron and reassembling in to another surface.  On top of this we also zapped with a heat gun for create even more surfaces!

As I said "wonderful".  Any of you who have met Kim will know how creative she is but she is also very entertaining and it was delightful to spend a day with her.

Now for the end results:

 

 

This is coloured Spunbond with painted Bondaweb applied to it and then gilding flakes, square sequins and foil added to it.

 

 

 

 

This is some Hot Spots applied to some Spunbond and then foil applied.

 

This is painted bondaweb applied to some organza and then gilding flakes, threads and tiny sequins added.

The second part was to take two of the pieces, back them with Bondaweb and then cut shapes from them using a soldering iron.  I took the first two pieces and cut some strips with wiggly outlines and then applied them to some heavier Spunbond that we had painted earlier in the day.  I had also applied some painted Bondaweb to a piece of black cotton so added some of the cut Spunbond to this too.

 

I'll definitely be adding some stitching to this last piece! 

 

 

Another piece of organza was prepared in the same way as before but with some skelton leaves this time:

 

 

 

These pieces were them "cut" with a heat gun and reassembled together with some plain organza.

 

 

 

It's difficult to see the crunchiness of these pieces from the photos, but once again I will be stitching in to at least one of these.

 

 

Not only did I come away with pieces I can work on but also loads of inspiration and ideas for future pieces.  

 

Check out Kim's website for more details of her workshops and the lovely supplies she sells.  http://www.kimthittichai.com/index.html





Book Making

Spent a great day last Saturday at Context where we made some books under the direction of Cath Stonnard.

The book I made really does not photo well but hopefully will give an idea of what I did.   After hand stitching the signatures (groups of 4-5 pages) these were then stitched together on the spine.  I used a variegated perle cotton which gave a good effect.   I left some longer ends while stitching so I could add some beads.

I used cartridge paper, brown paper and tracing paper for my book but have yet to decide what to use it for.

I plan to make more using some of the painted and printed paper that I have left from the Creative Sketchbooks C&G course I did a few years ago.

Thanks for a great day Cath.

Reflection Quilt for Context Challenge

Last year's challenge for Context Group - the Contemporary Quilt/Textile Group I belong to - was "Reflections".   Our show and tell day was last week at our AGM.

Until about a month ago I was still very undecided just what to do.  Lots of ideas flying around inside my head but nothing strong enough to commit to fabric and thread.   I finally, in desperation  decided to use a photo of my friend and fellow Thread and Shutter member which shows the reflection of Welsh hills in a lake.

 

 

I took a small section and created a panel using merino tops which were felted to a background of dyed wadding.  I originally started to needlefelt the fibres but then my machine packed up (again!!!) so I had to wet felt the rest.  

 

Felted fibres



After trimming, I machined lines to add some detail, and then placed some trees by first machine embroidering some tree trunks and then using snippets of fabric with loose French knots.  I added some herringbone stitches, straight stitches and couched ruched knitted tape to give further detail.

 

 

The finished panel was then sashed with some fabric dyed especially for the hanging and machine quilted.