Inspiration Pack

When I was at the Festival of Quilts last month I bought an "Inspiration Pack" from OliverTwists just in case I found myself with nothing to do!

It contained some Abaca Tissue, silk waste, silk carrier rods together with a selection of threads and some wire.

So far I have created two little pieces of art which I have since framed ready for exhibiting.  They were both done on to felt and I added some buttons and beads from my vast collection.

 

 

 

 

There are still plenty of bits left so I can create some more!

 

Flotsam and Jetsam

For my birthday last November (goodness is it that long ago!), my Thread and Shutter friend Jo gave me a piece of felt she'd made together with beads, fabric scraps, threads, wire and pieces of bark.

I've pondered for far too long about what to do with it and during this time I have watched Jo work on a much larger piece of felt she'd made, stitching and adorning with all sorts of ephemera and odds and ends and as time went on I became more confused about what I wanted to do with my small piece!

In the end I made myself forget about Jo's work and just do what my instincts told me.   I cut it into strips and reassembled it and then felted the strips to a larger piece of felt.  I then felted fabrics and threads to it, stitched (only using herringbone) and added beads, wire objects, bits of shell and of course the pieces of bark.

I'm very pleased with the end result which I have called "Flotsam and Jetsam" because it reminded me of all sorts of things that we see washed up on the beaches during our many walks.

 

 

Some photos showing the detail:



 

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.

The Words Challenge 1

Last year my Thread and Shutter friend, Jo, saw an exhibition of photographs while in Bath which caught her eye.   The photos were taken by different people who had each been given a list of subjects.  This lead us to set up a challenge for Thread and Shutter whereby we would each choose a subject (from the same list the photographers used) and then each make a piece of art or take a photograph about A3 size for each of the chosen words.

The subjects chosen were Guardian, I wish..., Temptation and Trapped.  Hopefully they will all be completed and displayed together for our exhibition in November.


So far I have completed Guardian which as you can see if a Guardian Angel.

The background to the stained glass angel is the text of a poem about a guardian angel.  I printed it on to silk organza which I cut in to strips so it has a cloud-like feel about it.   A portion of the same text gives the title at the bottom.

Plans are well underway for the next three "words" and hopefully it won't be long before all the challenge work will be on Thread and Shutter's website.  www.threadandshutter.co.uk

Ice Dyeing

Did some Ice Dyeing a few days ago as I had acquired two bags of ice!

I did one lot as "Ice Parfait" where the fabric, ice and dye powder are layered in a tall container.  I did three layers, putting yellow at the bottom and blue and red on subsequent layers.   I was a bit concerned that the bottom layer would end up more sludge than clear colour, but I was pleasantly surprised.

The photos show the dyeing process followed by the resulting fabric.

 

 

I also did some "normal" Ice Dyeing, using mainly blue and turquoise dye powder as I needed a blue background for a piece of planned work.

 

Again the photos show the dyeing process and the resulting fabric.

 

 

 

In both dye pots I added a selection of threads as well:

I also had some vintage tray cloths with pulled thread work which I dyed with the intention of using them to make book covers.



August Journal Quilt

Had to do some last minute changes to the August Journal Quilt.   My original plan was to use the Art Nouveau designs from the Paris Metro stations but the photos I had prepared and taken on holiday with me proved to be not up to scratch so some last minute redesigning had to go on.

I used the Paper Cut Outs by Henri Matisse as the basis of my design and as we were away at the seaside, I used a seaweed outline as my Cut Out.  The shape was cut freehand from some commercial cotton and then the shape was applied to a hand dyed cotton fabric.   I hand stitched the shape to the background using a space dyed cotton perle and then machine quilted around the shape.

Two more Journal Quilts

Time is ticking on and I only have one week to get the August Journal Quilt finished and posted on Contemporary Quilts!

The June quilt, inspired by Charles Rennie Macintosh, has been finished for a while but only just transferred to the computer.

 



My daughter Karen recently visited Glasgow and was under orders to get me "something related to Charles Rennie Macintosh"!   I have always loved his work and would dearly love to go to Glasgow myself.   She returned with a plastic "thing" which was possibly a Christmas tree decoration as it had a hanging string attached.   I tried making a printing block of the design but with little success, possibly because I used rather hairy string!

I then tried printing with the actual token which was much more successful.   I decided to strip patch the prints to echo the chairs that CRM also designed.   The left hand print was beaded and then the strips were machine quilted in the ditch.

For the July Journal Quilt I used Art Deco as the theme and decided to use the Chrysler building in New York.   As time was running out, I painted the design on to fabric using silver and black fabric paint.

Everything went well until I started to quilt!   I began machine quilting around the triangle shapes, intending to then machine quilt the curves.   Unfortunately the silver paint has a slightly rubbery feeling so the top layer moved at a different rate to the backing.  Because of this I hand quilted the curves.   Not my finest quilting as the back shows, but I have learnt!   It may not have been as bad if I have used my walking foot but I didn't have it with me at the time.

The August quilt is nearly done so hopefully will be posted and uploaded in the next few days.