Expedition Quilt Art

mellow yellow

2012-02-13T22:35:00.000Z

Hello, everyone, here's the next instalment of the yellow peril.-
I have added some bling.

lots of curly, flamey stitching,

the sequins are appearing....yayyyy..

and of course, a shisha mirror,

its been really hard to photograph, the yellow just keeps bouncing back,
but I do love it,

I have been doing some other stuff, but I cant show you as its for an exhibition[I have always wanted to say that].
I was lucky enough to be invited to join Textilelincs- an exhibiting textile art group so now I get to do proper grown up stuff!

and here's an early warning---- very soon we will be announcing our very first BLOGGERS PICNIC
everyone is welcome, start making your postcards now for swapsies......

YELLOW PERIL....

2012-01-27T21:08:00.000Z

Hello again, it seems like ages since we blogged,we intended to blog through December, I was going to show you my December journal by the day, but blogger just wouldn't play nicely and wouldn't let us post any photos, so we took a break.
But now, we are back. Hurrah!!!!!
And take a look at this wonderful vibrant piece of gorgeousness.

emmelinesplace

my good friend Wendy from emmelinesplace

gave me a piece of her lovely dyeing- its yellow and orange and very bright it makes me think of flames in the fireplace.
yesterday I machine quilted it onto some wadding, using a vibrant yellow thread and keeping the flame theme going.

I have some lovely skinny shiny threads

and some gorgeous sari thread that sarah laurence forced me to buy[as if]

my favourite valdanis threads.

emmelinesplace

can we blog now?

2011-12-30T00:11:00.000Z

I am hoping blogger will let me play today as its been most uncooperative all week. here's a few shots of my December diary, not finished- I intend to go back and work on the pages,but I did get my sentiments down for each day.

some days, not much happens- just my normal, housewifey life, so sometimes I pop items from the paper into the journal

what a cracking advert, just love it...

the theme for this page should have been--courage in adversity--
a Christmas shopping whilst poorly nightmare

I had to give myself a talking to.

blogger seems to be playing nicely so I will post again very soon,byeeeee tina.

December Journal

2011-12-20T20:18:00.000Z

I agreed with Tina to do this some time ago. I was really impressed with her journal from December 2010 and thought OK I can manage this. Well, I am kind of keeping up with the pages but not the blogging so here are days 1-6. I am using an A5 spiral bound sketchbook. Some days have two pages, others have just one.

The first page was based on fantastic purple sprouts I saw growing in a field close to home. Those of you who know I am doing my City and Guilds will have seen some of my sprout work. If only I had known then that you could have purple ones!!!

Think this one should have been rotated.

Apples on a tree in December....

Eucalyptus leaves ready for dyeing.

Back soon x

MORE DECEMBER JOURNALING

2011-12-09T21:37:00.000Z

Things are starting to notch up a gear now,still managing a page a day,
but not to post every day.
good news this week, my roof is not collapsing, hurrah.

starting to get stressed, and dreaming of foreign climes, I saw this lovely advert.....

such wonderful design and textures and patterns ...
and I love yellow.

couldn't resist a little play...

A little something for the journal...

A good place to have a moan about a busy and arduous week..

that was a difficult word to spell...

yes, I know, enough whinging...
I'm trying really hard to be tidier this year, can you tell? not sure it will last....

Nooo, not snow, not again,
please......

journal 3

2011-12-04T23:18:00.000Z

here we are again,drawing, painting, sticking all good fun, a nice peace full day

found this great clipping in the paper, arnt goats amazing.

then I had a bit of a play with some dis solvable stuff and some threads and shreds of cotton oh great fun,

hand stitched a bit in the evening,
and bobs your uncle..........

Iv decided that any sewing that gets into my journal must be completed on the day. unless I lose the plot-
[highly likely,Christmas is coming]

I did enjoy this, must play a lot more...........

Ending on a very sad note..I would like to send my condolences to Sarah laurences family at this sad time.
Sarah was a gloriously outspoken, cheerful, blazingly bright woman, who is going to be sorely missed by all of us
goodbye Sarah..
..
I

december journals

2011-12-02T20:00:00.000Z

Hello everybody and welcome to our December Journaling.
some of you may remember that last year I kept a daily journal for the month of December, remember the fat, overfilled, triangular journal?
well, here we go again, we both hope to post every day,
our journals can, may or will contain almost anything, daily diary notes, newspaper cuttings , drawings, paintings,any media is acceptable,I am going to try not to overfill mine this year, but I'm easily excited and carried away so anything could happen.
It would be fantastic if anyone else wanted to join in, its really compulsive, and I enjoyed re-reading last years and remembering what I was doing last year.

this is the left side of my first page, Iv gone for an a4 sized book this year to give myself more space,
I washed the pages with a watery acrylic paint and then went over it with aqua tone crayons
I concentrated on things that were found or given, so, a sketch of some leaves that blew in my door, then a feather on the drive.

A newspaper image to remember world aids day, and a positive message to myself.

An interesting label that I found on the kitchen floor,......
and a secret folded note containing my feelings and a strong message to myself to
chin up and cheer up!

A word for everything Iv been given today.

A lovely piece of cross-stitch that fell out of a bag of jumble that Id collected.
A dream catcher,
it arrived just when it was needed.

So this is December first, slapped a bit of gesso over the background to tone it down a bit and it will do for me, back tomorrow.......Tina

purple page

2011-11-29T20:06:00.000Z

ooooh Iv gone all purple this week,You may have noticed on my other blog, that I have been wandering what the nice purple stemmed flower is that's still growing in my window boxes.
Trudi thinks it might be salvia, Dos fishes thinks it might be a dyers plant, so I had better cut some and freeze it for Angela.
It has the most intense purple stem.

I thought I would do a page based on this plant,and it was looking a bit boring, so I wet the flower bits and dobbed on a little acrylic ink.
I had actually over wet the flowers so I left them to dry.

when I came back and looked the most amazing thing had happened,
the watery ink must have ran along the threads, onto the calico and then dried.
It now has these marvellous watery purple lines crisscrossing the background

looks much more textured now.

Theres some rather lovely purpley pinky bluey threads yelling, me, me, my turn,
so I will spend a quiet evening stitching some summer memories onto a page......

mmm scrumptious!
bye for now Tina.

Old friends

2011-11-22T22:52:00.000Z

Remember this?Its my last years December journal, it was soo much fun to do and I cant wait to start another one next week,
, but before then, I have to somehow tidy up and bind this one into some sort of book like sanity,
I made the cover first and used a ring bound sketch book, the cover is from one of teeshas circus tutorials and I love it!
its colourful and weird and free and it feels lovely to touch--BUT the journal became very fat, so I made an extra bit and added it to the cover ,BUT the book was triangular, mostly due to me stuffing it full of interesting stuff.

It looked really silly, the pages needed rebinding onto a wider spine, I say that so blithely, you would almost think I knew what I was talking about,, anyway,.....Iv painted some pelmet vilene, cut it into strips and machined each page onto a strip, and it is actually laying flat now, so Im getting there

I still have to atach these pages to a concertina binding, but I think Iv made some progress,

In the meantime, Iv made yet another extention to the cover.I do love these little parcels, they are like cloth ravioli!

And another page for my garden book, this one actually is based on plants in my garden,these two little chaps grew from spilled birdseed in one of the borders, I didnt weed them out as theyv given some autumn colour, not quite sure what they are, not pumpkins, too long, a mystery-- ideas anyone?

A few hand dyed scraps covered in fly stitch in single strands of embroidery floss.

Thats all for now, back to wrestling my book............tina

Goodbye, Steve Mcqueen.

2011-11-13T22:17:00.000Z

Matty's page is finished,the creases are smoothed over,
the torn and tattered scraps and shreds have been gently stitched .
This page is a more peace full and quiet place.

Having finished the page, I thought I would try making a simple rag book, following instructions from one of my books, but instead of being nice and soft and bendy,- its stiff and not nice to touch.

So I made another one this time for my little granddaughter, as a little drawing book,
the last one was four layers of cotton stitched together,the new one is like a tiny quilt, cotton, a soft wadding and another layer of cotton and a bit of stitching.

And this little book is nice and soft and bendy and will make a nice little Christmas present

Next,I have made a book cover for mr shed mans project book as a consolation pressie.
Mr shed man was very upset recently when the famous motor cyclist Marco Simoncelli was tragically killed during a race.
He had kept a copy of the memorial page of his favourite bike paper.

<><><><>

As I have just this week learned to make calico paper,[thankyou Wendy-of emmelines place]which is quite tough but flexible sort of feels like leather,I took his paper and made a book cover for his project book, with lots of pictures of his hero.
The consolation part of this cover is to make up for throwing away his Steve Mcqueen Tshirt,
oh for goodness sake,it was very faded, you could hardly see steve, and it was holey
sorry alright!

byeeee tina....

still working

2011-11-06T22:34:00.000Z

Still working on Matty's page
,I tore it up into small pieces and laid it on a bed of black tweed, then I am going to cover each fragment with a blanket of flowers.
the red paper is a piece of an envelope from valentines day, and the cloth is just scraps, picked out of the basket , I will add sequins and some shisha work, because Matty loved Indian embroidery and often wore Indian textiles, and then it will be time to turn the page..

I have done some other things this week, but you must wait and see.

Please don't think I'm miserable, I like to think that I am celebrating life.As matt did.

GARDENS OF REMEMBRANCE

2011-11-01T22:44:00.000Z

This week I am working on a new page, its not pretty its not clever, its ragged, its torn its broken and it cant be mended.
If I had lots of land I would plant a garden of remembrance
Instead I can make a page.
This one is for all the lost boys and girls who couldn't be mended, but mostly its for my boy Matty, who is never forgotten.

time to turn the page.

2011-10-27T22:12:00.001+01:00

The chunky border is finished,its bright and busy and ,I hope, a good contrast to the gentle rhythmic kantha quilting of the middle area.

I have really enjoyed stitching into this and I'm quite sad its over.
Every page in this cloth book is an adventure, as I have no ideas or plans, I just go where the cloth takes me...

Dont you love those steph francis threads..

This cloth had an earlier life, and I dont want to deny that, so Iv left the neck line and simply stitched round it.

this page is finished, time to delve into the treasure box once again..night night.
from Tina.

soothing my soul.

2011-10-20T20:40:00.000+01:00

Its been a long, busy, and very cold day, and its so nice to finally sit down, get comfy on the sofa, and just stitch.

I love kantha work, the steady rythmic stitching is very soothing,

As I was sewing, I had the laptop on,watching shisha mirror work on you tube{what a marvelous teaching aid}
somehow I moved onto french knots, and before I knew it,I was putting a row of knots into my indian stitchery,obviously, they wanted to join in.....

Arent they lovely little chaps........

And finally,I thought I would show the border, its only on two sides and its layers of long very thin strips that Im going to stitch into, so that it looks quite chunky compared the the fine, silk kantha stitching.

I am enjoying creating these pages,but I think it will be a long slow labour of love.
night night for now.
Tina

`RESTED AND RETURNED.

2011-10-18T20:43:00.002+01:00

Hiya!, finally I am back from my two holidays, yes, two! how lucky am I ? well rested and ready to dive into the salt mines once again.
Angela and I have been thinking a lot about stitched cloth books recently, and we have decided this is something we are going to explore for a while.Working on one page at a time is a perfect way to explore a creative idea.
For me, its about stitching into fragments of old well used, and well loved,pieces of old clothing, using raw edges, layers on layers, stitching, stitching and building up texture, I have trained friends and family to pass on old worn textiles and shrunken woollies to me [they think Im mad, no question there]
With our vintage fabrics, my passion for colour and Angela's expertise with Dyeing, I think we are going to have some interesting play days.

Here are some inspiring images in case you get bored with all the words......

the biggest hydrangeas I have ever seen and my favourite tree ferns--love em!

So- books
as usual I have more ideas than time, right now I am working on a personal journal that for me will be a gardening book, with pages based on events or on people or plants and flowers.
during the summer I was very busy with family commitments and I often only had little bits of time to sew and no time to think, so I took to dashing into messy sewing room and just grabbing a hand full of scraps and just stitching into them,no plans no thoughts, just needling.
it felt very therapeutic and relaxing and I shall try to repeat this occasionally just to see where it takes me.

this is a page for my daughter , she wanted a pinky garden page, with diamonds and rubies and love hearts and fairies-[ isn't it great to be 8 years old]

layers
on layers, melded together with quilting.

a fairy princess was donated.

mohair scarf over muslin under scraps needs more, more, more.

I like this....

my next page is a piece of a cotton blouse, very soft, and tired and delicate with a tear and a not very good mend on it , but it shows it had a life, did its service and isn't ready to be thrown away just yet

I have added a chunky border on two sides, for no particular reason.

I have never made a book, and I suspect that constructing a book may be harder than stitching the pages, but its a world I am dyeing to dive into so please do come back soon and join us on our expedition!.
Tina

p.s. more pages soon..

Stitched page 1 completed

2011-10-13T09:45:00.001+01:00

This image isn't great (actually it is totally crap) as the camera has just bleached out all the colours but it does show the whole page.

The colours here are much more true. Everything is hand stitched

I am going to start my second page and now Tina is back from her holidays (yes holidays) she will be along shortly to share her progress (her book is fantastic).

Angela

Adding text

2011-10-12T10:42:00.000+01:00

The first line of the poem has the words "flame red moon" which I wanted on my page. I didn't want the words to jump out at you though so pondered how to add the text. I tried printing onto cotton which I then tea dyed and smudged the ink so not an option. Second idea was to embroider the words , this was more successful but just didn't look right. In the end I decided to use these tiny alphabet stamps, they are just under 1/4" tall.

I tried then first in the sketchbook (spot the mistake?) then on spare fabric before stamping onto the fabric page. I wanted a wonky effect that I could stitch round and embed into the page. Back soon to share the completed page.

Angela

Stitched and Folded Books

2011-10-01T20:19:00.001+01:00

We have been thinking about books, handmade books, stitched books and folded books. The above is a folded book made from some hand dyed fabric. If you want to know how to make this click here to sign up for my latest newsletter.

I have challenged myself to make a stitched book based on the poem "The Harvest Moon" by Ted Hughes. Do you know this?

The flame-red moon, the harvest moon,
Rolls along the hills, gently bouncing,
A vast balloon,

If you want to read the rest you can click here.

I want a grown-up rag book, a books to sew dreams and thoughts into as well as words. It will all be hand stitched and use fabric that have been hand dyed using natural things. Luckily I have a stock of some beautiful fabrics and threads from all my natural dyeing workshops this year.

I didn't want straight lines, stitching a little wonky needs more concentration....

These fabrics and laces have been dyed with rose hips (the colour looks paler on these photos), the moon is a cotton white on white print which has been dyed with madder root. The thread is hand dyed but I'm also using a variegated thread from Superior threads

I am stitching onto felt and I might back these pages. At the moment I have started one page, I might have five, I might have ten. I might have a hard cover, I might not. One thing is certain though that this might be a slow project, it is a joining of my hands, heart and head and I will share my progress here.

Angela

We will be back

2011-09-25T15:56:00.000+01:00

You might have noticed a few changes being made here.

Behind the scene we have been stitching, planning, dreaming, collecting plants for dyeing, and collecting preloved fibres ready for repurposing into beautiful wall hangings, quilts, books and much more.

We will be back to share our journey from Saturday 1st October - see you then

Angela + Tina

please hold....

2011-07-02T23:48:00.003+01:00

we are temporarily not blogging at the moment while we think about how we would like it to be--- omments welcome bye for now Also I have done a VERY silly thing--see here.

My Muse has arrived......

2011-05-23T18:41:00.000+01:00

I was at a charity village sale on Saturday, dribbling over all the wonderful old lace , stroking the vintage fabrics,when, shazam ! , my muse appeared and made me buy this old doilley, and I could see yellow, bright bright yellow- the sun- on a blue background, with birds, definitely birds -raggy coloured birds and ghosty birds and lots of lovely stitching

and I want to include this lovely tatty, stiff piece of muslin from the back of an old Indian cushion cover.

get out the acrylics and start painting.

ghosty birds

don't know why but whenever I start to paint something inside me seems to be set free and I am flying.

so what if I'm crap, so what if its weird, it makes me very, very happy

Must fly.....

SLOW, SLOW, STITCH, STITCH SLOW.

2011-05-11T23:23:00.001+01:00

Hurrah, I am back in blog land! been trapped in real life for far too long...Here is a viewe of a bit of the thingy that I cant show you, I learned this nice raised edging stitch from karen of stitching life, I love it, its great!

still working on the four journals,

These little triangles are taking a very long time to sew,but I really am enjoying the creative process of considering and making decisions on the stitching that will be appropriate for all four quilts, as I want them to be as similar as possible.

Yes, sequins are sneaking in again!

hope to be back soon.

Journalling- again.

2011-04-24T22:07:00.000+01:00

Just started on this,its for a competition so I cant show it all, had to put the book cover to one side because theres a deadline for this....

No idea what I am doing, but that's the most fun!
notice the curly bird is making an appearance again.....

You will never guess what this is...........
,its journal time again for the guild and I wanted to try out silly boo Dilly's unplanned quilt idea so I have made 4 little quilts,all the same fabrics, but in a different order but in order to relate them to each other , I am going to quilt them in a continuous pattern so that they can be placed together afterwards and they will look linked,in order to do this, I have cut out freezer paper in wobbly strips and laid them right across the blocks looks weird doesn't it......

all four blocks are tacked onto a single piece of wadding so that I can keep track of the quilting

I am just starting the quilting using a valdani thread that stands out, its important that these look alike
I intend to be ready before the deadline as I often cut it a bit fine......ha ha hmmmm......

MAKING PROGRESS-SLOWLY.....

2011-04-18T00:01:00.000+01:00

I have done stuff to my latest book cover---honest.

but I probably could have done more, if I hadnt been completely mesmerised by this woman.

And her amazing box of delights........

Who is it?
Janet Bolton of course, and if you want to hear more come visit HERE.

SCRAPPY DO, SCRAPPY DONE.

2011-04-10T22:55:00.001+01:00

Its just about finished and I just love it!

I have chopped up a necklace and added some of the beads because they were right

Added some shisha mirrors.....

and nothing is complete without sequins hurrah!!!!!

As soon as its complete I will reveal it. And now for my next book cover, the idea for it has been wiggling about in my mind all week, so I am going for it. This time I want to do cream, thick ,textured cream.
I start with my trusty wooden tray, and I fill it with all the threads and bits and bobs and scraps that might be right.

there is all sorts in there, scraps of silk,Buttons, shells,ribbons,a piece of woolen blanket.......

Its going to start with calico and then I will add some scraps of silk and wool and a scrap of a curly bird print and go from there..

I am starting by quilting around the bird over the top of the scraps

Already I love it.

I am using a six strand anchor silk in cream with light shading in pink and green , very subtle, very nice.

Back soon.......

scrappy bookcover goes on.....

2011-04-03T21:54:00.000+01:00

the book cover is now quilted in parallel lines.

I have started adding decorative stitching.

I want to build up layers of stitching.

Then i v added a few strips on top......

and stitched over them as well....

bit more stitching....

coming along nicely I think....

I dont have a clever plan.

2011-03-26T20:54:00.000Z

Sorry I haven't been around much recently, combination of things really, hideous lurggies,strange spring gardening compulsion, house painting urges and not forgetting demanding short people.ANY SEWING? A little,not a lot.This is the start of another book cover, I am stitching scraps onto a piece of wadding,when its covered, I will do stuff to it, not sure what ........

my mojo has been outside, playing with my rheum's.They are one of my absolute favourite garden plants, beautiful, amazing, ridiculous crimson giants. How can they go from a little shiny red protuberance to an enormous six feet wide plant in a matter of weeks, don't know ,but I love em.

two days after I planted it.......

I do have four journal quilts to make for the 2011 journal challenge, I don't have a clever plan but I have painted a largish piece of calico with quite a lot of acrylic paint and I have invited my mojo back into the house to see what it fancies doing with it.

Blobby but colour full.

What scary thing is this?

And Frankie has given me a challenge HURRAH!she has given me a really horrible fraying piece of vertically cut chenille[that never works- it frays everywhere]and suggested I DO something with it, I m up for that .

I have rubbed a lot of markel oil bars over it, plus some acrylic paint.

I am going to stitch some of this sari ribbon into it.[can you still recognise it Frankie?].

Its starting to look a bit interesting now.But I v only added one piece of ribbon so far, all that will be next

Oh and I have finished layering the scraps andstarted quilting, who knows how it will end.....

BIG FLOWER DAY.

2011-02-23T23:04:00.000Z

On Saturday I drove up to long bennington to have a workshop day with Claire Tinsley- of Hannah's room.we each made a small wall hanging based on a flower from her famous quilt.

I was surprised how different and individual they all looked, after we had fused on the basic flower shape, we then spent some careful time, using Claire's own fabric pens and paints enhancing them with detail .

It was a tremendously fun day., everyone was very enthusiastic, a really good workshop, I haven't started machine stitching into mine yet but I think I am going to really enjoy it.

This is definitely a workshop I would be happy to repeat.

RAGGEDDY POSTCARDS.

2011-02-15T20:20:00.005Z

A rainy hello to everyone,

Now that I am back in harness[no pun intended] I`v remembered that I owe several people postcards and I thought I might make some raggeddy ones, like the book cover.

I definitely owe one toEmma for her 50th birthday last year and I need to send one to my AQLS partner, I thought I would make some spares, and then- a brainwave!I will offer some to my readers, as a thank you for reading the blog.

SO- dear reader, if you want a postcard, send me a comment with your e mail address- I wont publish it, but I will e. mail you for your address and send you a raggeddy post card.

All the little chaps are ready for trimming and hand stitching,[the best bit] so I`l say night night........

the wanderer returns

2011-02-07T23:46:00.001Z

Home again,after 4 days of peace and quiet, listening to my ipod and reading the whole of the twilight saga. I am now surrounded by chocolate and a bag of beautiful new threads just arrived from crafty notions, with permission to sew-hurrah

Thanks to everyone for their good wishes and thank you frankie and trudi for your get well postcards

hope you don't mind trudi, I couldn't resist colouring it in a bit , and congratulations trudi on your lovely new look blog-happydaize its lovely and suits you so well[I am soo jealous]

I am a little bit sore but thrilled with the results- a matching pair at last! and finally, I have been practising my machine quilting- on paper and its tough with a pen!

RAGGEDY BOOK COVER

2011-01-30T22:55:00.001Z

Iv got an idea for a raggedy book cover........

And I`v got a box of little raggy strips and slivers, the bits you trim off with your rotary cutter, am I stingy or what?

Anyway I found a lovely piece of colour graduated fabric, spray glued it to a nice soft wadding [soft so I can hand stitch it], and started by zigzagging down the strips with a bright rainbow thread.

I started to build up the strips, leaving the ends loose and all the thread ends on the top.

What I am aiming for is a raggedy textured surface, I want it to make you want to run your hands over it.

We are getting close to the fun part, the hand stitching, where are those sequins?

ooh its so yummy!- does that make me a yummy mummy? Its all lovely and fluffy and frayey and thready love it,love it, love it!

well ,I`v stitched into it, added sequins,buttons, and beads. How do I know when its time to stop?well, I could keep adding more texture and stitch, but I think its time to move on and close this book, the last of the chemotherapy elephants has gone and I must pack my suitcase for a stay in hospital as tomorrow I am having breast reconstruction surgery.When I get out it will be a new month-so, a new theme for the sketchbook project and I will get on with the mexican shibori -ooh, cant wait! and go shopping for some new bras, PURPLE ones, and also ,hopefully go and do some sewing in Trudis new playhouse, congratulations Trudi- its a beautiful thing

And finally,I have done something for the sketchbook project, the theme is ;highly prized; and who was more highly prized and torn up by the news media than Marilyn Monroe

night night.......

A Grand Day Out

2011-01-29T23:15:00.000Z

Sweetypie and I had a great day today as we invited ourselves to see Trudi's new quilting studio. You might have read about it here on her blog. Here she is, a very proud lady. This must be the ultimate luxury in a grown up creative "Wendy House".

Sweetypie's camera had a dead battery so I got to take the photos.

Two happy ladies dreaming of furture projects, note the new copy of Quilting Arts in Sweetypie's hand.

Lots of room for the quilting frame. The quilts hung on the walls were fantastic as well. We both can't wait for a chance to go and sew in her studio now.

Sweetypie posing with the quilt frame, pretending to use it.

Sweetypie is having some major surgery on Monday so we wish her well and a speedy recovery.
Get well soon xx

THE ELEPHANTS IN THE JUNGLE.

2011-01-26T23:34:00.000Z

At last! its done. The elephant is in the jungle, albeit missing a tail but good to go.

I have really enjoyed making this and I cant wait to see where I have to send it, I love the thought of my last ellie crossing continents and going to reside on the other side of the world, and it gave me a chance to try out some wonderful new thread I bought from the African shop its the nicest thread I have ever used and I will definitely be using it again.

Next... the sketchbook project, hmm, I was hoping it would be a magical wand and change me into a marvellous artist and be able to draw stuff hmmm again, but when I think about it, I work with textiles and I don't actually want to be able to draw portraits and pictures on paper or fabric cos its not what I do....

for me it needs to be relevant. -- to be able to translate it directly into fabric and stitch........

so I think my sketchbook will be colourful and messy and probably to fat to close hmmm... sounds familiar and did I mention the cover? already it excites me more than the contents...

Anyway, to break my duck I have followed an exercise that I saw on the sketchbook project and doodled all over the first white page, I will be colouring it in.......

Also,""Highly prized " is a good theme but, the things I highly prize are memories, experiences and the people in my life so.... what I will work on are images of things other people highly prize

,I saw a great picture of Marilyn Monroe in the paper so I will have a play with that

I`v got an elephant, and I`m not afraid to use it..............

2011-01-16T21:49:00.002Z

Its half way through January and I haven't finished my A.Q.L.S.little quilt, its coming along, but not done, as usual life keeps getting in the way I have several unfinished things hanging about, perhaps I need to add a list of shame to my sidebar. As soon as the little chap is done I will return to the Mexican shibori, hurrah!

!then its time to start the guild journals again and I haven't put a mark in my sketchbook yet ,although that's a bit daunting when its a new book full of scary white pages, if you want to see something really really inspiring go hhere Karen Turners blog is addictive, I wait with baited breath to see what she has sewn next and despair of ever being so in touch with my inner muse .As I am missing a muse, I have to use an elephant, this is the last of my chemotherapy elephants, at one time I had a biscuit tin of these that I stitched whenever I was trapped and bored in hospital, the others have moved on in their lives to be useful parts of wall hangings and danglythings, but this little fella has been hanging around so he is going back to the jungle, the little jungle quilt to be exact , he should be done by Friday......

A teensey weensey little problem.

2010-12-31T22:53:00.002Z

Hello everybody and welcome back to the mad December journalist! that will be me then,just slightly carried away with enthusiasm for my December journal. Its great, love it,love it, love it! just a few tiny problemos I became just the teeniest bit carried away with recording all of my December daily events,mementos, photos, it began to take on a life of its own , I found myself adding the fronts of particularly nice Christmas cards- on flaps! and then adding newspaper clippings of non Christmas items folded behind them, the book has got thicker and thicker and thicker........... whoops!

next year I should probably use a bigger book and some kind of , I don't know, some sort of ring binding loose leaf thing and be prepared to make the cover after the journal as I am having to add a 5 inch extension to mine, I am also going to remove the spare pages, that might help, maybe next years will have more sketch's and less photos, cards and newsprint as I will have followed the sketchbook project and will be a more able and streamlined person and on the other hand I may be the same as usual, oh dear......for more sensible sewing click here I would like to wish everyone a peace full and productive new year, what are we going to sew next year? who knows........ watch this space.........

christmas journals.

2010-12-24T21:35:00.001Z

Christmas Greetings!Been a bit quiet of late as I have been poorly. As I have laid on the sofa coughing, quite a bit lately- I had to read a lot of blogs... ah sad! anyway one of said blogs I have read a lot recently is approachable art here like everyone else I am really excited about the sketchbook project as I would love to do/make/ draw proper sketchbooks. Judi Hewit has a group of fellow artists who are just as interesting as her so I have been getting lots of exciting ideas .I came across a blog that mentioned keeping a journal,just for December every year that included sketch's, mementos photos and news clippings just logging every day up to the 25th, ever I got very interested in the idea of a December journal, so excited that I began one myself and its been absolutely addictive especially as I can do it from the sofa.

sketch's and bits of sewing, notes on what happened that day,interesting news clippings.....

did you know parakeets are becoming a pest?

Then I had to make a book cover, got this from teeshas circus.

I am going to embellish this a bit, after the peeling, cooking and washing up.....and one other little bit of Christmas sewing I have to do here but before that I want to wish everyone MERRY CHRISTMAS!

mexican shibori continues.

2010-12-08T22:08:00.000Z

.Back again I haven't done as much sewing as I would have liked, but I do like what I have done. I have used some dyed blanket and my usual favourite valdani threads

Its starting to look like those pictures of living coral that you see in nature magazines Its s sort of growing itself.

more mexican shibori

2010-11-30T20:36:00.000Z

Hello again.isnt the snow lovely,a great excuse to stay inside and stitch!!!!!

so here is a bit more of my mexican shibori.

Mexican shibori

2010-11-26T12:16:00.003Z

Hello, and welcome to the Mexican shibori play date. Its the.strangest thing, but the minute I began to work freely with the iffy shibori, the strangest thing happened,...as I began to pull possible threads and trimmings out of their drawers..I was strangely attracted to the dazzling pinks and reds and fiesta colours, I came over all Mexican! yes, again, how bizarre,So I`v dug out some red ricrac and some lovely thick scrunchy random dyed wool and away we go.

I added some squirly scribbling first with my trusty markel paint sticks to add texture.but they didn't really work as the background is very dark but I want to build up layers of texture, so, ricrac next.I

RICRAC

The ricrac is sewn down in a spiral pattern using a bright valdani thread and then I added two strands of a novelty wool twisted together and couched down as well, its building up nicely.

I`m running the wool next to the ricrac but trying to leave the actual shibori exposed so that I can stitch into it

Building up layers

Very iffy sashiko

2010-11-21T23:10:00.001Z

Hello again, to take my mind of the dreary winter weather and the endless Christmas shopping,I have began work on two things,one is a small a4 sized quilt for the quilt swap .

so far it has curvy segments and narrow green vertical strips, I am thinking of adding some further curved shapes using freezer paper templates and oil bars or fabric paint the theme I,m working on is the jungle, so, maybe, an animal head may peep out from behind a tree,what? you couldn't tell they were trees?

The other thing I will show you is an experimental piece of shibori dyeing,Now had it worked out well,it would have been perfect, and boring and ended up in a cupboard, but luckily for me its a little bit, well, - iffy...............

and this gives me loads of opportunities to do stuff to it, hurrah!!!! I am thinking colour, paint, slashing and general stuff! get out the maltesers- it may be a long night.
to see something bigger and more sane clickhere

Lest we forget

2010-11-14T23:00:00.002Z

This morning, in my little corner of England, the Beavers,Cubs and Scouts marched through the country lanes,to church . to remember......

SANDRA GRUSD-Your my hero!.

2010-11-04T22:32:00.000Z

Wow, what a great day, this woman is my hero! she showed us so much in one day, my head was ringing.

sandra is an expert at inserting curved strips into more curved strips, and free rotary cutting curved strips and inserting really teeny tiny little slivers of fabric into strips- wonderful!

We had soo much fun and we must have picked every piece of information there was in her brain.

She showed us how to do these marvelous trees, although I dont know if I could manage these.

It was absolutely brilliant and I cant wait to have a go by myself at home I just hope I can remember it all,I feel so enriched.

I also intend to buy this book.

Finish, Finishing, Finished.

2010-10-27T23:57:00.000+01:00

I really need to do a lot of finishing this week, so that I can do some new stuff, now that blogger is playing nicely I can finish showing the making of the journal quilt. ,

!The Blankie is nearly done, just coming up to the fun bit ,where I get to add buttons and SEQUINS and maybe some text, in the pics I have added a firm plain border, to act as a frame and also to get some straightness as it was becoming wobbly.The more you handle dyed blanket ,the more it stretches and pouch's so the more stitching it needs to pin it down, despite this I have started a new piece, its coming along nice

ly.

Also I have a mile a minute quilt that needs finishing, of course I had to make it more complicated as I went along so its more mile a week now

. plus I need to finish stitching into my whole cloth shibori.

And ,of course now its time to finish the next three journal quilts so that they are out of the way and maybe I can make a few crimbo prezzies hmmm..... pass those malteasers over, please.

I sew the raw edged binding on from the back, so that the raw edge can be stitched down flat instead of turned under and then I have used my own dyed threads to over stitch the binding.

Do you like my headless woman?[head to be attached]

journal quilts again

2010-10-20T19:55:00.000+01:00

Hello everyone, I am really hoping that blogger is working tonight, as its been a bit of a nightmare recently,if it is behaving itself then I will continue with the journal quilt.Aah yes, its working
,after I had coloured the leaf shapes in a bit ,I tacked it onto a quilt sandwich and then, using my leeervely steff francis variegated silk threads, I have quilted around the edge of the main motif I often use a thicker thread and bigger needle than you would traditionally use and this gives a bigger stitch. I don't do a stab stitch, I still use the traditional rocking movement to run the needle through the cloth, but I don't expect to catch the back in, it often only just catches it, and that's fine for big stitch.

As I am stitching, I find that I am thinking about thestrong winds we had in september, which knocked down a lot of leaves before their time, and the curly squrly winds, on the walk to school, and I think I will stich a lazy line, here and there around the leaf for the wind, and then I will cross over to a mettallic gold thread for little spirals for the wind .I am enjoying this.

I want to keep it simple, so I will stop stitching now and start the binding. All this years journal quilts have the same binding, it looks naive and rustic and its quite simple, each side is a one inch strip of green or brown fabric from my experiment bag.
Each strip is sewn from the back and folded to the front, leaving a raw edge at the front that is then sewn down using self dyed crochet thread[ this dyes really well] And that is my September journal quilt done, they are not all this simple, they often have a lot more in them, but I thought the motif on this one was enough.
I am ending this now, I am absolutely sick of blogger ,it has taken me two hours to load this on and my photos hace appeared in the wrong places and disapeared of their own accord and its mostly blocking my photos, I give up and will try again in a few days
.

LUCKY DUCKY.

2010-10-15T21:57:00.047+01:00

Hi, Tina here and this is Ducky, like me, he is a very lucky ducky. I really like him and he is probably going to join me on my stitching adventures all this year, you can buy one of his multicoloured friends and their accessories in your local cancer research shop. This is Breast cancer awareness month and I will always be grateful for the efforts of this and every other cancer charity,so please , make a visit.
year
I am going to show you the making of my september journal quilt. The contempory group of the quilters guild have a yearly challenge of making twelve journal quilts in a year, one for each month.The size changes every year, this year they are 10 by 7 inches,they can be based on any theme or style you wish. This year I have based all my quilts on photos and sketches of the garden through the year,and committed to using one set of fabrics I found in a cupboard, they are part of a graded dyeing experiment from about fifteen years ago. Calico, muslin, organza and silk, all in shades of green

This month I came across a piece of sundyed fabric in my bag of greens and I am going to use part of it. Because its based on september and the leaves were starting to turn at the edges, I have dug out my inktense pencils and coloured it in a little bit and then ran a paintbrush and water over it to really bring up the colours

LOVELY SOFT BLANKIES.

2010-09-27T19:32:00.001+01:00

Greetings! I am back from the wilderness....Finally I have broadband again, and its so nice to be back in blogland again, if you scroll down you can read Angela's bit first and then come back up, as she says, we had a lovely relaxing time this weekend sewing into vibrantly coloured cuddly blankies, I was in heaven! It was a very creative workshop and we each came home with something individual and personal to ourselves, thank you Madeline millington!

Meet up and workshop

2010-09-26T08:14:00.011+01:00

We're back. I think we have posted that in the past few months Trudi and I have been manically busy with our patchwork and quilting C&G work whilst Sweetpie has been moving house. Yesterday we left the C&G behind, Sweetpie left unpacking boxes and sorting out to attend the same workshop together. We haven't been able to meet up for ages so it was a great opportunity.

The workshop was by Madeleine Millington who after giving advice and using her own work as a starting point left us to follow our own designs whilst walking round and offering help and suggestions when people needed it. I love workshops like this, it is mainly the style in which I teach as well so everyone at the end of the day will have something different to be proud of. You can see that Trudi and Sweetiepie were having fun.

This was work in progress during the day -
Sweetiepie's chickens.
Trudi's soft colours and squares.

It was almost like a day of therapy being able to sit amongst friends, hand sewing the softest blankets with wool and thread. Trudi couldn't resist taking some photos of Madeleine's beautiful work.
At the end of the day this was the progress made (but I forgot to take a photo of my own!)
This is the upside down image of Trudi's as I was on the wrong side of the table.

I love these long chicken legs strutting their stuff.

I did more stitching on mine last night, like Sweetiepie I also love chickens. Sadly due to old age I only have three girls now and their noisy boyfriend! I think this is going to turn into a bag, the flash has made the colours paler than in real life.

C&G progress - I think!

2010-07-17T22:16:00.000+01:00

OK, how hard can it be to do a simple collage? Yeah, I know, couple of hours at most, so why has it taken me over a month to get this task done for my C&G? (it might be kinder not to answer that one) I get c&g block I'm sure!

Now I quite like it in this simple form, I'm suppose to add some texture with paints, what do you think? Should I? I may have to tell my tutor that I love the simplicity of it how it is.

Hope you having a quilty kind of weekend :)

Trudi

fishing for compliments

2010-06-24T19:08:00.003+01:00

Hello again and thank you to everyone that came to the pearoom exhibition last week,we all had a great time catching up with quilting friends and relishing all the lovely things people said about our work. Those of you who read my other blog will know there was one notable exception--well- if they didn't like that ,they definitely wont like my latest quilt that I am flat out on[and therefore not blogging] its for the festival of quilts and its covered in fish, its gasp! an ART QUILT! its long, and its thin and its wobbly and blue and it will never lay on a bed, and this time I wont stand anywhere near it earwigging. Back to the salt mines and I will post my progress in a couple of days

Play Day

2010-06-14T21:36:00.000+01:00

Today the Expedition Quilt Art girls managed to have a play day. Trudi and I forgot about our City and Guilds work to meet up with Tina for a day of printing and painting with procion dyes. We used this to thicken the dyes,

but found we needed one of these to mix up the paste. Luckily Tina's granddaughter no longer needs to have her food mixed up as we found a much better use for the blender.
The sodium alginate is like a wall paper paste into which you put the mixed procion dye, as it then becomes very thick you have the opportunity to print or paint with it. We mixed up navy, lime green, lemon yellow and turquoise.
The big paint brushes meant for decorating are great for putting the dye paste onto the fabric. We painted dyes onto plastic, drew marks into it and took prints with fabric or painted straight onto the fabric. Tina and Trudi also used some recycled clothes. Tina already is getting excited by the thought of adding more paint and colour once everything has been batched and washed.

More results when we have washed our fabrics.

LUMPY BUMPY -THE INDEPENDANT QUILT

2010-06-12T20:00:00.004+01:00

Well, now that my blogger is working again, I will tell you a story--Once upon a time, there was a madwoman who liked to sew a lot, and one day, she decided, with Christmas coming, to make 20 little pincushions as gifts for friends and staff at school. In the dark winter evenings she would sit and stitch into these little wonders, and every one was different. But when they were finished she thought,I cant give these away, they are my babies.! So she quickly went on a covered book workshop with liz hands and made every one little books and kept her little treasures.
After Christmas she thought, I know,I will turn them into blocks, I will surround them with wedding dress fabrics, silks, polyesters,and loose weave cream coloured stuff, and she stitched these blocks using the famous quilt as you go method. There was a lot of unpicking and fraying an d eventually she threw them in a box wrapped up in good intentions, for about two years....

2010-06-12T19:34:00.004+01:00

Then the woman tried to join them and bind them, but they are wobbly, wiggly, streeetchy,they are fraying, they are very badly behaved. This quilt is supposed to be called ;little pins; but I know it as Lumpy bumpy -the independent quilt. it doesn't want to be flat, it doesn't want to be straight and it definitely doesn't want to be square, waaagh-thank god for maltesers! I have to finish it because it intends to shame me at the pea room exhibition next week...Now I remember why I like to start with a whole cloth.. You know, I didn't used to swear half as much until I took up quilt making.

VERY QUIET

2010-06-01T20:57:00.002+01:00

Its all been very quiet here this week, two reasons One--I had a nasty encounter with a rosebush that I fell into so I have been feeling a bit sore and sorry for myself and, two---as usual I left finishing a quilt for a competition till the very last moment and then had to sew it,photograph it,put it on a disc and post it QUICK! cant show you it till after the judging.

Cream teas

2010-06-01T20:46:00.003+01:00

I also spent Saturday with the other members of this blog, distracting them from their city and guilds work, I did very little the others did a lot, then we rushed off to Doddington hall for a cream tea .yum yum!. It was too wet to tour the walled gardens ,but this was the viewe from the cafe.

cows and fences

2010-06-01T20:18:00.003+01:00

On the way home we drove through the lincolnshire wolds, which are long ridges, we got all excited at the viewes because we never see a gradient, its very flat on the fens. The viewes were stunning across the county and I was very taken with these wooden fences which just led away into the distance and the Cows oh the cows- arnt they lovely and so English!

My ribs are feeling better now and my scabs are drying up nicely so normal service is about to be resumed. Be ready to follow me....

FOLLOW ME!

2010-05-24T23:33:00.001+01:00

Are you ready?We have painted, we have scribbled and drawn,-- now its time to Stamp and Stencil!

follow me paint and ink

2010-05-24T23:23:00.003+01:00

well, I have stencils, stamps ink, fabric paint and tee juice pens so I am ready. I have cut the fabric down because it was a very big piece, about 5 feet long and somehow, the bottom half looked like fireworks over skyscrapers over water--so I may have to quilt it! But the top half is about to be altered......

follow me stamping

2010-05-24T23:11:00.003+01:00

I have started with an old leaf stamp using red/gold jaquard fabric paint and then going on to a squirly stamp with purple and red ink its very fine lines are a good contrast to the thick leaf design.I like this so I am starting to build it up by stamping it all over

followme spare fabric

2010-05-24T23:03:00.003+01:00

I am trying them all on spare fabric first,to get an idea of what I like, love the flower stencil but I can see it wouldn't be right for this I will save these spare bits for something.

follow me bling

2010-05-24T22:51:00.003+01:00

I am adding bling! well,gilding flakes, don't know if it will work but I will risk it.I wanted to paint a bit with glitter glue but the short people have hidden them from me , apparently, I never return good art materials and I use them all up[may need to take them shopping] but I found a tube of metallic green fabric paint so I will have a squiggle

follow me-sticking

2010-05-24T22:34:00.004+01:00

So I am ending by sticking tiny little scraps of paper backed copper foil [galaxy wrappers to you and me] Its a totally different piece of altered fabric now-far to busy looking to quilt but you can have a lot of detail in a postcard, I will leave it to dry now.I bought most of the stamps, paints and inks and glittery stuff from crafty notions-thank you sarah, and finally, when I was cleaning up I put the big flower stencil on a spare piece of calico and wiped it with babywipes the tee juice paint was purple red and yellow, the babywipe passed all the colour onto the calico and I ended up with the most marvellous sepia flower print-brilliant, don't know what I will do with it, but I love it!

Stage two of follow me.

2010-05-18T23:55:00.003+01:00

TODAY WE SCRIBBLE, I have pinned the painted fabric to a pinboard ,sat on a chair, leaned up close,and just drawn on it. here and there, I put on some thick fat lines with my markel paintstix ,the irridescent ones are really lovelyjust scribbled a bit, the odd zigzag you could use any pencil or crayon that you fancy,just building up the surface

follow me

2010-05-18T23:35:00.002+01:00

Then I got out the inktense pencils and added some thin strong lines in red just for definition. I am really really pleased with this and its going to be hard to cut it up I would really like to just chop up a bit and keep the rest whole and stitch into it I am really taken with painting with acrylics on fabric and I cant wait to do some more

Follow me fabric painting

2010-05-14T15:04:00.002+01:00

Here we go,Here we go,Here we go, taped the fabric to the table over newspaper,got out my box of acrylics--good old wilkinsons, gold and silver from worx, House paint brush and water and slap it all over.....

follow me 3

2010-05-14T14:57:00.001+01:00

add some gold!

follow me 2

2010-05-14T14:50:00.002+01:00

Where did that tulip come from?

follow me fabric painting

2010-05-14T14:30:00.002+01:00

So,bish bash bosh, .. job done, stand by for tomorows exciting installment, which will be --scribbling. get out your crayons or pencils or even felt pens and prepare to play! If your joining in send me your pics. Julie just e mailed me to ask if she can cheat and use some fabric she made earlier from her stash? of course! no rules, go with the flow.BYE.

Follow me

2010-05-12T23:02:00.003+01:00

Announcing new challenge, Follow me The new challenge is Postcards.I will take a piece of fabric,paint it,stamp it stitch it, colour on it , do stuff to it, I will post each stage-- come along with me and join in, we will then cut up our new altered fabric and make postcards,and I will need all of you who join in to send me your piccies so we can see what every ones doing. At the end I will send one of mine to everyone who leaves a comment. cool huh.! You will need......a pack of postcards, mine were 87p for 50 from boyses and some fabric, plain and pale , white is best, a fat quarter at least, I am going to use a metre. Tomorrow I will start by painting a colour wash using acrylics on mine as a background so come on and follow me, how hard can it be?

journal quilt

2010-05-12T22:38:00.002+01:00

here is my little 6 by 12 pearom journal quilt, as you can see, I did get quite a lot of stitching into it, Julie says its unusually subtle for me,what ever does she mean?

PLAYING CATCH UP.

2010-05-08T21:33:00.002+01:00

Not had much time lately, still playing catch up, but heres wednesdays progress , remember its only 6 by 12 inchs.

2010-05-08T21:25:00.001+01:00

Hertes thursdays progress, notice its upside down now, I liked it better all dangly.

2010-05-08T21:11:00.003+01:00

Its so small, I sort of feel that I cant add any major embellishment's, otherwise it will turn into a piece of embroidery and stop being a quit, and that would never do!........ Back soon.

Yearning to stitch

2010-05-03T23:58:00.002+01:00

As many of you know,I have missed a lot of sewing time recently,because of preparing our house to sell,and I miss my sewing so much. I know jobs have to be done but I spend about ten minutes at night quickly reading other peoples blogs and gazing at their photos and I yearn so badly to just sit and stitch. Tonight, its late and I am tired but I have just remembered that I was supposed to have completed a 6 by 12inch small quilt for the pearoom exhibition next month, so I have got out the given fabric a sparkly blue, an a rather nice background fabric and my favourite wool wadding-which is so nice it just makes me want to sing when I stitch into it. Its measured,cut, bonded,and tacked to its wadding-I don't know what it wants to be yet but I feel lovely quilting coming on, and sequins, definitely sequins.....

2010-05-03T23:40:00.004+01:00

Those of you who are wondering,Trudis p c is still at the menders, boo hoo we miss you, and Angela is slowly recovering from pleurisy and doing battle with her city and guilds diploma, so its just me at the moment. As soon as I have done this little quiltet there will be a follow me challenge,to make a set of A.T.C.,s.so get your paintstix and your fabric ready--it will be soon.....

2010-04-26T22:42:00.002+01:00

Can I start by sending Angela all our best wishes as she is rather poorly at the moment with pleurisy.

This has meant that I went to the fitzwilliam quilt exhibition at Thorpe hall in peterborough alone! I know I never leave lincolnshire unaccompanied but it was alright as I used to live there, so I could find my way about and I can never miss a quilt show as I love to see other peoples work and in this case ,old friends ,as I used to be a member of this group.

2010-04-26T22:35:00.002+01:00

Thorpe Hall is an enormous grand residence, that ,I think, belonged to the earl Fitzwilliam for several centuries, it is now a hospice and both the internal and external architecture has been carefully preserved by the hospice charity and this provided the most marvellous surrounding's for the quilts on show.

2010-04-26T22:19:00.002+01:00

we passed through rooms through doorways that had huge carved plasterwork over the lintels and passed sweeping staircases with enormous heavy woodcarving that I just wanted to sit and draw and I lost my breath gazing up at the wonderful carved ornate plaster cornices that covered all the ceilings ,the Georgian period was a time of superb decoration coupled with very balanced and visually pleasing proportions,and Thorpe hall is a fine example.

2010-04-26T22:08:00.001+01:00

Looking at both the modern and traditional quilts in this show in these historic surroundings made it easy to see where many of our sources of inspiration come from.

2010-04-26T00:11:00.005+01:00

I was told that this quilt took its inspiration from a ceiling rose in another part of the building.

I liked the sewing room dolls best ,my daughters favourite was the mermaid.

There was even an entire room dedicated to christmas, it was amazing, such beautiful work.

2010-04-25T23:54:00.002+01:00

After tea and chocolate cake we wondered out into the rather lovely gardens,through an enormous stone gate, past long borders and into a walled garden, where we came across a stone ornamental pond. I t was warm and sunny and the great crested newts were lazily twisting about and sunbathing near the surface of the water,

later on, as we were leaving, we saw this beautiful tree

2010-04-25T23:39:00.003+01:00

2010-04-25T23:16:00.006+01:00

P.S. Is it only me suffering serious withdrawal symptoms from a severe lack of 'quilting prolifically? please trudi ,get that laptop mended soon....we miss you ....

P.P.S isnt this a fantastic tree its huge-- we never get really big trees in the fens, the soil is too fine to support them, what a beauty.

FRANKIE WINS!

2010-04-16T22:45:00.002+01:00

The weaving challenge is over and Frankie clearly wins. She has been let loose with a soldering iron again and is doing impressive and creative things with it. Her weaving sample is excellent-she has used ribbons of fused sheers to give both texture and colour. Well done Frankie! We all want to send our best wishes to Angela who is not too well at the moment,feel better soon Angela.

fusing fabrics

2010-04-16T22:32:00.004+01:00

Frankie took fragments of sheers, overlaid them on a board and then, using a steel ruler as a guide--cut them into ribbons using a soldering iron, this fuses the sides of the ribbons together as it severs them

Frankies pegging and bleaching

2010-04-16T22:24:00.004+01:00

Black fabric folded and pegged together and then painted with domestic bleach produced an amazing acic yellow mustard colour

frankies bleaching

2010-04-16T22:20:00.002+01:00

Black fabric from a different source revealed a pinky purple colour.

Just a little hand work ...

2010-04-06T18:43:00.000+01:00

As part of my City and Guilds I had to make a sample of Hawaiian quilting. Right from scratch, the design is mine, made from playing with paper snowflakes!

Unfortuantely I appliqued this in reverse, hey ho!

I love the back!

I also had to quilt a sample I made in a previous module with colour.

So if you're going to do colour, you might as well do it, right?

And finally a little sashiko :)

So my Easter weekend was a little busy, and the nimble fingers are now resting. Working up to the next set of samples.

EL STUPIDO

2010-03-28T23:25:00.003+01:00

Hello everybody,well today I was going to post my journal quilts for you to see,two of them I was quite pleased with, and January's I was a bit iffy about, as it was based on the snow in January but it came out looking a bit blank ,so I was thinking about chopping it up .Anyway just before I posted I thought I would just read a few blogs first, so I hop over to Julie at mixed media and there she is ,explaining about journal quilts and how they have to be 10 by 7---seven!!!!oooh b*****r!--mine are 10 by 6. aaagh.so there will now be a short intermission whilst I perform major surgery on my little chaps!

2010-03-28T23:00:00.001+01:00

OH I FEEL SOOO STUPID!.

new challenge

2010-03-09T21:23:00.005Z

stand bye to receive new challenge, but first a few more piccies of the crinkleing .First, a slightly clearer picture of frankies crinkle, she gently coloured her fabric , based on monets water lillies and added the gold spots for the waterlilies, on reflection ,she intends to bring up the colour using markal oilbars as she feels its too understated. the second photo is my own crinkle ,no bells and whistles, just stitching .I haven't photographed it all as it is long and skinny and I cant get it all in one picture.thank you nellies needles for giving us our inspiration.....

And now for new challenge, which is WEAVING.any sort ,any fabric , any size[as small as you like --or big ] come on everyone, go for it!

nelliesneedles

2010-03-08T18:05:00.001Z

look at our comments--- nellies needles has been reading us wow how cool is that? more pictures coming soon...

julies crinkle work

2010-03-07T23:03:00.005Z

wow! another hardworking stitcher has sent us some pictures of her lovely crinkle work, well done Julie ,its really lovely, nellies needles would be proud of us! the multicoloured piece was a dye mopping up cloth and is a work in progress. The blue piece is velvet crinkled with starch with added stitching to consolidate the crinkles, its going to covered with beads and made into a small evening purse .Well done!

CRINKLE CHALLENGE

2010-03-06T23:39:00.004Z

The crinkle challenge is over, hurrah I hear you say, not as easy as we thought ,was it? please send us a picture of your crinkle and we will post it ,. e mail it to me ,tina.

Well done frankie, the first to send us a photo ,your putting us all to shame,as we haven't all finished yet,anyone notice a pattern here? My excuse is I went for BIG plus I am easily distracted by shibori and the latest guild challenge ......and shopping. Trudis excuse is city and guilds I think we have to allow her that!And you have seen angelas its lovely, isnt it.

Trudi's Crinkle quilt and little c'n g too!

2010-03-03T22:15:00.000Z

Ok, so I know it doesn't look finish, dare I say, it's not. I have trimmed this back so that I can then do a blanket stitch around it to finish it off, but with beads too! And with the loose threads all hanging out the side too! This was some of the first batch of snow dyeing I did. Some one described it as an Ordanance Survey map! I have a few other ideas for this little baby, but they will have to wait, I've got loads to get done with the C&G to keep me busy too.

So, with the c 'n g stuff I started off with the pic on the right, some gorgous brickwork in Edinburgh, add a little photocopying... a bit of drawing out for calculating piece sizes...

And this is what you end up with (big grin!)

OK, so the purist will say the seams are wonky, but I'll just call it a little poetic license in the design process! What do you think?

Angela's Crinkle Quilt Challenge

2010-03-02T15:11:00.008Z

Well, here it is my crinkle quilt challenge. It is heavily embellished with inspiration from sprouts and cabbages so that it can tick City & Guilds boxes as well. The main green was hand dyed and there were some paint stick rings. I used zips, beads, washers, gold beads from a broken necklace, hand dyed buttons and some discs I found in a charity shop that I also dyed a green colour. two edges have a blanket stitch edge, the one on the right has beads attached. I have stitched all day whilst waiting for my new mobile phone to arrive. It was so nice to see sun out of the windows today.

More details -

Trudi, Tina I can't believe I am the first to post, what is the next challenge? Well I think it is a technique starting with "W". Any guesses???

STILL STILL STITCHING

2010-02-25T21:08:00.003Z

Well, everyone else is snowed under with their city and guilds,so Iwill post.I am still,still stitching the crinkle quilt, I am planning all sorts of marvellous embellishments, bells whistles ect..

but I keep getting distracted, life is hard , machine quilting with ferret,kantha with helen , shopping,and of course,blogging! the kids downloaded emoticons for me so I have been busy sending them to people[I am easily amused] as well,and I wont get any crinkle done tomorow as we are going to play SHIBORI again,yahoo, I am soo excited

CRINKLEING

2010-02-12T23:27:00.002Z

The third method I know of is the one I am using, which is to sew a running thread back and forthacross the fabric and to draw it up for as little or as much crinkle as I want and then just as you would with the other methods,stitch it down however you want to fix it to its backing. A NOTE,I prefer to make the quilt first so that it is stable and flat ,before I attach and sew into the crinkleing. My experience is that if I attach crinkleing and then quilt the surounding area it is often no longer square and pulled out of shape.

2010-02-12T23:05:00.000Z

2010-02-12T23:03:00.000Z

CRINKLEING

2010-02-12T22:39:00.002Z

Hi everybody! Well its been a busy week with the stitchin n crinkleing and I realised it would probably be a good idea to show the differant ways of getting your crinkle, so here goes---the first way would be the method trudi uses, which is to soak your fabric in starch and leave to dry crinkled in the bottom of a confining container,[ a cup is good]. The second method is to lay your fabric in a tray or box crinkled up but laying on a flat surface and soak it in starch , we use spray starch, by the way,[no messy mixing for us]I lay another tray on top and weigh it down with a few tins of beans and leave it on the boiler to dry.