Going against the grain!

I've  always been rubbish at traditional patchwork partly because I came to quilting via embroidery and didn't have much idea of the basics and partly because I try to go too quickly. What amazes me after a lifetime of dressmaking and sewing is just how hard it is to sew two pieces of fabric together. I measure twice or more times before I cut, I try to get my pieces cut accurately and they look right but sew them together and they aren't!

So being a Craftsy junky and also having an eye for a bargain, I saw a Craftsy class called "Piece like a 

Pro" with Donna Lynn Thomas and it was on sale! So I signed up! I'd never heard of her, but she's written several books and is very well known and is a very good teacher. In the class Donna shows how to make four very traditional blocks, but covers a lot of basics which I can use in my rather untraditional quilts.

Apparently it's all a matter of working with the grain of the fabric and understanding how squares, triangles and other shapes can be sewn together. So I've learned the difference between half and quarter square triangles, how to make a pressing plan so the seams will butt and the block will lie flat, how to line up and cut shapes with the straight grain and how to get an accurate 1/4 inch seam.

These little squares show what Donna calls the four patch pop! When the seams are manipulated so the middle lies flat! How cool is that!

And here is the block with almost matching points and on the back

Four patch pops galore!

I've also made this

Where the middle is almost in the middle and it's lying flat well flattish.

And this, where the points almost meet

Sadly sewing two pieces of fabric together so the edges line up, the seam is straight, all the points are aligned etc isn't ever going to be my strong poin and I ask myself if it really matters in terms of my "Art". Well I think it does matter in terms od disciplining myself to take more time planning my projects and thinking them through before launching myself bull at a gate fashion. Hence the pieces in these two blocks are supposed to have the same orientation but right at the beginning I sewed the first two triangles the opposite way round without realising! Never mind.

When it's done and quilted everyone will think I planned it that way! Who am I to argue!

Feedback ...

Sometimes when were working on a project we get so immersed in it that we stop actually seeing it and the harder we look, the less we actually see. This often happens to me and that's when I like to show what I'm doing to others so that they can pick up on what's going right or wrong and tell me what they see. It's difficult though because we are often afraid of offending by saying that we don't like this or that or that colour doesn't work or it's just not very good and often we avoid the issue by making some bland comment which doesn't really help anyone.

So it's important to remember that if you say "I don't like that" it isn't the same as saying, "I don't like you" but sadly the two statements are often interpreted as meaning the same resulting in hurt feelings and bruised egos.  A very good friend once said to me, "own your art" meaning don't be afraid of what other people might think of it, but learn to accept constructive criticism and not take it personally.

At the moment I'm working on a large project which is the first one I've designed from scratch and planned meticulously rather than just throw together to see what happens. I've reached a stage where I felt ready to show it off and ask for feed back and fortunately I've had what I call genuinely constructive and helpful criticism which was given to me in such a way that I didn't feel upset or defensive. So I'm feeling really lucky to be a member of a lovely textile art group and am beginning to feel at home back here in Cornwall.

So here's a very poor photo of the work in progress which I've put to one side for a while so I can think about the comments I've received and decide whether I need to make some changes.

But I haven't been idle and despite the frost, ice and snow I'm going off to workshop etc. the first of the year was at West Country Embroiderers when my friends Jill and Lindsay ran a workshop on crewel embroidery. Not something I've done before, or even thought I might do, but it was great fun and reminded me that sometimes, sitting by the fire while the DH is watching football on the TV, doing a bit of hand embroidery is just what you need.

So this is my little piece in progress and I'm really enjoying doing it as a bit of light relief!

I've also been lucky enough to get a lovely new toy and am really enjoying it. Although it's a new machine, this model has been around for a very long time and is renowned for being a good workhorse for free machine embroidery. So putting it through its paces I've made this little embroidery

I've also been luck enough to go to a wonderful workshop at the Embroiderers Guild when Karen Scannell was showing us how to print with Thermofax screens and thickened dyes. My results were mixed but it was great fun and a technique I will be able to incorporate into future work.

Lots of projects on the go now with deadlines looming and also lots of exciting workshops booked! So time to shut down the computer and get going!

When art becomes a chore......

....... its time to stop and take stock. With me this process has been going on for a while and only now do I feel ready to get started again. This time last year I seem to have so much on the go what with the Gelli plate, various projects for all sorts of challenges, dyeing fabric but recently, no ideas or any real creativity.

So the excuses for my lack of creativity are;

We've had a lot of visitors over the summer and autumn and I haven't had any time to do anything apart from cooking, cleaning and entertaining;

My beloved Juki sewing machine isn't behaving itself and I haven't been able to use it;

It's been too hot/ cold/ light/ dark to work in the conservatory and my famous shed still doesn't have power or insulation;

We've been working nonstop in the garden;

I don't ever seem to have the right colour fabric that I need and I've run out of some of the dyes/paint I need

I could go on and if you believe any of the above I shall be very surprised! True we have had visitors and we have been doing a lot in the garden, but the real reason I haven't been creating anything in the textile line is that I just don't seem to be able to think of any ideas for making a start.

Being a member of two textile groups should have been enough to spur me into activity and although I've enjoyed the various meetings, that's as far as it's gone!

The St Ives textile group meets at the Porthmeor Studios which overlooks the beach and the following photos show us busy making mono prints. Our theme this year is seed heads and I've collected a fair number of these which have been slowly shedding debris everywhere!

I've also been on various courses and workshops and have been busy honing my free machine embroidery and quilting skills.

This is the design for a quilt I produced with much guidance from Susan Denton. A wonderful teacher who makes fabulous art quilts but who is so patient with those who are a bit lacking in grey matter! This will be my contribution to an exhibition at Wheal Martyn China Clay Museum in September, if I can get it made!

And below is some free machine embroidery, now actually finished and made into a cushion!

These samples were made at a workshop with Jan Tillett using shrink polyester. I love the textures, but haven't yet thought of a way to use it in a project.

All too soon Christmas was upon us and off we went on our travels to Yorkshire and St Austell and finally landed back home last Sunday. Then, I remembered the dreaded journal quilt deadline and after quite a bit of displacement activity, e.g.  tidying the workroom, reading my kindle books, sighing etc, I finally got started! This is how I knew I was in trouble. The ideas just wouldn't come so rather than sit and fret, I just got some fabric out of the stash, cut it up and started sewing it together. After getting four little pieces made, I quilted them and finally got them uploaded today only a day late.

And here they are!

That does seem to be the answer. Rather than just sit and think about it, just get on and do something, anything and after a while the ideas do come along! So now I have finally got the ball rolling perhaps I will get on and do more after all a sunrise does suggest endless possibilities!

Happy new year everyone!

Where to start....

Well, it's been very hot and we've been inundated with peas, beans and courgettes. The great success story though is the sweet corn, which has been fantastic after a ropy start.

Our trip to Art in Action went well, but we didn't manage to see everything we wanted to because of the heat, but we did enjoy the trip and also the visit to Dorset on the way home.

This wonderful carving really took my eye in the woodworking marquee and no sign to say please don't touch, so I did!

Lots of hat makers in the textile tent, but no quilters this year.

No sooner back home than our first visitors of the summer arrived. They were walking parts of the coast path and although we were tempted, it was just too hot, so we provided the transport and the food!

My next trip was up to Birmingham to the Festival of Quilts. This year I decided to fly rather than suffer the train journey, so the journey was very smooth despite the threat of the hurricane!

Although I can't get to the meetings as they are too far away, I am a member of the Exe Valley Contemporary Quilt Group. Our group quilt, entitled, Triassic Trio won third prize in the Group Section even though there wasn't a single Meerkat in evidence! We were each asked to make a strip representing a rock type found in the West Country, and my strip was Serpentine in the bottom right corner.

It was a wonderful show and I thoroughly enjoyed myself looking at all the quilts and meeting up with friends. The organisers had obviously listenened to our criticisms because this year the lighting was very much improved and there was more space around the quilts. However, more space came at the expense of some of the seating and getting a chair was a struggle at times.

Then we had to get ready for our next set of visitors, just day trippers this time! A wonderful walk around the Lizard from Church Cove to Housel Bay, with a cup of tea at the hotel. On the way we saw exotic plants, gannets diving and blackberries ripening!

The colour of the sea was so beautiful!

After all the visits, I managed to finish my quilt for the exhibition at Cowslips and spent a lovely day stewarding and having a lovely lunch with my DS.

The idea came from an old photo of some slate which I thought would do really well on the theme of "Layers!.

Now the weather has started to get hot again, sewing will have to wait because we're off to the beach!

Time for reflection

After some glorious sunny weather, rain was forecast so I took time off from the garden to go to Truro Cathedral to see an exhibition of quilts entitled Saints of Cornwall. The quilts were made by Cornish quilting groups from all over the county. Each group chose a saint connected to their own little bit of Cornwall, and each one designed their own quilt which, due to the limitations of the display area, had to be made to a designated size.

The standard of the work was very high and it was very interesting to see how the various groups had approached the design process and also to see the enormous variety of materials and techniques used.  The lighting in the cathedral was poor and they had requested no flash photography and so my photos were not wonderful! Here are a few to whet the appetite!

 This lovely Celtic cross looked so real it was difficlut to believe it was not made out of stone!

Apart from the rather gruesome stabbing, this quilt was a delight and was full of machine embroidered motifs and embellishments.

This quilt contained lovely images and text and had been beautifully free machine quilted with what looked to be metallic threads!

Another Celtic cross. This one was made by Lynn Carr a CQ member!

This quilt from the Scilly Isles was lovely, especially the boat. See the rather out of focus close up below for an idea!

This quilt was my favourite because it was such an original design and very much to my taste as a contemporary quilter. Made by Caroline Richards and Susan Hooper who are both CQ members.
For more and much better photos there is a link to their blog Beyond Patchwork here

This quilt also stood out because of its really original design and very restricted pallette. the black and white truly reflecting the Cornish flag.

Very uplifting to see the quilts in the setting of such a lovely building. It must have taken a lot of organising to get all the quilts finished in time and to the right size so congratulations to everyone who took part.

Now the sun is out, so before I get back to my latest project I'm off to do a bit of weeding!

Grubby hands again!

A wonderful workshop at the Embroiderers Guild with Art Van Go showing us how to use discharge paste. It was a very hot day so we all struggled a bit, but at least we could get our fabric dry quickly! viv showed us how to use the paste on black discharge cotton and also on cotton dyed withrocion dyes. Once the colour was taken out, we then worked on putting colour back in with more dye and fabric paint.

It was great fun and very inspiring and my pieces were OK if nothing special. If I was using this technique for a project, I would need to do some detailed planning. This wasn't possible on the day, so the results were a bit hit and miss.

So I've been busy dyeing some more fabric as my stash of hand dyes was getting a bit depleted. Quite why I bought some mixed dye colours I can't now remember. As Procion dyes are easy to mix and you can get just about every colour you need from just 6 colours it is a bit of a waste, but I've decided to use them anyway and see what happens.

Here is my gradation using black currant.

I'm not totally happy with the way the colour has taken. The darkest is much bluer than any of the others and looks like a completely different hue. Also when rinsing, some of the blue component must still have been active as there are some blue spots on the lighter fabric which only appeared after washing.

Judging by the look of the dyed fabric, some of it seems to be poly cotton. Not sure how that happened, but I did take the fabric pieces out of the scrap bag so it's possible there was some in there. It just shows that procion dyes will work on poly cotton which might be useful to know!

 Yesterday was spent getting lots more fabric dyed. I'm using Jo Lovelock's method for dyeing a family of tones using two colours. I've chosen Lemon yellow for the first colour and have dyed 12 pieces of fabric. Four each of dark, medium and light and these are flapping away on the washing line. Even though there was a huge difference in the quantities of dye used, the colours are pretty similar! Never mind it's all good experience! The second colour is slate blue and this is also dark,medium and light so at the end there is a wide range of values in a mix of hues.

There was very little difference between the medium and light yellow and so the range of colours is a bit more limited than I wanted, but still there is enough here for me to work on a series of journal quilts.

So now for the not so successful. I decide to follow the recipes for complex colours in Helen Deighans book mixing magenta, turquoise and yellow in various combinations. Before rinsing the colours looked really good, but after washing it seemed that the magenta component had completely disappeared leaving some truly wishy washy colours. I don't know what went wrong so have tried a test piece just using magenta which seems to have worked.

One question I cannot find an answer to is, why do I continue to dye my skin such lovely colours even though I wear rubber gloves! The dye seems to get everywhere so today I have blue and yellow patches on my arms and magenta fingers!

I'm not sure what to do with the wishy washy fabric but will wait and see. Lots to be getting on with in the garden because the peas need picking, podding and freezing. Broad beans are beginning and the calabrese is hearing up! 

Embroidery 5 quilting 0!

We are a long way away from the mainstream here in Cornwall, but the local branch of the Embroiderers Guild is very active, unlike the Quilters Guild, which isn't. So having been part of the QGBI and the CQ group for a long time and a member of two lovely active quilting groups back in Leeds, it was sad to feel that I'd lost out by moving away so I went along to an EG meeting just to see what it was like.

Actually, it felt like coming home! Everyone was so friendly and welcoming and not only was the programme inspiring, there are lots of get togethers outside the meetings and a  wide range of talents and tastes. So I joined and haven't regretted it.

When I saw that Jean Littlejohn was booked for a two day workshop in May, my mouth really started watering, but sadly there were no places left. I was encouraged to put my name on the waiting list but didn't hold out much hope of getting a place. Still, I had a ticket for the talk she was due to give and thought that at least I'd get to see some of her beautiful work.

But then, I get the phone call a couple of days ago. A place had come free and would I like it? Would I like it? You mean you felt I needed to be asked!!!

So I duly got everything on the requirements list together and packed it all in. We were going to be using an embellisher, which I don't have, but I do have an embelleshing attachment for my sewing machine, so I got that fitted and off I went to the talk.

Jean is a lively and entertaining speaker and very generously shared lots of information about techniques she and Jan Beaney used. She mentioned the requirements for the following day and said, don't bother to bring loads as I have just about everything with me!

So after I got home, I repacked my bags leaving out a lot of stuff that I thought would be essential and realised I wouldn't need and putting in some more yarns that I could see would be useful. In the end, all it used was a bit of my yarn and my scissors! I really needn't have taken anything else at all!

So after an introductory talk we got going on the stitching. Jean showed us how to use stitches to create texture and this is central to her work. She asked us to use just one stitch, raised chain band but to have a design in mind. Mine was based on a drawing of tree bark and  used some very thick knitting yarn which took me way out of my comfort zone.

This is work in progress and not a very good photo I'm afraid.

The next technique Jean showed us was to use Solusheet, which is a dissolvable fabric, to create a background for further stitching. The idea is to cover the fabric with large stitches making sure that the stitches cross over each other. Then the stitching is worked on using an embellisher which has the effect of creating a "felted" surface. The piece is then put in water to dissolve the fabric and once it is dry it can be stitched into and further embellished.

Taking this further, Jean showed us how to make a rich surface by ironing bondaweb onto the stitching and adding gold foil. This was then covered with a nylon scarf before distressing it all under the embellisher. This opens up a world of possibilities for making rich and complex surfaces that can then be stitched into. Both Jean and Jan use this method to make very large pieces of work but our pieces were very small. I wasn't very happy with the way my first piece turned out. My initial stitching was so dense that it took a long time for the embellisher to get it distressed sufficiently and then it wasn't possible to wash out all the Solusheet.

The lttle piece on the left is my attempt at building an embellished surface and I used detached chain stitch as the final stitching.

All in all an exhausting couple of days, but lots of new things learned and lots of fun with some lovely people. One thing I did learn is that my embellisher attachment can't cope with this kind of surface which is a bit of a shame because it means that now I just have to get a proper embellisher! The things we are forced to do for art!!!!

One tip Jean gave us which has really made me think and this was to do what you love, otherwise you won't finish it and it will languish in the UFO box. So although I love quilting, at heart I think I'm truly an embroiderer. I'm glad to have got that sorted out at last!!!