The earth moves again!

We are getting thoroughly fed up with all this rain. Where is it all coming from? I know where it's going as we are surrounded by seas of mud!

Our trusty earthmovers dug a trench for a drain on Friday and excavated a large hole at the front which will eventually be levelled up with our spanking new drive way. They have removed tons of earth and a very dilapidated fuchsia which had long since passed its best and today they are in the process of levelling the hard core and tamping it down while the rain falls! They are coming back "dreckly" to finish it all off with nice chippings and Tarmac. "Dreckly" being the Cornish version of mañana! Still with it all levelled and hardened off at least we will not be paddling to the car through a muddy lake!

On the artistic front I have been busy. Yesterday I attended a workshop with Susan Denton learning about colour. Susan is a well known quilter who was a member of Quilt Art but has not run classes for a while. The exercises she set us were very challenging but she made sure that everyone understood the tasks and spent a lot of time helping us individually and as a group. Susan had provided us with all the fabric we were likely to need and everyone came away having learned a great deal.

Here are some photos of my exercises

We chose 1 light, 1 dark and 1 medium fabric. In my first sample I chose the lime green as my light fabric and in the second, as my medium. The result is that the medium fabric looks darker on the light fabric and darker on the light. This can be a useful way of manipulating the colour.

In the next exercise we chose two medium fabrics, one slightly darker than the other. In this way it is possible to make the two medium colours look as if they were the same simply by using a light or a dark background. Mine didn't quite work on the light fabric, but sort of did on the dark.

 The final exercise was to choose 12 to 16 fabrics and grade them in even steps from light to dark! This is a black and white photo of my choices, which wasn't bad, but not perfect.

We then had to cut out small squares and triangles and stick them on a background drawn out as a traditional block.

The task was to place the fabrics in such a way that it moved from dark to light across the  block, but in a random way. Not sure about my result so I may do another one before the next class on Monday.

Hard work, but my it was fun!!!

My quillt for the Quilters Guild "Green" challenge is finished and is winging it's way to Exeter and it does look quite good.

Next up is the serpentine panel which is giving me a few headaches but I think I'm getting there. This is the photo I'm using so it should be quite dramatic.

Watch this space!

When the earth moves....

chez Leonard it really moves!

Hence this wilderness

becomes like this

and before you know it you begin to have a garden!

Of course you do need one of these

and a couple of strong men who don't mind working in the rain! They will be back next week to lay the flagstones and we will be off to the garden centre to buy some plants.

In the meantime I have been busy sewing. The tree rhythms piece is finished, mounted and gone off to the competition. I'm not expecting anything but I'm hoping for some feedback.

The green challenge quilt is waiting for it's hanging sleeve before going off. The serpentine panel is proving to be a real challenge but I hope to get it done on time.

In the meantime there are two new cushions which I've made by way of displacement activity!

So now it's off to the garden centre so we can get a plant or two!

Carrying on....

Despite all this horrible weather is throwing at us we are not doing too badly. Many poor souls are having to cope with floods, wind damage and who knows what so a few sleepless nights listening to the rain and hail crashing into our velux window in the bedroom is really neither here nor there. We have been a bit concerned that our lovely big conservatory may not withstand the high winds we've been having. but although it creaks, groans and rattles a lot, and there is the occasional puddle on the floor, so far it seems to have survived.

But we have a new garden to start building and we can't get out so my DH is busy with his oak planks and I'm busy at the sewing machine.

So far the woodwork has produced this

which has replaced this.

Something of an improvement!

Next up is the bookcase for the alcove on the right of the stove and when that's up we can at last start unpacking the books!

The sewing frenzy has produced quite a lot too.

A new cushion for my dear MIL who has got very fed up with the old patchwork cushions she made donkeys years ago and asked for something a bit brighter.

Two little sample quilts which I've made  to practice the technique of inserting very narrow strips. I'm planning to make a large quilt, or rather a series of quilts on the theme of "layers" based on a photo of slate I took many years ago.

My entry for the Embroiderers  Guild member's challenge which is on the theme of "tree rhythms"

I had great fun making this. I made a stamp for the black trees and used this to print on some fabric I had already dyed. I also used a cork and a pencil to print the circles. The stitching is mostly free machine embroidery, cable and whip stitch, with a few hand stitches and some couched threads to finish off. My DH used his woodworking skills once again to make a frame for it as the rules specify that it must be mounted and ready to hang.

The next quilt is for the Region 4 Quilter's Guild Challenge on the theme of "Green". Once again I delved into my stash of handyed fabrics and got out all the greens I could find. I was really surprised at just how many there were given that green isn't a colour I use very much. As I was on a roll with inserting narrow strips, I rather went to town with some really bright orange and pink fabric to make a contrast. It wasn't my intention to make a quilt where there weren't any straight lines at all, but that seemed to be what happened when I started joining the separate blocks together.

Forward planning is not my strong suit and so it took quite a while to get the different elements arranged in a way that I was pleased with, and also to get the size right and to get it roughly rectangular.

I decided to quilt it using perpendicular parallel lines of stitching and now that it's squared up and ready for binding, I'm rather pleased with it.

Next up is some simple patchwork to make some new cushions for us before I start on the art once again! Watch this space!

Gelli plate experiments

I bought myself a Gelli plate at the Festival of Quilts and for some time it lay in my drawer unopened and unused. Then I had the idea of using some home made stamps to print some fabric for a project that I posted about a while ago, but which didn't happen in the end.

Since Christmas the weather has been dreadful with high winds and lashing rain so working outside in the garden or going for walks has been out of the question. We did brave the cliff tops on New Year's Eve and almost got blown away!

The waves were spectacular and we were so glad to get out in the fresh air that we didn't mind getting blown about a bit and tramping through lots of mud! We noticed that the hedgerows are full of Butterbur and the air is full of their lovely sweet scent! Also, the catkins are forming on the hazel bushes. Just what you need to remind you that Spring is not far away!!!!

Now that Christmas is over, we're getting back to our daily routine and I'm  beginning to feel more settled and able to start making things again. So today with the rain bouncing off the conservatory roof and the wind whistling in the chimney, out came the Gelli plate and the paint, stamps, sponges etc and I've been having fun.

It's so windy round here that, at the coast, the trees lean heavily in the direction of the prevailing Westerly winds. So on the theme of tree rhythms, I made a stamp to represent the way the trees look and using some hand dyed fabric, my Gelli plate and the lovely fabric paint my DH bought me for Christmas, these were the results! 

This afternoon, I started cutting up the fabric pieces and made a collage that I think will be the start of my piece. It's quite small, only 30cms square, but I'm going to add some machine and hand stitch and see where that takes me.

                                                                                                                           

If I don't like it, I don't have to use it but it will be good to get something finished even if it's not perfect. Indeed looking for perfection in anything is pretty much a waste of time and in the past I've wasted a lot of valuable time because I was too worried about how my work would be received and whether it would be good enough. Now the main thing that concerns me is that whatever I do, I want to enjoy it without worrying too much about it. Not that I don't take my work seriously and try to make it as good as I can, but once the fun goes out of it, and it becomes a chore, well that would be the end for me.  

So even though I'm not really making resolutions for the New Year, if I was, mine would be just that. Enjoy making things just for the sake of it, and give yourself plenty of time to play!                                     

Tis the season .......

of festive cheer, lights, food and drink and shopping!

Our trip to Yorkshire went well and although we enjoyed it we were glad to get home. It was strange visiting Leeds for a shopping trip with my DD. There's an enormous new shopping mall where we almost got lost, but nothing much has changed. It's still busy and grubby in parts and although I lived there for more years than I care to remember, I never thought of it as my home and I don't miss it.

There are people there that I do miss and it's nice to catch up with them from time to time, but I am beginning to make new friends here and I'm finding plenty to do.

On the quilting/embroidery front, 2013 has been a bit of a dead loss. Lots of good intentions, but not much resulting from them. Looking back over the year, what have I achieved? Well, I've done some painting and decorating, begun to sort things out in my new home,  visited various shows, joined a few groups, got some new books and dyed and painted some fabric.

Now I've set myself the challenge of actually making things. First there's a piece for the Embroiders Guild with a theme of Tree  rythyms. I've machined a grid on some soluble film and will now start some free machining to fill it in. Perhaps I'll also use some hand stitching too. 

Next is a piece for our South West CQ group on the theme of layers. Not sure what this is going to look like yet, but geology seems appropriate. There is also a plan for a group quilt on the same theme with each person making one layer based on a rock type. I have chosen serpentine as, being surrounded by a wall made of it, I'm not short of inspiration.

Looking at other people's blogs has been a wonderful distraction for me and I've picked up lots of tips and ideas along the way. I hope that the same applies to anyone reading my blog.

I hope everyone had a truly lovely Christmas and that 2014 will be good for all. Happy new year everyone!

Getting my hands dirty

The Contemporary Quiltgroup suitcase challenge was to make a quilt on the theme of "all in a days work". The closing date was 1st December and way back in August that seemed ages away. We went for a lovely walk down the lane to the beach and noticed that the hedgerows were full of ivy flowers and they were full of bees. So, this was going to form the basis for a design for my quilt.

 I had the idea of making stamps to print on some cloth and also to make some silk paper leaves as embellishment before adding the bees. However, things didn't go to plan. I used some procion dye for the silk fibre which I hoped would be lovely and bright, but the colours were a bit muted.

Not really the glowing colours I had hoped for and time is slipping away fast. I did manage to make some stamps using funky foam and have used my lovely new Geli plate to make some mono prints that I hoped would make an interesting background cloth.

Sadly this has just not happened. I have been doing other things with my DH and other family and friends, been on courses etc. I've had such a lot of fun playing with all these toys, getting my hands thoroughly coloured with paint and dye but the elusive design and indeed anything resembling a quilt is as far away as ever.
Does it matter though? Well, in the scheme of things no it doesn't, but I had hoped to be able to get a quilt made to the deadline just to satisfy myself that I could. What has happened though, is that I have actually been working at my sewing machine,  my art table and although there aren't any finished items yet, I'm convinced that is only a matter of time.
So the next deadline is to make something for the Embroiderer's Guild competition on the theme of tree rhythms and I've got until February. I can use a lot of the work I've already done towards the final piece so that will be the next focus.

Here is a mono print made using my Geli plate that I'm using as the basis for my design. This is a print from a log that I took out of our log basket!

It's about time I went and tried to get some of the paint and dye off my hands and got on with some stitching!

Righty tighty.....

lefty loosey!

It's  been a while since I did any free machine embroidery rather than free machine quilting and it isn't easy to switch between the two. Yes in theory you are using the machine in the same way for both, dropping the feed dogs and essentially writing with the needle, but there is a world of difference between them. Something that I took a while to realise.

For free machine quilting you need to maintain a constant speed; not too fast; not too slow and move your fabric "sandwich" smoothly in time with the speed of the machine. The aim is to keep all the stitches the same length and keep a flowing line of quilting without crossing over any lines. You need to look ahead of your needle so that you can see where to go next until the space you have chosen is filled.

For free machine embroidery,  the technique is very different. You still need to run the machine at a constant speed, but much faster and as you don't necessarily need the stitches to be a constant length, you can move your fabric as quickly or slowly as you wish. In fact you can keep the fabric still and not move it at all which creates lovely blobby lumps especially if you are using a zigzag stitch. You still need to move the fabric smoothly as  its easy to break the needle if your motion is too jerky. If you lower the bobbin tension, you can get the bobbin thread to show on the surface, or you can use a thicker thread in the bobbin and sew upside down. This gives you an opportunity to create lots of texture and if the stitching is dense enough, you can distort your fabric to create three dimensional effects. A really good book that describes the techniques is Machine Embroidery stitch techniques by Valerie Cambell Harding and Pamela Watts. Possibly now out of print, but worth searching for as it is very well written and gives really clear details of each stitch and how they can be developed. 

In this little sample, I've used perle cotton in the bobbin and ordinary white cotton in the needle to create the surf and turned it over so that I was stitching on the back. This can be a bit of a challenge so it's an idea to draw your design on the back of the piece so you can be sure you're in the right place.

This little sample was sewn on dissolvable fabric with perle cotton in the bobbin.

These little seascapes used all of the bobbin techniques to create lots of texture.

These are only practice pieces, but they will help when I come to do  seascape for real.

But, and there is a big but!  Fiddling with the bobbin tension can cause no end of problems and there are those who say, "never do it"!  I say, well if you want to create lots of texture just using threads, then sometimes you have to! What you need to do is keep one bobbin case absolutely unmeddled with and use another one to play with. This way you can use your machine to its fullest when free machining, but still know that if you want to sew a seam with a balanced stitch you can without any messing about with a screw driver.

Of course when you're going on a course where you know you're going to be free machining and using cable stitch, whip stitch and the like, it pays to take your fiddled about with bobbin case with you. Why didn't I do it then? Don't know. I do know that having realised that I only had my pristine bobbin case with me, if I wanted to get the best out of the course I had to bite the bullet and get out the screw driver! So I did and it has taken me two days to retrieve the correct setting for balanced sewing.  At least I didn't lose the screw!