The other day when I was just mooching around the web, as you do, I found this :-Mixed Media Art Journal ~ New Beginnings (start-to-finish) - YouTube:

Now it's not textiles and it won't be everyone's cup of tea, but it helped give me some design ideas for the Horizons quilt I am working up in my mind.


So, I started with a couple of pages from an old recipe book.


 Then I mixed up some Brusho inks - turquoise and yellow (but I put a bit of brown in the yellow to make it slightly duller.)  I put the inks into a couple of spray bottles I had.


First of all I put a layer of gesso on the paper.

Without letting it dry I sprayed the ink - blocking off the area I did not want covered (though it did run more than I had intended).  The turquoise at the top, the yellow below.




Then I gave it a quick blast with a hairdryer before adding a lower layer of colour using a credit card and then over printing using a couple of old print blocks I made a couple of years ago.


 I use cheap acrylic paint as you can see.  It works fine for my needs.


Ok, so this is where I am up to. A couple of additional block prints and a layer between land and sky using a cheap pastel bougt the other day in Lidl (or it might have been Aldi!)


Hmm - promising.  I will play with it some more.

Well, so far( and let's face it Saturday isn't over so there is still scope for more activity) I have managed a couple of things on my list (and a couple of things not on the list).

So what have I achieved so far today?  Well, the hound has been walked - twice!

And I did the shopping!

But I got a bit side tracked by coffee and cake ( Fibre Frenzi would approve - she does a lot of cake! In fact, come to think of it, so do Six and Friends.  It must be something to do with all that quilting )

Just up the road from my home from home (my complicated life!) is the Wakefield Estate.  And the Wakefield Estate has a little courtyard of shops.  And one of those shops is Artea Room.  And they do delicious cake in delicious surroundings!




It is a cosy, eccentric place and they will sell your work if you are an artist.  So if you are ever anywhere near Stony Stratford (just north of Milton Keynes) then do stop by.  Conveniently - they are just off the main road that takes you to the Bramble Patch from MK - how convenient is that!

And, then I tackled the beast again.  We're getting on better!  But we still have a few issues!


Like this for instance!  What happens when you forget to engage the tension!  A bit of unpicking me thinks.

But we also succeeded with a bit of this.  So not all bad.

And it's too cold to try to get outside to tidy the garden, so, when Whippet X has had his exercise, I feel a day of crafting activity coming on.



I have lots to do:-

• Finish the binding on a lap quilt
• Start the quilting on another lap quilt set up on 'The Beast'
• Do some design work for Horizons
• Finish the third Spanish Gardens piece (last little bit of embroidery needed)
• Tidy sewing/studio room

I am thinking about another quilt - Horizons.

My expansive photo library is providing inspiration.


To the west of Cordoba in Southern Spain there is a stunning ruin called the Medina al-Zahra, a Moorish City and Palace dating from 940.

This was more than a palace. It was purpose built on a site specifically selected for it's amazing views over the countryside, facing south over the lush plains of Andalus and towards the Moorish homelands of North Africa.  And it was conceived as a thriving city to support the central palace complex.  It was a statement of commerce and wealth - it was not developed as a fort.

I really feel that it could provide the form for Horizons.

Thinking along this theme I will also need textures.  I found a gallery on this blog.  The textures hold real potential for some aspects of horizons.  I feel a book purchase coming on!

These two little quilts have taken just over a week - what was I worrying about?

If you have been following my progress you will know that my ideas were developing nicely.

When I left you the first quilt - the words quilt - was assembled and ready for stitching.

First up, bit of a tip.  If you want to try my technique - using paper bonded to fabric - don't quilt using lovely expensive wadding.  The stiffness of the backing does not allow the 'bounce' of any wadding to show through.  For these I have been using an inexpensive acrylic felt for the wadding.

So, I knew I wanted some additional applique on the little quilt top, so had a rummage in my stash of organza fabrics (I collect there when ever I go to a loud and brash fabric shop - you know the type, cheap poly cottons in glarish colours you would never wear - because they usually burn and distress so well.  But that is another post.)



I used the technical wonder that is Bondaweb to stick small small rectangles onto the quilt top, and then I quilted those rectangles down using a standard embroidery stitch on my machine - a fancy zig zag. (I rarely use these stitches, preferring on the most part to free motion stitch anything down).



A traditionally applied fabric binding, and Quilt 1 is finished and ready to post on the CQGB site.

Meanwhile the other little quilt needed far less stitching.  The shoes say it all really.  So again, using a standard embroidery stitch but with a variegated thread, I stitched a simple border of hearts.


 Again I did a traditional fabric binding, but pondered over the colour to use for the binding - green, to pick out the colour in the thread, or lilac?


Then I attached the shoes - using an invisible thread.  And voila!  Quilt 2 is ready to post.



And I already have ideas for Quilt 3.  But I have a horizons project to start and lots of things to finish!!

So, on my last post I showed you how I prepared the background fabric for my first 2 Journal quilts - a favourite background technique I use quite a lot.

The next day I cut the background into the quilt sizes 12 x 8 inches horizontally - in itself a challenge (not the cutting, but the orientation!  Instinct wants me to go profile not landscape!)

Then, with the words I had brainstormed in mind (I have pinned this to the back of a cupboard door in the studio to prompt me) I set to work.

And it just flowed!  I love it when that happens.


For the first little quilt I used words from a weekend paper supplement - there was an article on a daughters descent into schizophrenia.  So I grabbed snippets of some one else's memories - not mine - and other words and dates.  The words could mean something to anyone, or not - and ditto with some of the random days.  Certainly for the dates here I could not tell you what I was doing - those memories are lost.

I just snipped and arranged.



Then using Mod Podge because it has a nice opaque finish and coloured with the purple Brusho Ink I glued the snippets of paper down.

Meanwhile, and because it was all flowing so well, another idea came to me.  When she was little my daughter had a lovely pair of little pink ankle boots.  I don't know why, but I remember them so well.  But I don't have a photo of them.


So, I found a photo on the web of a similar shoe and made a tracing of it.


Which I then turned into a very simple pattern.


The shoes were pink.  I had no pink fabric, but I did have some pink paint and some extender.  So I painted my own fabric, and then used the pattern above (reversed in one case to make a pair) to cut the shoes.


A bit of pink felt for the laces and dark pink felt for the soles.


And then using a lovely variegated cotton I stitched the welt of the shoes and finished the end of the laces.


Here you can see them placed on the background, but not attached yet.

Now both little quilts are ready for stitching (and indeed quilting for they are just background papers here).  That is the next stage.

I am going to post this on Nina Marie's blog (a good read in itself and a lovely way to share with other people).  I would be really interested to have your feedback, though you might want to wait for the finished pieces.  I promise you I will get them finished quickly and the little finished articles posted for comment.

In my last post you will see that I did a bit of brainstorming and came up with some words to help me with my little JQs - but a list of words, dear reader, is not a quilt.

So I have made a start on the first two little quilts.

First of all I did some backgrounds.


If you have popped by before then you will know that I love working with tissue paper mounted onto lightweight cotton, in this case calico.

I use recycled tissue paper and keep any I can find.  So I have no idea where this came from.  But it was a big sheet so probably from some packaging.

I lay the tissue onto the fabric and then I usually bond them by using a 50:50 mix of PVA and water - poured on and then worked in with a brush.  The tissue can get wet and tear, but no worries for this is about achieving a texture. (If you try this you don't have to be too accurate with the PVA water mix - I just use my eye.  On it's own the PVA is too thick to really soak into the tissue and the paper).

If you do this, then make sure you protect the surface.  Here I used a thin polythene sheet over the kitchen work surface as I don't have the luxury of a wet studio (you can just about make it out on the right hand side of the photo above).

I used a cheap and fairly loose weave calico.  It may have come from IKEA - frankly I just get hold of it when ever I see some that I think is a good price.

Then I used Brusho powder to achieve the colour - in this case purple (to get me out of my comfort zone) and black.   (I used to use Procion dye for this technique, but find that the Brusho dissolves much better.)

I sprinkle it over the fabric using an old tea strainer.




The blues come from the black ink powder, which rather wonderfully separate out giving a lovely colour effect (interestingly, the purple did not separate out to the same degree).

I left this to dry overnight.  The finished paper has a stiffness to it (which is why I need the beast for larger pieces) but still feels like fabric, rather than paper, to me.

Well, dear reader, after much soul searching I did eventually sign up to this years Contemporary Quilt Group JQ challenge.

I was really fretting over it, and then suddenly, I saw the light.  Just treat it as a 'Sketch Book' - go with the 'what if' idea.  Use it as a way to explore other techniques, just be loose with it!  Phew!

So, I have made a start.

My theme is Memories (we could choose our own theme) which is vague enough to give me scope to 'fly' (here's hoping) and my first activity was to do a bit of a brainstorm on the word 'Memories'.

Looking back through my photos of southern Spain for images to work with for the 'Horizons' project, it is so easy to get side tracked by some of the delights I photographed.



I have a wedding to go to later this year - perhaps I should buy my outfit in Spain.  Those shawls!

And while I am about it, if you are a sewer you might find this series of videos useful. I found this lass via Twitter and while the techniques are all about garments some will no doubt come in handy elsewhere.

A lot of people have been 'sharing lately'.  It is so generous of people to share techniques and they deserve lots of thanks.

First up, Helen Conway.  She has done a lovely little video to explain her design process.  Worth a look.

Design Monthly: Transitions part 2 – the progression of an art quilt | Plan ∙ Create ∙ Succeed:

Next up Steph Redfern.  Here she has described in detail how she is working on her latest quilts.

Quite a lot of media, definitely mixed.

Both artists are very different, but I feel there is a common thread.

Have a look and see what you think.

A little while ago I opened up a bit of debate on the CQGB Yahoo Group about this years Journal Quilt Project.

I have been procrastinating - and indeed worrying if I should commit to making the 12 little quilts.

This is what I posted on the discussion group:-


My problem is 'Should I do this' - not what will my topic be. If I do do this (and it will be my first time) then I am pretty certain that my theme will be Memories (though even as I type this I am wavering a bit! But I would need to get out of my comfort zone - so no more Spanish Garden!) 

The problem as I say is the 'should'. I read Jill's rules - and I do understand them, but felt they were a bit stern and seeded me with doubt. 

Lots of people seem to either have the luxury of being retired or work part time. I work full time, it's pretty full on and it's pretty demanding. So, what to do? Anyone else out there in a similar quandary to me?

Thank you to everyone who said I should 'go for it' and silly me for thinking that I was alone in holding down a day job and trying to do textile art at the same time!

So I have registered.  My theme will be Memories (I did start something along those lines towards the end of last year - it still needs finishing!)  But I do like to have several things on the go at one time!

The key thing with this, I have decided, is to treat each mini quilt as a page in a sketch book.  I would not get too hung up about that, so I should just be able to crack on with this little project.

And if I don't make it, well - it won't be the end of the world.

Meanwhile, I have also thought about doing a quilt on the theme Horizons for this years FoQ.  So, and as a bit of light relief, I have been casting round for inspiration and research.

I have always been a fan of Eric Ravilious and have a lovely book of some of his watercolours of the South Downs.

If you look closely at some of his work you can see how the texture he creates might translate into textiles.




So, lots to do and to keep me occupied.

And thanks again to everyone's words of encouragement regarding the Journal Quilts.  I am going to give it my best shot!

Dear reader, if you popped by and read my last post, then you would have got a sense that January has been a bit bleak on the creative front!

Well, I have just down loaded my photographs, and perhaps I should not be quite so hard on myself (especially as I was up at 4.30am yesterday morning, to walk the poor dog and then schlep across England for an 8am meeting - which then went on until 3 pm - and I did not get any lunch!!  But that's a different life, for as you know, I keep my lives separate!)

I have achieved something!

I picked up a 9 Patch UFO, got it assembled and mounted on 'The Beast'!




And I started to play with a colour wheel idea.





So, maybe things aren't so creatively bleak!

And this weekend I have determined to make a decision whether or not to join the Contemporary Quilt Group Journal Quilt Challenge and whether to work on a Horizon Quilt for FoQ in Birmingham.

Plus, I have some stuff to finish.

So, onward and upward!