Skidding to the deadline
30 April 2013
Well I have skidded up to the deadline!
Let me recap for you.
At the beginning of the year I signed up to the Contemporary Quilt Group of the British Quilters Guild Journal Quilt challenge - to do one little quilt each month for a year. How difficult could that possibly be?
Well tomorrow is the 1st of May - that means (if you haven't worked it out) that today is the last day of April - and the deadline for the first 4 quilts to be completed and uploaded!
January and February - done at a sedate pace.
March - well a wee bit more urgent!
April - lets just say I pushed it right to the wire! Trust me - I was sewing on the binding, taking the photo and getting the quilt uploaded onto the site a in a bit of a last minute rush (don't look at the back!)
My theme is 'Memories' and as I progressed with 'Bed Time Stories' a poem from my own childhood came back to me - rather vividly! Hunter Trials by John Betjeman.
It's a daft thing, but I can just recite this poem (though you might like to listen to the 'master' - Richard Burton - here!)
So I free hand embroidered the first verse of the poem on to the tissue/fabric backing.
And then I used tiny snippets of painted nylon (a nasty scrap of nylon painted with green and yellow acrylic paint with texture added using a wooden roller from a cheap art shop) as ivy leaves. The ivy to me is very symbolic of the passing of time and covers and 'buries' the memories like an old wall.
Each leaf was snipped and held in place with a dab of Pritt Stick and then free machined on.
And finally, I added the binding.
The words are beneath the ivy - stitched in a variegated thread so some stands out more against the purple background. Again this is symbolic of the way memory fades in and out and can play tricks on you.
So, that's it - the first 4 complete.
Let me recap for you.
At the beginning of the year I signed up to the Contemporary Quilt Group of the British Quilters Guild Journal Quilt challenge - to do one little quilt each month for a year. How difficult could that possibly be?
Well tomorrow is the 1st of May - that means (if you haven't worked it out) that today is the last day of April - and the deadline for the first 4 quilts to be completed and uploaded!
January and February - done at a sedate pace.
March - well a wee bit more urgent!
April - lets just say I pushed it right to the wire! Trust me - I was sewing on the binding, taking the photo and getting the quilt uploaded onto the site a in a bit of a last minute rush (don't look at the back!)
My theme is 'Memories' and as I progressed with 'Bed Time Stories' a poem from my own childhood came back to me - rather vividly! Hunter Trials by John Betjeman.
It's a daft thing, but I can just recite this poem (though you might like to listen to the 'master' - Richard Burton - here!)
So I free hand embroidered the first verse of the poem on to the tissue/fabric backing.
And then I used tiny snippets of painted nylon (a nasty scrap of nylon painted with green and yellow acrylic paint with texture added using a wooden roller from a cheap art shop) as ivy leaves. The ivy to me is very symbolic of the passing of time and covers and 'buries' the memories like an old wall.
Each leaf was snipped and held in place with a dab of Pritt Stick and then free machined on.
And finally, I added the binding.
The words are beneath the ivy - stitched in a variegated thread so some stands out more against the purple background. Again this is symbolic of the way memory fades in and out and can play tricks on you.
So, that's it - the first 4 complete.
Very exciting!
25 April 2013
I've just participated in a Webinar!
Now - how cool is that?
Made doubly cool by the fact that this very cool gal presented the Webinar and it was hosted by these cool people. (OK - enough with all the 'cools' now!)
Right - I might need to explain a bit!
A webinar is an on line seminar or conference. Basically the participants are given a login to a hosting site for a given time (sometimes with a live telephone call as well so that it is truly interactive) and the presenter or trainer can then deliver a presentation (usually using Power Point) and 'talk' just as if they were giving a presentation in a face to face class room. If you are interested you can find out more here.
We use Webinars at the day job (not very professionally - but it is my job to try to lead my colleagues kicking and screaming into the 21st Century) and indeed I have been known to host them myself. But this one was made all the more exciting because I was joining from "Across The Pond". (I had to find a website that converted BST into Eastern Time! They were sitting in New York at 2pm - or at least Julie was - and I was sipping a glass of white wine at 7pm).
And the topic? Well it was all about Blogging! So how appropriate that I am blogging about it!
Julie knows her stuff! A lot was common sense, but a lot was really good solid information about how to build a blog if you are an artist. I took copious notes and I will try to put some of this stuff into practice to improve my own blogging.
But meanwhile, head over to Julie Fei-Fan Balzar's site to see what is going on in NYC and to see how a real pro does it.
Drama and stitched dolls
23 April 2013
Drama this weekend.
The sun came out so we went for a lovely long walk (Whippet X and I accompanied by Daughter No 1 and her wayward Pup Koda).
A lovely walk - all under control as much of it was a lead walk (but since it was about 7 miles, don't think that the dogs were too hard done by).
But, and luckily this was at the end of the walk, Whippet X had a rather unfortunate and expensive encounter with what we can only presume was a nail or similar on a fence post.
And this was the outcome!
These are fabric dolls - stuffed calico bodies covered with an air dry clay.
I suggested she enter them in the FoQ. What do you think?
Oh, and the finished JQ 'Bed Time Stories' is now here.
The sun came out so we went for a lovely long walk (Whippet X and I accompanied by Daughter No 1 and her wayward Pup Koda).
A lovely walk - all under control as much of it was a lead walk (but since it was about 7 miles, don't think that the dogs were too hard done by).
But, and luckily this was at the end of the walk, Whippet X had a rather unfortunate and expensive encounter with what we can only presume was a nail or similar on a fence post.
And this was the outcome!
The anasthetic bothered him more than either the original gash ('what gash Mum?') or the subsequent stitches.
Meanwhile, while we were at the vet, Daughter No 1 pressed on with some doll making.
The Black gesso gives them a rather spooky look.
These are fabric dolls - stuffed calico bodies covered with an air dry clay.
I suggested she enter them in the FoQ. What do you think?
Oh, and the finished JQ 'Bed Time Stories' is now here.
Each Peach Pear Plum (Bed Time Stories)
17 April 2013
The deadline or the first batch of Journal Quilts is looming.
(A bit of background: the Contemporary Quilt Group of the Quilters Guild organises an annual JQ challenge. If you accept the challenge you commit to producing a JQ a month for a year. This year, my first as a Guild Member and so my first year of the Challenger, I committed to producing 12 little quilts on the theme of Memories. You can follow my JQ journey here if you are interested)
So, while Horizons festers in the corner (I am so frustrated by my lack of technical planning) I cracked on with the next two little quilts that have to be completed by the end of April).
I already had the background made - at the beginning of the process I did a larger piece which I have cut up.
Brusho inks sprinkled onto the wet tissue.
Spread around with an old credit card.
You will see from my last post that I decided on a theme of bedtime stories and produced this little sketch using Inktense and water colour pencils. (If you are wondering, I did enhance the colour slightly in 'Paint' after I had scanned the original as I know that when printing onto fabric the colour will look a bit washed out.)
But when I left you I had created another dilemma - how to print it out!
Two options - Evolon and Lutrador (lightweight). I knew that both would go through my printer. As it turned out the image was lost on the lutrador as I suspected - it was too lacy and most of the ink ended up on the carried paper. So the Evolon it was.
Now, just for the record, I know that most people 'back' Evolon onto either freezer paper (great tip! Why didn't I come up with that) or ordinary paper with a bit of tape, but I managed to persuade the printer to pretend that the stand alone Evolon was just a piece of paper - it sailed through and took the image perfectly.
The rest was simple.
I free machine stitched the image onto the backing paper using a variety of colours to match the image and then snipped and burnt the surplus Evolon away. (I burnt using a soldering iron in a very well ventilated room - spring is after all on the way and windows and doors flung wide were fine).
I will show you the finished quilt with the binding attached in the next post, but I hope you like this for now.
(A bit of background: the Contemporary Quilt Group of the Quilters Guild organises an annual JQ challenge. If you accept the challenge you commit to producing a JQ a month for a year. This year, my first as a Guild Member and so my first year of the Challenger, I committed to producing 12 little quilts on the theme of Memories. You can follow my JQ journey here if you are interested)
So, while Horizons festers in the corner (I am so frustrated by my lack of technical planning) I cracked on with the next two little quilts that have to be completed by the end of April).
I already had the background made - at the beginning of the process I did a larger piece which I have cut up.
Tissue paper 'laminated' onto fabric with a PV/water mix.
Brusho inks sprinkled onto the wet tissue.
Spread around with an old credit card.
You will see from my last post that I decided on a theme of bedtime stories and produced this little sketch using Inktense and water colour pencils. (If you are wondering, I did enhance the colour slightly in 'Paint' after I had scanned the original as I know that when printing onto fabric the colour will look a bit washed out.)
But when I left you I had created another dilemma - how to print it out!
Two options - Evolon and Lutrador (lightweight). I knew that both would go through my printer. As it turned out the image was lost on the lutrador as I suspected - it was too lacy and most of the ink ended up on the carried paper. So the Evolon it was.
The rest was simple.
I will show you the finished quilt with the binding attached in the next post, but I hope you like this for now.
Horizons - a diversion
11 April 2013
While I wrestle with the technical dilemmas of Horizons (and also look somewhat enviously at the blog of Linda Kemshall, who has a digital fabric print facility in the family) I am thinking about the next two Journal Quilts for the Contemporary Quilters project for 2013.
You may remember that one of my little quilts focussed on a pair of little pink shoes that my daughter had when she was little (you can find the finished quilts so far here) and that got me thinking about other aspects of their childhood that remain precious to me.
One thing that we always did when my children were small was read them a bedtime story. My children were babies of the 1980's and I found myself thinking back to their favourites (the Ahlbergs were real favourites - Mr Creep was a bad man, Mrs Creep was a bad woman, Miss Creep and Master Creep were bad children - and Growler Creep was a BAD DOG)
and then back further to stories that meant a lot to me in my childhood.
And then I remembered another story by the Ahlbergs - Each Peach Pear Plum.
So I decided to sketch my own version - Pooh Bear is lurking in there ( I used water colour and Inktense pencils from Derwent).
But now I have to work out how to transfer this image to a little quilt!
I do seem to be making life difficult for myself at the moment!
You may remember that one of my little quilts focussed on a pair of little pink shoes that my daughter had when she was little (you can find the finished quilts so far here) and that got me thinking about other aspects of their childhood that remain precious to me.
One thing that we always did when my children were small was read them a bedtime story. My children were babies of the 1980's and I found myself thinking back to their favourites (the Ahlbergs were real favourites - Mr Creep was a bad man, Mrs Creep was a bad woman, Miss Creep and Master Creep were bad children - and Growler Creep was a BAD DOG)
and then back further to stories that meant a lot to me in my childhood.
So I decided to sketch my own version - Pooh Bear is lurking in there ( I used water colour and Inktense pencils from Derwent).
But now I have to work out how to transfer this image to a little quilt!
I do seem to be making life difficult for myself at the moment!
Horizons - technical hitch the saga continues
10 April 2013
If you are all agog to know how I am getting on with the horizons project, then I am afraid I have bad news!
I am no further forward, despite the help and advice from Jane and Myfanwy.
First of all A2 Scanners seem to be as rare as hens teeth. A2 copiers - no problem - but scanners are a completely different matter.
Myfanwy suggested Kallkwik, but there isn't one in Milton Keynes (which is hard to believe) or Gosport (which is not so hard to believe).
I have been on the phone to reprographic companies, and today, well I thought I had cracked it. I found a firm that had an A2 scanner. So off I popped at lunch time, only to discover that I didn't have the right sort of original art work. Quite frankly, if I could explain the problem to you, then I would. But the guy lost me pretty early on in the explanation when he started to talk about glass rollers!
So, back to square one!
But, tomorrow is another day and there are more firms in the yellow pages to contact. Or I will have to scan using an A4 or A3 flat bed scanner and try to stitch the images together into one jpeg using Paint.Net.
Hey ho!
I am no further forward, despite the help and advice from Jane and Myfanwy.
First of all A2 Scanners seem to be as rare as hens teeth. A2 copiers - no problem - but scanners are a completely different matter.
Myfanwy suggested Kallkwik, but there isn't one in Milton Keynes (which is hard to believe) or Gosport (which is not so hard to believe).
I have been on the phone to reprographic companies, and today, well I thought I had cracked it. I found a firm that had an A2 scanner. So off I popped at lunch time, only to discover that I didn't have the right sort of original art work. Quite frankly, if I could explain the problem to you, then I would. But the guy lost me pretty early on in the explanation when he started to talk about glass rollers!
So, back to square one!
But, tomorrow is another day and there are more firms in the yellow pages to contact. Or I will have to scan using an A4 or A3 flat bed scanner and try to stitch the images together into one jpeg using Paint.Net.
Hey ho!
Getting a buzz
4 April 2013
I get a real buzz when I look on my 'stats' page and see that I have had a lot of visitors. Making art alone can be a very isolated process and I do crave the community of like minded people to give me feedback and drive me on. So thanks one and all for dropping by.
Yesterday seems to have been an exceptional day - although I thought that my most recent blog post has not been so exciting.
A lot of people seem to be popping over here from two other great blogs so my sincere thanks to Annabel and The Crafty Mugwump (who like me is a wee bit anonymous on the blogosphere). If you one who hasn't come from there, then please pop over to see what they are up to.
Meanwhile, me? Well I am off to either Staples or Kallkwick today (thanks to Jane Bean and Myfanwy Hart) to sort out my little technical glitch of A2 copying.
I'll report back!
Yesterday seems to have been an exceptional day - although I thought that my most recent blog post has not been so exciting.
A lot of people seem to be popping over here from two other great blogs so my sincere thanks to Annabel and The Crafty Mugwump (who like me is a wee bit anonymous on the blogosphere). If you one who hasn't come from there, then please pop over to see what they are up to.
Meanwhile, me? Well I am off to either Staples or Kallkwick today (thanks to Jane Bean and Myfanwy Hart) to sort out my little technical glitch of A2 copying.
I'll report back!
Horizons - Technical Hitch
2 April 2013
I had some very supportive comments when I posted the designs for the horizon ideas on the blog at the end of march (a couple of blog entries ago) which I had posted on the blog of Nina-Marie, so I hoped that by now I would be able to report on finding a digital print house and all the technical issues of sending a file for printing.
However, there is a technical hitch!
The pages I used (here's one!) are not standard size so I am struggling to find a scanner which can scan the image in one take.
You cannot tell from the pictures, but the paper (which is sourced from an old recipe book - great recycling) is not a standard A4 page size. Consequently I need an A2 scanner (A3 is too small for the pages - 2 pages are bigger than A3) so I want an A2 scanner, and, guess what, they don't seem to be that common in my local copy shops! So, I have a bit of a dilemma.
What to do?
The options are:
So we have sort of hit the buffers. But stick with me - I'm sure I can find a solution.
However, there is a technical hitch!
The pages I used (here's one!) are not standard size so I am struggling to find a scanner which can scan the image in one take.
You cannot tell from the pictures, but the paper (which is sourced from an old recipe book - great recycling) is not a standard A4 page size. Consequently I need an A2 scanner (A3 is too small for the pages - 2 pages are bigger than A3) so I want an A2 scanner, and, guess what, they don't seem to be that common in my local copy shops! So, I have a bit of a dilemma.
What to do?
The options are:
- Find a copy shop with an A2 scanner - tricky it seems
- Jiggle with an A3 Scanner - but then I rely on someone else
- Take a series of photos and try to stitch them together
So we have sort of hit the buffers. But stick with me - I'm sure I can find a solution.
Bramble Patch Exhibition - Part II
1 April 2013
The reason, I am sure, for the limited amount of time is that the BP is using it's workshop space for the hanging space, and I am sure both Tutors and students are itching to get back to their classes.
If you are not sure about going, then a bit more to tempt you. In the adjacent room there is work being exhibited by some of the tutors and their students. Here is a taster for you.
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| Work by Angie Huges - Mixed Media and Embroidery |
 |
| By Sabi Westoby - Seed heads embroidered on tea bags |
 |
| A sample by Sabi - so generous of her to invite us to handle the sample. |
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| Bren Boardman - Across the Meadow II (Lutrador painted with acrylics and oils and thread) |
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| Sarah Showers - Ammonites Revealed |
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| Tracy Allen - Sketchbook page |
There was lots more, but my photos did not do it all justice.
So, if you do get the chance, then I urge you to pop along. (Which is a bit tricky I know for my readers across the pond).
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