Work in Progress - Walk II

 Hello all.

I have been working on the next piece in my Walk series.

Below are some of the photos that inspired this - harvest time. 

I collected grasses which I took home to study further.  Some of the seeds dropped, I photographed these, traced them, scaled them up and had Thermofax screens made.  I have screens made by Thermofax. They are always very good quality.  If you don't want to use your own designs you could select one of the vast range they have ready made.  Again, great quality and design. Here are the design pages for my screens.

I really enjoy this part of the design process - focussing on one small element.

Before going any further I needed to draft out the background  - colours and ideas about stitching.  These may change as a result of sampling.

And here is the fabric background with some screen printing (bottom and on the right on the yellow fabric).  I used a subtle yellow fabric paint from Colourcraft.  You will see this was just what I wanted.

Before screen printing on my pieced background I sampled to ensure the screens worked as expected on the pieced background. I used the screen printed seed images as a guide for sewing. I noted all my progress in my sketch book as although I often think I can remember how I made a piece, I often can't - so good notes are the best thing for me.

I have another aspect I'm sampling at the moment and promise to share it with you very soon.

And just as a bit of a tease.

Keep watching to find out more.

Take care all and try to keep dry.  If you live the UK you'll know exactly what I mean.

Walk I - Sketchbook development

Hello all.

Hope you're well and are enjoying your weekend.

As promised you can see below some photos of how 'Walk I' are developing.  I'm now at the point of almost having the material stitched together - so it's almost ready for sandwiching and then sewing.

I'm really pleased wit the samples I've produced - well worth the effort as some of my initial ideas really didn't work at all.  

I promise to keep you up to date with how this work progresses.

More baking (not mine...)

 I'd like to be able to claim responsibility for baking these lovely Butterfly Cakes - but I can't  they are all DHs hard work.  And boy are they nice.

 And I thought I'd share a few pages of my Sketchbook.  I'm really enjoying it.  It does make me draw on a regular basis.  I've found a new products - like water soluble graphite pencils. Very nice they are too.  I found the shading really difficult - but it has improved.  

I must say sharing sketchbook pages is like baring your sole - so please be kind with your comments.

Hope you all have a nice relaxing weekend.

Take care.

FoQ part 2

So - here's another post about the FoQ. There was so much that I couldn't fit it in one post.

Many of us struggle to find inspiration and I've often heard tutors say - 'it's all around you - you just need to open your eyes'. Well, here's proof of that. A single yellow line on a road. We must all see them every day. This photo is just of a small section of the finished piece - it really made me smile.  The artist is a graduate from last year, Sue Dawson, and she had the opportunity to exhibit her work in a small unit. The texture was very well constructed and some parts of the yellow line were made from fluorescent yellow fabric from jackets.

Another piece she made is below.

Again, a very interesting texture - but just look at it when photographed with the flash on.

In this piece she used grey fluorescent fabric which didn't look anything at all without the use of flash - but looked very different when flash was used.  

She was a really interesting lady to speak to.

Another student exhibiting with this years City & Guilds graduates was Susan Jones. She integrated embroidery into some very stylish clothes.  She had a great set of sketchbooks - as did all the students and they were all happy to have a chat.

Here is some of her work.

Maggie Grey was her usual entertaining self - always delivers a good lecture and is very generous with her work, experience and techniques.  If you get the opportunity to listen to her do go along.

I'll leave it there for now - I do have more to post...

And I'm very pleased to say I have received my password to enter the website for my Sketchbook course.  I must say the quality of the material is very high - as you would expect from the Kemshalls.  I'm really looking forward to cracking on with it this weekend. I promise to keep you updated with my progress.

Hope you enjoy the Bank holiday weekend and you manage to avoid the thunderstorms.

Busy busy

Hello all.

Hope you've had a nice weekends.  It's been rather wet - but luckily when DH and I went away for a few days in Ludlow it was beautiful sunshine.  Managed to top my tan up.  Yes - I meant I got a little pink - perfect when you're wearing a skirt and socks with trainers - very attractive.

And was told I looked like Miranda. Friends have now suggested I make a living signing autographs or act as a double.  I may well write and offer my services.

I thought you might like to see a few photos of our time in Ludlow.

 This is a photo I took at the top of the tower of St Laurence Church in Ludlow. And below is the view from the tower. It was a fantastic view on a bright clear day. Well worth the 200 tiny steps - not good if you have big feet like me and DH.

 And the flowers for sale on the market were really beautiful.

 The War Memorial was rather interesting too.  No information about it which is a shame as it was beautiful.

And this is the hotel we stayed in, The Feathers.  It's a really interesting building.  We had a room on the front, second floor with a very wonky floor and a four poster bed.

And on Saturday we went to a lovely wedding - my cousin Louise (who was bridesmaid at our wedding) got married.  It was a really great day - the bride looked stunning and we all had a great time.

I promise to do some art work soon.

And for those of you who are interested the Kemshall's will be opening their disatnce learning sketchbook course at the end of this month.  I can't wait.

See you all soon.

What I've been up to...

My aim was to do some art everyday and for the most part I have managed it - it might only have been 10 minutes or a flick through a magazine - but I have done something. And the photo above is what I did for a week in the evenings. It was a very good friend's birthday and i wanted to make her something - so here it is. I'm very pleased with the result - and I'm pleased to say so was she. It's from a book called Kokoro no Te - Handmade presents from the heart and it's the first project I've made from it. I do like having something to hand sew rather than always being at the machine so another aim (yes I have lots of them) is to always have some hand sewing.
Now - although like me you are trying to forget how quickly the year is progressing - it is coming to that time of year again -yep Christmas. And at The Bramble Patch on Saturday Bren bought along some Christmas theme boards she'd made. The idea was to think about different colour ways for this festive season - not just the traditional red, green and gold - but silver and blue. What do you think?

She also had some great ideas for wrapping presents - from making your own paper to using fabric to wrap presents.

Now I'm going to leave you guessing what I'm up to with this....and ideas?

I'm finally getting over my sketchbook phobia - its only taken almost 2 years - but it was well worth the journey.

So here are a few pages.

Lots of dyed calico...

And here is the fruit of the sketchbook - well it's a work in progress.

And finally - Flo asleep on the bed. She won't move for anything LOL

I'm so excited as I've got a 2 day class with Sandra Meech at Bramble Patch on Friday and Saturday.

Have a great week.

Getting ready to dye

For a change I'm getting ready for my next class at Bramble Patch - instead of my usual rush of just stuffing things in the car in the morning.
I don't think this photo is great but hopefully you can make out the circle I've drawn and then stitched on the calico.



I'm then going to pull the threads to manipulate the fabric and then we'll see how it tray dyes.

The aim is to use the fabric on the back of this quilt - here's a sneaky peak....

Yes it's very pink...

And I just had to include this photo of Flo - who was very cute and wrapped herself up in her quilt. That's a paw poking out of the front and her bum sticking out of the back.

I've also been thinking of ways to try to crack on with sketchbooks. I know it;'s not unusual to have a bit of a inferiority complex - especially when you look at some. But I'm determined to get over it. One thing I've realised is that I don't have a clue how to use a number of very basic artists materials - such as watercolour paints and I have no idea about mixing colours. So that's what I think I need to start with. The book I bought from Trentham by Gwen Diehn suggests you concentrate on one type of material and master it rather than using lots of different materials and really not mastering any. So tomorrow I'm going to give it a go. Wish me luck...

Oh I almost forgot that the latest Quilting Arts magazine arrived this week - it's great.