Life

I have been a bit conspicuous by my absence over the last couple of weeks for which I apologise.  It's partly lethargy and not having a lot to show and partly being busy with a sick friend in hospital again.  Our very dear friend G had a fall at home 2 and a half weeks ago and was taken to hospital and has been there ever since.  At first she was making progress and we expected her home this week but over the last few days she has deteriorated and after a further x-ray today they now tell us her leg is broken at the top.  Not good when you are 99 years old.  We don't know what will come next but she is in desperate pain today.  She is strong and will fight but her age and health are against her.

In between hospital visits, washing and rearranging G's home to suit her declining mobility I have done bits and pieces.  I have managed to work on my Journal for Carole Brungar's class a bit more and the photo above is of the inside front cover.  

I am basing the journal on memories, mostly of family and this page above is made on a card that I received from a blogging friend onto which I have stitched a digital image of my grandmother and her family that I had previously put into a small art quilt but which I have now cut up to use in the journal.  The edge on the next page is an offcut from a journal quilt I made last year for Little Gems.

I still have lots more to include in the journal and I don't want to stitch the signatures (groups of pages) in until I have finished machine stitching things in.

This beautiful pin cushion was my prize in a giveaway from Pam who blogs as Calamity Jane.  As you can see it is considerably bigger than the bottle top pincushion I carry around with me.  It will be a lovely and useful addition to my sewing room.  Thank you Pam :)

I'm jumping about a bit here but my brain's a bit like that at the moment so I apologise if you're having trouble following me.  This photo above was taken in Liverpool a few weeks ago on a day out that I didn't get round to blogging about.  I would have loved to have asked the girl about her gorgeous scrappy bag but she was deep in conversation and I was legging it to the coach that was waiting to take us home after a trip on the Manchester Ship Canal so I had to content myself with a quick snap.  (Annabel, I have a photo of the couple if you wanted to see it for your portrait series). 

I had sort of decided to have a bit of a blogging break this month as I have to get 2 journal quilts made by the end of the month and I am spending way too long on the computer so I may be missing again, especially with the uncertainty over our friend.  I have everything crossed that I will get to the Festival of Quilts next week as I really want to see my quilt on the wall and I have classes booked.  Enjoy the Festival if you are going and enjoy the rest of the summer iit's out there somewhere!) if you're not.  See you soon!

Journalling and crazy quilting

Following on from the journalling post the other day I have found some time to work on the colour studies suggested by Sharon. The instruction was to gather 1" squares of a predominant colour, a different colour each day to reflect your feelings on that day.

The first day I did this it was dull and rainy so I decided to scour my magazines for shades of grey. I tried to look for all types of grey - red grey, blue greys, green greys........

The next day I looked at complimentaries on the colour wheel - yellow and violet. I found it harder to find samples of these two colours in the magazines.

It may be because of the ramshackle way I had cut out the pieces but I didn't particularly like the block arrangement on the right hand side. I preferred the slightly staggered arrangement on the left.

Instead of using magazines clippings on the third day I went through my stack of painted and mixed media surfaces as well as photographs and cut squares of all the reds I could find. On the page I arranged them from (warm) yellow reds through to (cold) blue reds. Hopefully that comes over in the pic above. I think I can see I was feeling brighter because the sun was put, hence the red.

My fourth choice, on another bright, blowy day, was shades of green, again taken from my stash of painted/textured papers, photos, handmade paper and the fabric they use to make hats! This time I arranged the greens from light (maybe more yellowy) to dark (more blue or red) greens.

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I still have one more day to do this exercise and then have to take it further by matching to fabrics and threads.

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A few days ago Lesley blogged about a crazy quilt base she had prepared. You may remember that Kate sent me a bag of scraps which I was desperate to play with and, inspired by Lesley, yesterday I had a play. I was too impatient to turn lots of little edges so I bondawebbed the pieces to a square of cotton, leaving the edges raw.

I don't think the colours above are too accurate as the whole assemblage is a little more into the orange/brown spectrum. My plan is to maybe free machine all ove to hold everything together and then to use embroidery and beads to decorate. I may not get back to this piece for a few weeks but at least I now have a piece ready to pick up whenever I feel inclined.

Circles

Today has been a bit of a non-event for me as I have plonked myself on the settee and not moved all day except to go to bed for a sleep this afternoon. As you may guess from that, I was totally wiped out for some reason so I listened to my body and took it easy. One good thing to come out of it is I've gone through my photo files and extracted every circle image I can find. This is for an exercise in Sharon Boggon's Journalling course - for lesson 4 actually, bearing in mind that I am still on Lesson 2, but I couldn't resist this one. I have got enough images to make several of these collages so I will be revisiting it and maybe looking at circle images of a similar colour or texture. The idea is also to look at other shapes, squares, triangles or at straight lines or curved lines. This could be a life's work! (I should actually be exploring the local neighbourhood with a camera as the aim is to get you to be more aware as you go about every day but energy levels today wouldn't stretch to leaving the house - poor old beggar!)

Busy, busy!

I made my mind up to get busy with some creativity this week, not necessarily to make anything but to catch up on my Free Machine Embroidery practice and to try and catch up a little on the Journalling course that I am taking with Sharon Boggon. The course started just as I was going to Austria and is now in its third week. I am still working on the exercises for the first week! More of that in a minute.

Yesterday I had a play on the sewing machine and tried out a few FME ideas. I think my control is improving a little, although I do tend to keep my foot over the foot pedal when I've stopped stitching and find that the machine sets off again! The practices above were done with straight stitching with the darning foot on and the feed dogs down. It all felt a bit random as I hadn't a design in mind but I was quite pleased with the little fish I managed to draw and the stars. I shall keep practising but I wonder if it would be better if I had an actual design or project in mind.

This second piece was done in zigzag and I enjoyed playing with this stitch. Excuse the yucky colours, I don't like wasting my best threads.........skinflint! You can see the stitching more clearly on the sample below which is actually the reverse.

I'm working up to printing a photo onto fabric and then machining on top which I thought I had seen on Gina's blog but I can't find it now. Must have seen it somewhere! It had to do with printing a photo onto fabric, ironing on painted Bondaweb and machining and hand stitching on top. Oh well, I shall just have to try it out!

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As I mentioned at the beginning I have made a start on Sharon Boggon's "The Studio Journal as a Designer's Workhorse". The idea of the course is to 'help you establish a pattern of observing, notating and using your studio journal'. This is done through a series of exercises which so far I have enjoyed.

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The first exercise I did, after setting up the Journal, is an exercise in frottage or texture rubbings.

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My DH and I took a walk round Belton House one day last week and while he was busy with his camera I took the opportunity to take rubbings of the different tree barks. Eventually I selected 5 of these in a range of tones from light to dark.

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I particularly liked this rubbing of yew tree bark and, as it was quite an open pattern I decided there was scope to turn thepaper through 90 degrees to make a mesh.

As I've noted in my journal, I can see this being interpreted in an open weave fabric or by weaving yarns or ribbons and threads. I have left the opposite page blank to come back to sometime to actually try it out.

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The second exercise was to make texture marks and interpret them in stitch. I feel at a bit of a disadvantage here as I don't know many stitches but I did find ideas were sparking.

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I had planned to work this exercise in colour but the ideas were coming thinck and fast so I never got to picking up the colour pens!

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The final exercise which I did today involved looking at a painting by Van Gogh and thinking about interpreting it in stitch. I have to admit I cheated a little as I had already got a sketch I made some time ago so I have put that into my journal.

I think when I did this original sketch we were looking at the movemnt through the painting.

Van Gogh's brush marks are so distinct that you can almost 'see' the stitches on the canvas! My little sketch above shows just a few of the stitches I have considered and as yet I haven't given any thought to the actual threads. The colours are only to identify the areas and are not representative.

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The next lesson concerns colour and I have made a start but not enough to show here.