A lot to catch up on

Do you realise it's 3 months since I wrote a 'proper' post on here?  Losing mum took a slice out of our lives and we continue to think about her and miss her.  Thank you to every single one of you who left messages or sent cards, it was appreciated at such a difficult time.

So, where do I start for the catch up?  Maybe I should start with a little creativity for a change.

With the coming of Autumn some friends and I had a go at getting impressions of leaves onto watercolour/rag paper by boiling in a strong tea solution with white vinegar.  I used some heavy weight paper that had some acrylic ink marks on it and I was pleased that they remained after the boiling.  This concertina book is about 4" square and I have plans to add some stitch to the pages eventually.  The concertina book was layered with leaves and clamped between some plastic sheets.  The little clamps I used to secure it all have gone very nicely rusty.

Did I mention that I had been experimenting with weaving?   So far I've mostly woven scarf size pieces.  I've just realised that I can't actually share them here until after Christmas Day but believe me when I say I am seriously taken with this new-to-me skill. 

This little sample is an experiment to work out how to include found objects in the weave.  Needless to say the seashore figures strongly in the theme.

On the subject of the seashore, after we got back from Ireland we travelled down to Cornwall for our usual pilgrimage.  We only had one week there as we had to rush back because of mum but we seemed to have packed a lot into that one week.  As it was September Arts and Music Festival while we were there, there were lots of events going on, not least a site specific installation by the ceramicist Jack Doherty. 

 
The pots shown here were displayed in St Nicholas Chapel on the Island in St Ives.  Their surfaces were beautiful and I liked the matt finish that the single firing gives them.  The colours spoke of St Ives. 

These beautiful vessels were in the smaller chapel on Smeatons Pier.

 I was also happy that some friends of mine, St Ives Textiles, were having their first exhibiton while we were there.  

 These beautiful figures were made by my friend Carolyn Saxby.

I thought I had taken more detailed photos of the exhibition but apparently not. 

As it was Festival I decided to do a couple of art workshops at St Ives School of Painting.  I did two classes with Liz Hough and while it was a bit daunting I really enjoyed it and brought away some skills to use in future work.  In the first class we explored some drawing techniques and in the second workshop looked at interpreting the landscape similarly to Peter Lanyon.  The drawing course involved a brief sketching trip on Porthmeor beach where we employed charcoal and rapid drawing techniques.

 We had to select our site quickly so I settled on the rocky outline above.  We were very lucky that it was a dry day.

 We had to make first a 10 minute sketch and then a rapid line drawing condensing the information into five lines.  The second sketch was looking out to sea.

The sketch and collage above came out of the drawings.  I'm not quite sure what I was channelling but a ship and a figure seem to have crept in!

The second workshop called for us to look at Porthmeor beach through the eyes of Peter Lanyon.  This involved more quick sketching from different viewpoints.

My finished collage is in the middle at the top.  Unlike the previous collage I was really pleased with this effort.  You can see some of the other students' work alongside.  It was interesting to meet new people and to work in a different environment and see how people worked given the same scene and process. Of course, the atmosphere of the famous Porthmeor Studios added to the experience.  The view from the window was a trifle distracting though.

Just by coincidence Peter Lanyon's son, Matthew Lanyon, was staging an exhibition at Porthminster Gallery and we called in in time to catch the end of a talk he was giving about his work. 

This mammoth painting is called, The Listening Seas.  Sadly we don't have the space or the money for it but I love that it tells a story as you move along it.  I do like his work, there is a lot to look at and enjoy in its shapes and colours.

Finally for this post, we were exploring St Ives burial ground and revisited the grave of Alfred Wallace.  

 This little shell had been left in tribute.

Stitch Retreat Workshop

Following so closely on the heels of my Susan Denton workshop you will think I am always doing workshops.  This weekend I have had a tiring but fabulous time at a workshop with Angie Hughes organised by Nichola Keeble who runs the new(ish) company Stitch Retreats.  The Retreat was held at Stoke Rochford Hall which used to be my old stomping ground 40 years ago when it was a teacher training college.

Hard to believe this beautiful building had been almost destroyed by fire about 10 years ago.

 This beautiful Christmas tree in what used to be called the Crush Hall smelt beautiful.

We were so lucky with the weather all weekend and this was the distracting view from our seminar room.

Stoke Rochford sits in a beautiful parkland adjacent to a golf course and it was this rural location that attracted me when I was looking for a college in the 70's.
 

A lunchtime walk in the gardens revealed sculptural teasels and beautiful leaf shapes.

This fascinating glass fireplace dates to the early 20th century and must be beautiful with firelight flickering through the glass plates.

There were two classes running at the Retreat, our group with Angie Hughes and a second group with Mandy Pattullo.  Our group was 7 strong including Angie so we were very select, compact and bijou as they say.  It was lovely to have plenty of room to work and also to have lots of support from Angie who is a very relaxed and generous tutor.  

Our workshop centred on exploring velvet and that proved to be in an exciting and interesting way.  We worked with light coloured velvet and applied dyes, ink, bleach and stamps to it to gradually build up a base on which to work.

I explored several techniques that I havn't worked with much before and it was fascinating to see how different everyone's pieces were by the end of the weekend.

You can see that I was the rebel of the group, working in a landscape format instead of portrait and I chose to interpret an underwater theme rather than a garden.  By this time we had added machine embroidery and I had cut back some of my sheer top layer as I wanted to see where I needed to add more stitch and maybe some more stamps.  Just by coincidence, and probably because this venue was local to me, I had met 4 of the participants before, such is the small world of textile arts.  It was fun to spend time with new people and to receive tuition from a lovely lady.  I am going to do my best to finish my piece this week. Angie's piece is top left and was unfinished.

All of the work is beautiful and I loved seeing the way people combined the stencilled designs, stamps and colourways.  You can see the fabulous and exotic flower forms and colours that were used.  I hope I get to see some of the finished pieces some time.

You can see a short video of Angie's technique on Youtube and hear her beautiful singing voice.





We worked really hard over the weekend and enjoyed every minute of it.  The other group with Mandy Pattullo worked equally hard, maybe even harder, and produced some fabulous work.  We were invited to view their handiwork this afternoon.

Aren't these all fabulous?  They must have worked very hard as this was all collaged tiny scraps of old clothing and was all worked by hand.  If you know Mandy Pattullo's work you will recognise some of the creatures depicted.  I particularly liked the fox (by Liz Hands, fancy her being there :-)  ), the kingfisher and the blue hare. 

I thoroughly enjoyed the whole weekend and it was wonderful to share this creative time with friendly people.  Many thanks to Angie for all the information and techniques she shared with us and for making it a hardworking but relaxing and rewarding time.  Thank you too to Nichola for all her hard work and her great sense of fun throughout the weekend.  She worked really hard to ensure the hotel did everything to keep us happy and comfortable, not to mention well fed and watered.  Keep your eye on Stitch Retreats, Nichola has not been trading long but she is working hard to provide satisfying stitchy breaks with excellent tutors.

Susan Denton Workshop

A couple of weekends ago I had a long anticipated workshop with Susan Denton.  The workshop was part of a weekend organised by Region 10 of the Quilters Guild .

The meeting and workshop were held just south of Lincoln in a village on the edge of the Lincolnshire fens.  I had forgotten just how big Lincolnshire skies can be

Susan's workshop was titled 'Irregular But Not Completely Crazy' and focussed on foundation crazy piecing and the use of grids.   I had heard from friends what an amazing teacher Susan is and they were not wrong.  Despite the fact that the workshop was only one day we learned an enormous amount and inspiration was at an all time high!

Although I have been making quilts for a long time now I have never had much experience of foundation piecing and as I worked and Susan talked it became a revelation for me.  

My first attempt was a bit rocky and was a steep learning curve.

The second attempt was much better.  I know it all seems very simple but combined with the talk Susan gave the day before and thoughts about combining tessalated shapes I had a light bulb moment.

 

The work above doesn't include mine as I seemed to spend most of the afternoon working on paper.
Since coming home I have made one small piece using Susan's methods and am very excited to try more.

I have been playing with the square block that I made on the workshop and have flipped it around on the computer to explore potential designs.

My favourite is the third pattern down.  I'm not actually going to make any of these up but I had fun making the arrangements.  What I am far more interested in is exploring the making of landscape quilts using the principles we started to explore with Susan.

These three quilts by Susan show just how far you can take foundation piecing and working with grids of one sort or another to achieve the look you want.  I have long admired Susan Denton's work since I saw a gallery of her work at Festival of Quilts 4 years ago.

Susan often uses fabrics other than cotton and I do like the added texture this gives the works.  I have to make a quilt inspired by David Hockney for an exhibition next year and I am thinking I will explore what I've learned further for that piece of work.  I just need to clear the decks a bit first!

I'll leave you with a little bauble we made at the Regional meeting the day before the workshop:

I may now also have found a slight liking for hexagons!

Oooh!  I nearly forgot, I've also made a multi-textured table runner.  My inspiration was my dear Australian friend Dot Christian who loves to combine all sorts of colours and textures in her work.  I have made this runner once before and used an article which also explored the combination of various fabrics and textures but, do you think I can find it?

The materials include Donegal tweed, cotton, wool, Scottish tweed, beautiful hand-dyed velvet and curtaining fabric.  The backing is linen which wriggled all over!