I've been Schmapped!

If you look here you will see that my photo of Strasbourg Cathedral doors has been included in the latest internet tourist guide published by Flickr Schmap! I was told I was shortlisted a few weeks ago and did a little research to check out the validity of this site. Happily, as I am not in the business of making money from my photos and only take them for personal reasons, this is a bona fide site which shares flickr photos online and I am delighted that one of my photographs has been selected. Yay!

Blog Awards

What a lovely surprise! The lovely and talented Jean who blogs as Genie's Art World and also Genie's Photos has given me not one, but two awards! I am delighted and humbled to receive these awards, especially as they are both very sweet.

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I have to admit I am a bad blogger for not passing these awards on. I read so many wonderful and stimulating blogs, many of which are in my side bar. As I'm still under the weather I am going to say, if I visit your blog and leave a comment please accept this award from me and post it on your own blog. And Jean, thank you very much for these lovely awards. I hope you are feeling better today.

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Jude Hill who blogs as Spirit Cloth has a second blog called "What if..." . Just recently she has posed the question "what if we get crazy?" Her question, of course, relates to crazy quilting and how we may choose to work other than traditionally. Since I have already set up a piece of crazy quilting that has no rules other than the initial colour I have signed up to play along with her and many others to produce a piece, or pieces, of crazy quilting (or not quilted!). There is no time limit to this (just right for me) and absolutely no rules and Jude has offered to make a piece of crazy quilting for each participant. You won't be surprised that my first piece is the crazy quilting block I have started for the Take it Further challenge. While it will be worked with balance in mind I am sure that all the while I am working I will be asking myself "What if..." Hopefully over the next couple of weeks I will have plenty of progress to show. Just in case Jude looks in here this is a reminder of the piece I am working on....

All of the fabrics have been laid down with raw edges and were chosen simply because I liked them or to provide a foil to the pieces I liked. I did not worry about the size or the shape of the pieces, I just worked with what I had. I'm really looking forward to working on this. It's about 8 inches square. As usual I haven't given a thought to how I will finish it off. I'm sure "What if.." will play a part!

TAST

Please excuse me if I'm a bit terse today but I am not feeling too well and I'm not sure whether it's my usual problem or whether I've picked up a virus. Either way I had a couple of fainty turns yesterday and I feel washed out today so I shall be brief.

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I haven't a lot to show in the way of craftyness but I have been trying to catch up on my Take a Stitch stitches over on Stitching Fingers. The latest three are shown below and are pretty much self-explanatory. I bought the base cloth in a charity (op) shop a couple of weeks ago and thought its open weave would be ideal for doing these stitches on. Unfortunately it's a bit of a bright colour and doesn't photograph too well, it doesn't go with many colour either........

I really like featherstitch and I'm sure there are lots of other variations I could use.

I didn't know fly stitch at all before this exercise but I can see it has lots of possibilities. There is a lot more yellow in the original colours of these threads, blame my laptop.

I know I could exploit this stitch much more but I was tired when I did it so more work required.

I have been given 2 blog awards but I will post them later as I am off for a little snooze zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Ooh! I just have to say, thank goodness Gustav was bad enough but not the terrible disaster everyone was dreading. My thoughts are with all those who now have to deal with its aftermath.

Beautiful Blue!

Blogging brings you some lovely friends, not the least of which is Gina . After I blogged about felt making the other week Gina said she would search out some instructions for an easy method of felt making. Not only did she send me the instructions but she also sent me some beautifully soft wool and a piece of felt which she had made herself. The blue felt has woollen yarns trapped in the layers and is the most gorgeous colour. Thank you, Gina! It may take me a week or three but I will be having a play with these beautiful fibres - you must know that I have a weakness for blue.

Take it Further

Well, it's August and I am somewhat amazed that I haven't completely fallen by the wayside in the Take it Further challenge. At the beginning of the month Sharon said "I my chaotic and hectic life I often admire people who are able to maintain balance in their lives. What is balance to you? Do you maintain a balanced life? How do you balance aspects of your life? That is the challenge this month - balance."

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You may remember (or probably don't) that at the start of the year I chose three words to be my guide this year. One of those words was "Balance" so really I should have had this thought in my head all the time. If you take a look at the dictionary definition of Balance you may be surprised at the number of interpretations.

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There have been times in my life when things have got seriously out of balance but currently (at the risk of tempting fate) life is well balanced. Of course, as you might expect, my version of "balanced" is a life with lots and lots of creativity. This is probably at the expense of what anyone else would accept as a "normal" lifestyle. Housework and the Rat Race are a long way out balanced by a huge chunk of creativity. It is this "balance" which helps me maintain my feeling of balance in life.

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In terms of art I have been taught to consider balance when constructing a painting and to work all over a painting so that it is brought to a completion as a whole and no one area is completed in isolation. If you check back here (you'll need to scroll down a bit) you will see a piece of crazy patchwork that I started earlier this month. I am intending to take this on holiday to keep me occupied in the evenings but I could not resist making a start on it this week.

Although I didn't consciously set out to do it I found that I was working across the piece. This crazy patchwork is obviously in its early stages. This is the first piece of crazy patchwork I have done and I am hoping to stretch myself by bringing in lots of new(to me) embroidery stitches. You can see my start in the collage below.

I am sure that while I am working on this piece it will come in and out of balance but hopefully while I "Take it Further" I will end up with something harmonious which will have helped me maintain the balance I have in my life. I have to say that without my very special DH who tolerates my obsession with creating there would be no balance! :o)

Fibre & Stitch

I should be on my way to bed but I had to pop in here and let you know that Issue 5 of Fibre & Stitch has just been released. If you do not already know this is an online magazine which is available quarterly by subscription and which has articles by many gifted and well known artists and bloggers. I have had a quick skim of Issue 5 and it is a great issue! There is something for everyone and you can go here for a link to the index page. I am thrilled to see an article by the very talented Elis Cooke who blogs as Into the Blystic. I have long admired Elis's paintings and mixed media work and now she is generously sharing her techniques. The lovely Digital Gran otherwise known as Margaret Roberts also has an article on bag making inspired by Ton Shulton. I have to get to bed but I shall be inwardly digesting my copy tomorrow.

Play day

I don't know what I had in my head to do today but I don't think I did it! Instead I have been catching up with the TAST stitches from StitchinFingers (3 weeks behind as we speak) and playing with some of the fibres in Helen's stash bag. Gina is going to sendme some instructions for making the very fine cobweb felt but in the meantime I have been having a go with the J-cloth method that I learned at Westgate Crafts.

The sun was a bit fickle today so my picture doesn't do it justice as the white piece is quite sparkly. The white is some wool that I had already but I used some of Helen's threads in it and the brown is some gorgeous wool from the stash bag. I think I will have to practise a lot more to get Helen's beautiful results.

New shoes!

This is the other thing that distracted me today! I was having a little stroll through my bloglines and went to see what Elizabeth had been doing. This!! Wow! I couldn't resist. I have a lovely comfy pair of shoes that have seen better days and that I keep for the garden and the studio so I had nothing to lose.

No, they didn't come with black lines on, I forgot to photograph them before I started. Doh! and here is the finished article.........

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Excuse the fluffy bit of sock! I've painted the shoes with Jacquard Lumiere Metallics and I will seal them with some beeswax as I don't have anything else.

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Aren't they great! My DH has dared me to wear them when we go round to our friends later this evening - it's worth a bar of chocolate so what do you think?!? No brainer!

Goodies!

Helen has been de-stashing via Etsy and look how I have benefitted!

My photo doesn't do these beautiful felts justice. If you check out Helen's blog you will see just how wispy and delicate these cobweb felts are.

And just look at all these beautiful beads, buttons and embellishments. I am really going to enjoy working with all these fibres and beads. Thank you Helen, I'm delighted!

Synchronised sitting update and postal goodies

Did I say the winners of Bob T Bear's Olympic Synchronised Sitting competition had been announced? You can see who the winners were over at Bob's blog. Unfortunately my bears didn't win but the winners well-deserved their wins. My brave bears did receive a certificate today, though, for their pyramid attempt! Thank you, Bob's mummy and daddy, for giving us all a bit of fun and for your generosity in sending us all certificates!

Yet more goodies in the post today, this time from Kate who has set up an ATC challenge on her blog. Kate offered 5 ATC backgrounds and a selection of embellishments as a giveaway in return for one of the ATCs to be worked to a completion, in any manner and with or without her embellishments, and to be returned to her. (Sorry, all the ATCs have been sent out now).

Her package included the instructions on this very stylish notepaper and a very pretty parcel wrapped in sparkly paper and tied with a feathery yarn.

Inside were these lovely ATC backgrounds and a packet of goodies. I'm a bit spoiled for choice but I have one or two ideas so I'm going to have a play and see what happens! Let's just hope I end up with at least one that isn't completely wrecked as Kate does want a glimmer of the original base to show through! Play time!

Did I say I was going to see Mamma Mia again tonight? I lied! Sort of, I've had to call it off as I'm totally shattered, hence a short post. The spirit is willing but the body's said "You must be joking, kidder!" Actually the spirit's pretty spark out too.

Festival of Quilts

Well, that's it! All over for another year! I think this year's show was bigger than ever but it was easier to get round. I really enjoyed it and I think it helped splitting the visits over 2 days as I was able to pace myself and not run round like a headless chicken (sorry chicken friends) trying to squeeze everything into one day.

As you might expect the shopping aisles were busy and I spent some time looking at all the goodies on offer but not too much. (I'll get to the shopping shortly).

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I had a lovely time meeting lots of imaginery friends who are now real live people! While I was standing admiring her quilt I found myself almost shoulder to shoulder with Mai-Britt who lives in Guernsey and blogs here . Her quilt had been selected as the Judge's Choice by Lesley Morgan as her personal favourite! It's in the Small Innovative Quilt section but is actually quite large at 60" square. As it is on her blog I think she will forgive me if I show it here.

The quilt is cleverly pierced with holes, which give it an added dimension.

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Through the course of the day I was also able to have a chat with Sandra Wyman who was stewarding on the SAQA stand and a brief word with Margaret Cooter and Mags Ramsey. I've been particularly interested in the techniques Mags uses so it was good to meet her.

As you can see by the photo above Marion of Artmixter fame was extremely busy on the Spunart stand enthusing about the versatility of Lutradur so we only had time for a quick hello and a hug with a promise to meet up before too much longer.

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Last but not least Guzzisue and I were able to have a well earned cuppa together while we gathered our energies for the afternoon's onslaught. It was great to be able to put flesh and blood faces to the people whose blogs and works I have enjoyed over the last year and who have given me support in my creative journey. Sue very kindly gave me one of the Celtic ATCs she has made recently.

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Needless to say I did a little shopping so I'll share that with you before I go any further:

I know I said I wasn't going to get deeply into dyeing but I just thought I'd buy one or two Procion Dyes so I could have a go with some other colour combinations.

These glorious batiks were from The Bramble Patch in Northamptonshire and I couldn't resist them having seen how some people had used them in their quilts. The printed piece of muslin is from Els van Baarle, don't tell her but I will probably cut it up! I loved the marks she incorporates into the surface of her work but unfortunately photos were not allowed.

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I have to admit the shopping didn't quite end there. when I got home I found 3 books had crept into my bag! How did that happen?!

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This one

and this one

and a booklet by Bailey Curtis about dyeing (which I've put somewhere and can't now find. Hope it's not on the coach!)

PS I should have said that Maggie Grey's Lecture was very informative and entertaining too. Her book "From Image to Stitch" gives lots of hints and tips for converting digital images to textile art and her talk made me want to rush home and start playing both with digital images on the computer and with printing them onto fabric. Thank you Maggie for so much inspiration.

A flavour of the Festival

Barbara Weeks stand. She had some lovely coastal theme quilties. The quilts at the top of the photo are part of a Button Up Quilt Project which extended all round the hall reserved as the "European Quilters Cafe". The total length is almost 220 metres and each quilt is attached to its neighbour by buttons and loops. The project was designed to bring quilters together from all over the world.

This is a detail from a Lutradur based Innovative Large Quilt by Brenda Boardman. The surface is covered with scattered pieces of fabric and machine embroidery.

These bodices and jackets above were in a section titled "Quilt Creations" as was the exhibit below which is entitled "Concertino" and which is by Jutta Erner of Oberhausen Germany. The individual books on each stand each have 3 layers of self made fabrics.

And still more

A beautifully embellished quilt by the children of Kingsbury Primary School Tamworth.

One of the beautiful parts of "Concertino"

This glorious cockerel is part of a larger quilt which was in turn part of an exhibition of the work of Russian quilter Irina Voronina. Her work is very detailed and each tells a story.

There was so much to look at in the surface of the works by Bente Vold Klausen.

I could go on all night - I've got enough photos! The work of Susan Brandeis was particularly impressive for me and I really enjoyed her exhibition.

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Please respect the copyright of the artists whose work I have shown here. All photos were taken only where photography was not forbidden.

Susan Brandeis

This is just a flavour of the surfaces Susan Brandeis produces. Much of this work is inspired by aerial views and comes through experimentation with "combinations of Patterns, colours, textures and images". I am very interested in her journey form start photo to finished quilt. (Sorry not the best collage in the world!)