Animated Quilts

Someone sent me a link to an animated quilt block video by Gayle Thomas - looks a bit like a kaleidoscope, set to music. Its great for those of us interested in pattern and the effect of colour. See the box opposite if you'd like to see it too.

Wow!

Just received this parcel today. It's an old out of print book I ordered via superfastbooksales on Amazon marketplace - and they were.


But look at the stamps - aren't they wonderful? They are mostly special issues from the 70s and I had several of them in my collection at the time. They're in perfect condition and what I like is that someone has taken the trouble to preserve them and stick them all on my parcel! Really appealed to my magpie instinct - and the designer in me. Made my day!

And now I've discovered mobile blogging - so I might manage to post more regularly. And pigs might fly . . . !

On displacement activity and being distracted

Can't believe it has been 20 months since I have published anything here!

A lot has happened in that time. Hazel and I have had a second set of C&G certificate students successfully complete their course. We have also developed two new courses - a one-year level 2 certificate course in response to requests from some of our beginners who didn't have time to commit to the longer course, and a level 3 diploma course to provide progression for those who'd completed the certificate. And that is a lot of work, believe me!

We also had a student, Anna Jenkins, selected for the Further Education Gallery at the Festival of Quilts last year. That was a huge achievement for Anna, who was living with cancer at the time, and who was determined to make the most of every minute of her life. Her accomplished work was admired by many people, and we all enjoyed the experience, as Hazel and I went along to help her set up and man her stand. Sadly, Anna died just after Christmas, but it was a joy to have known her and be part of her life for a short time, seeing how she just got on with things and achieved so much. My lesson from her is to cut the displacement activity (this blog??) and JUST DO IT!

Hazel and I also had the brilliant news that we had been selected to receive the Quilters' Guild first Travel and Education Bursary for teachers. This has enabled us to do a monthly course (Wet'n'Wild) with Claire and Leslie at Committed to Cloth, which I for one am enjoying immensely! It covers all wet processes for surface decoration of cloth - either to be used as art cloth in its own right or to be cut up and stitched into, as is the wont of quilters.

The first two months were spent looking at dyeing processes and produced a 'family' of cloth dyed progressively from two colours, in light, medium and dark values, which were then overdyed in light medium and dark values of the second colour making a range of 16 different pieces in all. I chose black and brown for my colours, as I have never really worked with neutrals before. Boring! I hear you cry - but the fabrics produced were very interesting, and can now be printed on and further worked into - the focus of the next few months' work.

The other fabrics were dyed using tray dyeing techniques, which produce stunning marks on the fabric. Although I have done this before, there is nothing like being taught exactly how to do something and then encouraged to experiment to improve the results. Both multicoloured pieces shown here were dyed in the same tray, and I got a bit trigger happy with the colours! I discovered that I don't like the effect of lemon yellow and scarlet together, and I positively hate the sludgy purple formed by scarlet and royal blue.On the positive side the markings on the top piece are great. I really like the depth in the middle. So encouraged by Claire, I overdyed it with 'double red' and the result can be seen below - it still has the depth, but the colours are a bit more unified.

The other piece was overdyed in 'double blue' , which has improved it, but it would still benefit from something else. It's a bit too busy to use as a background for printing, but I might discharge some of the colour and see what happens ...

And here's a picture of Godfrey P Pussycat supervising the whole process! He's another thing that has happened (almost) since I've been gone. A native of Torquay, he was a new arrival in August 2009 as a kitten - and nearly lost one of his nine lives last week by getting himself shut in a shed over Easter - luckily the owner wasn't away for both bank holidays. He hasn't learnt his lesson though (typical boy!), and was straight into our shed when I opened the door the very next day!

Well, the title of this post was about displacement activity and being distracted, and that was because I came to it on a circuitous route via another blog, which was in turn a distraction from displacement activity - reading emails instead of planning next week's lesson for diploma students. Luckily tomorrow's another day, so I can do it then, and I'll post some more pics of fabric from the course, on a planned break from work - important for recharging creative energies - not displacement activity at all.

Small world

I've just received some mini-cards that I made on moo.com. They're brilliant! (or the concept is anyway - some of my pictures could be improved.) They are mini-business cards 1" x 2" approx, and you can upload as many as 100 pictures to the site, so each one can be different - perfect for creative people. The format suits me as I like narrow designs.

They also do regular business cards and loads of other stuff which you can customise with your own photos or designs - or pick from theirs.

The quilt is nearly finished - just the binding to do - and maybe a bit of hand stitch - we'll see. Am now looking for suitable pictures to illustrate the interaction of shape and space for tomorrow's teaching - have most of them in place - just need a couple more.

So what am I doing writing my blog and wasting time? Well I've just been chatting on facebook (didn't know you could do that - was only checking my emails honest!) to someone I was at uni with 28 (!) years ago and haven't seen since - weird or what? And - he has been living in my home town for the past 23 years! It's definitely a small world.

Procrastinating

Supposed to be quilting a Stitch Witch piece, but decided to look at emails, then facebook and then my blog, and now 90 minutes have disappeared! The piece is for our exhibition in November, the theme is Transitions (and there is a colour thing going on too). All pieces are 12" wide by 60" long, and mine is made up of triangle units, in red, orange and pink saturated colours, both commercial and hand dyes. There are 80 units, so 320 triangles in the piece, and the majority of them have all their points! Iit has to be said - I do like piecing, despite being a non-traditional quilter. Has to be finished by Friday! It's called Order to Chaos  because the units start off organised into blocks, with good contrast and a defiinite plan, but as the piece progresses it descends into chaos (the story of my life!?) Here are a couple of detail pics:

I'm machine quilting it but am having trouble with the rayon thread - keeps breaking - probably because I was lazy (and pushed for time) and used polyester in the bobbin instead of going out to find some red cotton. Have also tried bamboo wadding and am finding that the fibres migrate through the top fabric, which is a pain - perhaps if I'd washed it before use this would have helped reduce this.

I found a great blog via a link from Contemporary Quilt: in 2005 the owner of the blog decided to teach herself to draw by doing a sketch each day in a small book she'd been given for Christmas. She's posted them all on her blog. It's called woolgathering and is well worth a look if you have a free moment - interesting frames, and such discipline!

Anyway now two hours have gone - so I'd better go too . . .

Festival of Quilts

Just going to spend 10 minutes writing about Festival of Quilts, before it is too out of date. Should really be making a star block for Hazel - don't tell her!

Spent two days there last weekend - as ever not enough, and despite all intentions about proper planning, and a reduced number of categories, still spent most of the first day wandering around in a quilt-induced haze! Also spent too much (but not as much as last year) and bought fabric which I didn't need but couldn't resist and thread and books as usual. It was nice to catch up with Kate and Di and meet Mai-Britt again. And thrilling to see that Mai-Britt won the Miniatures category with a contemporary quilt - Little Thin Blue Line (below).

As usual there were loads of really talented makers and wonderful quilts, so I'll just post a few of my favourites:

From Yoshilo Jinzenji's students, made from her original screen printed fabric - these are wonderful - I love the way the traditional patterns appear and disappear depending on how the fabric is cut.

From Brigitte Morgenroth (Wirbelwind), using Heidi Stoll-Weber hand-dyed fabric - isn't the use of colour stunning?

Gillian Travis' Felt flowers, using screen-printed felt, winner of Quilt Creations category

I also loved the simplicity of Ingrid Press' work (above) and the subtly restrained use of colour in Jenny Bowker's Life Line series, discovered in one of the galleries at only the last minute on Saturday (below).

That's all for now, I'll add more later when I've sorted out my photos.

Catching Up - or displacement activity?

I'm clearly not very good at keeping up with things - I can't believe it is eight months since I last posted. Anyway, I'm engaging in some displacement activity during a very boring day at work and using the lunch break to catch up.

We moved house last summer. Twice in my case - first out of my house and into his, then (after a fire and total redecoration, living out of boxes and planning lessons in the garden) into our new house. And, despite the fact that I now have a sewing room, and bought a new sewing machine at FoQ last year, it has taken me till now to get things organised and my brain into gear - that's my excuse and I'm sticking firmly to it!

I haven't been doing absolutely nothing - I find that preparing weekly lessons for our C&G courses, particularly organising teaching samples, reading around subjects and trying out new ideas, takes a lot of time, but I wonder whether this too doesn't fall into the category of displacement activity. Editing Southern Star also takes up a lot of time - it has been quite a steep learning curve but I've finally got it how I want it (still open to suggestions and comments though). More displacement activity as I learn how to use photoshop to crop backgrounds off quilts with irregular edges, edit pdfs and match font colours precisely to the cover photo.

The Stitch Witches are planning their next exhibition (called Moving On) at Farnham Maltings in November, and I have loads of quilting to do! My lack of organisation and 'brain-in-gearness' has extended to sewing too, and so the others are beginning to get worried!

However, boosted by a sunny Spanish holiday and a flying visit to Barcelona (15 year-olds and Gaudi don't mix - 'Muuum - why do you have to spend so much time looking at architecture!?!'), and fired with inspiration from a trip to the Festival of Quilts (thrilling to see someone I know winning the Miniature Quilt category - with an art quilt - well done Mai-Britt!), I stopped procrastinating and started stitching on Sunday, and seem to be making good progress. Thank goodness I am queen of the last minute - very good at working to deadlines - usually at 3 in the morning! Don't tell my students!

And because I am a quilter (honest!) here are pictures of my quilt that won 1st prize in the Art Quilts category at The National Quilt Championships in Sandown last year (2008) just to be going on with! These are details of A Journey - it was made for the Stitch Witch Recycled challenge, and is a recycled map, painted with gesso, Neocolour and Brusho, bonded to scrim for strength and hand quilted onto a recycled felted blanket backing. It reflects on life’s journey, and the influences and choices that can have such a great impact on it. We are lucky if (like me) we get a second chance at getting it right. It is not in my usual style - both the technique (except the big-stitch hand quilting) or the subject matter, but obviously there was something right about it!

My current work is inspired by the sea and by Gaudi's use of pattern and shape. There is not much of it yet, but I'll share it as it happens - I've finally got lots of ideas - and that's a good place to be.