Sorry to be saying goodbye

I have been thinking long and hard about continuing with this group and feel that I have to call it a day.  I have enjoyed making the challenge pieces that I've made since we started, but I want to concentrate on other aspects of my work and have also elected to join the monthly Journal Quilt challenge with the Contemporary Quilt Group of the Quilters Guild UK. 

I hope the group continues to grow and wish all of you happy times creating in the future.
Best wishes and I'm sure I'll see you around the internet or even in real life :-)
Julie Mackinder

Reflections - Julie

I have to confess that I have stretched my interpretation of 'Reflection' as I needed to make a quilt for another challenge and I wanted this piece to serve both purposes.  I have lots of images on my computer of reflections both in water and in other surfaces like glass and metal and intend to explore ways of interpreting them in fabric.  As the subject of my other challenge is 'My World Is Green' I decided to 'reflect' on an image of an area of the UK that is special to me.

For the last several years my husband and I have spent 2 weeks every year in Cornwall in St Ives. A typical part of Cornish scenery is the fields surrounded by Cornish hedges, which are in fact walls planted up with herbage and flowers so that they appear grassy.

My photograph of the fields near St Ives was manipulated in Photoshop and provided the basis for my quilt.

Above is the finished quilt and below is a detail.

The quilt has been made using curved piecing and uses my own hand dyes and some commercial fabrics. You can read more about my process on my blog  here and here. 

I enjoyed this challenge and I'm looking forward to seeing the other reveals.

Memories of Bumpsteads

Following on from the little note I put up on 1 October I can now show you what I have been working on for this theme and what inspired me to choose 'Memory' for this challenge. 

This is the not-quite finished memory piece which I have titled 'Bumpsteads'.  I do not normally make pictorial quilts but I have had this piece in my head for a long time so it was good to get it out of there and explore the process.  The fabrics are a combination of commercial fabrics and my sun printed fabric and all the pieces have been bonded.  I have so far added some hand stitching to describe the grass edges to the garden and field.

From the age of 9 to about 17/18 I spent as many of my holidays as I could manage staying with a family friend on their pig farm.  In the garden was a huge pear tree with a tree swing in it and a rather rusty metal seat encircling it.  I spent many happy hours swinging, feeding the pigs, playing with the farm cats and helping to look after and play with the children of the family as they came along.  I have a very strong visual memory of making a picnic in the garden with the daughters of the family to be shared with their dolls and teddies with the sound and smell of pigs happily grubbing about in the field across the road.  The scene in my mind is flooded with sunlight and my 'Aunt' heavy with her next child.  The children, as with all children, had lost interest in the tea party and gone in search of other entertainment.

The piece comes from a naive style painting that I made of the remembered scene several years ago when I was painting.

More Apologies...

Oh dear, I'm late too.  We just got back from creating memories on holiday in Cornwall and my piece for this challenge is started but not finished.  I will make a proper post about my progress to date as soon as I can.  The image above is the manipulated photo of a painting I made of a memory from childhood that I have been working from.  More soon!

Landmarks

Or in my case, land marks.  I have to admit for this challenge that, while I have had various ideas buzzing about in my brain, time has obliged me to combine my Festival of Quilts piece with this challenge. 

I so enjoyed making the piece for the Archi-texture challenge that I felt I wanted to continue to work with some of the techniques I had used there for my Festival quilt and thus for this challenge.

I called the quilt 'Change' and it is about the changes wrought by the elements and the environment and looks at the marks and textures of stone walls and their attendant growths of lichen and moss.

The colours are actually nearer to a warm ochre than the white-ish colour showing in the image.

 

The quilt was made by gessoing the surface and adding newspaper cuttings, lace, scrim and other fabrics and the surface was then soaked and sprayed with silk and fabric paints.  Some of the crocheted lace was a bit too heavy and I was pleased to find that when I peeled it off it left a good ghost image that I could develop with stitch.  I used free machining and hand stitching to describe the stone and lichen.  Some printing was also done with found objects, notably a piece of polystyrene that seagulls had pecked into a lovely texture and which made some wonderful marks.

As usual with these challenges I have a whole raft of ideas that could be developed along the theme of Landmarks.  I just need the time to use them all!  

 

Time - Andromeda

I'm sorry to be a day late posting for the Reveal but time did get away from me a little with this challenge.  The main reason for this was my initial difficulty in settling on an interpretation and then my choice of hand stitching for the bulk of my project.  As it is I am cheating a little as I havn't actually finished the edge of my piece but I will get that done in the next day or three.

When I started to think about 'Time' my brainstorming produced a long list of possibilities.  The words of a Simon & Garfunkel song came to mind, 'Time, time, time  See what's become of me.......' and a hymn I think , ' Time like an ever rolling stream bears all our fears away.  They die, forgotten as a dream dies at the break of day'.

I thought of passing time, time past, holiday time, a stitch in time, old time, part time, daytime, night time, dreamtime, time travel, lost in time...... The list went on and on.  Then, on a visit to Greenwich Royal Observatory I was reminded that there are much larger measurements of time than seconds, minutes and hours.  I was particularly struck by an audio visual installation that stated that the light from the Andromeda Galaxy takes so much time to reach the Earth that's it's journey is measured in light years.  The view that we see of the Andromeda Galaxy is brought to us by light that left it approximately 2.6 million light years ago. 

So, with this thought in mind I chose to make my piece about the Andromeda Galaxy.

I have been wanting to explore the colour wash method of construction for sometime and so played with this a little by using a range of my hand dyed fabrics of various textures ( cottons, velvets, bamboo and something unidentifiable that had been tossed in the dye bath) together with a couple of commercial fabrics.  The piece was put together with curved piecing as a reference to the spiral nature of the galaxy but I think I could have been even more adventurous with the curvatures.  I layered the top onto polyester wadding and then hand stitched/quilted in a spiral from the centre outwards.  I felt the spiral stitching would reflect the spiral nature that I think is attached to time and I used hand stitching because it would take physical time to complete.

I used a Madeira Rayon for the quilting and then used a gorgeous metal thread from the Illuminations range at the Thread Studio to make reference to a beautiful infra-red image of the Galaxy that I found here.  Finally, I added some small beads to suggest some of the stars that contribute to the galaxy.

The finished size of Andromeda is just over A3 and I am thinking of facing it instead of binding it and will probably give it a curved edge rather than square.  As with the previous challenges I am left with pages of ideas to take forward from this theme and may develop it further for my Festival of Quilts entry, but maybe I won't use quite so much hand stitching!

Archi-texture

Don't look now but I'm actually here for this challenge's reveal.  See, I do stay home sometimes LOL
 

 I'll start from the end which is the piece I've reached by today's reveal date.  At the moment it's  called Archi-texture I as I've forgotten the name of the building that inspired it but it is all about decaying surfaces and is only one of the directions this challenge took my thoughts.

After enjoying the process of the Pojagi in the last challenge I was keen to carry on exploring layers and the idea of looking through. On a train journey from Cornwall I had plenty of time to let my mind wander and notes I made at the time include suggestions of monoprinting on cotton; building up layers of print on top; sponging; painting over stitched, quilted fabric, discharging, painting again; scribbled stitching.  As the train slowly approached London we passed a Macdonalds' with its iconic arched logo and that turned a light on.  Having recently seen Karen Turner's work I thought about layering fabrics over a textured basecloth and cutting the arches through to reveal the texture below.  I think that would have been a fun way to go but when I got home and started looking at my photos of texture and architecture I found an image I had taken in Leicester near the New Walk Museum of a very decaying building.

As you can now see the image at the top caught my imagination and I decided to explore that with surface design on fabric.

Using my own printed , dyed and discharged fabrics I cut and bonded the pieces to batting layering one or two sheers with text on them below the dyed net curtaining that forms the 3 neutral columns.  My free machining/quilting skills are distinctly lacking but I used a variety of stitching to describe the cracks that you might see as a building deteriorates.  The 'quilt' is A3 size and there is no binding, the backing was turned through and the edge closed with top stitching all round.

The beauty of this challenge, as with the preceding ones, is that it has opened my mind up to so many possibilities and so many ways to interpret the texture in architecture and I could and hopefully will carry on exploring for many months to come.  I am hoping that the next challenge will lead naturally into related areas of work and I still have to come back to how pojagi and archi-texture can come together. 

Through The Window

As happened last time I am not going to be near a computer for the reveal so I am scheduling this for publication and hope it works.  I am really sorry not to be here for today but I am hoping to get hold of a computer over the next day or so to see what everyone has done.

As I said in my earlier post I was becoming fascinated with the quality of light that comes through a stained glass window and I particularly became fascinated with the cut through process that I had been playing with.  After I had made a pice 10" square for my Journal Quilt I have gone on to make an A3 sized piece for this challenge.  It is not the only piece I have made, more of that in a minute.

As you can see I didn't actually take this particular technique any further, mostly because I didn't have the time but I may well play with it some more when time allows.

I said in my previous post that I wanted to experiment with sheers and I have had a great time doing just that.  I took a selection of neutral organzas, silks and nylon sheers and used fabric paints tostamp and make monoprints on their surfaces.  I kept the monoprints neutral in tones of grey and was a bit worried at first that they might be too light to show up.  Sadly I was so busy working I didn't take any photos of the process.

The next step was to use silk paints to add colour to the pieces of fabric.  I decided on silk paint as I didn't have a lot of time, again.  Once the fabrics were all prepared I started to cut and piece them using a pojagi style of seam.  This is the result:

The photograph above was taken indoors with the piece laying on the top of my sewing table.  It is very slightly smaller than A3 size.  I then took further photographs outside.

After photographing the piece hanging from our driftwood I couldn't resist hanging the 'window' in the lilac tree where the sun was shining through this morning.

I have made a lot of mistakes with the stitching in this technique and a certain amount of drifting has occurred but I am so delighted with the way this has turned out.  The surface marks are really exciting me and I am really happy with my interpretation of 'Through The Window'.  I am quite tempted though to leave it out in the garden to let the sun shine through and see how it ages.  You may also have noticed that this isn't really a quilt as it is only one layer.  Tant pis! (As the French would say).  Actually a couple of the pieces do consist of two layers as I felt the sheer was too fine.

I shall look forward to seeing everyone else's interpretations and to the next challenge!

Through The Window

 I thought as I hadn't had a lot to say here I would copy most of the post I put on my blog this week describing my thought processes so far for this challenge. 

Similar to the last challenge, as soon as you start thinking about windows you see them everywhere (well, they are aren't they?) and you start thinking about every interpretation of 'through' and 'window'. A window to the past, a window through time, windows of the soul, window of opportunity, looking in through the window, looking out through the window. Window - an opening allowing a connection between one space and another, light pours in through the window, a surface that reflects light and its surroundings. A window can be many shapes; it can be clear, frosted, reinforced, mottled, distorted, etched, of many colours.

An abstract painting that I made on the subject of looking back through time which was made with a window cut from a photograph incorporated into layers of torn watercolour paper with crayon marks added and manipulated in Photoshop.

Inevitably, and to cut a long story short for the moment, my thoughts turned to stained glass windows, which I love for the light that they allow to pass into the room. The window above is part of the stained glass in Chester Cathedral and I have used part of it previously in a watercolour sketch (still need to find that).

In our local parish church we have a beautiful stained glass window by John Hayward entitles Christ Walks on the Water. With the Quilt Artist's eye that I now have I can see several ways of interpreting this window.

Over the years, and particularly in the past these stained glass windows were a way through which people who could not read learned the Bible stories. Over the years stained glass windows have become more abstract and convey their meaning in other ways.

As a way of finding my way into this challenge I thought I would play about with cut through fabrics, especially after reading an item by Naomi Renouf in the June 2010 issue of Workshop on the Web that I found on my computer.

I've started by layering scraps of fabrics onto a background and securing them under a layer of organza with stitching running at right angles to the run of the fabrics. Subsequently I cut through the channels deciding as I went along how far down to cut.

The next step is to machine at right angles to the first lines of stitch opening up and catching down each cut layer to reveal what lies beneath. (detail above)

I am quite pleased with the result so far. I feel it has some of the movement in the window in St Wulfram's church and I am excited to work it on a larger scale.

I have been trying to decide whether this would work with a more transparent feel to it so that light can actually shine through and I've made a further piece but have not achieved that transparnecy yet. Once you start thinking and looking there are a lot of ways of interpreting (light) through the window and I'm glad I've got a few more weeks to work on this project.

I have been trying to track down a link to a programme that brought home to me the power of stained glass some time ago and I can't find it. I think it was a clip of (?Rolf Harris/Michael Palin?) in a chapel with stained glass windows designed I think by Chagall or maybe Matisse. My overriding memory is of the presenter standing in the chapel with light from the window pouring over his fingers like water. For some reason the image took my breath away and brought a lump to my throat. Such is the power of light through a window. (I've just discovered it is the chapel at Vence in France and the artist was Matisse.)

I'm still experimenting wildly with the cut through/chenille and I've also got some mosaic-style ideas to play with too.  This is fun!

Light and Shadow

I will be away today when all the challenge pieces are revealed so I am writing this in advance and will have to wait for a week to see everyone else's interpretations.

Similarly to Annabel I started with a bit of brainstorming and eventually settled on an interpretation of an image I had taken at the Eden Project in Cornwall. 

This pattern caused by the sun shining through the structure of one of the biomes had caught my eye on a visit this year.  I tried a few manipulations in Photoshop and altered the colours.

I eventually settled on the first image and printed it off onto printable cotton.  My idea was to work the whole piece in stitch in the way of Julia Caprara using a variety of random stitches.  Sadly I have had to put that idea to one side as an ongoing project as it was way too hard on my hands and left me in real pain after a short while of working.

Starting again I used the final image  and decided to work it on the embellisher, which has been languishing for far too long.  I started with a piece of old blanket and used a piece of pre-felt for the large dark area on the right.  I soon realised that this was  a mistake as it dominated the rest of the piece.  Having pulled off pieces to break up the edge and let some light in I worked across the whole piece and gradually it came into shape.  I used carded wool, chiffon scarf, wool tops and prefelt. 

I am not completely happy with the large dark shape and may manipulate it a bit more before I'm content.  Either way it needs further work and I will be adding some stitch to finish it fully.  It has struck me though that  in another orientation this looks rather like rock structures so that may be an area for further work.

While I found it a bit daunting to start to work with this theme I found as time went on that more and more ideas were arriving.  There are so many interpretations of Light and Shadow and I feel that I have barely scratched the surface with this challenge.  (Maybe that's the title for another challenge - Scratch the Surface?).  I'm looking forward to stitching into this piece and to the next theme.  I'd like to thank Annabel for inviting me into this group and to Marion for taking on the admin.

Hi From Julie

I thought it was about time I said hello to everyone here, especially as I see from the list that I am one of the last to do so.  I know quite a few of the names here and am a bit overawed by the calibre of the participants but I am looking forward to the challenges and to learning and sharing in this environment.

As some of you probably know I don't work as I have CFS and I came to quilting by a circuitous route but one that I am finding is quite common.  For about 6 years in the early 2000's I concentrated on painting in oils and watercolour but gradually got drawn into looking at fibre art and thence to quilting.  You can see my work on my blog at http://mixedmedia-jem.blogspot.com   My original idea was to paint on fabric but so far I haven't done much of that.  Maybe this is my chance to try?

It was a random visit to the Festival of Quilts in 2004 that set me off on this whirlwind path of joyful play with farbics, dyes, threads and embellishments.  I still don't know where I am going but I am enjoying the ride. 

I have an idea for this first challenge of Shadow and Light so the next thing is to get on with it! lol 

Many thanks to Annabel, as ever, for having the idea and the drive to bring us all together and I look forward to seeing how we all interpret this theme.  Slightly scary is the thought of thinking of a theme when it's my turn!