Re-cycling ...

... And making book wraps for the CQ tombola at NEC this year. I've chopped up a wall hanging and used up scraps and fabric bought for projects that didn't get going which is all good - but these have been a fight all the way, rather than the fun project I'd hoped.

For the construction I followed a quick and easy tutorial by Lyric Kinkard Tutorial – Sketchbook Slipcover | Lyric Art which is simplicity in itself, once you've made the quilted outer, and that's where I struggled. And the reason seemed to be that once again I was trying to second guess what others would like, rather than making something that would please me. You think I'd have learned by now!

 

 

 

Changing Horizons

Some time ago CQ announced it's latest challenge for members. The shape is distinctive - 150cm x 50 cm in portrait format and the title is Horizons. The shape didn't put me off but the title did - I don't really do figurative work and I couldn't get beyond the idea of a literal horizon.  Also, since doing the workshop with Lisa Call earlier this year I've been thinking a lot about only doing work for me and not for external factors unless they fit with what I'm up to at the time.

But .... (I bet you heard that coming from miles away!) yesterday a website went live making it easier for cq members to record both submissions and intentions to enter - cqhorizons.weebly.com/. In looking at the site I reviewed the entry requirements which in turn led to me to googling the word Horizon, mainly looking for alternative definitions.  And I looked, and I saw - "horizons - the scope of a person's interest, education, understanding, etc." and I thought about how your personal horizons change (Or can be made to change.) and an idea for a quilt popped into my head, says she who believes that she can't use wordsas a source of inspiration!

So how have your horizons changed? Was it serendipity or have you worked to make them change?

2013 Journal Quilts

The cq jq's are slightly different this year in that apart from the prescribed size and layout - 12" x 8" in landscape format, the only other constraint is a theme of your own choosing.

As I chose my theme in January I cannot rember the exact wording, only that the JQ's would be journals of each month - something that I've never done before. I also decided that I would try to incorporate paint  on each one.

Unfortunately I was so busy at the start of the year that I've had to depend on my diary and rough notes to create January to April:

 

 

As is often the case  with these things - what you think you are going to learn isn't what you find out. I learned far more about thread than paint from these four pieces!

it's not always what you are supposed to be looking at ....

I've been following the work of Rosanna Martin for a while, having seen some of her early ceramic pieces on a visit to the Newlyn Gallery. Her blog has been quiet for a while, presumably as she works for her MA at the RCA but today she posted some of the 'last few months worth of wokr' which in all honesty left me cold until I got to this:

And what excited me? Was it the work mounted on the white sheet? Not likely - it was the gorgeous patterns on the wall in the bottom of the photo - I find it so easy to be a philistine some times!

My first red spot ...

... and quite possibly the last but I might as well celebrate whilst I can!

The Ten Plus exhibition at Ordsall Hall opened on Thursday, having been hung really well by the gallery staff. Today was 'Meet the Artist' and the gallery space was full of 10+ members, their friends and Hall visitors. We'd not been in the gallery long when I noticed something next to one of my pieces and much to amazement there was that tell-tale discrete red spot. Amazing, and thank you for the vote of confidence from whoever decided to buy it! Guess who didn't think to take the camera, so for now the best that I can do with my phone when the piece is almost a metre long!
Ordsall fragments:

Getting back to normal

Take a look at the fabrics on my ironing board - they bring joy to my heart. Not only are these colours that I love, they tell me that my 'to do' list is getting done and I can return to the work of my own choosing, albeit to fit a group theme:

The only downside is that these fabrics also have a deadline to meet .....

 

Twelve by the dozen - Encore

Phew - I don't think I've ever been so close to a deadline - this piece was posted just before mid-night, but it's another thing ticked off my list. What I'm most pleased about is that I didn't have to compromise my original idea to get the work finished, though the dish blocks aren't quite in the place I intended!

This is the final challenge in this round so for 'Encore' we were invited to re-visit a previous piece that we'd made. I returned to my Fine Living piece. The sentiment that that piece brought to the fore has niggled at me and continues to wander around in my mind. Then I thought of the quilt block name 'Broken Dishes' and thought of the broken lives of the clay miners and others who work in desperate conditions so that we can have our 'Home Comforts'.

The piece was created in the same way as Fine Living:

The quilt was then cut apart and put back together again to create a broken dish! The green fabric is quilted with free writing on the whole subject of poor working conditions from slavery to migrant workers picking veg. in the UK, from the clay workers of the original piece to sweated labour in the textile industry. There is the opportunity for me to work on this further - sadly the examples of poor labour conditions seem never to end.

Take another look 2

Everytime I see or hear a referenc to Wilhelmina Barns-Graham I think I must take a closer look and I always forget. Today I received an e-mail from the porthminstergallery  who have some of her work for sale.
They say:

'Wilhelmina Barns-Graham was one of the foremost painters working in St Ives after moving there in 1940. Her paintings, alongside those of her contemporaries that comprise the St Ives school, contributed greatly to the development of Modernist British painting in the mid to late twentieth century. Since 1960 she divided her time between her homes in St Ives and St Andrews, affirming herself as much a Scottish as Cornish artist.'

Text from The Barns-Graham Charitable Trust.

This is one of the pieces that I really liked:

 

February to do list - update

'Homework' for extended on-line workshop
Four pieces for 10+ exhibition at Ordsall Hall
Challenge piece for 12bythedozen
Transitions piece for "Quilts etc"

Completion of demonstration quilt for local quilt group meeting - eek that's today!
Journal Quilt for Contemporary Quilt group
Launch of new Quilters Guild website

Yes - that's just one thing crossed off, and even those pieces need labelling and wrapping! I'm plugging away at all the others but  it's feeling a bit like this here at the moment:

You can tell that I'm busy when ...

... I post more about other people's work than my own!

Mindless web trawling is a good late night activity for me, it lets my brain slow down to a point that I realise what I'm doing and head for bed. Usually nothing comes of the browsing but occasionally I come across something that merits a second look, so it is with the work of Aryana Londir. If anything tempted me to go back to dyeing my own fabric - this is it!

Take another look 1

www.wolfkahn.com

"Kahn is known for his combination of realism and Color Field, and known to work in pastel and oil paint." :

How could I have missed ...

.... the work of Callum Innes ?  Fortunately he has an exhibition at the Whitworth here in Manchester starting next month - I will be there!

February 'To do' list

'Homework' for extended on-line workshop
Four pieces for 10+ exhibition at Ordsall Hall
Challenge piece for 12bythedozen
Transitions piece for "Quilts etc"

Completion of demonstration quilt for local quilt group meeting
Journal Quilt for Contemporary Quilt group
Launch of new Quilters Guild website

Oops - have I said 'yes' once too often ..... I may be gone for some time

Can you tell what it is yet?

I've been playing again with the strip piecing technique that Lisa Walton demonstrated. I suspect that I've developed my own way of doing it now and it usually involves the iron a lot earlier than this! I'm trying to incorporate flashes of a second colour, in this case it's black , in a reasonably controlled way - that still has a casual look to it! A session with the iron and a bit more stitching will show whether it has worked ... Or not.

 

 

More work for Ordsall hall

This ' banner' if you can call something that is only 6" x 36" is the second piece that I'm working on for the exhibition at Ordsall hall - the focus will be on the quilting, when I get around to it! Looking at this and the last piece I uploaded it's probably fair to say that my awareness of being a new girl is showing. To me these pieces have a parallel in the adult, who given a large sheet of white paper, draws something small and tight in the middle ....... It's also looking a bit sad because  I had to straighten the sides in Irfanview - they are actually quite wonky and the piece is better for it!

Thank you ...

... for taking the time to comment and the helpful suggestions.

I should have explained that gathering the images was an exercise done for a class a few years ago, though I've not done anything with them since. Towards the end of last year it occurred to me that all my recent work has been made in response to someone else's ideas, thoughts or challenges. So although I can understand your comment about jumping in and letting the work inspire me Sheila I need to build myself a bit of a framework to work within as I go it alone!

Leisbeth, you are right, I know you are right - I narrowed my collection of inspiring images down to these collages by writing but how the idea of it worries me. I think I was frightened off writing first by my english teacher at school and then much later (After Microsoft's grammar checker had done more for me than that teacher ever did!) when I had an encounter with Julia Cameron's daily pages.

But now is a good time to try what for me is a different approach, so away with the keyboard and out with the pen. And thanks again for, hopefully, taking me on to the next stage ....

Looking for ideas

When you are looking for inspiration you are supposed to consider images and art that you like so I put some collages together to jog my memory. I've grouped them loosely into categories, but I'm no nearer being inspired than i was when I began!

Keeping busy ...

.... But not much to show! I've enrolled on an on-line course on Working in a Series with Lisa Call and have spent most of this week doing my 'homework'. Quite reasonably Lisa asks that we don't discuss the course details so I won't, though I will say that I'm finding it very hard to get to the point of choosing my subject matter. There are lots of things that I respond to but somehow I can't convince myself that they are worthy of a series. Back to the home work ........

Working towards Ordsall Hall exhibition

Late March brings with it thoughts of spring, so at the moment it seems a long way off but preparations for my first outing with the group 10+ have begun. The spring exhibition is at Ordsall Hall so I visited before Christmas to take some photos. (10+ exhibitions are not themed but this seemed as good a peg to hang my work on as any!)

Since then I've been playing with a few ideas and this small (8" x8") piece is just one of them:

 

 

2011 was a good year ...

... and no, there isn't a typo in the title of this post. In quilting terms 2012 is likely to be as good as it gets, but that is down to work started and sometimes completed in 2011.

I had work accepted for the CQ Diversity quilt which led to being able to contribute in a small way to Guild funds when the image was selected for a postcard and later a greetings card. My CQ@10 piece was accepted for exhibition at FOQ and continues to travel. A piece I made for a 12bythe dozen challenge was selected for the QGBI 2013 calendar. And then there was the success of the wavy edged Byland Pieces in the Contemporary category at FOQ. Add to all of this - being accepted as a member of a local exhibiting group - 10+. I don't think the year could have been better in terms of tangible success.  But for me, by far the the best thing about 2012 has been gaining some focus.

Since retiring I've dabbled in lots of different techniques - mainly in surface design but this year I have come to acknowledge that what I like best is piecing.  I enjoyed my Creative sketchbook course that I completed earlier this year and have gained in confidence because of it but since then I've been very selective in the courses/workshops that I've attended and will continue in the same vein.  I'm coming rather late to realising that setting quite narrow parameters actually makes life easier not harder.

It will be interesting to see what comes from 2013. I'm working on pieces for a new group - Quilts etc as well as pieces for 10+ and the on-going 12bythedozen challenges and in January I begin an on-line course with +Lisa Call on 'Working in a series'.   It will be interesting just trying to juggle all the pieces but I'm really looking forward to it!