Small Makes

I have spent the last week making some little things for a Christmas Fair this Saturday. I may add some to my folksy shop (see right) too. If you have visited my blog before you know I love using up even the smallest pieces of fabric.

The brooches are about 5cm tall and are made from scraps of silk, cotton, net and ribbon on a pelmet vilene base. This is then embroidered, backed with felt and sewn with blanket stitch around the edge. Here are a selection:

These are the Christmas Tree brooches

I also made some needlecases which are about 10cm with two internal pages to hold needles and/or pins. Again made from scrap strips of fabric on a calico base they are embellished with stitching, lace and buttons.

This is an equipment roll for the friend I am doing the fair with that I have made using the same sort of technique for the outer fabric. Inside it is quilted with pockets for different pieces of equipment and two pages for needles/pins

Grannies Garden - using hexagons

If you've been following my blog you'll know that when I travel I take hexagons with me to stitch. These travel easily in a small bag and can be sewn on planes, coaches, in hotel rooms, etc.

As you can see the way I normally work produces a very random design.

I showed you this quilt made from 70's fabric in August and decided I would try this Grannies Garden design whilst I was travelling to Portugal.

I realised that I have never told you the size of these hexagons. The ones from the 70's are 3.5cm to a side. All the recent ones I have shown you are 2.5cm to a side.

I decided I wanted all the centres to be the same colour and the flowers would be set in cream. Each flower would use only one fabric for the petals.

As you know I like working in strips so here is my method. You need one centre hexagon, six hexagons for the petals and five cream hexagons for each flower. You will create three strips: 

a) one cream, two petals b) two cream, one petal, one centre, one petal, one cream c) one cream, two petals

When you sew the strips together they will look like the one below. You repeat this several times.

You can then put the flowers together

I have sewn about 50 flowers together and need to do about 50 more to make a quilt to fit a double bed.

When I was cutting out these hexagons before travelling I happened to glance in my wastebin at all the bits of fabric in there - surely I could do something with them. How about smaller hexagons?

These little ones are 1cm to a side. I have about 20 of these - a step too far do you think?

Christmas is coming ..

As I was looking in the attic for the quilted advent calender I noticed how tatty my quilted tablemats were. Well they're over 20 years old and looked very sad. I have several Christmas fabrics so I decided to make some new ones - it will also help in my quest to use up some of the fabrics that fill several boxes in my workroom.

Random strips of fabric were sewn together. I used a heat resistant wadding which was lovely to machine. As you can see the quilting is very close together which produces a really firm surface. I have made ten and am in the process of making a larger one for the centre of the table. They measure 30cm x 24cm each.

We have a cat and he has a quilt to sit on in the living room (well, okay he has three as we've had three cats). I noticed that these are a bit worn now - the oldest is about 25 years old and decided that he should have a Christmas one. So that used up more fabric.

As you can see - a very simple design with simple outline hand quilting.

I thought I would also keep you up-to-date with the progress I am making on my machine quilting. The next two pictures show printed and quilted samples which I featured in August but now you can see that I have finished the edges.

Since returning from Portugal I have started work on the larger piece of fabric but got sidetracked by the Christmas goodies and other things. This is as far as it goes .... 

 I have stitched round all the motifs and completed all the text. The vermicelli (the wiggly stitching) is about half completed. Its fun to do but I really need to do it in good daylight.

Duxford Quilt Show

At the beginning of the month I went to a show at Duxford Air Museum. It was quite small compared to others I have been to this year but there was some lovely stuff on show.

I really liked this simple but effective adaptation of a quilt design by Karin Hellaby from her book 'Magic Pillows, Hidden Quilts'.

Another simple but effective quilt was 30 @ 30degrees by Maggie Howell. It seems as though it would be good for using up scraps of fabric.

One of the guest exhibitors was Greta Fitchett. She produced some wonderfully detailed work. This first one is called 'Aberdeen Harbour' and I love the way the image has been divided up as though it is reflected by a window. I also really liked the close machine quilting, I have been using this in my work a lot lately.

Another beautiful quilt was 'Venice Water and Glass'. The use of colour is stunning.

'Moroccan Pots' had so much detail in it that I have included a close up photo as well.

'Volubilis' is another quilt with so much detail. I really love the use of lots of brightly coloured hand dyed fabrics, net, buttons and the mixture of machine and hand stitching.

Cas Holmes

I recently attended a workshop with Cas Holmes, another of my favorite artists (cas holmes). I had the chance to listen to a talk by her on the Friday evening and then go to the workshop on the Saturday. We were looking at creating and then printing with collograph blocks made from found materials.

We were on tables of four and started by drawing an object in front of us. We then had to pass this around the table and redraw our object. The sketch on the left is after all four of us have drawn our object. We then had to isolate part of the design.

Add caption

 This then formed the design for the block. Cardboard was used and scraps of fabric, scrim, paper etc were glued on. Paint was added and we used this to print from. Normally you would glue the bits down with stronger glue and you would seal the block with varnish before using it but we only had a few hours which left no drying time.

The block was printed several times onto two pieces of white fabric

Further embellishments were added. All that is needed now is some stitching.

London

On a recent visit to London I saw some interesting exhibitions. One was at the Fashion and Textiles Museum called 'Knitwear: Chanel to Westward'. This was fascinating if you like knitting. I can only show you a few examples as you were not supposed to take photographs which I didn't realise at first.
The exhibition started with some pieces by contemporary designers.

Fashion and Armour: Proud looks and brave attire by Juliana Sissons in 2011 - knitted with cotton and gold copper wire.

Mr Elephant hat and Mr Lion gloves by Yang Du in 2011.

The Natural Blonde by Sibling in 2013 - this was hand knitted in giant loop stitch.

A petticoat from the beginning of the twentieth century.

A jacket and skirt in wool jersey by Chanel in 1918.

Daywear and swimwear from the 1930's.

There was another exhibition in the museum called 'Pattern: Watts' Architect Wallpapers'. This was a lovely display of hand block printed wallpapers. They even had some of the blocks on display too. The company still exists and you can still have these wallpapers printed (see www.watts1874.co.uk)

Bodley Beaton Pink by G F Bodley in 1870

Oakleaf by Bodey in 1870 with two of the wooden blocks

Sunflower in Burnt Ginger 1874

Triad by Pugin in 1845

Old English Eton in 1882

Pear Hand Blocked

Bentinck

Venetian in Eau de Nil by Bodley in 1880 with the two blocks and a detail of the first block.

The museum is close to the Shard and the river so I walked down that way. Some of the modern buildings are amazing.

I obviously had to take a picture of Tower Bridge and of the Tower of London.

As part of the Remembrance of the beginning of the First World War there is an installation around the Tower. 'Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red' by Paul Cummins is made up of ceramic poppies which will continue being planted until November 11th (Tower of London Remembers)

Alexandra Palace

The Knitting and Stitching Show is a fantastic opportunity to see both contemporary and traditional work. There are lots of people demonstrating and trying to sell you things you never knew you needed. For me, the best thing is that you get a chance to actually talk to all these wonderful artists.

As usual there were plenty of interesting things to look at. Ann Small and Sue Walton had collaborated to produce a collection called 'Walk on the Wildside' making use of found objects.

 There was a lot of felt on display this year. Fi Oberon and Alula's Garden had some beautiful felted animals on their stand. (alulasgarden.co.uk)

This work by Jo Beattie entitled 'Precious Moments' was so fine and delicate. She had produced much larger pieces as well as these small framed ones. Jo was there very enthusiastically explaining to anyone how she produced her beautiful work.

Black Sheep - The Darker Side of Felt contained some very unusual felt pieces

 Caren Carfen's 'She Was Cooking Something Up' considers women's issues in the 21st century. It took quite a while to read all the captions. (carengarfen.com)

This work 'Ripeness and Age' by Renate Keeping featured wonderful watercolours and embroidered 3D apples showing their gradual decay. (thekeepinggallery.co.uk)

 Another take on felt was by Stephanie Metz who produced lots of organic looking items (stephaniemetz.com)

These felt pieces by Bridget Bernedette Karn were so fine and detailed they didn't look like felt. (bridgetbernadettekarn.com)

 There was quite a lot of 3D work on display this year including these pieces by Jean Bennett

 Environmental issues were again a popular theme. These pieces by Lindsay Taylor emphasised the effects of our rubbish on wildlife. (lindsay_taylor.co.uk

'The Shore Archive' by Mary Flynn used rubbish, particularly plastic, that she collected on the beaches on the the Isle of Wight.

EAST (easttextile.co.uk) had an exhibition called 'Between the Lines' and is a response to the First World War. This piece by June Carroll particularly caught my eye.

Gilda Baron was there again with her stunning work, still sharing her enthusiasm with everyone but particularly students. (gildabaron.com)

This work by Robina Melville was made using bobbin and needle lace. It formed part of an exhibition called 'Shape Shifting' by the Westhope Group. (westhopegroup.org.uk)

Of course after a long day walking around and being inspired we had to stop for something to drink