All good things must come to an end

It was both a happy and sad occasion when I gave my very last talk/workshop to the Borders Textile Group ( http://bordertextilegroup.wordpress.com) in Foulden, near Berwick. They are a great group and I have enjoyed visiting them regularly so it was sad to think it was the final time. On the other hand I have had many far less pleasurable experiences travelling the country as a jobbing quilter and the thought that I will never again have to make my way home, driving for hours through the dark, snow and rain is a huge relief.

In all those 20 years I have never been late, had an accident or car trouble so I count myself very lucky.

 

Today too I was early and I took the opportunity to sit on a bench near the Foulden carpark, a spot blessed with glorious views over Northumberland. I could not help but think of the fact that by this time next week that might become a foreign country!

But no point in worrying about the future. Today I concentrated on my talk. It was, surprise, surprise about journal quilts. These were done in the year before and after 2012 when I did my weekly challenge, the 52 Journals now on show in Peebles.

I'm retiring to my studio from today onwards to do what I love to do best. Making my art. It soothes and nourishes my soul like this sunflower is feeding the last bees of the summer.

 

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Klimtesque Quilt

You may remember I made 12 Journal Quilts last year, sized 12 x 8" and on the theme of the Austrian painter Gustav Klimt, for the Contemporary Quilt Group. The plan always was to put all of them together into one large Klimt dedicated piece. I've finally finished doing it, resulting in the above piece which is 38" high by 39" wide (or 96.5 x 100.5cm). I wish I could say it was a pleasure but really it wasn't! First of all despite careful measuring while making the individual journal quilts we're talking about textiles here and hand stitching which can have an effect on the ultimate size and they are definitely not all exactly what they should have been. You don't notice that when seeing each one separately but you sure see it when putting them together.

Secondly who was that bright spark who though doing it on flimsy gold fabric would be a good idea? I wish I could say it wasn't me. But sadly I did this entirely to myself. Once I had seen them on this fabric no other would do. If you want a word of advice on dealing with this I can only say: Don't do it! It was a total pain with everything slip sliding all over the place.  Thank goodness for fusible wadding, although even this is not straightforward when using a gold fabric that is inclined to melt.

But it is done now and does look satisfyingly glittery and Klimtesque. I have the feeling Klimt himself wouldn't have been too displeased about this interpretation of his work.

If you want to find out more about how I made each journal quilt you can click on the Klimt label underneath this post or at the bottom in the side bar, or click here.

Little Landscapes Journal Quilts

I spend today at the Spring Quilt Show at Ingliston, near Edinburgh and that gave me a chance to see my two journal quilts (A4 size) travelling with the Little Pictures journal quilt challenge. I did something a bit (make that a lot!) stupid. I photographed these two pieces when they were done back in 2013 but forgot to add them to my computer. Then at some stage last year my camera card was reaching the top of it's capacity and in a rash moment I deleted all pictures from it, including the pictures of these two JQs. Oh well, it had to happen one time, I guess, and fortunately I had the chance to photograph them again today. They weren't in the best position for photography purposes as they were tucked into a corner (hence the slant) and the light wasn't wonderful either. I promise that when they return home sometime in May or June I will show them to you again in a better light.

In the meantime the one above is called That Sun is Life and it was inspired by a summer sunset I witnessed last summer on the road between Innerleithen and Peebles. It's couched with yarn and includes the photograph I took at the time printed onto fabric.

And this one, called The Shadow of a Mountain features one of my photographs taken during a snowy winter, of the Pentland Hills. It was good to see them again and finally get rid of the anxiety of having work out there in the big wide world that hadn't been photographed yet and stored in the external hard drive. You never know what can happen. This past 16th February was the 8th anniversary of the theft of my Blue Waves quilt which fortunately I had photographed extensively before it vanished into the depths of the Turin environments!  The whole story, or rather as much of it as I know, can be found here.

More about these two when they return to base and I have full confidence in Grosvenor to get them back!

Wish Journal Quilt

As I told you in a previous post the theme for the Sketchbook Challenge this month was Holiday Colours and I made the Stars Journal show in that post. For that quilt I used the negative space after the tree had been cut out from the gelli plate printed black fabric. That left me with a black tree and it seemed a shame to waste it. So I decided to make another 10" square quilt this time making it a bit more christmassy. For this one I appliqued (using Bondaweb) the black tree onto a background of fabric also painted using the gelli plate. The tree was then hand stitched like the background on the Stars quilt but the background on this one was free machine stitched. 

To give a nostalgic feeling of wonder I added a fabric image as seen above (from Artchix Studio) by appliquéing it using the sewing machine.

The tree itself was decorated with silver ornaments in the shape of sequins. They only look different colours here as the flare of the camera flash picked up the holographic nature of the sequins. A blue star was put on top and then the word Wish (also from Artchix Studio) was stitched on in the top right hand corner. I know it's hard to see on the pictures but the round circular shape in the background right behind the tree is the moon and I have stuffed (trapunto like) it with extra wadding so it stands out slightly from the background. Of course beads were added along the perimeter of the binding. That has become more or less my signature for all my journal quilts.

Here is a view of both journal quilts so that you can appreciate the connection between them.

I'm pleased to be able to tell you that the Sketchbook Challenge will continue into 2014 and I have already decided to continue making 10" square journal quilts on their monthly themes too. Not sure yet what I will do about the journal quilt challenge on the Contemporary Quilt Group. I really disliked the size they set for this year (12 x 8" in a horizontal orientation) so I won't make that decision till I know all the specifics. 

In total I made 13 Journal Quilts for the Sketchbook Challenge, 12 for the Contemporary Quilt Group (themed on Klimt), 2 A4 sized ones for the Little Landscapes challenge set by Grosvenor Exhibitions (you won't see them till the show opens in February) and 1 for Thistle Quilters that has been shown here.That makes a total of 28. It is just more than half the 52 I made last year and I think that next year there will be less as they do take an awful lot of time away from my larger work. On the other hand I love making them so I will simply wait and see what 2014 brings. 

Thanks so much for coming on the journal quilt journey with me!

The Stars Journal Quilt

December brought the last theme on the Sketchbook Challenge site and it was Holiday Colours. I have to admit I had a bit of a sinking feeling when I read those words. Those who have been reading this blog for a long time will know that Christmas is not among my most favourite times of the year, and I have despaired for quite some time about the fact that the red - green complimentary colour scheme seems to have been high jacked by the festivities. However the winter solstice also falls at this time of year (on the 21st) and I do love the thought that from then on onwards the days are getting longer and the spring closer. So I decided that Holiday Colours didn't have to go down the red-green path but could instead mean glitter, sparkle and light!

And of all of Christmas it's the tree and the decorations that I do adore. Our tree goes up on the 1st December and stays till the end of the 6th January and I miss that bright presence when it is gone. So I decided to concentrate my efforts on the tree. Above the hand drawn pattern I made for the journal quilt tree.

 I then choose a black fabric and used my gelli plate and metallic fabric screen printing ink to put a flower (but also star like) pattern on it using a commercial stencil. I layered it with Bondaweb (WonderUnder) and cut out the tree shape. I put that aside and used what was left (the negative) onto one of my gelli plate printed pieces of cotton. It had started life as white cotton and again I used a mix of acrylics and metallic screen printing paints for the gelli plate printing. Sorry that it's hard to see all that metallic glitter on the photographs but rest assured that it sparkles away merrily. I then hand stitched the tree itself with a variegated thread and outlined all the silver shapes on the black background with a silver thread, again by hand. Then came my favourite time: adding the decorations!

The star shaped ornaments were stitched on with silver seed beads and those beads were also added to the edge of the binding. That binding tones in well with the made tree fabric but is in fact a commercially available batik. The final addition was the vintage text reading: "The Stars are lit for ever".

When I had finished this 10" square journal quilt I had the cut out tree left and it seemed a shame to waste it so you will see what I did with it very soon!

The Klimtesque Journal Quilts

Life has returned to normal and so has the weather. It's a grey and damp day but I'm only too happy to be able to return to my studio, with the lights on, the radio playing and my laptop in operational mode!

And as promised here are all the 12 Journal Quilts (all sized 12 x 8") I made this year on the theme of the Austrian painter Gustav Klimt for the Contemporary Quilt Group shown in the order they were made, left to right and top to bottom. This won't necessarily be the order in which I will sew them together as for that I'm going to find the best compositional arrangement and they will probably be on a background fabric with space separating them but all that is for the future.

For the moment I'm enjoying the sense of achievement that comes with having finished them!

Klimtesque 12 Journal Quilt

It was a horrible night filled with storm force winds and even the dogs refused to go for a walk this morning. So it was a quick trip around the garden for us and back into the house to recover. The worst seems to be over and I'm uploading my Journal Quilt now just in case we have power issues later.

It's amazing to think I've come to the end of my Klimt inspired journal quilts. These were all made for a challenge by the Contemporary Quilt Group and the group set the size to 12 x 8". We were to select our own theme for the year and as you will know by now mine is the Austrian painter Gustav Klimt.

For this one the detail I selected to interpret in fabric is the above part of The Embrace which is to be found on the Stoclet Palace Frieze and was painted in 1909. In fact this frieze has proved to be very fertile in delicious details so it's specially sad that at the moment it isn't possible to visit Stoclet Palace, in Brussels. Hopefully some time in the future we will all be able to feast our eyes on the frieze again in person.

I used a commercially available Klimt spiral black and gold fabric for the background and layered ovals on top, starting with gold fabric and followed by a selection of batiks. I have used the same fabrics for all 11 previous Journal Quilts too as I plan to put them all together into one quilt. I will make a start by photographing all 12 together, so look out for that in one of the coming days.

I was looking how to interpret the centre of the oval,  and as luck would have it (and by another amazing example of synchronicity!)  I had bought these eye like embellishments on Etsy some time ago, just because I loved the look of them. It was glued on and then surrounded by seed beads to hold it in position.

The quilt was both hand and machine quilted and hand beaded as you can see above. This might have been the last one but I think it might be my own favourite. If someone told me I had to continue making Klimt inspired journal quilts I would have no problem finding more inspiration in his work. It has proved to be a very rich source and it has made me appreciate his work even more.  

The Dark Side of the Moon Journal Quilt

I have ceased to be amazed by the stunning coincidences that occur when the next monthly theme for the Sketchbook Challenge is announced. So often now in the 3 years that the challenge has been running I have waited for the theme to come up (not first thing in the morning as at that time the day hasn't started yet in the US but more like midday), clicked on the link only to stare at my screen to see a theme appear that tunes in perfectly with something I either had wanted to do for quite some time or that resonated with something I was already working on. So I took it quite calmly when the November theme was Moon and Stars and as I was looking over the edge of my laptop I saw the Moon!

It was on a sheet of watercolour paper that I painted during a gelli plate class with Carla Sonheim. You can see the whole sheet above and there at top right is the moon. I particularly loved the wave as there is a so-called Sea of Tranquillity  (or Mare Tranquillitatis)on the moon. Oh, the romance of it! And who is to say there are no waves in this sea.

In order to use the moon I scanned in the paper version and then printed it out onto inkjet canvas so I could use it as a fabric and doing it on canvas also gave it the necessary weight befitting a moon.

As I was going through the rest of my gelli plate printing done during the summer I came across cotton fabrics I had painted directly using a variety of different sized punchinella (or sequin waste) as stencils as well as other mark making methods. I struck me they would make a beautiful setting for my moon. You can see the original fabric above.  I hand quilted it and added embellishments in the form of beads and also some lovely vintage small sequins that I had been treasuring for that special occasion. This proved to be it!

I also felt that something was needed at bottom left to balance the moon. To stay with the theme I added 2 more circles to represent that Sea of Tranquillity. They come from the same sheet, and were also printed onto canvas but I cut them smaller so as not to overwhelm the composition.  I also added 3 gold stars. For the binding I used a piece of drop cloth i.e. the cotton I use to mop up the mess when I'm painting or gelli printing.

During the making of the piece the title also came to me as it often does while in the construction phase. The text was cut from the same vintage book in which I had first come across the Sea of Tranquillity information. It's called The Book of the Heavens, by Mary Proctor, first published in 1924. I also found that I had written a quotation in pencil in this book, presumably when I first bought and read it, now many years ago. It reads as follows: "We are all like the bright moon, we still have our darker side" by Kahlil Gibran.

Putting this entire 10" square journal quilt together was yet again synchronicity at it's very best. I still find it slightly breathtaking that so many different things can come together so beautifully simply by following a theme set by someone else. Rather than a challenge it turned into pure pleasure.

Klimtesque 11 Journal Quilt

This is November's Klimt dedicated Journal Quilt. Only one more to go and that one is well under way! I'm making this small (12 x 8") Journal Quilts for the challenge set by the Contemporary Quilt Group of the Quilters' Guild. We had to choose one theme for the entire year and mine, as you probably know by now, is the Austrian painter Gustav Klimt.

I've chosen another detail of the Sketch for The Knight for the Stoclet Palace Frieze, 1909. This has been my source of inspiration for several of the Journal Quilts and the entire Stoclet Palace Frieze is among my most favourite of Klimt's work. It's such a shame that at the moment and for quite some time now this Palace (located in Brussels) is not available for public viewing and we can only hope that Klimt's work is still safe and secure within it's walls.

As you can see I've taken the liberty of turning the ovals on their side for my interpretation as it worked so much better that way. I've used the same batiks in all the journal quilts as I hope to put them together into one large Klimtesque quilt at the end of the year. Apologies for the shine but with a gold fabric that is almost unavoidable.The piece is partly pieced, then machine appliqued and hand and machine quilted.

Of course I had to add embellishment in the spirit of Klimt who was a master or ornamentation! You can see details of the beads and other adornments above.

Stobo Journal Quilt

This is an extra journal quilt which isn't made for either the Contemporary Quilt Group or the Sketchbook Challenge. Instead it will become part of a challenge within the Thistle Quilters group. Inspired by my 52 Journals project from 2012 the members of Thistle will be making a weekly journal quilt  where every member is allocated a week. The challenge was issued at our last meeting and we drew lots to see who would do which week. As luck would have it I drew the week that started with the 19th October. Our meeting was on the 19th itself and in the afternoon John and I went to Stobo Japanese water garden as you can read here.

I took that as my inspiration for the journal quilt (A4 size) and used one of the photographs I took on that day.

The rest of the surface is covered by couched yarns and appliqued pieces of previously strip pieced batik fabrics all in the colours of autumn. You can see it in detail above. The applique was done by hand. I sewed on buttons to the pieced strips.

Handstitching was also added and of course quite a lot of beads and bugles. These have almost become my trademark!

And talking about the 52 Journals project there is good news. All the journals will be exhibited next year in the Tweeddale Museum and Gallery to coincide with the Peebles Arts Festival. The show will start on the 22nd August 2014 and end sometime in October. We still have to arrange the end date but of course I will keep you informed here and let you know all the details as soon as they are finalized. It will be a selling exhibition so will be the last chance to see all the journals together.

A Tangled Web

I have been fiendishly working away on a large quilt that was nearing the completion of the hand quilting stage. I try and not let myself  be overcome by workaholism but when the end is in sight all I want to do is get on with it and get it done. Which it now is! Still a lot more to do such as thinking about beads and binding but the bulk of the work is done. I'm clearing the decks for another project about which you will hear more in the future. During this process I also had to free up time to make my monthly 10" square journal quilt on the theme set by the Sketchbook Challenge.

And once more that theme was uncannily like what I wanted to do anyway. The theme is Animal Companions and as soon as I read it on the site I knew that I wanted to return to a photograph I took back in September (see my blog post here) of a spiderweb. I wrote in my blog post that we must be accompanied here on this earth by many, many spiders so it seemed to fit the theme perfectly. I looked again at some of the photographs I took at that time such as the one above.

And I also read more about how spiders weave their webs in a dinky little vintage book called The Natural History of The Year for Young People, by J. Arthur Thomson, published in 1896 in which the above illustration can be found. This is my handbook for any natural phenomena that are a mystery to me. He describes it all in great detail and in easy to understand language even for those of us who are no longer young. The illustrations too are priceless. I bought this book very cheaply to use as collage material but it's simply too precious for that.

I started the quilt by making the strip pieced background which was then machine quilted. I added the web by hand using silver thread and couching and then added the silver beads to represent raindrops. I knew that somewhere I had a spider button and after a bit of a search I found it and it turned out to be the exact same size as I had made the centre of my spiderweb. It was just meant to be!

The final touch was adding the vintage text which reads: "O what a tangled web we weave".

Klimtesque 10 Journal Quilt

My Klimt Journal Quilts are growing in number. There are only 2 more to go till I have finished the challenge issued by the Contemporary Group of the Quilters' Guild to make a monthly journal quilt for 2013, sized 12 x 8" and on one theme of our own choice. As you have probably realised by now if you have been following this blog my theme is the Austrian painter Gustav Klimt.

I select a detail from one of his works each month to translate into fabric and I also put my own mark on it. I am trying to use more or less the same fabrics on all the journal quilts so that at the end of the year I can put all of them together into one large piece. The detail I have selected to interpret this month comes from Klimt's Sketch for The Knight, Stoclet Palace Frieze, Brussels, 1909. Sadly the Palace is not open to the public at the present time. You can see the detail above and originally this was a vertical detail which I turned as all our journal quilts this year had to have a horizontal orientation.

I pieced the background loosely following the colours as they were in the detail, then machine and hand quilted in matching colours and added size 11 seed beads around the edges of the different colour strips.

After that I left Klimt behind in order to put my own spin on things but staying in the spirit of Klimt. He was a master of embellishment and decoration,  and like me had a particular love for gold so I'm sure he wouldn't have minded me adding all those delicious sparkling beads and gold lame to the piece.

Am Free Journal Quilt

The September theme for the Sketchbook Challenge is Houses and Hide-Aways. I had already made a house themed journal quilt when the theme was Urban Sketching back in 2012, which on the face of it is a very cheerful piece though I couldn't help noticing I gave it the title Uphill Struggle. I didn't want to repeat myself so started to think about why houses should be equated with being hide-aways. From there I ventured into ideas of how hide-aways can so easily turn into prisons, both literally and figuratively. We can be imprisoned by our own thoughts, conditioned by our upbringing and/or education, and thus become restricted by the cage of our mind. This brought me to cages in the more literal meaning of the word.

And the vague notion of a poem about cages floated into my head. I eventually pinned it down as lines in the poem To Althea, from Prison, by Richard Lovelace (1618-1657). And by the way, don't you just love that last name?! Mr. Lovelace was a courtier, soldier and gentleman poet who in 1642 presented the Kentish petition to Parliament. This was a Royalist document calling for the restoration of the rights of King Charles I. He was promptly imprisoned for this action.

Although he was eventually released he suffered another period of imprisonment and died in very reduced circumstances as a hopeless drunkard. His poem reads:

Stone walls do not a prison make

Nor iron bars a cage;

Minds innocent and quiet take

that for a hermitage

If I have freedom in my love

And in my soul am free

There are two more lines which I haven't used on the piece. They read:

Angels alone that soar above 

enjoy such liberty.

While still thinking about this and how amazing it is that someone living almost 4 centuries ago thought along the same lines as I did, I bought some artistic packing tape at the Crossing Borders exhibition in Peebles (from GraceInk Design) that featured bird cages and I then remembered I also have a cird cage stencil. 

After that my decisions about the piece were made. I used a piece of untreated canvas, primed it with gesso and used multiple inks and stencils to make the background, finishing with that bird stencil and black ink. The surface was sealed with clear gesso. After layering with wadding and a backing fabric I machine quilted the black cage lines, appliqued the large bird and the 3 small bird transparencies (stamp from Birds and Nests stamp set by Cavallini) and glued and sewed on the texts by hand.

I further embellished the journal quilt (sized 10" square) with hand stitching and beading as shown. The binding is part of a piece of cotton I used to mop up the inks and paints while producing the background.

Klimtesque 9 Journal Quilt

The rhythm of the year is partly defined by the journal quilts I'm making monthly. Twelve of those will be for the Journal Quilt challenge on the Contemporary Quilt group. The requirements for these are first of all the size (12 x 8" horizontal orientation) and secondly the theme. We all had to choose one theme for the entire year and mine is the Austrian painter Gustav Klimt.

The detail I've chosen for inspiration this month comes from a detail of The Embrace, a part of the Stoclet Palace Friece 1909.

My version is even more lavishly decorated than Klimt's piece. As well as masses of hand stitching I added buttons and beads as you can see on the detail above. The applique is all done with raw edges and gold stitching.

At the end of this year I hope to put all the Journal Quilts together into one large Klimtesque quilt.