Pairs...

...are interesting, as they give you the opportunity to explore, to see what would happen if, to interpret differently.  These pieces aren't exactly a pair: they're monoprints (yes, again), and as such, one is fainter than the other, and as a result, the pieces have a different feel to them.  That, in turn, invites a different approach.  So...

The overall structure of them suggests an island, to me at least, with a reflection of sorts in swirling water.  In both pieces, I've tried to suit the stitch to the marks of the paint.  The original print, on the left, has significantly more marks then the ghost print, and, as a result, I've added only enough stitch to support the directional movement of the paint.  The exception to that is the island, which is stitched using random marks.  I haven't stitched the 'sky' at all in this variant; there didn't seem to be a need.

There's a lot more happening, stitch wise, in the ghost print, because of that lack of definition.  It reminded me, somehow, of the Impressionist approach.  There's a lot of light in the second piece, more so than the first.  I wanted to support the idea of movement, but I also wanted to stitch the whole piece.  The 'island' section is stitched in a random way, but with larger stitches than the first piece, while the 'reflection' is stitched in the same way, using even larger stitches.  The rest of the piece is stitched using a sort of exploded herringbone stitch, creating a patterning of sorts, but without the crossover that characterises herringbone.  I'm sure there's a proper name for that, but I'm equally sure I don't know what it is. I wanted something to suggest movement, but without too much structure. 

Two pieces, same structure, completely different approaches and feels to them.  Interestingly, I find I like them both.  Which do you prefer?

Oops...

...I did it again... apparently cutting things down a bit, wasn't enough.  I need a timer, so that I stop before I get overtired...oh well...  You can see for yourself if it was worth it...

I started, and ended, with monoprints.  My friend Alison encouraged me to make more beach inspired stitched pieces, so I made some basic monoprints for that, on a piece of pale green sheeting...

They'll make half a dozen small pieces...so far so good.  Not particularly wanting to work in those colours, I wiped off the palette... and was so intrigued by the marks that wiping produced, I monoprinted again, this time on a bit of Evolon that happened to be lying around. 

Now this is intriguing, and I'm looking forward to adding stitch, and perhaps a bit of applique... we'll see.  I've always avoided putting paint on Evolon: the hand of the fabric is a big part of its charm, and paint interferes with that.  This, though, is well watered down acrylic paint, and although you can feel it on the fabric, it's not a huge change, so I'm pleased on that score, too. 

And then, because it was lying around, I added a bit more to this small piece, which I actually made last time, but didn't show you.  More monoprinting, to add small bits of colour and texture.

Not sure that it's finished... it'll sit in the studio until it is.  And then I moved to The Main Attraction... another painting on the same basis as those I showed you last time.  Complete change of palette, which makes a big difference...

A landscape feel... not sure that I like it as much as the last one, perhaps because it's moodier.  I can see some things I'll probably change in it when I go back to it...which is a good thing, because it suggests it's not irredeemable.  However, as I was finishing up, I decided I'd added too much paint (yes, it does happen), so took (yes, you've guessed it) A Monoprint from it, to add texture and remove some of the paint.  Look what I got...

I LOVE this.  Texture, colour, movement... it's got it all.  Much more my kind of thing than the actual painting, which feels really heavy by comparison.  I think I'll be doing a good deal more of this, on fabric as well as paper: I think this would be a great base for stitch.  Accidental breakthroughs are the best kind.

Changing Direction...

...is always a possibility, given the way I work, but sometimes it's inevitable.

I spoke here about being inspired by the work of Sean Scully.  This is the second of those pieces, which would have been three pieces of fabric set together, had I had three suitable pieces... however, these two seem to sit fairly well together, so here we are.  Nothing like the work of Mr Scully, but entirely like mine...nobody can ever accuse me of not being flexible in my approach.  The fabric itself was two pieces which were donated by a couple of kind friends, when I bemoaned my lack of scrap fabric (I'm still bemoaning my lack of hand dyes, but that's another story).  The pinky brown fabric on the right has been reversed, to tone down the patterning, while scraps of the fabric on the left have been used to create a vertical and a couple of horizontal lines, to develop the relationship between the two cloths.  Finally, there's a lutradur circle, with a shell inside it, at the top.  And it's ready to stitch. 

Which is my problem.   I spent a fruitless ten minutes looking for thread with which to hand stitch this piece.  I don't have the money to buy any, and I don't have any dye, either, so I can't make my own.  And I can't see myself hand stitching with machine thread, because it doesn't have the impact that perle and other thicker threads have.   I do have choices, though.

First off, I could just not stitch it at all.  And that's really tempting.  This piece feels like a painting, and were it a painting, it would be finished.  Fact is, though, that it isn't a painting, and it feels like it does need some stitch, albeit perhaps not as much as I might usually do.  So it looks like machine stitch is the only option.  Given the amount of machine threads I have, there's bound to be something suitable.  And if there isn't a variegated thread, I'll combine two plain threads.  I think I'll be stitching, not for pattern, but for texture, which will hopefully make those elements stand out a bit more, as well as connecting them.  For the meantime, though, I'm going to put it aside, and see how I feel after a couple of months.  Building time into design decisions is A Good Thing.  I don't think this will lead to a shift back to machine stitching in general, though, partly because it's too tiring, and partly because I've come to enjoy both the process and the result.

To Collage...

...or not to collage, that is the question.  I've talked about this already, here.   I've done a bit more work on several of the collages, but the only one I feel is reasonable is this one...

That's something of an improvement, but I doubt I'll keep it.  I've been trying to work out what my problem is with this; there seem to be several reasons for it.  Firstly, and possibly least directly, I'm not a fan of using other peoples' work in mine.  This doesn't use images or newsprint, but several of the other collages do.  I like the theory of using newspaper and found images, but the practice is something else.  Secondly, I don't seem to have the same relationship to collage as I do with paint.  Paint is a mark, and another mark, and another mark.  Collage, though, somehow seems to be more structured, at an earlier stage, than either paint or textile...and I don't really do structure.  There's also something about meaning... if this piece has a story, I can't seem to access it.  Perhaps I'm too caught up in the techniques involved, to be able to hear it speak. 

I'm not sure much is going to be gained in pursuing this particular approach...at least, not on paper.  Intriguingly, while sorting through fabrics for a completely different project, I found this.

I don't remember making this, to be honest, but I rather like it.  The base is cotton, dyed with tea and onion skins.  Then there's a layer of Japanese paper which has been coloured with what looks like Brusho.  Then, a layer of transfer dyed lutradur, with some pieces of painted paper and a scrap of constructed cloth.   I like this.  Perhaps it's because it's much closer to my usual style than the paper based collage.  Perhaps it's the combination of elements (though, looking at it, I think I want to hit that lutradur with a heat gun, put a few holes in it, to relate more closely to the Japanese paper).  So if I do make more collages, this looks like it is the way forward.  Okay, I feel comfortable with that... glad we sorted it out.  Back to work...

An (Almost) Matching Pair...

...of landscapes, made from a monoprint and a ghost print.  I talked about the ghost here.  This is the main print...

I'm popping the ghost print down here, for easy comparison. 

There's lots more texture in the main monoprint, much easier to see what's happening in the main body of the 'land',  It's clear that there are a lot of curving lines, so the stitch reflects that.  I like using blanket stitch, it encloses and defines areas of space in a much better way than a running or back stitch is able to.  I did use the same thread in these areas on both quilts, but the sky in this main piece reads as much darker than the ghost print, unsurprisingly, so I used a darker thread in the sky.  The treatment, though, is the same, seed stitches scattered around the blue areas.  I did consider adding linear stitch, but decided that it would distract from what was going on below it, and I didn't want to do that.

So, there you are...two nearly identical landscapes.  It's interesting how different the stitch makes them appear, though it's clear that they are related.  I've got a couple more monoprints in this palette to work on, and it will be interesting to see how they turn out in comparison with these.

Not Worth Having?

At one level, that sums up  the hour or so I spent monoprinting, this morning.  Here's what I produced.

All on paper, which had been worked on a couple of days before, except the last one, which is on a scrap of pale green sheeting.  Three of them probably merit further work, but the other two  will be painted over, or binned. 

So, why am I telling you this?  Well, because whilst they may all end up in the bin, they were nonetheless worth doing.  I've said it before, I'll probably say it again: it's the process that matters, not the end result.  In this case, I've learned a few things.  For one, I need to be more careful about how I handle the paint on the plate, because, whilst I want to produce texture, I don't want to produce blobs.  Secondly, I really do need to either use printing inks, or remember to use retarder with the acrylics, because on warm days, the damn stuff dries far too quickly for my liking.  Finally....I'm not entirely sure I like working on paper.  That last one's a biggie.  I much prefer the process of adding paint to cloth, to then add stitch of one type or another.  Though that might be because I don't feel I have the skill level with paper, that I do with cloth.  Of course, the only way to increase my skill with paper, is to keep doing it. 

Lots of people give up at the very beginning, because they can't tolerate the feelings that learning produces in them; they're not comfortable.  Sticking in one's comfort zone is a huge temptation.  I know a lot about paint, but clearly, I don't know enough, or else I've forgotten what I knew, because I'm really not happy with these, and I don't like it.  It would be easier to give up, to be honest, to stick to what I'm fairly good at, working with cloth.  And I might consider using cloth as if it were paper, it's not unheard of, after all, though it's normally canvas that people use, and given the amount of fabric for dyeing I have, I'm not buying canvas to add to the pile. 

Lots to think about.  And that fourth one's heading for the bin.

Harvest.

Another monoprint on sheeting... small, about 5.5" by 7.5".  Yes, you guessed it, excess paint again.  When I started stitching, I had intended to stress the verticals, but realised that doing so would take the emphasis away from the logical focal point, that orange circle.  So... lots of seed stitches in orange, and the addition of some long, straight stitches emanating from the circle.  Somehow, that wasn't enough, so I added some chain stitch in the centre...which still wasn't enough.

So...I took a pencil, and drew over the edges of the circle, just to help it to stand out from the background....and I was tempted to leave it at that.... except...it looked a tad bland.  So... some blanket stitch across the diagonal line in the lower part of the piece, and some long stitches to show up the verticals but not so much that they took over.  And it still wasn't done.

Some time ago, I mentioned on FB that I wanted to stitch in gold on a piece of silk, and a friend offered me some gold threads, which she kindly sent me.  I never did stitch the silk...but here's the thread, or some of it, on that central orange blob.  Is it a sun?  Is it a flower head?  Is it something else entirely?  I don't mind, really.  All of them, or none of them.  Either way, the piece is now as done as it's going to be.  I have a few more monoprints in this palette to play with.  And, having used it on this piece, I think I need to learn a bit about goldwork.... but that's for another time.

Spontaneity...

...often leads to interesting work.  I've been playing about with painting fabric, after the success of the Dance piece, and when I'd run out of steam, there was still some paint left.  When in doubt...monoprint... so I grabbed some scraps of fabric.  I got several interesting pieces, one of which I worked up yesterday.

This is how it started.  It made me think of rocks, mountainsides, hillsides... so its name is 'Red Rock'.  So, I popped a bit of batting on the back, and hand stitched...and this is what it has ended up as.

I started at the bottom, stitching with variegated thread to give a reference to landscape (I hope), and then back stitched the red curve in the centre. I didn't want to add vast amounts of stitch, so took my queue from the dots of red that cover that area, and made some small, irregular stitches, just enough to suggest the colour.   Then, blanket stitch in the dominant brown curve, shortening the stitches as I went along to suggest distance.  And finally, I added washes of pale blue and pink watercolour paint, to tone down the white areas that were dominating the piece. 

And that's it.  I did contemplate more stitch in those paler sections, which almost make a V shape in the left hand side of the piece.  Finally, though, I decided that the texture of the paint itself did enough to suggest movement, and let it be, though I did add a few pencil marks to the edges of the diagonal section, just to emphasise it slightly.  And that's it.  I'm quite pleased, all in all, not bad for using up excess paint.

What Do You Do...?

...when you don't have the energy for machine stitch, but you want to do something constructive?  Well...I fished out the box with my 'special' hand dyes, the ones that have been printed, or screen printed, or dye painted.  The jury's out on some of them...I kept them because of the work involved in them, I suspect, rather than because I really want to work with them.  Or they would look good in a large scale project, for which I don't have the energy at present (though things are looking up on that front...but I digress...). 

Here's the box itself... not very big at all, as you can see; I have another one that size with plain hand dyes...not that I consider my hand dyes particularly plain, but that's an entirely different post. 

A variety of colours and textures.  The top one was an attempt at breakdown screen printing...here it is with another one, made far later in the process...

I'm going to make a journal from the top one, but I may cut up the lower one and reassemble it, with or without another cloth or two...actually, it would make a good basis for another series of haiku quilts (find out about them here ).  Might do the same with the top one, actually... it would fit into the ME series really well. 

And then there's this...

It's a lot more orange than this image, but I can't persuade it to behave itself, so you'll just have to make do.  A piece of low water immersion hand dye, which has been overprinted using fabric paints, using two different lino blocks.  Sadly, I don't think I have the leaf shaped lino block any more, and doubt I have the energy to cut another one...it was quite effective.  If there was more of this fabric it would make a good skirt, or some other piece of clothing...as it is, it might become a panel in a larger piece, but I'd need to have a good deal more energy to make that happen.  It'll go back into the box, and wait.  It would certainly make good cushions...but I don't have a room they would fit into... sigh.

There's a lot more cloth in there, but it'll have to wait, too.  Enough is enough.

Monomaking

I said yesterday that I'd talk about monoprinting a bit.  This is probably not the best example, but it's the one I've got, so... The reason it's not a good example, is that it is made using the last of the paint left over from earlier printing sessions, which had dried up a bit, and was therefore not printing as well as it might.  Usually, I would use fresh ink. 

The way we usually think of monoprinting is of a single print from a plate that has been carefully prepared for it.  But it can be done in a series of stages, as the print I'm going to show you has been done.  This one is a single print, which I took off in stages, allowing it to dry and then adding more ink.  Stage one looked like this.

It's basically brown, from the leftover paint, with hints of yellow I'd added later, and a red circle I'd added.  This is what the plate looked like before I printed again, with ink added in a specific pattern.

The previous layer does need to be dry before you do this; otherwise, you're likely to transfer ink back to the plate from the wet sections, and that usually isn't the plan.

A stage further on, and you can just pick up the red zig zag motif in the centre, though it has somehow printed more brown that red, probably because the brown on the plate is still wet.

And the final stage

I wanted to add something...a highlight colour...so I used the yellow.  It's interesting enough, but not overly so.  If I stitch into this, it will be by machine; there are now three layers of (admittedly fairly thin) ink on the cloth, and it would be unpleasant to stitch by hand.  I'm likely to add hand stitch round the edges, though, to add texture.

I'm really not sure why I'm bothering with this... perhaps I'm just lazy, and don't want to put in the work to improve my skills... perhaps I'm trying to hang on to this last vestige of painting, when really I should just let it go and concentrate on things that are not so tiring...  That said, I do think it could be a good way of adding colour and interest to the books.  The jury is definitely still out on that one.  And yes, I probably think too much.  I'm feeling my limitations today, and maybe that's all it is.

A-mazing Books

I managed to finish the stitching I was talking about here, before I took my machine for a much-needed service; here it is, complete with ironed-in folds.

It clearly takes creases well; my hope is that it will also be firm enough to stand under its own steam (as it were).  I want to make a book in the same way as I made the last one.  They're called 'maze books'; I found them in Shereen LaPlanz's classic book on book binding, 'Cover To Cover'.  I've made quite a few of them before; there's a variation of a maze book in my studio, made from hand made paper which has been painted with encaustic paints.  And here is the book, cut and folded :

And yes, it stands by itself.  Phew...given that I'd made the cut, and the creases, so it was irredeemably a book, though I could have turned it into a series of very small pieces, like a jigsaw...that would have been interesting too (hold that thought). This one has been made to stand in a different way to the one you saw yesterday, a bit of variety is a good thing, and somehow, this one is more mysterious than the other, and needs this structure to reflect that.  Now, though, I have to decide what else to do with it; it has a distinctly unfinished feel to it.  I think there's a need to add words, I'm just not sure what they are, though I think they will be snipped from book or newspaper text, small in size, one to a page.  Does it need more than that?  I don't think so.  It's interesting to look at it from different angles.  I said in the earlier post that I thought it would be more interesting like this, than as a flat piece of stitch, and I think that's the case.  I think it's a landscape piece... the words will reflect that...perhaps a poem, word by word, that reveals itself as you contemplate the piece.  Now, all I have to do is find the words.

Pride Cometh...

...before a fall, I know.  Amongst the goodies in Heather's bag were three long strips, two of fabric, one of paper.  Wrapping, I thought.  Definitely.  So I folded a book using Lutradur XL.  First mistake.  Yes, it folds.  No, it doesn't hold well, so it doesn't like standing up, and it's not easy to handle.  It really needs to be pressed into shape for a while before you use it, for a book anyway.  Won't be doing that again in a hurry.  And then I wrapped it.  Looks okay, I thought. 

Reasonable balance, lots of space within the structures, not sure about that first page, but otherwise...
And then I turned it over.

And discovered that the fabric was not lying flat...looked awful.  Puckered, too.  In the end, I realised that the problem was tension (in art as in life, sigh).  The strips were too long for me to keep a consistent tension on them, so what I thought was a good thing, actually wasn't.  So I had to dismantle it, leaving the blue paper strip untouched (it would have torn if I had tried to remove it, and I like it where it is, fortunately.  This is version two, where I've wrapped and cut. 

Am I happy?  Not with that bit on the left hand page, where two pieces of fabric converge, just doesn't work, need to do something about that.  I think that's always going to be a risk with wrapping, need to be careful with how I deal with the ends.  And whilst it doesn't seem to matter how long the paper strips are, fabric strips are problematic if I make them too long.  Otherwise, though, it's better.  I like this simple, graphic approach, but in this case, I think it might be too simple... watch this space...

Nearly Done.

The first of the ME quilts is nearly complete; here it is. 

It pretty much turned out as I thought it would, though I did do one thing differently.  I had intended to put a spiral in that top left hand box, indicating energy, but when I began to stitch it, it somehow didn't feel right.  So, it became an oval, suggesting a head (in my mind, at least), with a bright red cross through the centre, to suggest the lack of energy that is one of the hallmarks of ME.  It echoes the three red to purple crosses in the bottom right hand side box.  The fabric in there has a postmark; it is intended to be a letter or message 'about' my previous, energy and activity filled life.  

So... the only thing left to do is to bind it.  Now that should be interesting, as I haven''t made any binding in nearly twenty years... so I'll be having a bit of a refresher course in that, YouTube here I come...   Meantime, I didn't think I had anything suitable for binding, but rooted out a couple of strips of fabric that I was gifted as scrap from a FB friend.  I think you'll agree, it goes perfectly in terms of colour.  It works very well in terms of symbolism, too; the feathers suggest flight, and my mind can fly, even if my body can sometimes barely walk.  The perfect fabric to edge this profoundly meaningful quilt.  It may, of course, only be meaningful to me, but that's enough.

Sorting...

...and more sorting...  It's interesting to see how much fabric I don't have.  Instead of multiple large boxes, I have two small boxes of commercial fabric.  One of them contains my collection of cat fabric...I made Robin a small quilt called 'The Cat Hater Quilt', a long time ago (it's a long story), and always meant to make a bed sized quilt along the same lines...but never did.  Couldn't bring myself to get rid of the fabric in the recent purge, though.  It's mostly fat quarter size and smaller, and I dare say at some point I'll get round to The Quilt.  The other box has mostly scrap in it, some of it donated by a couple of kind friends when I realised that I really had overdone The Great Purge, though there are also some FQs I bought recently, just in order to have something to play with in the rental, where I actually did have a workroom, as opposed to this house, where, at present, I have a pile of stuff (sigh). 

And then there's the two partially filled boxes, with dyed lutradur and evolon...well, mostly dyed, some of it is painted.  I still hold the line that paint is Not A Good Thing to use on either of these fabrics; lutradur, because, unless you're using watercolour paints, you take away the semi transparent nature of the cloth, which is what makes it special, and evolon, because paint ruins the hand, that lovely suede/velvet like feeling.  Here they are :

As you can see, there's not a huge amount, though I do still have lutradur on the roll, which is perhaps a tad excessive for what I need these days, but I dare say I'll get through it.  I might combine the boxes, save a bit of space, which is at a premium now that I'm down to one room.  Having said that most of this fabric is transfer dyed (or printed), the piece at the very top of the evolon box (the lower image) is quite interesting.  It was coloured using encaustic wax, just to see what happened.  Unsurprisingly, the fabric became really quite stiff, but the texture of the stitch still shows through quite clearly; I didn't think that it would.  I thought it might be interesting to make applique elements using encaustic...in theory, at least, you could attach them to the surface using heat, as the wax would melt, then resolidify, and cling to the base fabric.  Must try it out some time. Another one for the list.

The only other fabric I have is for dyeing, probably more than I need, silk and linen as well as cotton.  I'm used to dyeing in big quantities, hence the volume; I tended to buy dyeing fabric whenever I saw it at a good price.  Haven't quite decided what to do with it all.  There's no way that this type of fabric will fit neatly into a small box... under bed sized box it is....and possibly two of them... just have to work out where to put them.  If all else fails, I dare say they can go under an actual bed.


I doubt I'm going to get anything done today.  Yesterday was stressful for all sorts of reasons, and I'm feeling like a wrung-out dishcloth...and given that I'd like to go out this evening, to the Embroiderer's Guild in Linlithgow, I think today will be spent on the sofa.  I lead such an exciting life...snort...

Facing Facts...

is a helpful, focus-inducing thing to do.  Fact.  I have too much fabric.  No, don't give me the whole, need a stash, nonsense; it's just not true.  Or at least, it's not true for me.  I have fabric for a number of different reasons.  Some I have, because I like it, some because it is Useful Fabric, the kind of thing that if you do make a traditional(ish) quilt, it makes good borders or backing.  Some I have because I dyed it, or dyed and painted it, intending to use it, and didn't; some because I dyed and/or painted it to sell, and didn't.  Some because it feels good (velvet and silk, in particular); some because I've written about it and am still exploring (lutradur and evolon).  Some, because it's fun; some because someone special gave it to me.  Like many of us, I have more fabric than I could use in three lifetimes.  And that's fine.

Except, it isn't.  It is getting in my way (fact).  When you can't see the wood for the trees, it's time to either go to the optician, or deal with the issue.  What I have realised is that, whilst I am great at finding focus, I'm dreadful at sustaining it, for a number of reasons.  I don't sell my fabric because I didn't persevere in doing just that, and because I find it difficult to believe that anyone else might want it, an inherent lack of self confidence that I thought I'd kicked into touch, but clearly haven't (it gets in my way, too, but it's not so easy to deal with).  So... I thought I would begin with my excess of fabric, decide what to keep, what to sell and what to donate, and I made a start today.  The image gives you an idea of what's what..and that's just the fat quarters...haven't looked at yardage yet... or hand dyes.  There is a hand dye mountain, and it is good... and it's also excessive.  So that too will go.  But wait a minute, I hear you holler... there's some hand dyes at the back, there.  And indeed there are, some muslin that I bought to cut up and sell in packs for embroiderers... you can see that didn't happen.  Sigh.  But I only brought that down so I could iron it and cut it up, honest.

There's some lovely fabric here, but I'm never going to use it in a million years, so sell it I shall.  Two stuffed bin bags are going to the Hub, so that the guys can enjoy it.  And once the stash is whittled down, the interesting work will begin, whittling down the ideas, being honest with myself about what I really want to make, and getting down to doing it.  And maybe after all that effort, I'll be able to walk in and out of the fabric studios without tripping up on piles of stuff (yes, when I've finished with the cloth, I'll be starting on the rest of it...).  It is going to take some time, but I think it will be worth it.

In the first instance, I'm going to set up a Facebook page to sell this stuff... and any that doesn't sell that way, will either go on ebay or etsy.  Email me if you want details.  And when I've done with the materials, I'll be going through the work, and either selling or donating it, too.  Time to take charge.

Meditation : The Red Herring.

And on we go... another Meditation In Purple and Gold quilt.  I knew I had run out of one of the three fabrics I was using, but when I went up to make some more 'sketches', I realised that I had effectively run out of two of the three.  So this quilt is completely different in colour, tone and feel.  The blues are greener than this image suggests...the whole thing has a definite beach/sea feel to it in the original. 

So where's the red herring?  It's the second new fabric, a fish batik print.  Cut in narrow strips, as in this quiltlet, it is abstract, and therefore fits the bill for this quilt.  Making a second quilt, however, showed that it was too small a print to be used in larger strips.  The fish 'read' as fish in larger strips, which was not the effect I wanted... so this will be the only variant using these fabrics. 

I hope you are enjoying the development of this series of sketches as much as I am.  I've felt a need to hand stitch recently, and it's certainly fulfilling that particular need... I'll show you tomorrow what the substitute fabric is, and the results.

More Meditation... When Is A Series Not A Series?

I showed you the first of these pieces yesterday, 'Meditation In Purple And Gold', here.  It's interesting, working in this way, creating 'rules' for myself to follow...though they are not rules as such, more like limitations.  In this particular series, the basis of the limitations are simple.  Use three fabrics.  Use three pieces of the most important fabric (the purple and gold).  The rules, of course, are made to be broken... the first piece in the series has four fabrics, and I think might be the better for it.  So...guidelines, not rules.

The three pieces are very small; I've been working with these colours, and this was my way of using up the scrap.   The first piece is 14" by 7.5" , the second, , 9" square, the third, 5.25" square (all approx).

Two of the three fabrics were inherited  from my friend, the late Lynn Bunis (still miss you, Lynn x ), the third a large scale turquoise poppy print which I bought on a whim.  The darker turquoise with all the different colours in it, was a fabric I couldn't really see how to use, a semi abstract, large scale beach theme, with shells and fish .  Cut up, though, and used more or less at random, the inherent meaning of the shapes on the cloth is lost, and it becomes a mixture of colours and shapes that are interesting, pleasing to the eye, but much more difficult to decipher.  THe purple fabric is a stylised spiral pattern with occasional dots.

Now, though, I have to make more decisions.  I've run out of the darker turquoise fabric.  I considered cannibalising it from one of the unfinished tops I made to start with...but that doesn't feel like a good option, even although one of them isn't yet spoken for.  So I can't continue this series with these fabrics.  In addition, I've got small amounts of the purple and turquoise poppy fabric, though parts of the latter have strong yellow elements, which I've been cutting around, so not as much fabric available as you might think.  I think in this case, I'll continue with this theme, and substitute a third fabric, continuing under the same guidelines as before.  

Is it a series?  Mmmm... if a series is a cohesive body of work, then yes, arguably, it's a series.  But I'm not convinced.  I actually think that this little body of work is a series of sketches, a way for me to explore what working in a series might mean for me, and how to approach it.  This is, in many ways, most unlike me; I tend to turn up and work with what comes to hand.  I'm not good at the structured, make a sketchbook, research etc approach as seen in an art school near you... but these little pieces have given me a direction to move in.  I'll continue to make them until the fabric runs out... and then I'll make the series that is waiting to be made.  

When is a series not a series?  When it's a preparation for Something Bigger.

Stitch, Stitch, Stitch...

and a bit of forgetting to stop.  Four different pieces of fabric (including the water soluble stuff), all with stitched circles.  I find this kind of stitching really meditative.  I don't have to pay attention to a pattern, I don't have to have even stitching, I can just go with the flow and let the pattern develop by itself.  Bit like life, really.  You do have to get through the boredom barrier, and past the thinking about the work, and what else you have to do, but finally, there is just you, the stitching and a quiet mind.  Pure concentration.  It's very relaxing.

I must buy more bobbins for my older Berninas, making patterns like this need a lot of bobbin thread, and I have to use the same thread top and bottom.  Breaking off the stitch to refill the bobbin is a distraction.  There is a fifth piece upstairs, which I've done two bobbins worth of stitch onto... it's a little under half way stitched.  It would have been only a quarter stitched, but when I looked at it, I couldn't resist doing just a little bit more.  If I listen carefully, it's singing quietly to me to come back, change the needle and Get On With It.  All of this cloth is intended for hats or bags for Myrtle & Rose.  We're exhibiting in Watton in July, and doing Burnham Market Craft Fair this August, so we need a bit of stock. Which is why the cloth will have to wait a bit; I'm off to wire some hats...and as the rain seems to have stopped for a moment, I'll just nip down into the shed and get the hat forms I left to dry last night, ready to wire.  Obsessed?  Hell, yes!

Chop, Chop!

I spent the afternoon in the Little Green Shed, cutting up fabric to make a variety of different things. It's boring work, but once you get into a rhythm, it's quite meditative. I even switched the music off and worked in glorious silence...so I nearly shot out of my skin at a loud knock on the side of the shed. Robin, bellowing that the neighbours didn't believe that I was there at all, as there was no music and no giggling. Now, I knew that they associated me with giggling...most people do. In fact, I spoke to an old friend on Skype a couple of days ago, and almost the first thing he said was, oh no, you've still got that awful laugh! As if I could lose it...

That laugh has got me into trouble over the years, of course. I once taught a conversational French evening class that was moved into another room, because the Floral Art ladies protested at the level of hilarity coming from next door... and many people have found me at shows by my giggle. I don't think that's a bad thing to be known for... and I try to make sure that my workshops ring with laughter; having fun is the best way to learn.

I now have lots of different bits of fabric to play with...and a husband on holiday for three days. That suggests that play time is likely to be deferred until Thursday... oh well... he doesn't take holidays very often. I might even get to Go Somewhere... though it's more likely that we will spend the day flinging things in a skip, and taking others to a charity shop. Don't we lead an exciting life?

Colouring Up...

is always good fun. I did some dyeing last week with Gemma, my apprentice/slave, and finally got round to ironing it. As usual, I forgot to add the Calgon... we never had this problem in Scotland, where water is soft, but Calgon definitely improves the dye take up down here. Still got good results, though, so I forgive my vague self. I really must do some more dyeing; intending to put some of these pretties into the Etsy shop as soon as I get it up and running. Not sure whether to add them as they are, as 18" strips (the fabric is very wide...it effectively provides two Fat Quarters, a Fat Eighth and a bit extra, as I explain to people who are measurement challenged...), or to cut them into Fat Quarters. How do you like to buy your fabric online? All feedback gratefully received. Usually what happens at shows is that I take a lot of FQs and people ask me for larger pieces, and vice versa. I never seem to get the balance right...sigh.

I'm having a happy time making small things for Christmas presents and my festive Open Studios in early December, as well as getting ready for the second International Quilt Challenge challenge. Oh, and there's the little matter of looking after Judy's chickens, dogs and daughter on a part time basis for the next fortnight while she and Haydn are gallavanting around the countryside...they're in Bath today. Lucky them, I've never been, and would love to go. Meantime, though, all of this is keeping me Out Of Trouble, which must be A Good Thing...