December days - 16 and all of the 2014 Journal Quilts

Here is the whole set of 12 Journal Quilts for 2014

Added to these...

This is the original set which made up part of the collective Contemporary Quilt entry "Rule Britannia" for the Celebrating Diversity in Europe exhibition at the British Quilt Museum.

These 6 pieces have already been gifted to my son. As I mentioned previously, their size was 20x20cm which is very close to 8x8in - the size of this year's journal quilts.

So, wherever The Certain Young Man settles, he won't have to worry about the walls! I tried to make work which could be hung individually or in groupings.

Who knows, I might find an opportunity to make 2 more (for which I already have ideas!) and then the set can be complete at 20. But that will have to wait for a long while!

Rule Britannia!

You might remember the series of 20 cm square quilts with the theme of Britain, which I made earlier in the year.

These were selected to be part of a quilt put together by Contemporary Quilt as part of the exhibition about Celebrating Diversity. The exhibition is on at the Quilt Museum at the moment, and will go to Carrefour Europeén du Patchwork. September 13-16 2012. Ste Marie aux Mines, Alsace, France.

A few months ago, some of us who have work as part of the quilt were asked if we would be happy for the Quilt Guild to use images of our work to make cards for the Guild to sell. We said Sure! as long as our name is on it and we retain rights to the original. Then we heard that the card company was so impressed with the images, that they offered to make up the cards for their company to sell - with the Guild receiving royalties! Even better.

Somewhere along the way, some of the cards were also made into postcards. A few weeks ago I received a few complimentary postcards. (If you are interested, they can be bought on the Quilt Museum website - the card page.) The one chosen from my quilts was 'Phone Home', an image of a telephone box.

And then the other day, a parcel came with complimentary cards from the company! Two of mine were chosen, 'Phone Home' again, and also 'Cricket Wicket'.

Here is the postcard along with the two large cards.

The company is Colcards. One of the things they do with some of the cards they make from images of textiles is to emboss the cover. The 'Cricket Wicket' card is embossed. Here is the page on their website where our cards can be found.

Very exciting! And I heard today that they will have the cards on sale at the Festival of Quilts. Guild trading stand, R14  I am going to see if I can get a set to include the others. They are nearly as large as the works themselves and are just right for framing. This is the ideal time to sell them, too, with the current feel good factor about Britain after the Jublilee and the Olympics.

Whenever the originals do come back, they are going to be for my son to hang in his flat when he gets a job. He wants to work in oil exploration, so he is likely to end up abroad somewhere. I thought they would be good reminders of home...I guess others have thought so too!

buttons

I got the buttonholes done after I posted the last post. Then put on the buttons the next day.
Here is the long sleeve blouse finished.

Then it got a bit busy over the weekend. But I have been working on a few more of the 'About Britain' pieces.
Here is Phone Home finished.

I am going to post them tomorrow. They suggested they might need a few extras to play about with placement and balance when they put selection together. If they don't get chosen, they will come right back, but if they do get chosen, they will come back when the exhibition is done.

I have had a traffic series in mind. I love the graphic symbols used for the various roundabouts. I mean to do something with just the black shape from different places sometime, but for now...
Here is Roads and Roundabouts.

And then I have always thought the Motorway symbol looked a bit like a superhero symbol... or at least like a transformer. So, here is Motorway Man. I always call him that when I see the sign.

and then while I was on signs...

We have Mind the Gap on the Way Out.
I already had the idea to emphasis the Gap. But when I went to quilt it, I looked at some more underground images and was struck with the idea of quilting the wall tiles to give the tube feel.

These 3 were all done mainly with fabric paint. Either by stencilling or by drawing the symbol with pencil and filling in with paint.

I have a few other ideas for making more for my son, but I need to get on with the next plan now.
oh, yes, and while I am now on half-term, I MUST take some time out just to read or something!

about Britain

So, no buttons on a blouse... But Celtic Cross is finished.

edit: a better photo...the other was a bit light even with playing in PSP.

and Phone Home top is done!

A few years ago my sis in law had very thick paper serviettes at Christmas. Some came home with me to use in my work. It is thicker than most fabrics and very like fabric to work with. When I went into the cupboard to look for telephone box red...it just jumped out at me!

back of the phone box piece

I used a stenciling technique. retaining the red but painting the other colours. at that point I wasn't sure about cutting and mounting or something else. I looked up British telephone boxes and amongst the photos saw one situated at the side of a path with a lot of bushes around it. So, this fabric - already fused from cutting other bushes from it - became just the thing to surround the 'snapshot' of the phone box.

Tomorrow I will sandwich and quilt it. I do have a meeting in the afternoon though, so I will probably do the buttons instead of starting another Around Britain piece.

back to art

Wow! last month I managed to sew over 30 yards of fabric in all the things I made! The blouse is at the buttonhole stage, but I was too tired to stay up late trying to do them. So, I ended up about 5th or 6th on the leader board. Cool. all the participants together sewed up over 1000 yards in the month.

I will get back to the buttonholes, but I dearly needed to make some art! So, here is a piece I made today. It still needs the other layers and a bit of quilting and the edging.  I enjoyed making the 20cm square size for 'cricket wicket', so I thought I would do a few more British themed pieces that size.

'Celtic Cross'

I embossed the metal from the inside of a tomato puree tube using a celtic cross design from a Celtic Craft book. Then I coloured it with permenant felt tips. The fabric was actually cut in an interlocking T pattern, but the metal covers it. So, I printed it with some carved wood blocks I have.

Tomorrow I should manage the blouse buttons and finishing this off. I have a couple other ideas for a few more British things. I also need to get onto the Journal quilts for this  year. The first 4 months are Red. I have a few ideas.

Thankful for creativity

The last 2 days i have been grateful I have creativity to get me into a focus where I can stop thinking about pain. Suffice it to say, I have been hurting, but I have also had fun creating.
and about the joy in service thing? I managed to go up and down looking for documents a Certain Lad needed for an application he is trying to fill. and you know, it isn't all one sided, at one point in the emails and texts flying back and forth he said something that really made me laugh.

anyway... you know I like to tell you stories about the development of a work.
Well...quite a while back - years - the CQ group had a challenge with the theme Breakthrough. I had an idea, but not the time to do it properly.

Fast forward...CQ is participating in a challenge about Diversity in Europe. We need 60 little quilts 20cm square to make up one big piece which expresses Britishness. I realised that idea would work and since then have a better idea of how to do it. And besides it is more like the size I like working with.

So...
The idea for Breakthrough was a Wicket - a cricket ball breaking through the stumps. This was shortly after England won the Ashes here in the UK.

I even took some photos of a stumping on telly with my camera (like the ones above). So, of course, this could also represent Britishness. And since the England team have continued to be a winning side, there is no chagrin related!! Something British to be proud of.

and the development -
Step 1 - green stripe fabric discovered in cupboard (Some sample pack from Oakshots which I can't remember why I was given).

Step 2 - colour the stripes with water colour pencils so it is more like a cricket field.

Step 3 - seal with textile medium
Step 4 - get annoyed that the textile medium is too shiney. Go look for sandpaper in DH's cupboard. Sand furiously.

Step 5 - draw in the wicket creases as seen from the air - real and practice ones. Research setting the field and find one image to get an idea where to put white dots representing the fielders.

Step 6 - look for wicket stump fabric. Find a cloth I used to wipe up walnut ink. How clever to be a saver rather than a thrower away-er! Trace stumps cut from inspiration image.
Step 7 - find a hand dye fabric with one spot that will work for a cricket ball.
Step 8 - use water colour pencils to develop the images. and decide since it isn't going to be washed, don't used textile medium.
Step 9 - put fusible on the back of the images. just at the point of fusing them. stop and think.
Step 10 - I have admired the graphic quality of Terry Grant's work. So, I decide to fuse the images to a scrap of thin black wool - see saver up above. Cut them out and then put fusible on the black.
Step 11 - think about not having them in the centre because not enough of the field arrangement in the background will be seen, so may not be obvious enough. arrange them again and fuse.
Step 12 - make white french knots so the fielders will be more noticable. Stitch some of the 'stitching' on the ball so it looks more realistic. hand stitch round the wicket patches to set them out from a distance, too.

This is the sandwich photo - Step 17. I get too involved at this point to remember to do photos. :-}

Step 13 - Go to bed wondering if it looks too much like Terry Grant had made it. and thinking something has to go in the lower left corner. Perhaps the 3 lions?
Step 14 - Next day. Look up cricket symbols because I realise the 3 Lions are probably trademarked or something. Images have some umpires, so I realise an umpire with the OUT hand signal raised would also do.
Step 15 - try to sketch my hand in the position, but realise I am never going to get it to look like a man's hand without a man's hand to look at.

Step 16 - borrow an umpire's hand from a photo and tweak it a bit in Paint Shop Pro. This time use fused paper over the black wool. Include a W which is the symbol for recording a wicket in recording the stastistics. (See above in the Sandwich photo)
Step 17 - Sandwich the quilt and do a bit of stitching to hold it together and to highlight a bit more.

Step 18 - Satin stitch in black round the edge.

Done. and here is 'Cricket'. Quite British.

Not so hard to ignore pain when you have something else to think about.