No sewing machine

My machine has had to be rushed off for an overdue service.  I meant to take it when I was going to be away during the summer but it fell off the bottom of the list.  Last week it started objecting to the quilting I was doing: both the in the ditch with a walking foot on Zelah's quilt and the free machining on my latest journal quilt.  In between it agreed to piece.

I had decided to try one of Kathleen Loomis's tutorials on very narrow piecing. http://artwithaneedle.blogspot.com/2010/04/quilt-date-for-april.html  I quickly realised that I had done seams with 1/8 in. seams before but it is trickier than you think and I ended up with some very wobbly lines. I chose to use over-dyed fabric that had no real purpose in life.  This was the first piece, made from a fat quarter with insets of commercial fabric including one of the V and A museum's pieces from the quilt exhibition earlier this year and a lovely piece of green I bought from the Hungarian people at Festival of Quilts.  (can never remember their name)  I planned to cut it to the journal quilt size but then I decided it looked better in its original form so I have pinned it up so that I can think about it.  I have plenty of the commercial fabrics so could add to it in some way.

Then I did a second one which is going to be a journal quilt.  Again the lines went wobbly but I plodded on as far as starting to quilt it.  That's when the machine gave up so I have had to put it away until I get it back.  You can just see the beginnings of the quilting in the bottom right hand corner.

As I was seventh in the queue for servicing I don't expect to have the machine back for another week.  I once owned two sewing machines but the second one was very basic and I never used it so I sold it to a friend.  I can't really justify having two, just for the odd occasion like this.  I have been wandering round the house feeling a bit lost, even though I often don't machine for days on end.  I could and should use the time to do some more printing etc.

However, I had already started on a totally hand stitched journal quilt.  A couple of weeks ago I rediscovered a large piece of cheesecloth that I space dyed a couple of years ago.  It is calling out for wholecloth treatment but I have a feeling it is not going to go through the machine without pulling badly.  I had a couple of other pieces of the same cheesecloth, different dyes and smaller pieces so I thought that some experiments were called for.  The design has been very random.  I began by selecting a load of variegated threads from my collection ( a few more were added after I took this photo).

I put three layers together and then just stitched with matt threads.  No designing!  I just followed the lines of different colours.  Then I added glossy rayon thread.  I always find this a bit problematic as if you cut the pieces too long they start to fray.  Also I did not have the same range of colours.  The next stage was to add some embellishments of beads and sequins.  In order to keep some sense of where they were placed as they all roll off with each stitch, I 'designed' them and then took a photograph.  I left this on the camera and just turned the photo on when I wanted to check what I was doing.

I think it is nearly finished but it will have to wait for the return of the machine for its binding and I may add a little more colour at that point.

It is a very quiet piece which I am calling 'Coastal Currents'.  Every time I drive down the hill to Tesco I see colour patterns like this in Mounts Bay.  It is a view to die for with St Michael's Mount and the Lizard Peninsular visible in the background, but obviously you cannot stop to take photographs on a ring road with no pavements so you will just have to believe this is my inspiration.

Calendars for Christmas presents

I think this posting is a bit of a plug for one of those internet photography shops but it explains why it has been yet another week with minimal textile work.  Three years ago I decided that making calendars of photos I had taken was the perfect Christmas present for brothers and brothers in law.  The first year we ( and it was definitely John and I as my Photoshop skills were not quite up to the job) used a template that appeared in Digital Photo magazine.  It was OK but there was nowhere in Penzance that could spiral bind them for us so they all looked a bit amateurish.  Also I use the kitchen calendar as my main diary these days and these did not have enough space for that.

The next year we discovered Photobox http://www.photobox.co.uk.  This company does wonderful A3 calendars on heavy quality paper.  They are not cheap so I like to take advantage of their special offers.  The offers only appear for about a week so I missed the October 'two for one' offer but it did remind me that I should start the design process and then wait for the next offer.  Last week there was a '3 for 2' offer so we now have three on order but really need another two.  I decided I could afford to wait a bit longer in the hope that another offer will appear.  It is quite a lot of work because you have to choose your photos, edit them, upload them and then put them into the calendar.  I have learnt that Photobox do not do 'shrink to fit' so bits can disappear off the edges (I think I have lost the bottom of some legs on one of this year's photos!) and portrait shots suffer from this more than landscape.

I like to have a theme. The first year they were Cornish scenes.  In 2009 we enjoyed photos of my 2008 trip to New Zealand.  Last year I decided it would be English country views since I am primarily a landscape photographer.  I was surprised at how I had a reasonable spread of different places built up since we got our first digital camera about 2002.  This year it has been a bit more of a problem for various reasons, not least taking package holidays where groups will not stop for serious photgraphers!  As a result I do not seem to have very many suitable images.  I persuaded John that since he now takes photos himself he should use his photos for his brother's.  This will be getting mostly Cornish shots on the theme of the Sea.  I decided Venice would be my subject this year but most of my photos were in portrait format.  I have paired some and hoped for the best when it comes to the shrink to fit problem.

The covers always look lovely but unfortunately you only see them before you hang the calendar up.

Experiments with Thermofaxes

I don't know what's happened to October.  Actually that's not true.  I always think that October is the month when you have to sort out the garden and as usual my eyes were bigger than my pots when it came to buying bulbs.  I have now done all of them except for one pot of tulips.  The shrubs in our garden are gradually taking over which is a bit of a pity as I keep thinking that in another five years (we have been here nearly five) there will be no gardening to do other than the pots.  Then I tell myself I will have more time for textiles.

I have been working hard on Zelah's quilt.  She turned two in September and is now in a 'big' bed so I feel a little pressure to get on with it.  I managed to make the quilt sandwich on the dining room table without the cats crawling all over it.

 Now I am quilting it in the ditch with invisible thread in the top.  I am very aware that invisible thread does not last and as this is a bed quilt rather than a cot quilt, I would like to think she will still be able to use it when she is a teenager.  I plan to put some more quilting (not in invisible thread) in some of the larger blocks once I have finished this stage, but I have to say that it is looking quite good.  I like the way quilts begin to get texture once you start quilting them.  I am telling myself not to over-quilt it as I am so used to doing very heavily quilted art pieces.

Anyway, today I decided I really must get back to some art quilt work, not least because I am very behind with my journal quilts.  I bought a starter kit of Thermofax inks from Claire Higgott www.thermofaxscreens.co.uk at Festival of Quilts but I have not had time to use it so I got out the three screens that I have bought from her and two pieces of fabric: one plain white cotton and the other a piece of blue cotton that I dyed several years ago.  I had a lovely couple of hours trying things out:

The first layer was yellow which did not show up at all on the blue - until it dried.

It was better on the white.  I then mixed some green but this was a bit disastrous as I put far too much blue in it -I should know as I have done this sort of thing with dyes many times.  I did not put this on the blue piece and it came out almost black on the white.  Then, still using the same stencil I added scarlet to both.

I was beginning to like this so I then changed stencils and added an overall pattern to the blue piece.

And here is a detail.

I then went back and put some more yellow on the white piece but I have an awful feeling that at some stage in the afternoon the ink began to solidify in the mesh and I may have semi-wrecked the stencil!  

I am not sure that the colours of these photos are quite true but I have realised that having photographed each stage I now have photos that I can manipulate in Elements so the potential is enormous.  Now I just have to wait for the pieces to dry and heat set them before considering what use I can make of them.

Wedding present cushion

My eldest nephew is getting married in London on Saturday.  This is the one I am committed to making a quilt for as a present.  However, I made it very clear that it would be some months before they see it (after all I also have Zelah's quilt half made and heard last week that she has now gone into a proper bed!).  So I have made them a cushion as a sample/promise that they will get it.

In the end I went back to the Churn Dash block I had tried in June.  The churns will be yellow and the backgrounds greens and blues.  They do not want yellow greens which is fine by me but makes it virtually impossible to choose fabric on-line so collecting the fabrics is taking some time.  Making the cushion front was quite easy but it ended up a very non-standard size which meant I had to make the cushion pad myself rather than buying one.  This taxed my brain somewhat as I did not want the cushion cover gaping at the back.  It now has two buttons fastened by loops.  I was really relieved when I finished it yesterday.  However, it also means I need to carry it to London and pass it over to a member of the family on Sunday as I thought posting it would be very awkward and probably cost rather a lot because of the pricing based on size.

My husband keeps asking me what the origin of the Churn Dash block is.  It is not easy to find out.  The only place I have found a reference to it is in America's Glorious Quilts by Dennis Duke and Deborah Harding (1987) where it is listed in a group of blocks inspired by trades.  So there you are - some dairy maid/farmer.  Since milking was such a female task I like to think this block is feminist!

In addition to making the quilt, I have had to make myself a top to wear to this wedding.  With hindsight I should never have decided to try and put together an outfit using clothes I already had.  It would have been quicker and easier to start from scratch but down here we never wear formal clothes so it felt like a waste of money.  Making the top really took me back to my teenage years when I made absolutely everything.  It wasn't a difficult job but the fabric is a rather slippery satin type polyester which I had no experience of using. Fortunately the man in our local embroidery/sewing shop was really knowledgeable and told me to use TearAway in the seams.  This meant I had no problems at all but the whole exercise did feel rather nostalgic.

Collograph Printing course

What a busy fortnight!  Last week and this has seen the St Ives September Festival which is the highlight of our cultural year in this area.  There are concerts every night, talks on topics related to St Ives history in the library, lunchtime talks at the Arts Club on art related topics and on the two Wednesdays and the middle Saturday, Open Studios.  I will return to the festival next time.

Before I had mentally registered the dates for this year's festival, I enrolled on a two-day collograph printing course at handprint Studio www.handprintstudio.co.uk.  This studio is situated only a five minute drive from me and one of the big attractions was that having learnt the basic principles, I would be able to avail myself of their Open Access facilities.  This means that in future I can make my blocks at home and then go up there to print them.  I do not need a press, which I cannot afford and do not have room for, and I will not have to invest in lots of ink.  I was the only local person on this week's course.  The four other people had all come down for the week and were much more experienced printers that I am and all them were spending five days on printing.

It was a really good two days.  It was almost like being on holiday without the additional costs as it meant I left the house and did not think about domestic things, cats. etc all day.  The first day we made blocks on different surfaces.  The aim was to make four.  Here are mine.

This bears a vague resemblance to the estuary of Hayle river.  It is done on mountboard and uses tile cement and carborundum.  The medium grey part was pushed through sequin waste.  Although I was quite pleased with this block, the first print I made from it on the second day was not that great, demonstrating that applying the ink is a vital part of this process.

This one is a piece of metal.  Strips of sellotape, parcel tape, masking tape and the film you use to cover books with have been applied to it and it was then burnt with a heat gun.  At the tutor's suggestion I then took a craft knife and drew some lines about a third of the way down.  The result was a lovely print of the coastline with cliffs (the brown part here) and hills (the 'drypoint') behind them.  There will be a photo on the blog at some point but it was too far down the pile to photograph and I have left everything to dry at the studio.

This one was also burnt, hence the dark colour.  It was made on plywood.  The shape is just random playing but it incorporates neat PVA glue, dilute PVA and carborundum.  It was quite nobbly so I had to sand it and I think I overdid that as I was not very pleased with the resulting print, despite having sealed it very thoroughly.  Another one you can see in a future posting.

Finally, a second one on wood.  This time I began with a photo I had taken of a collapsing wooden barn window.  I drew this on in tile cement with a few grain lines added and then put a carborundum border around it.  Then I was attracted by the sequin waste option so I added some of that and decided that it no longer looked like a bit of barn but might pass for a piece of a Venetian building.

On day two we learnt to handle the inks.  In addition to applying them as intaglio, we tried graduated colours applied with a roller and viscous printing where you first paint intaglio, then roll over quite runny ink with a lightish pressure in another colour and finally roll over a second much thicker colour taken straight from the ink jar and applied with heavy pressure.  The thinner layer of ink repels the thick ink.  In my case I thought very little of the first ink had ended up on the print but I was pleasantly surprised by the final effect.

This is the Hayle estuary block with a very dark blue/black applied first, then a light layer of light grey with other colours added to it to give a sort of Wedgwood colour, and finally a layer of dark yellow.  I have to say I think the effect is slightly Durer like!

I made two pressings of the Venetian block and then one on fabric but that one had the inevitable thread that got caught across the face of the block!  When will I learn to put masking tape around the edges of the fabric to stop this happening?  I always forget.

The better of the two presses was this one where, after doing the intaglio a graduated tint was applied with a roller.

I am looking forward to collecting the dry prints next week especially the one of the coastline which I did early in the day so that it ended up near the bottom of the pile of drying prints and I could not photograph it.  I will definitely make some more prints from that one.  I have decided the burnt one on wood is a bit of a disaster but that's the way these things go.

September on the Mount

Now that September has arrived we locals feel that we can venture out again to the local beauty spots.  Actually this year there are still loads of visitors as we found when we went to St Michael's Mount on Sunday.  The tide was out and I really like walking across on the sand rather than bumping over the cobbles on the causeway.  Our aim was simply to get some fresh air so we started with a bite of lunch at the cafe (not the National Trust restaurant).

We sat outside and managed to avoid getting dive bombed by seagulls which are a permanent problem in these parts.  NEVER attempt to eat sandwiches of pasties outside in St Ives.

Then I went searching for images that might be useful for designs.  I am very lazy about taking sketching things with me on these occasions and I know drawing makes you stand back and observe much more carefully but never mind, the camera is a wonderful thing.  A number of people live on the Mount.  They have rows of plants outside their houses and I was really struck by the succulents.

The colours in some of them are wonderful.

The little ones suggested suffolk puffs.  I haven't made suffolk puffs for years.  The last time I did for my City and Guilds course, I had terrible problems with one of the cats we had then stealing them and wandering off around the house with them.  They tend to be a despised technique but when I saw these plants I thought they would work well in journal quilts.  I also remember that they are the sort of thing you can make while travelling.

And finally, the dark red ones which I love.  Although they grow very well down here I do not have room for them in the garden.

I think it is very sheltered where these plants grow but the owners do not get much privacy during the tourist season.

Flower brooches

When I stay with my sister during the Festival of Quilts it has become a custom that on the Wednesday evening I lead a session for the village craft group.  This can be quite a challenge as it is a very mixed group: one quilter, a weaver (my sister), an upholsterer, a professional milliner, someone who only works in white, people who only hand sew.  You get the picture.  They have very different skills and interests but I have now learnt that what they like to do is make something that they can finish or nearly finish in the two hour session.  In the past I have variously gone too fast, assumed they all  know about rotary cutting and have not given tight enough instructions. This year I think I finally got it right.  We made flower brooches from tubes of fabric with buttons for centres.  There was an article in a recent issue of Quilting Arts www.quiltingarts.com which I used as the basis for the design but I simplified it.  The quilter rotary cut everyone's fabric and some people made them by hand while others used the sewing machine.

Here are some of the results.

And finally the two I made as samples: the plain blue one was made without any wadding and no sewing on the tube, the patterned one was made entirely by machine.

We agreed that those of us going to the Festival of Quilts next day would wear them but my sister and I never saw any of the other members of the group so we don't know if they did.