Stitching news in Colour!!!!

Yes, this is the third blog post today and will go some way to explaining the long gap! I've been busy with, amongst other things

- a workshop at Happy and Glorious https://www.happyglorious.co.uk/pages/our-shop, run by Cas Holmes http://casholmestextiles.co.uk

Here's the small precious objects piece  I left the workshop with ...

Paper, teabags, fabric and hand stitching inspired by my Mother's lace.











It took a while for me to find my way to the set of three and to add some free motion machine stitching ... but now just look!!

and one reason it took a while was more playing with fabric, this time a small length of woven strip cotton, more details on this are here https://www.africanfabric.co.uk/fabrics-textiles/african-fabrics/handwoven-strip-cloth

The top piece is rusted in salt water and the lower piece found itself in a tray of dye at the Institches Studio last week, https://www.institchestextilecourses.co.uk.

I've probably said that I'm on my third year long course with Hazel and Terry this time learning all about adding colour.

Some great results last week, well worth all that rinsing, washing etc, because some of the fabric is now being auditioned for one of the 'pages' of my London Loop project.




Here's what it looks like so far .... comments welcome.

I'm trying for the deconstructed and reconstructed look to give Heron a well deserved stage.


Finally, something else found its way into the dye tray. Originally my embroidery and Mum's lace but neglected somewhat so it had mould stains that washing did not shift.

I'm not sure what I'll do with it now but it certainly looks more loved than it did. I'm pleased that the lace has taken the Procion dye so well. I might play with lace and dye again.

That's all for the moment ... it is still very windy and raining hard here ... a good day for indoor tasks like the one now done here.

All about the waiting ....

For what? You ask.


For lemons to ripen, our desert grape vine to settle in after planting and the basil, well, I guess we are waiting to find it frost free zone so we can continue to reap the benefit of its wonderful flavour.

 

And I am waiting for one more day before unwrapping the fabric around a great selection of rusted bits and pieces .... watch this space for the colours and patterns that'll emerge!!!








I'm hoping for some fabric that will be suitable for book spines. So far I've printed a photo of the book spine onto fabric ... some are interesting,

others not so much. So maybe what I need is a mixture of photos and free motion quilting of the lettering onto a matching fabric. One more reason to watch this space....  I'll post more pics soon.



And I will leave you with beautiful morning sunshine now the mist has cleared ... looks like a day to be outside.

Today chez moi ....

Its been a while! I've been busy  ... so a quick catch up mostly in pictures ...

.

The transformation of 6m of white cotton to a beautiful set of colours for  my next stitching project  well, that was last Friday and Saturday taken care of ..

So relieved that all the buckets and bags remained whole as I drove home ....

Its hard work rinsing and washing all that fabric but exciting as the colours emerge

Some sunrise colours here

and the black to pale grey set will be perfect for pavements and stone walls ...

Finally, I found them a nice resting place  .... but they won't be there very long.












One short flight on Sunday and now I'm enjoying some late autumn sunshine at home in France .... there are five dogs, two people and walks twice a day  ... so twice along the quiet back road in the morning and twice around the lake in the afternoon. Lots of steps and lots of time for reflection.

In between my kennel assistant routine I slipped in some sedentary jobs. So, big news here, today I sent my novel, well, the first three chapters and a synopsis, out to several agents.

It felt the right time and I now have to wait for, what? Well, who knows. Fingers crossed ...

But doing that leaves my mind free to continue with what at the moment I am calling Novel 2.

That felt a big thing to be doing so in between  I tacked a small quilt ready for, yes, you've guessed, quilting. There was a slight hiatus in this gentle activity when in the middle of the morning I lost the thread and scissors.

They were there when I went out to feed the hens and gone when I returned.  The fabric was undisturbed, my pincushion was there but no scissors and spool of tacking thread

The culprit was Naomi ... loveable and naughty and very fond of chewing ... and eventually I found the evidence.  She now has a hard(ish) rubber ball to chew and I have learnt not to leave temptation in her reach!!!


There's a book review coming up in the next post .... do read on or is it up?

that last stitch feeling ....

... is such a good feeling. Just when I didn't want to look at the fish on the quilt I've been stitching for months anymore,  it is done!!

Really done, it even has a sleeve on the back to hang it up by and thanks to Paul it will hang with the fish swimming. Otherwise, he says, they look like dead fish on a fishmonger slab. A very good point.

I thought about adding fins, ones that would stand up a little. But, that would make it less than cosy as a lap quilt so these fish have hidden fins.

Its Saturday, the sun is making lots of shadows on the stone walls around me and the air is full of quiet. Have a good day all.  I'll be back here soon.


Oh, forgot to add ...

The fish quilt is mostly my dyed and painted fabrics, it was free motion quilted on a Bernina 750 by me and the edging is faced using a new technique which I will definitely do again.

More details of that can be found here https://weallsew.com/make-quilt-facing/. It is a very straightforward way of finishing a piece without interrupting the overall design.

These are definitely not resolutions

Happy New Year ou Bonne Annee (sans accent!!). I'm in France enjoying unseasonably warm and often sunny weather.

Its that time of the year, people start something new, commit, make promise to themselves. I've done it, although not for many years and this is not what I am doing this year.

That said I've joined a group thats all about walking 1000 miles in 2018 - check it out on FB. And I've devised a way of keeping track of my miles via my Fitbit. Its a bit galling when you find out that what you think of as your long morning walk with the dog is only 1.7 miles so I'm tracking my weekly goal of 20 miles and I'm counting all the walking I do for the rest of my day. So far so good. As I walk I'm listening to Hilary Rodham Clinton reading her book What Happened via the Audible app.  I enjoy this sort of book as a listener much more than as a page reader. See more at www.audible.co.uk

Here's my page reading at the moment ...

Short stories -very readable with a focus on Vietnamese family life 

Just started this ... so far its all about the death of Chatterton & Dylan Thomas .. not as boring as i though it might be 

Edgy, unusal and brave poems in here by a wonderful poet 

What's not to like ... I can read about yoga and practice my french in one place 

A book to pick up and peruse  ... early days for me reading this   ... lots to inspire and help with so far

and now I'm saying this very very quietly but I've also joined a project called 10 minutes drawing ... its all the fault of the wonderful women who run the Design for Stitch course I'm on this year and two of the equally wonderful students I'm learning with. 

Enough said, here's my first two efforts, already on Instagram where we are all sharing our efforts at what I call mark making. Thus avoiding, whenever possible, the dreaded D word!!!

This morning's mark making was done with an iPencil ... so the project is a bonus as its encouraging me to learn how to use this and to mark make in Adobe Sketch. There may be a quilty thing from all this in a few years but maybe not. 

Finally, I've finished another almost lacey scarf in sock weight yarn and have started to add quilting to what I call my 'brick' quilt.   I love the effect of quilting with a double needle. Shame that I managed to break two of these just doing a few rows of stitching ... all down to some less than easy fabric and the rusty effect  -you live and you learn especially that the Bernina sewing 'computer' is a tad sensitive to stuff like that. 

Photos below and thank you for reading. 

Practice without a purpose ...

... is a phrase I came a











... is a phrase I came across in Pencil Dancing (see https://www.amazon.com/Pencil-Dancing-Ways-Creative-Spirit/dp/158297005X). My copy was 50p second hand and is useful to dip into for a few minutes with my early morning tea, just a glance, a few rows of knitting and some birdwatching.  Sparrows are still feeding young in a nest in the gaps between the stones in the front house wall and I'm told a Hoopoe visits occasionally.

The phrase 'practice without a purpose' is a good label for what I've been doing for the the past couple of days with three lengths of white silk and some left over scraps of coloured silk.

rusty nails from a falling apart pallet - I love the sort of regularity 

odds of silk wrapped in an old chain and drill bit 

and below a melange of Procion dyed cotton marked with a Markal paint stick using our walls of lime plaster, hemp bricks and wood.

Most of marks were similar!!

Doing this has  given me some ideas for the 'brick quilt' that's slowly happening.   Watch this space.






Meanwhile ... as the pics below show my line a day project continues and also a hand embroidered and charcoal marked piece I started at the Textile Study Group's summer school two weeks ago. For more detail of this inspiring group see https://textilestudygroup.co.uk

one little basket of beautiful thread 

The heatwave here in France continues. A good time to have some slow days!  A good time for listening to Test Match Special reporting  the England v South Africa at Old Trafford.

I may be back here more regularly than usual ....

adding stitches to the marks, 

a line a day.   noting more 

summer school sampler now folded and stitched into a sketchbook