Marathon Sketchbooking

The more I watch the Olympics and see all these active people, the more I want to sit on my bottom and play in my sketchbook!
 I have only a week or so left of my year of my Creative Sketchbook course and I need to get to finishing Module 4. I've had many a week where creativity has been at a low ebb as my mum moves toward the end of her life, but this past two weeks I realised how much art can be a therapy in these situations. It buys time to ponder and time to refocus.

I have decided to make a journal quilt each month pointing out where I have found peace. I am working on this in the sketchbook and as this white dove descended into the garden last week I resolved to begin the work this month,

Pockets from a photo are handy for collecting ephemera - in this case some feathers which I might use as printing inspiration.
See the end of this post for August's quilt.

This little pottery dove sits by my front door and the stars, so reminiscent of quilt blocks are on the floor all the way down the hall of my Victorian home.

Various cut pages.

Roll on Autumn - I love pumpkins!

I pressed this Bleeding Heart stem earlier in the year and have just taken it from the flower press.

A pencil rubbing of a lino block....

THE RESULTING QUILT

It was all ace. It was a part of my peace.

Monochromish

 Strange, how subconciously I opt for this rather monochromatic colour scheme every January / February. This year I thought it wouldn't happen as we have had no snow, the daffs are starting to bloom and our general landscape has been pretty green and verdant.

And still it happens. After Christmas it's as if the eyes need a rest.

These Japanese woven fabrics are just the ticket for some kind of relaxation and a sense of peace.

Even if they do turn into a chicken quilt without me really thinking about what I'm doing! This  one is for the kitchen table as Spring approaches.

Unbidden, this afternoon, six inches of snow fell in six hours. The first of the winter.

More fabrics laid out. More of the same easy hues.

I'm not sure what will happen to them!
But they lie here, winking!

A note in the sketchbook - snow surrounds the terracotta pumpkins.

January's diary shows a little more vibrancy. The month has been a difficult one with my Mum's failing health. After two months in hospital she is taken into a nursing home. We feed and water her. We make her comfortable.

Some solace in the sketchbook as printing is explored. Acrylic pears stamped with hand cut expanda-sponge and a watercolour dye wash.

The snowmen that my very good friend Tracy made me for Christmas are at last feeling at home in the seasonal weather.

Exhibition

It's a relief to get to the finish of a piece of work and it is at last out of the house and in a gallery where I can no longer feel the need to tinker with it.
 "Blue Guitar" has gone into Bilston Art and Craft Gallery in the exhibition "On Yer Mettle". The hanging was yesterday and it opens on Saturday 26th August.

The theme is based around metal, although the phrase means be "ready to take action". All around this area there are currently exhibitions celebrating the birth of Heavy Metal Music which happened in this area with bands like Led Zeppelin, Judas Priest and Black Sabbath - all Black Country boys, many of whom had worked in metal factories and foundries locally.
Some of the exhibitions celebrate the music, whilst others are about the industry of this area mostly up until the 1980s.

My guitar has some metal in it... you can see the washers and metal fabric above and there are Indian Shisha mirrors for the volume, treble and bass controllers. Mostly it is made from recycled jeans - denim was the prominent fabric of the fashion associated with the music of course.
The quilt upon which it is appliquéd is made from recycled fabrics again - lace, silk and cottons, some of which is dyed with rust.

Oh yes - to get an idea of the size of it here is 9 year old Isabel "playing" it before the appliqué began!

Here she is with her brother, overseen by Granny, at the hanging where they were emulsioning a peg board for an interactive family sewing installation for the gallery!
The exhibition runs 27th August - 24th September 2011 - heres a link
Other news is that Linda and Laura Kemshall's online creative sketchbook course has now opened and I am looking forward to some peace when they go back to school, in between work, to get down to that.
Here are some wonderful seed heads (it's an addiction) from the Love In A Mist flowers I grew in the garden. Love those shapes...ripe for drawing!

Oh yes - ALSO I am pleased that my magic feather has flown across the ocean to Jude Hill to her project. Click this link to see.

Sew a Little, Sow a Little

Potential here for a lovely linen quilt.

Really understated. Plenty of plain fabric with a little something of colour. Interest lies in the weave and texture. Something simple. Grown from a little seed.

To compare:-  the seeds I planted only a month or so ago. From something so unprepossessing to a rich and varied lunch of twenty or more varieties of salad leaves is very satisfying. Interest here lies in the textures and many flavours.

Apart from a little Welsh cheese added here my food miles for lunch were approximately 30 metres!

I like the connection here between the potential quilt and those little seeds which yielded so much.

One Big Achievement and Many Small Pleasures

I am very slow at making quilts so when one gets finally finished it's time for a heck of a gin and tonic. So excuse any typing errors!
This one has been a year in the making. It's single bed size and is for my parents. They have just celebrated their diamond wedding anniversary. I missed the deadline slightly, but then the Queen sent them a card right on time. To think they have been married 60 years. The quilt took me 1/60th of their married lives to make!!

Here is Isabel, my daughter, checking for stray threads.

Finally though I have made the decision to give up my allotment. This vegetable plot has been an ongoing struggle project for about 5 years. Finally my back has won with it's slippy disc and my knees protest a little too much and I have given in. I have finally lost the plot as it were!

However I cannot contemplate life without home grown veg so I have installed a small bed in the garden and several crops in pots. I am taking the Alys Fowler approach to having an edible garden. Tonight we had some wonderful french radishes sauteed in butter and garlic, with their green tops and courgettes with garlic.

It looks as if there will be a bumper crop of Victoria Plums this year.

A very small achievement for many, but a giant leap for me is that I have learned to do a colonial knot. Much better than a French knot, which I could never do anyway!

... and finally I thought I'd make something weeny. This little pair of fairy slippers was fun to make from a pattern by Annette Emms. They are about three inches long. Hopefully they'll keep a little character warm whilst they keep the slugs off my vegetables at the bottom of the garden at night!!

Stars: tiles and quilts

I am lucky enough to have an original tiled floor in the hallway of my Victorian English house. I can spend so much time admiring it that even mopping is a pleasure. Most geometric designs like this were of natural clay colours ranging from red and brown to buff. Hall floors like this were popular in middle class housing of the 1870s - 1890s - and mine has the more affluent people's colours of white and the costly blue. I think our tiles could have been made by Craven Dunnill of Jackfield near Ironbridge, Shropshire. These tiles were only laid where visitors were likely to see them - porches, entrance halls and conservatories. The English were such snobs!!!
I love the star pattern more and more and of course there are no shortage of star quilt patterns. I have just finished piecing this which has helped me to become neater and more accurate...practise, practise, practise. I am enjoying accuracy and attention to detail at the moment, perhaps to the detriment of artistry but technique can give freedom I think. It can only help to get better at piecing!

I look forward to a bad weather day to layer and quilt this one. Bring on the rain!

Meeting the Light

January - nearly over. A pretty uncreative month for me. Somehow the darkness and those blank flat skies hold little inspiration. So to something practical to satisfy those itchy "making fingers," "doing hands."

Just piecing block on block. Like a journey. Taking the steps. Eventually I get somewhere. Life is like this. Taking steps.

This year I seem to be drawn to houses, schoolhouses and cottages. My journal begins with an imaginary Cornish seaside sign. Inspired by January 1st spent at St. Ives.

Today it is bright, sunny and 6 below zero. It is refreshing my creative spirit.

February tomorrow. Moving on and as the bulbs are emerging in the garden so can I. Out from my corm? Ready to meet the light.