Hi - Anyone there?

 Not sure there is but here goes anyway......

The next Material Girls exhibition is over the May Day weekend a little disappointing that its only three days, the venue Essex Wildlife Trust Ingrebourne Valley has a huge foot fall so fingers crossed if we have good weather it should be a good exhibition. I don't usually show my work in full before the exhibition but on this occasion I thought I'd treat you!

Nest

Can you guess the bird?

Well?

Bird House

The Baby quilts I mentioned in the previous post are finished and labeled amazingly the two babies did arrive on the same day. A couple of days late Austin arrived on the morning of 2nd April and Imogen in the evening. I'm looking forward to seeing Imogen and having a cuddle on Saturday!

Easter Monday we were treated by my nephew David and his wife to afternoon tea, it was our Christmas present it took us a while to use the voucher. It was well worth the wait, we really enjoyed a lovely relaxing afternoon.

The second Friday of every month one of the Material Girls is artist in residence at National Trust Rainham Hall April was my first time, I took along the group project we are working on. A few members of the public sat down and joined me in stitching a hexagon, I enjoyed chatting with the visitors and talking about our work exhibited in the rest of the house.

Taking a bit of a break from stitching I'm trying to make a whole in my yarn stash by crocheting a blanket, the basket of yarn doesn't seem to be getting any smaller though.... oh well back to hooking!

No Stress

As it turned out the exhibition in the Hayloft at the National Trust Rainham Hall was well worth waiting for. It had a good response from the public, the day I was stewarding there were over thirty visitors and considering the weather that was good.

My work was inspired by the tiles in the Hall. The work above I painted the fabric, stitched around the design and used EPP it was then mounted and framed. A good thing this was behind glass because it was put into a fire place and by the end of the exhibition the glass was covered in dust and there was even a selection of bird poo on the glass (hope this wasn't a critic's review)!

My second piece was staged on a sewing table along with an old singer sewing machine (not mine) but the rest was all me, the quilt I made years ago for my Mother in Law, a basket full of quilting samples and a bowl of threads added to the setting. I wish my studio was a tidy as this....

Below is a close up of the second piece this was indigo dyed fabric,  Appliqué and embroidered, the third piece is displayed in the main house in a fire place.

I thought you may like to see a small selection of the tiles that inspired me. I actually felling love with these tiles the first time I visited the house. Although I have lived in Rainham for Sixty years (all my life)  and walked past the house most days when I was on my way to the railway station I only went into the house about five years ago. Now I feel as though I'm rarely away from the place.

Four of the MG's are volunteers at the Hall and we'll be taking it in turns to go along once a month to sit and stitch in the Lloyd's Coffee house. We will be stitching and chatting with the public, I'll be there in April. The Hall is very local to me, I'm going to go along and see what goes on at the 'Knit and Stitch' group it meets every Wednesday in their Café, they do make a decent cup of coffee but I will be making every effort to resist the cake!

While all this has been going on I've been working on the next MG project and also trying to get two baby quilts finished. As always I've left it to the last minute, no stress, but the Mum's - to -be both left work on Friday and only have three weeks to go. Both babies are due on the same day.... whoops back to the quilting then!

I've been trying to......

..... write a post for quite a while, ( looking at the drafts there have been four attempts since the beginning of this year)  for some reason or another It's not happened!!!! Why? To be honest I can't say why not, it's not that I have been sitting idly twiddling my thumbs, I've just not felt inspired. I have been reading others posts but not always commenting. Like me most blogs I read also post on Facebook and I catch up with them there and just pressing the like button is so easy. I have been keeping the Material Girls blog, Website and Facebook upto date so maybe it meant I was spending my time on those rather than here, now I'm back and feel that I want to blog again so here goes......

Since my last post I've completed my City and Guilds Certificate in Patchwork and Quilting with Janice Gunner, it took me Three Years instead of the Two that I hoped it would. That's because I did have a lot of other things going on and I couldn't dedicate as much time as I should have to it, got there in the end though! This is my final project a wall hanging.

There was also another quilt made for my Great Niece Ella, I got the fabric last year in the US on holiday. It's not a great picture but you get the idea! There's also another baby quilt I can't show that one just yet, and also a crochet baby blanket that I forgot to photograph, but I'm going to see Reggie on Tuesday so I'll take a photo and show it next time!

I have been working on a project with The Material Girls for our next exhibition, it's being held at a National Trust property very close to where I live, Rainham Hall. We have all been busy with this project, it's now a waiting game for the Restoration of the house to be completed before we can hang. In the meantime  a sneak preview of a very tiny part of one of my pieces, a lot of hand stitching went into my pieces, that's  my favourite thing to do.

I think your more or less upto date now, I've not mentioned our holiday in North Wales or trips to London, family get togethers, but I'm sure your already getting bored.... So until next time........x

Textiles in Focus

Yesterday I drove up to Cottenham with a car loaded up with half The Material Girls work for the 'Tales and Textiles' Exhibition. Chris, Julie and myself set up the exhibition with the help of Chris and Julie's husbands. It went up really well, it is all Chris's work, she knows how she wants it staged and we just have to carry it out, that works well for us. When we do  an exhibition we do have a rough idea of how it's going to look before we get to the venue, all the work is taken to Chris's and so we know what work is going to be exhibited and the size etc.

I can show you what I've been spending a lot of my time working on…. my work is focused on Japan. I dyed the fabric for the quilt at a Janice Gunner summer school and I've used Sashiko threads for the hand stitching and I also used machine quilting to give the quilt texture.

I made an altered book, I've never been a big fan of altered books but sometimes it's good to break out of your comfort zone and try something different. To keep in the Japanese style I had a go at writing Haiku, you won't find much but I gave it a try and the Haiku is written on the Origami butterflies.

On Sunday I'll be back at the exhibition to steward and at the end of the show to take it down and bring it home with other Material Girls. Then it'll be all over until the next exhibition, but lots of things coming up, I'm working on my City and Guilds and always playing catch up. And the Material Girls will be starting research for the next exhibition so it'll be all go again soon.

FOQ

This year was my first visit to the Festival of Quilts! Yes I know I can hardly believe it myself, why have I never been before? There is always something else to do, well that wont happen again. Betsy went off for the weekend and Dave and I set off very early on Saturday morning for Birmingham. I'm glad we decided to stay overnight, Saturday we visited all the exhibitions, it was very busy. I did buy some bits for my next City and Guilds project after having a chat with Janice Gunner my tutor who had a stand.

There were so many lovely quilts, it was hard to decide which ones I liked the most. The quilt below received 'Highly Commended'  lovely colours and the workmanship was amazing, got to love the title.....NEVER AGAIN

Two Person Quilt- Alison Robins and Krista Withers - Never Again

After a nice dinner at the hotel a couple of glasses of wine a good night sleep and a lie in we were back to the NEC for a look around the stalls and some spending. It was much quieter on Sunday morning so as we passed the quilt than won the BEST IN SHOW I managed to get a photo. Even if you are not a fan of traditional quilts I think it would be hard not to admire this quilt! I think the Judges comments say it all 'An exquisite quilt'. Just a shame it wasn't placed in a better position so we could all take better photographs, I heard lots of moaning about that.

Kyoko Yamauchi- Thank You Father

Judges Comments

Anyway after the admiring it was down to shopping, here's my stash. Fabrics, bobbins, a few other bits and pieces and an African Basket. I'm happy and looking forward to returning next year......

Before I took Betsy to her other family I took her for a walk as always, I was bitten on the wrist by this nasty little black fly. It didn't hurt at the time but Friday night it woke me up and was painful but didn't itch and over the weekend I was rubbing antiseptic cream into it. It blistered and my wrist became very swollen, hot and rather nasty and the cream made it worse. This morning I went to the pharmacist but he said I needed an urgent appointment at the doctors it had gone septic, he was right now I'm on antibiotics. Well thats life full of the unexpected......

Feather in My Hat or Cap?

The weather is warm, it's been all BBQ's and going out for lunch with friends or catching up on City and Guilds work and continuing with my work for the Material Girls next exhibition,  I need to finish it as soon as possible. A lot of the time it's been trying to keep myself and Betsy cool, our daily walks have been cut short when it's to hot, she loves  ice cubes and ice lollies. The best bit is spending  days at home  with the windows and doors open, I love the summer.

This weekend was the wedding of my nephew David, it was a beautiful occasion with lots of laughter and a few tears. David was  close to my Mum, his brother Matt (the best man) told a few stories of things that included her in his speech. My brother, me and our families miss her,  she would have loved to have been there to celebrate with us,  although Matt's stories were funny they made us all shed a tear or two. The day was  long and very hot, I along with some of the other guests suffered the heat and wore a hat, oh! how I love a hat........

I made David and Hayley a quilt for their wedding gift, it was a pattern I've used before, and I enjoy making it, but this will be the last one of this pattern I'll make. I don't like doing the same thing over and over again. Thankfully they were both pleased with it, I always have difficulty when I label a quilt I never know what to write! If your a quilter how would you label a wedding quilt? I started making the quilt over a year ago but only put the last stitch in two days before the wedding, that was sewing on the label.

This week it's going to be all about play dates, Betsy is going for a play with Dizzy, I think probably wednesday afternoon. Tuesday I'm going to visit a cousin, her daughter and grand daughter, hopefully I'll get a cuddle. On saturday my god son George is celebrating his second birthday,  it will be jelly and ice cream, cant wait. Hope paper hats will be involved, watch this space.......

It's Over and on to the Next Project

Seeking Artemis finished Tuesday at 4pm, I think it's right to say it was a successful exhibition 500 visitors viewed our work and gave all the work very positive feed back. Work was sold, none of mine  I didn't expect  to sell,  my work is not commercial enough.  Textile work to hang on the wall not framed and behind glass seems to scare the buyer. Maybe they worry about how to keep it clean.

The venue was in a very busy area of London between two stations Euston and Kings Cross / St Pancras, this meant that quite a few visitors were passers by with suitcases. Some of the visitors were even more colourful than my work!

I thought I would give a description of my work and close up images for those that are interested if your already bored switch off now.........

My Work

For me it was the idea of strong women that inspired my work.  Many women throughout history and into the present day whose strength is seen in a supporting role much as the caryatids support the fabric of this church. Using modern and traditional quilting techniques I created a body of work to honour such women 

Caryatids above the entrance to the Crypt

The Sign on the corner of Duke Street and Euston Road

I used the shape of the arches in the crypt to shape the top of the quilt, I then stitched the quilt including the three figures which I then cut out and filled the holes with textiles that can be seen through and used the lights to show it off  (the images below don't show this as they were taken on another quilt). Names of inspirational women were stitched onto the quilt using the sewing machine and added texture to the quilt with hand stitching and painted bonda web. When the whole piece was complete I used metallic foils to catch the lights. I was pleased with the results but there are things that I would have done different, we live and learn!

Inspiration Quilt

 painted bonda web and hand stitching

Used to fill the figures

Used to fill the centre figure

hand stitching and machine stitched name 'Mary Shelley'

The shapes  removed from the inspiration quilt were attached to three smaller quilts. I used machine and hand stitching on the quilts and as well as the cotton fabric I'd dyed and used in all the work, I included small pieces of silk, just to give a bit of interest. Again when they were completed I used foils and mounted the quilts on artists canvas! I was happy with these  the one on the left doesn't photograph well it was colour on colour (better in the flesh). These three were called 'The Jugglers', the reason is like all women they have everything in the air and occasionally something crashes to the floor.

Stitching on the figure

Machine, Hand Stitching and Foil

The lightest fabric is silk

The three final pieces where framed they were shapes foiled and  hand quilted keeping it very simple.

Hand Quilting, Painted Bonda Web and Foil

Hope your not dozing off!

Onto the next project now.....

All Set Up

Yesterday we set up the Seeking Artemis exhibition at the Crypt Gallery, this gallery is in an great position on the Euston Road, London. The Crypt is an ideal venue for the work we are exhibiting take a look at the Seeking Artemis blog for images of all the artists or the public Facebook page here, but in the meantime below is an image of the largest piece of work I have in the exhibition. It is a quilt with three figure shapes removed and replaced with either scrim or a cord which is woven and stitched together, the wall can be seen through the shapes. It was very scary cutting such large holes in my work after spending so long stitching it all together. Tomorrow is the Private View, I just have to hope that I've ordered enough wine (that was my job), mind you I don't think anyone will want to get drunk and fall asleep in a corner, they could get locked in and who would want to spend a night in a crypt?